MADAM,

Friday was the first day I have ever felt ashamed of being Welsh.

I usually steer well clear of politics, but I cannot bear to see this country slide into the type of bigoted witch-hunt that labels ‘immigration’ as the cause of all its ills. It terrifies me to think that, both here and in the USA, one can start to see glimpses of the feeling that enabled anti-semitism to take such hold in pre-war Germany.

We are all immigrants. None of us were here in the Ice Age. Everything else is just a question of timing.

It saddens me that we have voted to leave the EU on such an issue. But it has also ignited in me a spark of resistance. A resolve that I will not stand passively by and allow it to become acceptable in this country to divide people into humans and sub humans.

In the past, I have been guilty of politely turning the other cheek and changing the subject whenever I hear xenophobic views being expressed. I pledge now to stand up for what I believe in and challenge bigoted thinking whenever and wherever I come across it.

We cannot undo the harm that the reverberations of Friday’s vote may cause around the world in the coming years. But if it awakens enough people to stand up and resist this country’s slide into xenophobia, then it may just have a much-needed silver lining after all.

Rhian Bisson

(Raglan)