Thread by @Usherwood

Over the past few years I've had the opportunity to travel across Europe, talking about Brexit for @UKandEU

This place sticks with me

It's the Gänseliesel (goose girl) in Göttingen

You can read more here (en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A4ns…) but basically you get to kiss it when you complete your studies at the university

When I spoke there last September I suggested that no one was going to be kissing her any time some soon on Brexit

And I still think that

But today is not really about the process, but the moment and what it represents

And Göttingen is emblematic of that too

The concerns of locals there are not so different from those of my home town, Guildford.

They want to be secure and prosperous and able to interact with people around the world

It reminds me that we are always part of something bigger than our country, always part of a set of communities that stretch much further than our immediate neighbourhood

It's easy to think that our values are ours alone, that no one else can be like us

But so often I have met people who are so similar to those I meet at home, with all the diversity that brings

'We' are diverse, and so are 'they'

We cannot pigeonhole people by using any one identity or idea that they hold

Today makes me sad that we lose a means of exchanging with others, but it also makes me hopeful that we might come to appreciate our commonalities

That doesn't imply any one organisational structure, but it does mean we have to talk with each other, both within this country and across this continent

If we talk, we have a chance to find a solution that sticks

If we don't, then we mostly assuredly won't

Maybe then we'll get that kiss