WILLIAM WALE: Time to listen to UK’s youth

'Stop Boris' protestors outside the Houses of Parliament. Photograph: Kirsty O'Connor/PA. - Credit: PA Wire/PA Images

Fourteen-year-old WILLIAM WALE voices the fears felt by many young people and their sense of powerlessness.

Like so many teenagers and young people in the United Kingdom, I have had enough. Every day we see the government making stupid, irresponsible decisions without ever thinking of the long-term consequences.

They are a relentless, selfish, tyrannous and deceitful group of people who have no regard for what the people need. They see only what they want. And then they bend the will of the people to match it.

They lie to, defraud and harass people into believing what they want is right, and even then, are incapable of taking action on the decision without doing ever more damage.

The far right is rising across Europe, and increasingly people’s political opinions are being augmented, through deceit, towards ever more extreme points of view.

At a time when the people’s trust in the government and establishment is already beginning to fault, what the people need is a strong minded, liberal government that can deliver the desires of the people without causing vast damage to the economy.

With global warming being so close to irreversible, what we need is a strong leader who can make Britain lead the world by demonstrating that it is possible to cut net carbon emissions without causing a detrimental effect to the economy, before it is too late.

What Britain does certainly not need, however, is an incredibly self-centred buffoon whose apparent main aim is to such a as much havoc as possible.

In the EU referendum, we – young people – weren’t allowed to vote. If we turned up to a polling station, we would have been laughed at. But look at the UK now. It’s starting to come apart, collapse from the bottom upwards.

People no longer have faith in any politician to deliver anything, because people were made so many undeliverable promises. And that is not just a minor inconvenience, that is something to fear. And we are scared.

In the future, we, the youth, will come to inherit the United Kingdom. And when we do, we don’t want a to have to spend our entire lifetimes undoing the stupidity of others.

We want to inherit a world we can live in without fearing rising sea levels. We want to live in a world where trade and travel is free an easy. We want to live in a word in which people are judged by who they are, not where there they are from. We want to live in world that hasn’t been destroyed.

For many years, Britain ruled much of the world, and yet now when we look at a British flag, we don’t feel patriotic, we feel scared of nationalism. A nationalism that has been brewing for generations and is still yet to be addressed.

We are scared because of how xenophobic, homophobic and fearful of change many are today. We are scared by the prospect of leaving the European Union, which was such an important factor in making the economy of our island successful.

We are scared because there is nothing we can do, if there is an election or referendum in the coming weeks or months, to try to steer the future of our nation towards a stronger, more prosperous future within the European Union.

We are powerless. We trusted the ‘grown ups’ to make the right decision for us and they failed. We have had enough. Please, don’t destroy our nation before we have a chance to put it right. Please don’t destroy the Earth’s climate and refuse to listen to the science or act quickly enough.

Please don’t destroy our trade ties with our nearest neighbours. Please don’t let people lose faith in democracy or let democracy die. Please, stop.