Chasen Adventure

Brexit

I was not expecting to cover politics when I started this blog.

But here I am, living in the EU just after Britain’s just received another extension to potentially leave the EU.

I want to share a little bit about Brexit and how the people I’ve met feel that Britain’s exit will (negatively) affect them.

History

Brexit is Britain’s exit from the EU.

I’m a big fan of CGP Grey and his YouTube channel. He has some great videos on the whole situation, which I encourage you to watch for a more entertaining version of this History section:

The TLDR is that:

  • The EU is a group of (currently 28) countries that have (mostly) agreed to:
    • share the same laws,
    • use the same currency, and
    • allow their citizens to live/work in any of the member countries.
  • The UK voted to leave the EU in June of 2016 in a 52% (leave) to 48% (remain) vote.
  • The UK started the process of leaving in March of 2017, with a “you must leave by” due date of March 2019.
  • The UK has received three extensions to their “must leave” date: March 2019, April 2019, and now on October 28th, 2019.

Ok so… what does Brexit mean?

  • No more foreigners living in the UK for “free”
  • No more traveling to EU countries for “free”
  • No more laws dictated by the EU
  • No more automatic trade agreements with EU countries

Local sentiment

The fact that the UK has kinda/sorta been leaving the EU for over three years now made me think that Europeans outside of the UK would be done with this mess and ready for the UK to leave.

“Good riddance” I was expecting them to say. “If the people of the ‘United’ Kingdom don’t want to be a part of the EU, then get them out of the EU”

Well, I was wrong.

I try not to bring up Brexit with every person I meet… but when I do, every one of them has told me that they don’t want the UK to leave the EU.

But why?

A couple reasons that have come up in multiple conversations:

  • The UK is a great place to study and learn English. Naturally, this would be much more difficult if the UK was not part of the EU.

  • People have family who have gone to live in the UK. Will they still be allowed to live there? Who knows what their immigration status will be… maybe they’ll be deported and forced to leave any family they may have in the UK.

Brexit is a huge change that will not only affect UK citizens, but every foreign national who lives in the UK and their family/friends abroad.

Brexit may be voted on by the UK, but Brexit affects everyone in the EU.

Thanks to Brandon Kerr for reading a draft of this.