What does Brexit mean? It's a very difficult question. I think it changes daily. As someone who's been following it quite closely, I don't know.
There's all these technical big words. I have absolutely no idea what they mean. I don't really know what's going to happen and I don't think anybody does, to be quite honest.
Hopefully it'll work out in the end. Everything is explained through economic terms. Our GDP will fall by this much, our growth will fall by this much.
Yeah, no one knows what that means for them. I think the first time I'd heard about Brexit when I was 15, I was obviously way below in voting age. I didn't really know what it meant and honestly I didn't really know what the EU was at the time either.
I just remember just Googling it because that's how we found our best information right, just Googling things. Whether it's no deal, the Prime Minister's deal, whatever, I think that it's a golden opportunity for Britain to take and it would be foolish not to be celebrating it. No, I'm not worried about Brexit.
We'll have to buy more British food because other food will be more expensive, which is better for our country. We just need to get on with it. I just feel like the whole situation is just limiting me as a person, like what I can do and like where I can go. If I look at all the MPs, I don't feel like I can identify even one of them. They just want like British people who represent them but they wouldn't want us to be represented.
I know a lot of people who are scared and I'm certainly scared myself. I would like us to stay in the EU. I would. The reason you don't hear much from younger Leave voters is not necessarily because they don't exist, it's because especially on campus there's a bit of a social stigma around it. I mean the B word gets mentioned, you say that you supported Leave and then suddenly the next thing you know your entire...
university hall is up in arms against you. But no, I think that there's a stereotype that if you voted Brexit you must be racially motivated, you must be inward-looking, whereas I mean I would say that I'm probably a primary example of how that's not true. I mean, I'm a Czech, I'm an internationally minded individual, and that's just something that we've got to deal with.
I mean, there's a stigma, but it's not good enough for Leave supporters to just sit there and complain about it. We actually have to just be relentless and get our voices heard. We've mostly got to prove them wrong, to be honest.
I'm Indian by heritage but my family has come from Kenya and Madagascar. Much of my family came to work and to help the infrastructure of the UK. But you also see them say, the migrants are coming from Europe, they're not going to do anything, they're stealing our benefits. And it's like, well, I know times have changed, but have people's views really changed that much to think that they've now forgotten what it was like for them? Brexit's not only uncovered this whole load of economic distrust but also this whole lack of like empathy towards other people.
It's very sad, not a nice thought. My health was pretty split on Brexit. It might seem like a massive monumental change to people in businesses or writing in papers about how it will affect our GDP or whatever but actually when you're a van driver like my dad it's just how this affects my everyday.
So he voted Leave because to him I think it meant something that they should sit down and listen to us for once. I don't think Brexit voters made a mistake at all. I just think that the political elite threw out so much misinformation that politicians have just thought, oh, we'll just say that and hope they believe it. Actually, that's just not acceptable because that's not what democracy is about.
Like, democracy literally means people power, not people blindly following what politicians tell them because there's literally no other option. Like, you listen to them or you don't. How could anyone possibly make up their mind on this when the narrative was so driven by, frankly, just awful politics?
Now, two and a half years on, we know what Brexit looks like. At the time we were sold something completely different and I think now that we know what it looks like, we need to put it back to the people and see if that's what they actually want. that is the only way out of this mess that we've managed to get ourselves in. In an ideal world I would like Remain to be on the ballot and Theresa May's deal because we know what both of those options look like. We're very far away from the Westminster bubble and people are already feeling like they're not being listened to so we have to be careful if we did have a people's vote and the people voted for May's deal then that's what would happen because that's what the people want and no that obviously that's not what I would like Young people just aren't represented, not only because we're not given the vote, but because we're more diverse than we were like 30 years ago.
But yet politicians now, if you look at them, they're just not very representative of what's currently happening in the UK right now. quite a lot of them that have gone to the same colleges, private colleges, Eton, a lot. It's very repetitive and it's like, when is change gonna happen? Even if you look at this friendship group, we're all from different backgrounds, ethnicities, cultures.
We're quite privileged in that, really. I just don't think it's as diverse as it should be. Politics is a big scary place and people are deliberately shut out. It's meant to seem like something that only old people care about because then that's how people win elections because then only older people go out and vote.
In Parliament it's just so like, ooh yeah! yelling at each other and going, ah, that's so childish and pathetic. But actually the things that are happening there really affect us. As a young person, I do try to keep myself excited for what's going to happen in the future. At the moment...
and it's really hard to see anywhere past the next month. I definitely am worried about the future, yeah. I don't really want to think about it. Hello!
No, I don't understand what Brexit means. Like, they're all sat around Parliament talking about what's going to change and what's not going to change. No, I don't know.
It's all a bit confusing, isn't it? Instead of, you know, looking into the future like, yeah, I want to be successful and I want to aim for the highest for myself, you have to think, well... you're most likely going to be limited by your own government basically. There is still change to be had, change to be made and we're seeing that Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez for example, figureheads like that who are sort of like spearheading the idea that young people can make change and that we don't necessarily have to accept what we have at the moment which clearly isn't working as we've seen from Brexit.
I'd say the political climate at the moment makes me disappointed, nervous but still hopeful. There is still change. some way of getting through this.
It's really down to the individual to go out and be heard. We're in a generation where we're all saying that we can go and change the world, so go and do it, nothing is stopping you. I think Brexit for me, it just screams a mess and it's something that I don't think I'll quite understand how it's going to affect me for at least, you know, another few years.
Because I think we're still in the process of finding out what it really means for the country.