The biggest thing to happen in the UK in what’ll likely be my entire lifetime is the exit of Britain from the EU. Writing anything on this topic without being rude or obnoxious, will be my biggest challenge, and as a strong pro-remain-er this will be laced with opinion, so please be pre-warned and just remember this is my personal opinion and not that of anyone else’s.
I hugely enjoy learning about the way in which countries work, so much so that I opted to do an A-level in History (note: not Politics, despite it being a readily available option) and seriously considered changing my degree major from Business Management to Journalism and Historical Studies. However despite enjoying learning about how people have managed things in the past, I was never one to follow what was going on in the present. I was living in the past and let’s be honest, this time around it isn’t too different.
The fondly named “Brexit” referendum wasn’t even in my eye line really, until possibly two weeks prior to the vote (and that’s me being generous) – sure, I had heard of it, but little time was invested on what it really meant. However as the day came lurking closer and conversations began to centralise around it, the space in my brain occupied with useless social media trivia, started to be pushed out with all these interesting facts and figures, about an institution that I had unknowingly been benefiting from, my entire life.
The EU was founded post World War Two to encourage economic co-operation, with a belief that countries trading together were unlikely to wage war against one another. It has since developed into a “single market” allowing people and goods to move around the 28 participant countries, as if they were member states of one country.
A referendum (a vote in which nearly every UK citizen of voting age can take part) was held on Thursday 23 June 2016, to decide whether the UK should leave or remain in the European Union. Leave won by 52% to 48%. The referendum turnout was 71.8%, with more than 30 million people voting, making it the highest turnout in a UK-wide vote since the 1992 general election (where 77% of the population voted, leading to a Conservative win at 41.9%).
Since the results have been announced a few major things have happened, with the most significant to me being:
- The Pound Sterling plummeted to a 30 year low (GBP £1.3679 to USD $1.00) and is currently sitting at GBP £1.33(at the time of writing this)
- David Cameron has resigned, due to step down in October
- Boris Johnson, the face of the Leave campaign has ruled himself out as a possible candidate for our next Prime Minister (allegedly due to Michael Gove entering the race).
Another, less factual, response to the result has been a reduced tolerance for the democratic vote which took place, with people in the Remain campaign proclaiming xenophobia and idiocy of Leave voters, and smug “we won” exclamations from the winning side.
Amongst my many, many conversations with people regarding the result, the words “overturning of the referendum” came up on more than one occasion. Whilst the vote didn’t go in the way in which I had hoped, I do believe in democracy and don’t feel that ethically it would have been correct to overturn the referendum. David Cameron decided to put the vote to the public, and just because he didn’t like the answer, he can’t overturn the decision, given we live in democracy. He can however, step down, and refuse to run a parliament which he doesn’t believe in. Which, credit to the man, is I believe, morally the right thing to do.
Another way of looking at this is, should this vote ever have been put to the people to begin with? Was clear enough information provided by both sides to allow for an educated or informed choice? I am deeply inclined to say no. Surely the politicians, the people with access to all the information from both sides, should have made this choice. Unfortunately for Cameron, despite all he has done to benefit the UK in his time as Prime Minister, he will be remembered in history for putting this huge decision in the hands of the public.
Immigration and Racism
Nigel Farage made immigration the most defining issue for the Leave campaign. This, they were aware, was their Ace card and fed on people’s insecurities about foreigners coming and “taking their jobs”. Boldly untrue statements from the Leave side, such as, Turkey joining the EU and the UK being able to do nothing to stop this, created uncertainty and fear that the UK would not be able to control the number of people coming into the country. Without going too deep into this subject, there were many voters commenting that preventing immigration was preventing terrorism, which worryingly made two very different situations into one, in the moldable minds of some voters. Whilst there were three different groups championing the Leave campaign (The Official Leave Movement, Nigel Farage’s UKIP Roadshow and the Separate Leave EU group), their overall message resonated that a vote to leave was a once in a lifetime chance to take back control and assert national sovereignty, hence these “make Britain Great again” slogans.
On the back of this argument, it’s disturbing to hear that some of my friends in the UK, who were born and raised there are now facing discrimination. Whilst racism is by no means extinct, the multicultural pot that is London had gone some distance in eliminating racial abuse, and the conclusion on Brexit, seems to have diminished all this and in some irrational manner made it okay to shout things like “go back to your own country” at people. The people coming to the UK are generally coming to work to gain a better life for their families in their home countries. i.e. they are coming to provide some sort of skill or labour, and let’s not forget that actually UK businesses, seek out individuals with a certain skill set to come and work for them, in order to excel at any given practice. When people argue that these foreigners are coming to the UK and claiming benefits, they couldn’t be further from the truth. The largest claimers of benefits are people from the UK themselves, i.e. British citizens. EU citizens are the lowest claimers of UK benefits, and therefore exiting the EU will only push away the skills required by the country and not resolve the issue of immigration in the UK.
Akala in this link depicts a very important idea that if an individual from an English speaking country comes to the UK, he is considered an expat. However if a person from anywhere else is to come (or if he isn’t white-skinned) he is considered an immigrant. The truth of the matter is, there is an air of realism in that statement. The video picks on many areas, which would make for a very interesting and separate debate.
NHS
A massive memorable slogan from the Leave campaigners was that leaving the EU would “free up £350m a week to spend on the NHS” – simple, straightforward, easy to understand and very attractive for people who are behind the NHS (i.e. most of the British population). Despite this “fact” coming under scrutiny and being disputed by the Treasury Select Committee, the statement was out there, splashed across the side of buses, driving around the UK. Remain campaigners may have called it out as a lie, but it was already out there for the public to see, and if people knew nothing else about the referendum, they still knew that £350m a week was to be spent on the NHS rather than under EU membership. Now to any normal person, myself included, that is a ridiculous sum of money, £18.2bn annually that instead of being spent on EU membership would be used to improve the NHS. And had I not read, heard or learnt anything else about the campaign, I too would have considered voting leave, until of course Nigel Farage admitted to the slogan being a mistake. This was shortly followed by many Leave voters, publically declaring they had been conned and wished they had voted Remain. Whilst some leeway should be provided to voters, who were lied to, it makes me question if these people should have even had the right to vote, given they based this huge decision on one single slogan, and apparently held no other knowledge of the effects of this outcome.
Attraction of the Younger Generation
This referendum has attracted a lot of attention from the younger generation, many who appear to have voted Remain, if all these published statistics are anything to go by (18-24 year olds 64% Remain). This is something that will impact the younger generation, and it seems valid that they would be interested, but if I base my opinion on what is going on around me, it seems that the conversations that are now occurring, should have occurred a few months back. There has been a lot of statistics pulled out, showing the older generation chose to vote Leave whilst the younger Remain, and I know from conversations I have had, that this would all occur in one household. Reflecting on it, the younger generation, who have now come out so publicly on social media as pro-remain, were more interested in talking about it with their peers who were already in agreement with them, rather than talking about it with their parents. This, in my eyes should have been a conversation had in each household, to encourage those who may have less knowledge on the matter to make an informed decision. The sad thing here is that there are people who voted Leave just because big influencers like Boris Johnson and Michael Gove were behind the campaign, or because they were aware that others were voting that way.
Whilst it is extremely positive that the younger generation are more interested in what is happening to their country, there is some misguided paths as to where this information would be best placed. Having said all that, I am well aware that not all of the younger generation voted Remain, with some just wanting “a change” without knowing the full impact of this result.
The lack of knowledge of some Leave voters is what has been most infuriating for the Remain side. Not to say there aren’t some Remain voters who also didn’t have all the facts, but just that some Leave voters have been publicaly seen stating they voted that way thinking “my vote won’t count”, “I’m bored of the Conservatives” or “I want my country back”, which just accentuates their severe lack knowledge on the matter.
So what does this Brexit vote even mean? Article 50 has only been in place since 2009 and therefore it’s anybody’s guess as to what the results of this will be – until that time where Article 50 is invoked, the UK are still subject to European laws but without any decision making power. Dependant on exit agreements, the single market could continue and therefore there will be no restriction on movement, which I guess for Remain voters is the silver lining (and a kick in the teeth for all those immigrant haters).
In addition there has been fears of a domino effect on the rest of the UK and Europe where:
- There has already talks of referendums in Scotland and Northern Ireland (both of which were majority remain)
- Spain are said to be considering co-sovereignty on Gibraltar (where 73% voted remain)
- There has been discussions of other European countries following a similar route to that of Brexit
However the truth of the matter is, a vote for Leave was the majority vote, and any actions of Brexit, positive or otherwise won’t come to light for another few years – it is an interesting time for Europe and the UK, and I will be following it closely to see what happens next.
