Brexit explained

Ok, so I’m going to do a series of videos on the current Brexit referendum, of which this is the first, and in this video I’m going to look at what Brexit is, I’m going to look at why people want to vote for Brexit, why people want to vote against Brexit and then I’ll quickly kind of just discuss what’s been going on in the campaign so far.

So, first of all, what is Brexit? Well, in the Brangelina Bennifer Kimye tradition of merging words “Brexit” literally just means “British exit” and that is British exit from the European Union and this is something that British people are going to be voting for or against on the 23rd of June so on that day British people who are registered to vote will answer a very simple question “would you like Britain to remain in the EU” or “would you like Britain to leave the EU”.

The campaign has been run by two different groups, one called “Britain Stronger In” and that is obviously the pro staying in the EU and then one called “Vote Leave” and that is obviously the campaign that’s promoting that Britain should exit the EU. So basically the whole thing came about in February of 2016 and that was as a result of really widespread discontent with the EU within Britain. So during the general election campaign last year 2015, David Cameron promised as part of his campaign that he would hold a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU. So, because he had made that promise, he had to fulfill it and call a referendum. So before he did that he went to Brussels and try to negotiate some better terms for Britain’s membership within the EU and specifically he looked at things like sovereignty and Britain’s ability to, suppose, follow its own law and he looked at the position of the city and protection for the city of London which is obviously this sort of main financial sector in Britain, he looked for protection of the single currency, so, starting the protection of the pound that they wouldn’t have to join the single currency and you also look at some other issues like child benefits and migrant welfare so here’s a series of issues that he went gotten new terms on which he was happy with and then once you’ve done that he came back to London and called for the referendum. So that’s really where and the inception of the referendum happened. And since then, as I said, the referendum has broken into two main groups, on the “Vote Leave” side you have Boris Johnson, who is the former mayor of London, a member of the Tory cabinet, Michael Gove – the Justice Secretary, Nigel Farage – the leader of Ukip, and various other members of the Conservative and several members of the Labour Parties and then on the sort of state campaign which is called “Britain stronger in Europe”, this is being lead by David Cameron, the Prime Minister, but he’s also supported by the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne and kind of key figures like the new mayor of London Sadiq Khan, and various international Prime Ministers and heads of states. So those are the two main groups. So why would people argue that they want to leave the EU and what’s the argument for leaving?

Well, basically, I suppose, first and foremost it comes down to a matter of borders and this seems to be the main argument of the “leave” campaign at the moment, that if Britain leaves the EU it will have more control over its borders and it will have more control over whom it gives visas to, so the leave campaign are arguing that should Britain be outside of the EU, it will have more control over the type of migrants that it takes into the country and will only be taking in qualified working migrants – these there are jobs for within the country. So first and foremost it’s about controlling the numbers of people coming into Britain at the moment, so that sort of migrant policy, I suppose, is one of the main issues for the leave campaign. But they also argue that Britain would have to follow less rules and regulations if it was outside of the EU, so they wouldn’t have to worry about all of these quite strict regulations that are placed by the Europe, and trade agreements with other countries, and also about including, you know, human rights within trade agreements and all of the concerns what’s been termed red tape, that’s associated with EU law. Similarly they argue that Britain pays too much in membership fees every week or annually to the EU, so this is the money that they could potentially be using for the NHS or other domestic services, so that money there could be used in those terms.

So, I suppose, on the flipside of that, as you might expect, the state campaigner are arguing all the upsets. So why should we stay in EU?

Well. they would argue, that Britain’s position within the world is much stronger as part of the EU and not as an isolated country on the edge of Europe, that it’s part of the European block, and it’s seating at the table when these decisions about EU law and trade policies etc are made, so it’s better to be part of the club than to be outside of it, and following the rules, you know, the rules which, may be, you aren’t able to help construct. Similarly and there’s an argument about security, so Britain will be safer if it stayed in the EU, in particular, there’ll be much more sharing of information between specialized bodies that deal with terrorism and security concerns and, I suppose, travel, and you’re part in all of these. Various different European security bodies are going to work much better with Britain as the part of the game than outside of it. And then the other element, I suppose, is that would Britain be better off, so that actually the economy will be hugely compromised should Britain leave the EU and various different monetary bodies such as the International Monetary Fund, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the Treasury of England, the Governor of the Bank of England, these have all said that there’s a recession as an economic certainty, should Britain leave the EU.

So, I think, the easiest way to think about the two arguments on both sides is actually how they remain camp of structure so you’ll keep hearing them saying the Britain will be stronger better off and safer if it was in the EU and the leave campaign are arguing on all of those aspects as well. So, I think, part of the problem really is that it’s quite difficult to know what would happen should Britain leave the EU, because no kind of European governments or no trade agreements have been, sort of, established as a plan B, so a lot of the arguments that are coming from the remain camp are just conjecture from that point of view until we know: how’s the campaign been running? Well, basically, the main issues, I suppose, that have emerged in the campaign are sovereignty, economy and immigration, and answers have been so many, reports produced internationally about how much Britain is sure to lose economically should it exit EU, especially in the short term, that the leave campaign have really kind of moved away from an economic argument and are focusing so much harder on immigration as their key kind of argument on their key, I suppose, card that they’re playing with the public at the moment.

The sort of stay in campaign have been hugely criticized for running a campaign based on fear, because rather than promotion the EU and selling the EU to the people of Britain they’re really just selling what will happen if Britain leaves. So rather than talking about all the great things about the EU and more what may be perceived as great things they are just talking about all the dreadful things that would happen if Britain should leave. So they’ve been highly criticized from that point of view for driving this kind of fear campaign.

I think, as I said, part of the problem really is that nobody knows what would happen should Britain leave, so that does make quite a difficult kind of debate to argue because there is there’s really no solid facts on the exit side and now that’s not to say that exiting will be a bad thing but it just means that it really is uncertain what would happen and particularly, I think, in trade agreements.

So, for instance, you know some of the leave campaign are saying that Britain would get the similar deal that Canada

gets or that Norway gets or that Switzerland gets, but Norway and Switzerland in order to have accessed to the single market have to accept a certain number of migrants and a free movement of people every year. And Canada, they have spent like, you know, almost two decades trying to organize a trade agreement with the EU. So it’s not just as simple as assigning a few new documents and Britain leaves. And, I think, Britain doesn’t know what it would have to offer to be the part of the single market should it leave the EU.

But I think today, well, look, the most defining characteristic of the campaign has been a lot of dirty campaign has been so far, particularly within the Tory or Conservative Party, so it has really split the Conservatives down the middle with David Cameron on one side and Michael Gove, Ian Duncan Smith, Boris Johnson on the other side and it’s really mind-blowing to think that David Cameron now has his own cabinet ministers speaking to the public, going from door to door saying that he can’t be trusted, saying that what he’s saying isn’t true and having his cabinet ministries going out to the people and criticizing their own Treasury, criticizing their own governor of the Bank of England, so that has huge implications really for the Conservative party and I think it has huge implications for British politics, so no matter what happens after this campaign, I think, it has changed the face of British politics as we know them and it will be interesting to see, no matter what the result of the referendum, how that is going to unfold over the common once.

Ok so if you’d like to hear who’s winning the campaign, please look onto my other video on Brexit and if you want to see why the campaign has been called in the first place and why Britain even wants to leave the EU and where this whole thing has come from, there’s also a video on my channel about that. So if you like this video and if you’d like to hear more, please subscribe to my channel where you’ll also find lots of book reviews and film reviews, exhibition reviews and also there will be a text of this video on my website where you’ll also find lots of other written essays on issues to do with contemporary culture and lots of different reviews.

Thank you.