Hello again. And welcome back to Britain under the Microscope. Hello, Anlan.

Hello everybody.

So in today's episode, we are gonna continue with the topic of Brexit. In the previous episode, we talked about the general background of the relationship between the UK and Europe. Today, we are going to explore more about people's attitudes. So we'll pick up where we left off. Does the UK share similar laws and regulations with continental Europe? Is there like a common European law that is enforced in all EU countries?

Yes, there is. European law, for example, fundamental principles are the same in all European countries. Each country has its own legal system, but you also have European law as well.

Some fundamental, underlying principles.

And European countries should follow roughly similar policies when it comes to agriculture, when it comes to foreign policy. So for example, it's seen as not really that good, if one country does one thing and all the other countries are doing something separate. The idea behind the EU is greater European integration, for example, the Euro.

Oh yes! That's another thing. You just mentioned when you were growing up going through Europe, the only thing you noticed is the change in currency. But the UK did not join the Euro zone. Was that by vote as well?

It wasn't by votes but it was very very unpopular.

But why was it? Just because British people just did not really like giving up pounds or they did not really like to be under control of the general EU?

A bit of both. There was a lot of sentimental attachment to the Pound and the Pound is still quite an important currency. So the British people didn't wanna give it up. And also which we will talk a little bit about later on with Brexit. People in Britain did not want to have more control over them from Europe.

Essentially it sounds like the UK sees itself as still quite separated from continental Europe. You do not want to be under central control because if there is a central control of Europe, it wouldn't really be in London, most likely to be in Brussels, probably.

I think there's a lot of reasons for that. One is a little bit of mistrust of the neighbors.

With good reasons.

But also because our government, our legal system and even our culture is very different from the rest of Europe. So for example, our legal system is completely different from other European countries. We work on a completely different principle. And there is also a little bit of mistrust as well, because the European Union are seen as bureaucrats.

Is that like a general belief among British people?

To a certain extent, yes. That's because the European union, it is controlled by a huge bureaucracy, and it's less about a voting and getting things done.

It's more about keep the giant organization functioning. Yeah, I can understand that. I have friends who work in the EU. Now back to the actual Brexit, this is where it gets quite interesting. So there was a referendum in 2017. And then many people voted for Brexit. They wanted to leave. Do you call it leave and remain?

Leave and remain, yeah.

Leave meaning Brexit, remain means remain part of EU. So back in 2017, what was the situation?

The government of the time, because of huge calls from the public and also from their own government, they push through the Brexit referendum. The referendum was very, very simple. Do you want to remain part of the EU or not? And to be honest, lots of people were surprised with the result. I personally thought back then we would stay with the status quo. We would remain with the EU, but it was a very, very close vote. It was 51% to leave, 49% to remain. So it's very close.

And I still remember the news back then. Many people were quite surprised as you were. And it turns out a lot of people, perhaps younger people, they did not vote because of whatever reasons, they missed out on the opportunity. Was that the general situations that older people wanted to leave and younger people wanted to remain?

Yes, generally, it's always the older people that would vote more, but there was also the question of allowing 16 year olds to vote. So for the Scottish referendum, that was the year before, people were able to vote between the ages of 16 and 18, but they didn't allow this for the EU Referendum. Most younger people are for the EU because they grew up with it and they can understand it lot more.

And I guess for them, for younger people, greater mobility means more opportunities within the European community, the entire European zone, so to speak.

And I think this one the reasons why the EU was not that popular in the UK is that if you're in Germany or Italy or France, you can actually see the tangible benefits of being part of the European union, because the border is maybe an hour's drive away from where you live. Whereas for us we've always been part of an island.

Is this island mentality? For people to feel, they are still separated even though they're part of the EU? So what's the point, so to speak. So there were quite a lot of euro-skeptic. These are people who are not really sure they want to stay in the EU.

Yep. And this is also not just about age, but geography as well. So in a referendum, it was mostly England that voted for Brexit.

I would imagine London would vote to stay, to remain.

London, Scotland and Northern Ireland generally voted to remain. Obviously England has the bigger population, so Brexit went through.

The other parts of England, apart from London voted mostly to leave. So that was led by conservative party, right?

Yes. So the conservative party were the party that instigated the vote. So the leave campaign was led by the conservative party or figures in the conservative party. But the remain campaign was led by the conservative prime minister.

Back then. It was Cameron.

David Cameron. And when he lost the vote, then he resigned.

So that's the general attitudes from just British people towards Brexit. And now the talk is no longer about to remain or to leave, because you're definitely leaving. Now it's something called hard Brexit or No-deal Brexit. What is that? I understand it in general, but what is that, exactly?

A hard Brexit or No-deal Brexit means that there are no deals in place.

Deals means agreements.

Agreements or trade deals. So this means that the UK simply leaves and there is no Free trade.

And it's like cutting off completely. That doesn't sound like great news to the UK.

This is what all the negotiations have been about. For the EU obviously, they don't want Britain to leave, because if one country leaves, then more countries will follow.

Perhaps.

But for Britain, we also want to make sure that we do still have ties, because we're still very close to Europe. It's still our closest neighbor. But the questions remain: to what extent should the partnership go forward? So it is quite difficult because the EU would still insist on freedom to live and work in the UK, which was one of the main issues concerning Brexit.

Because if you think about it actually previously we talked to Sarah, if you still remember Sarah, one of our other co hosts who's got dual nationalities, she's now, apart from living in China, she more permanently lives in France. Before, she could just do that without getting the French nationality, but after Brexit who knows what will happen.

Yeah. And it's the same for many people in the UK. For example, if you have an Irish grandparent, you can get Irish citizenship. So lots of people in the UK have now got Irish passports.

Just so that they can move around within the EU zone. That's a very complex issue. We're only able to scratch the surface, and to give you a little bit of background about the relationship between Britain and Europe. And just to show you an ordinary British person's perspective on this whole Brexit issue. And as we're speaking now, Brexit hasn't been implemented yet. But once it is fully implemented, maybe we'll do another episode to talk about the specific changes people are going through.

Absolutely. And if you have any questions, please feel free to leave them in the comment section. As Lulu said, this is a really, really tough topic. Hopefully we've given you some ideas of some of the underlying principles, some the ideas behind Brexit.

We would love to hear from you. See you next time.

Bye.

Bye.