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After three and a half years of political deadlock, drama and chaos in the UK, Brexit was finally “delivered” on 31st January 2020. Boris Johnson only won 43.6% the popular vote, but under the UK’s First Past the Post electoral system, that was sufficient to give him a landslide victory, allowing him to pass his Brexit deal and “Get Brexit Done”.
This slogan, fastidiously devised by Johnson’s astute political advisors, helped him to win the votes of Brits fed up and frustrated by the never-ending tedium of Brexit. But the greatest con of this electoral promise, is that one year later, Brexit is still far from over and the true impacts will only begin to be felt after 31st December, when the transition period ends. Many of those people who unwittingly voted for Brexit will not truly understand the ramifications of leaving the EU until they personally experience the unnecessary bureaucratic complications and financial costs.
As a young person, who voted to Remain, alike with 80% of my age group, it’s not just the financial, social, political and environmental costs of leaving the EU which concern me, but also the opportunities lost; Funding and freedoms which were afforded to older Brits who have voted to take those rights and privileges away from younger generations.
ERASMUS+ is the EU’s most popular programme; I have observed this myself, when sharing my ’24 Reasons to Remain poster’, the reason which attracts the most “likes” is ERASMUS+, with many of my followers commenting to share personal stories of developmental experiences only possible thanks to EU funding. As the child of two university academics, I am very aware of the impact that Brexit will have on the UK’s world leading educational institutions; Academic research, after all, depends on the trade in knowledge across borders. Now we see funding being withdrawn, trans-national partnerships broken, EU staff leaving and a decline in applications from EU students. I am also personally concerned about the loss of arts funding and opportunities for international cultural collaborations; I recently had the somewhat ironic experience of enquiring about an artist residency in Berlin with the theme ‘Voices of Migration’, only to be told the application is only open to artists from EU and EEA countries.
Alongside millions of other Remain campaigners, I did my utmost to avert this political tragedy during the window of opportunity we had between the 24th June 2016 and 31st January 2019, by calling for a 2nd referendum. We were constantly disparaged by the British media for being “undemocratic”, but after it was declared by the Electoral Commission that the Leave campaign broke the law, I formed a very cynical view of how corrupt and manipulable our so-called British democracy actually is.
