Adulting - #47 Why Is Brexit So Shit? With Femi Oluwole

Episode Date: November 3, 2019

Hey Podulters, very excited for you to listen to this episode with Femi. I personally really struggle to understand what’s going on with Brexit and this conversation fills in a lot of gaps. I hope you enjoy :) please do rate, review and subscribe! Xx Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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But anyway, I'm so freaking excited about this week's episode. It is with Femi Oluwole, which I hope I said right because I've literally been practicing that for so long. And basically, we're talking about why Brexit is so shit. It's all in the title. Femi gives us lots of layman's terms and top down explanations of what Brexit really means, what the implications are, and what the wider social implications are as well. Femi is part of Ofoc, which is Our Future, Our Choice. And you might have seen him arguing with Nigel Farage and doing a lot of political campaigning. He's really active on Twitter. And he's just an all-round great guy. I literally

love this chat. I haven't actually listened back to it um I've stopped editing the podcast which I think it's really fun I basically record it send it off to my producer and then it goes up and I find it's quite freeing and it means that you're literally just listening in to the conversation as it happens and nothing's taken out or edited or changed uh so do forgive me if I say anything really awful but I don't think that I do. I'll find out. I'll listen with you guys today when it's out, which is Sunday, which is not right now because today is Tuesday. Okay, please do rate, review and subscribe. Bye. Hi guys, and welcome to Adulting. This week I am joined by Femi Oluwole.

Nicely done. Is that right? That's perfect. Good. Okay, perfect. So Femi, do you want to tell everyone a bit about who you are and what you do? Okay, so I'm a guy who was born in Darlington, grew up in Middlesbrough, Swansea, Dundee, Birmingham, Nottingham, Paris, Nigerian. I watched way too much American TV, primarily Kenan and Kel and Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, hence my messed up accent. And I studied law at Nottingham, then realised that David Cameron was utterly shitting the bed in terms of explaining the stuff that we needed to know. And so I started to get into the whole Brexit

debate. I love that you've just explained your accent because this was my first question. And I always wonder this. And I said this to Matt, I was like explained your accent because this was my first question and I always wonder this and I said this to Matt, I was like, are you sure this is my boyfriend who absolutely does for me are you sure that he's not from somewhere like in America or is he, I thought you were Scottish actually. So Darlington as in? As in North East, near Newcastle

Fine, I went New South Wales in Australia and then I was like, wow you really have moved around. But how did you, so you're saying that you realised that David Cameron wasn't really saying it in the right way, but you must have had quite a political interest already to think that you could maybe explain it a bit better. Well, I mean, I studied law,

and so you get the basics in law school, like about what the EU is, how it works. And I also then went into sort of specialising in it. I worked in Brussels for two years and so I've worked with the EU institutions as well but I mean we are talking the absolute basics like you've all heard you may have heard the term single market on the news but nobody ever explains what it is and it was it's so bad that in October last year the BBC published the definition of the single market and it was wrong. And they had to change it because I told them to. Oh my god, I love you. That's how bad it is. Two years after

the Brexit vote, one of the most basic terms in the whole thing, the BBC didn't know. So what is this corruption? Because I do find I absolutely love watching on Twitter. I especially love it when you argue with Nigel Farage because you just always absolutely slam him. But why is it that you seem to be the only one that's picking? Is it because there's just so much rhetoric and so much stuff going on that no one's actually got the time to sift through it? Or is it just no one's really got that much inclination to want to bother? Well, I mean, I think the news tries to go more for entertainment rather than education. So like with the single market, I can explain it in 30 seconds imagine if the eu didn't exist you had 28 countries making their own laws in their own way and you wanted to sell let's say

beer to those 28 different countries you'd have to manufacture market and package your products in 28 different ways which would send your costs through the roof make prices higher supermarket prices higher standard of living would drop so that that's why EU countries make laws together. They seem to make one version of their product and they can sell it across the whole of the EU without having to make different versions of it. Got you. Now that makes life better.

Yeah. Now that's a single market in 30 seconds. David Cameron had five months to explain it and yet still here we are today and most people still don't know what it is. But do you think the reason that they want to make it so complicated is so that there is a bit of a chasm between like the general populace and the people still don't know what it is. But do you think the reason that they want to make it so complicated is so that there is a bit of a chasm between the general populace

and the people in power so that it seems so confusing you get lack of interest in it? Oh no, I definitely agree. A lot of the big players in this, their attitude is it's a lot easier to manipulate people if they don't know the facts. So they're just basically, they keep it, they use terms like single market, customs union, without explaining what they are. So they can just basically form a narrative around these concepts that nobody really understands. And that's how

they manipulate people. And it makes them sound really certain about it as well, because they're using all this lingo that sounds really professional. But when it comes to Brexit, what I find really interesting is I do I talk about it but I don't really understand it but what I find fascinating is that I think the reason that Brexit kind of happened was this like disenfranchisement and people not really understanding how politics worked and then voting for something they didn't really understand and now that Brexit is happening we understand it even less than when it first started could you do like a run through a synopsis of like how we got from A to B,

like how we got here and what it was in the beginning kind of thing? Okay. Let me say this story so that for those of you who can't imagine why anybody could possibly vote leave. Imagine if you're 50 years old, you live in Sunderland. When you were 10 years old, Margaret Thatcher closed the shipyards in your area and so your dad lost his job. You've seen London, the southeast, get richer and richer, more investment every year, Millennium Dome, London Eye, the underground tube system, stuff you've never seen in your area. And you vote Labour all your life because you hate the Tories for what Thatcher did to your dad. But Labour has no incentive to do anything for you because, well, they're always going to win in your area.

And the Tories, no incentive either because they're never going to win in your area. So politics as a whole for your entire life has had no incentive to make your life better. And then here comes the long Brexit. The first time people are saying this might make a real difference to your life and the person telling you to vote Remain,

David fucking Cameron. The same person who's made you and your family and everyone you know suffered through years of austerity under those circumstances remove my eu law degree i'm voting leave every time right um and so that's and that's the anger that led people to vote for brexit in the first place on top of that you've got you had an a discussion about the idea of taking back control, of controlling our laws, whereas I just explained, if you know that sharing laws with the other countries of the EU, the place where you sell and buy most of your stuff, is going to make stuff cheaper for you, that argument should disappear. But if nobody understands that the benefit of the EU is because we share laws,

you're going to have a one-sided debate. And that's why the argument of take back control was so powerful in 2016, and people ran with it. On top of that you've got arguments around immigration and again this is where Nigel Farage comes in in 2016 he said there is nothing we can do to stop unlimited numbers of people from EU countries coming to this country and enjoying the same rights and privileges as all the rest of us. Basically, the narrative that EU citizens come here, live off benefits and clog up the NHS. Now, I then had to call him up about a year later and say, all right, you said that in 2016, but I'm reading here,

Article 7 of the EU Citizens' Rights Directive says, if you want to come to this country, you need to either have a job or have enough money that you're not a burden on the welfare state and your own comprehensive medical insurance. So that, what you just said, wasn't true. He said, in theory, Femi, you're not a burden on the welfare state and your own comprehensive medical insurance so that what you just said wasn't true he said in theory Femi you're right in theory under European treaties there are restrictions that can be placed hang on that's the exact opposite of your primary message from 2016 but it's scaremongering I think what I think is really worrying about politics and we see it with Trump all the time is the fact that these people are just spouting anything that

sounds like you say it gets people's heartstrings going because it sounds so emotive like take back control but I take back control of borders when we live on an island it's a really redundant point for one and two I think that this I remember growing up and hearing these things about how immigrants come in and take your jobs and all this stuff and you I don't know when that rhetoric started I don't know if it's just based in deep rooted racism that's institutionalized within us. Or like, has that ever really been an issue? Because more often than not, when you look at it, the statistics show that actually, it's poverty, inequality, racism, all these other injustices that cause people to have to look to benefits or look to these schemes rather than people coming in from like seeking asylum or whatever? So unfortunately, there has been a breakdown in the conversation around immigration. So you've got people who will say they come here, they take our jobs or they drive down wages. Now, and then somebody on the left will say, well, if you look at the maths, look at the stats, immigration is a net benefit to our economy. And then people, people on low incomes will say, hang on, but I'm not

feeling any benefit from this. Now, the problem we've been having is we have this discussion as if we're on the right. What I mean is, if you know that there's a net benefit from immigration, that the economy is generally doing better, but you know, people at the bottom are still suffering. Whose fault is that? It is the responsibility of government to ensure that benefits are well, the benefit of an immigration is shared equally across the country. Now, that means by taxation, by strengthening the union so that certain sectors ensure that there's a decent minimum wage for that sector, so that you can't have undercutting of wages. And that's the responsibility that as a whole, we have failed on. And I think that is kind of what led to Brexit and Trump, in the sense that people,

especially working class people, have to a certain extent, well, a significant number of them, lost faith in the left, because we've been, how to put this, discriminatory in our anti-discrimination. If somebody born of a certain ethnicity, race, sexual orientation has fewer opportunities than somebody born in the majority the left will go on marches we will we'll start campaigns but if somebody born in hull or swansea or red car has few opportunities than somebody born in greater london the left has been far too quiet on that and so as a result you have a lot of people who feel well the left isn't really looking out for me and as a result people like niger farage trump seem like figures that are now saying oh we'll we will work for you we will do we

will make your life better when it's all bullshit yeah i agree but then i also think maybe that conversation again coming a bit back down to like privilege and stuff is that we do have to really like there is still privilege in being i don't know say a white person from a working class background who does have privilege over a person of colour from a working class background. So to say that the left has neglected looking after certain areas might be true. But I also wonder if there's a lack of like, as we see with the rise of fascism, it's more like surely a lack of understanding how the structural systems work, like the invisible ones, as well as the physical ones if that makes sense um as in yeah i mean yes obviously there's um black working class minority economic minority working class in

those areas that have been left behind but that's that's my point it doesn't really it's not an issue that really sees race it's an issue that it's geographical inequality it's that regional inequality that needs to be addressed right and for me personally once we're done with once we're done with brexit the priority has to be screaming at Right, I get you. And for me personally, once we're done with Brexit, the priority has to be screaming at government saying, start investing in Hull, start investing in Swansea, start investing in Redcar,

Sunderland, et cetera. Because otherwise, people who voted for change would be very angry if they don't see change. It's really interesting, actually, that you just said that we're arguing the wrong thing

because we're blaming kind of immigration. And actually, Katya Moran said an amazing thing where she was like, this is exactly what government bodies do. They make you punch down.

So instead of you focusing and looking up and thinking, what is legislation doing for me? They'll go, oh my God, look at all the immigrants causing all the problems. So then the working class will be like, oh,

that's who I've got to take issue with. Oh no, that is populism in a nutshell. You've got people like Nigel Farage who talk about the elite but only ever really say,

look at the person who's right next to you, look at you down on the bottom, fight amongst yourselves, you don't realise just how much we're profiting from all of this. And that and that is very much the problem. And it's also interesting, because I've been on a Brexit march in London, but it is a lot of I'm a very posh white middle class woman. And it's a lot of people that look and sound like me on these marches. And it's interesting, because guess then there's this other argument saying that the left are actually just all this like champagne socialists bolstering false arguments and stuff. And do you think that what's do you think that there's anything that's good that's come from Brexit in terms of the way that we're talking about things now? Or do you think it's just all?

I'd say that if it wasn't for Brexit, what I just said about waking up to the regional inequality, we wouldn't be having that discussion. It's because you can basically tell where the least social mobility is based on where people voted Brexit. That is what has woken people up to just how much needs to change in terms of fixing that. So Brexit has provided an opportunity to fix that problem. But this is the other main issue, Brexit fatigue. If you want to actually fix the problems in this country, Brexit has to get out of the way because under any circumstances of Brexit, we have to spend the next seven to 10 years negotiating with both the EU and Trump at the same time. Now that means all the resources

you've seen the government put into Brexit over the past three years, or they've done nothing else. Brexit's been the only thing you've heard for three years straight. If Brexit actually goes ahead, we will not have a chance to deal with anything. And that means regional inequality, the NHS, climate change. None of those issues will be addressed because we'll be so focused on dealing with Brexit. Well, that's why I had Jess Phillips on here not that long ago. She was talking about like how she works a lot with women's aid

and domestic abuse and I was asking about how she would push it through and like do stuff. She's like, I can't, I'm literally paralysed by Brexit and I think that's really scary and it's interesting though

you say that, you know, it's been three years and it's going on for so long but what, where we are right now, I feel like, maybe it is Brexit fatigue

but I've actually completely lost sight of, I don't even know what's going on anymore. Like today I was just saying there's a new word, flex tension or whatever this is. Like there's just new shit coming up the whole time. Where are we at right now? Let me give you, as a basic rundown of where we are right now, you have to go down to the democracy issue.

52% voted to leave, 48% voted to remain. Now we have to, as a country, recognize what those words mean. Remain means a relationship between the UK and the other countries of the EU that is defined by two international treaties, decades of legislation, and fixed in place to prevent anything like Euro, United States, EU army, all that stuff. That would require another referendum on top of the one we currently had. So remain was a very specific and codified relationship. Leave, literally anything else. Okay. So it could be a Norway style deal where we stay under the rules of the single market. It could be a Canada style deal where we just have

very few tariffs. It could be no deal at all. It could be the deal that Theresa May did. It could be the deal that Boris Johnson just came back with. It could be a thousand different things. Now, this is the thing people don't get. Just because 52% vote for Brexit does not mean they all want the same Brexit. Right now, we've got the DUP, the unionists in Northern Ireland who are pro-Brexit saying they do not accept Boris Johnson's Brexit deal. You've got Nigel Farage, one of the heads of the unofficial leave campaigns in 2016, and the head of the actual Brexit party, saying that he's against the deal that Boris Johnson just negotiated, which means you're not going to have the full 52% in favour of any Brexit.

It is mathematically impossible to please them all. So you'd have to have separate votes for, you'd have remain and then like four different categories of leave? Well, you could do that. But then people will argue that it's too complicated. What we have right now is, in 2016, Brexit was four words, leave the European Union. Right now, it's a 600-page treaty that Boris Johnson has made up over the past few months. Now, that means essentially that if we were to leave the EU without a referendum, it would be like signing a contract and letting the other side write the terms of that contract three years later and then saying, well, you already signed.

So is there any way in which we won't leave or we're definitely going to leave? It's going to have to require another referendum. That's what has to happen. And is that going to happen? So what we're looking at right now is a high likelihood of a general election. Now, in that general election, you're going to have Farage and Boris Johnson on one side, Brexit Party and the Conservatives, and you're going to have Lib Dems, the Greens and Labour in England on the other side with the SNP implied in Scotland and Wales and the Alliance in Northern Ireland. Now, what the people on the, well, quote unquote, Remain side will be saying is,

we need to have a referendum once we're done with this general election. On the leave side, you're going to have Boris Johnson saying, vote for me and you'll get my deal. Nigel Farage will be saying, vote for me and you'll get no deal at all. So what I'm begging every single person listening here is you have a responsibility because you need to get everyone you know registered to vote and not just that get them to get everyone they know registered to vote because if now if boris johnson does well in this election if he becomes if he gets like five seats short of a majority he will make a pact with the brexit party which will put nigel farage into the cabinet as a minister of this government that is what will happen there is no way he will cabinet as a minister of this government. That is what will happen.

There is no way he will turn down the chance of being prime minister. So you need to make sure everyone you know is doing that. Because if you don't get involved in this, if you don't make yourself heard, Boris Johnson runs the country alongside Nigel Farage. When was the first time you spoke to Nigel Farage or met him? First time I spoke to him was around, I March 2017 and it was on the phone and what like how do you engage with him like it's funny because on a can you speak could you ever see him on a personal level and then on as what he is or like how do you see him in your eyes because he's such a um okay so he is charming

and I mean all the people all the people in this game were charming that's how they got this far obviously when we actually met face to face because we had a we were in the studio arguing against each other

for 11 minutes and he got pretty touchy because he saw that I was trying to catch him in a lie because remember what I said before

about how he lied about immigration he saw that I was trying to corner him into that and so he started speaking over me and so I started speaking over him yeah and so he wasn't particularly pleasant to me at the

end of that um but how i see niger farage in general okay so there's one thing there's the what he promised us in 2016 he said we'll get a great trade deal there won't be any trade barriers he said we get a deal that's better than nor Norway. And yet now he is pushing for a no deal Brexit. And what's no deal Brexit? A no deal Brexit means we're the only country in the world that doesn't have a single trade deal with anyone within 2000 miles, which when you use your logic means we're doing something that every successful economy on the planet has chosen specifically not to do. Yeah. So just basic logic says that will hurt us and make people in this country poorer. And that is exactly what he told people

wouldn't happen in 2016. Now he's pushing specifically for it. That is a man without moral integrity at all. But what does he gain from that? He just wants power. He knows that there is a lot of, he knows that he's tapping into a general hatred of the EU

that's been whipped up because of him over the past few years. And he knows that he's tapping into the idea that he's the one that speaks for the real people of this country. And he ultimately will head for power. I have to say, when he first came around, he is really charming.

And I remember thinking, God, what is he talking about? Because if you're not politically linguistic, if you're not aware of what they're talking about when you see a man like that who is albeit very posh but acting like oh he likes a pint and he's talking about this it kind of is quite attractive because you think oh what are you what is i understand what you're saying that makes that those words make sense to me that makes sense obviously i think he's an absolute awful now but i can see the attractiveness of it

but the interesting thing is with you and maybe this is the only reason why it works is well you do have an incentive, but you seem to lay things out very logically and you just stack them up whichever way they go. And there's no one in politics really that does that. I'm doing my best. I think a lot of it comes from people. A lot of the issues are under so many layers of subtlety

that people just try and game the system in their way. For example, with Nigel Farage, he's very, very sneaky. Like he, people on our side of the argument will call him racist. And he will, and will point to things like the breaking point poster, which is the poster we used during the referendum, which showed thousands of Syrian refugees all in a line on a road. And it said, breaking point, we need to break free of the EU so we can control our borders. Now, people on our side of the argument will say that was racist. He will say, how can it be racist? It's a photograph of people coming into Europe. Now, the reason why it's racist is very, very sneaky, because the UK is not part of the EU's common asylum policy. So unlike other countries, we don't have a refugee quota, which means that

not one of the people in that photograph had any right to enter the UK under EU law. And we know this because of all the people who we've seen stuck in Calais. So he chose people of Middle Eastern background who had nothing to do with Brexit to scare people about European migration. The only reason you do that in a photograph is because you think visually there must be something about those people which is scarier, which you think your audience will find scarier. Now, again, that's fundamentally racist.

He'll then use the argument, well, if they come to, say, Germany, they'll get German citizenship and then they'll come here. Hang on. You're saying that somebody who moves to Germany spends the seven to eight years required to gain German citizenship,

has to speak German in order to pass the citizenship test, becomes a fully-fledged German citizen, shouldn't come to this country because of their ethnic origin. You what? That's ridiculous. So it is a... But the thing is, that's not said explicitly in the photograph. It's just a dog whistle.

Yeah. It's subtle. His racism is very subtle, but it's also like he is quite obviously a racist. And I don't know, maybe this is because I'm naive and maybe because I've got so much privilege that I think we should live in a fairy tale. But I still can't quite get to grips with how people like that are in power and how we can't. I know we do have, obviously, people power and all that kind of thing. But how is he able to carry on?

I don't know how it's legislatively legal to do things in such an... And it is, do you know what? Some of it's not even subtle. Like he's just outwardly racist. And we understand that now. We're woke, in first commas, as a generation. Like I think it's really scary.

It's suffocating to feel like he could be in power. Yeah, well, I mean, here's the thing. As far as that, he ran a campaign that was called Leave.eu in 2016. That was the campaign that he was fronting. And the communications director for that, in a recording that's literally on the parliament website, so you can go look it up, his name is Andy Wigmore. He was talking about the campaign that he ran with Nigel Farage and Richard Tice, who's the chair of the Brexit Party now. And he said about the Nazis, he said, when you look at what the Nazis did, the way they presented things, it was very clever. It was very clever.

And when I look at the campaign that we ran in 2016, you realize this is nothing new. Sorry. He's literally saying comparing ourselves to the Nazis in a positive light. In a positive light saying this is nothing new. No. So he's saying that the campaign he ran alongside Nida Farage essentially was the modern day Nazi campaign. It's sick.

Yeah. Do you know what I think though, this is kind of going off on a tangent, but still related to what you were saying about climate change, but obviously the biggest irony here is that a lot of this immigration is happening because of climate change like even if we're sat here in the UK and it's not impacting us people all around the world are already feeling the impacts of climate change and that's only going to get worse and I read an amazing article in the New Yorker the other day which is basically about it doesn't matter if you well obviously going vegan less plastic whatever be great but the best thing we could do is to learn to be accepting of everyone like get rid of all

these social barriers we have whether that's like institutionalized racism or bigotry or sexism or whatever it is in order to make the world more inhabitable for everyone basically we need to create a more equal world but their their fight is only gonna it is it is basically like nazism isn't it they just want to i don't know how to explain it without getting lost my words I'm just saying, it's so weird when you look at the bigger picture and see that the only answer to this right now is that we've got to figure out a way to make the world inhabitable for everyone. And they're going, no, we want more just for us right now in this corner. Yeah, it's a short sightedness. Because if we don't tackle climate change, then we're going to increase the migration. And so that that

hostility towards immigration will only get higher. But at the same time, there's a short-sightedness around a lot of people who talk about climate change, because they're not focusing on Brexit. And Brexit right now in the UK is the biggest threat to the fight against climate change. Why? Because climate change doesn't see borders. It is united against us. So being divided in our fight against climate change makes zero sense. Right now, we are members of the European Union. We pass environmental protection laws together. So we can fight climate change together. On top of that, if we were to leave the EU, when you look at the economic hit that happens,

that will be used as an excuse not to focus on climate change. The government will be saying, and I can already see the headlines, no, no, no, no, no. We can't deal with climate change right now. We're in an economic crisis. We have to deal with this. We have to get rid of these environmental protections so we can make the economy more streamlined. That is what they will be saying. It's so fucked though, because you think like, what's the point of an economy if you can't inhabit the country you're from? And always think it's about people that own like the massive oil companies sitting on millions and they keep drilling even though they say they're not and you think you're going to make yourself another what billion but there's not going to

be a world to live in it's short-sighted but is that what power like would you ever want to go into power like what's your I don't know I find it really quite repulsive that the way that these people seek out power because it seems to delineate them from any other sense of like as you said it's you become like emotionless and yeah i mean there are people that are not particularly morally guided in positions of power these days um and it is it is a catch-22 in order to get into power you have to literally want power and seek power. And a lot of people who don't seek power end up staying out of it. For example, last year,

I could have stood in for election in Peterborough, but part of me said, I'm not from Peterborough, I shouldn't really stand in Peterborough, therefore I didn't want to. Whereas somebody with no moral scruples would think, well, hang on, there's power there. I'll go grab it.

It is unfortunate. But also, surely you have more impact doing what you're doing now than you would if you had to align yourself. Yeah. Well, that's one of the things. I cannot join a political party right now. Yeah. I trust precisely one person in politics right now, and that's Caroline Lucas, but there's only one of her.

And so, Labour, they need to be clearer on what they want to do regarding Brexit the Lib Dems, again there's more of them now because a lot of the Tories have jumped on board and yeah, so there's not a lot of options in terms of joining a political party right now

what I would love to see is if the parties got together and just cooperated because we're in a situation where there's calls for a no-deal Brexit, there's calls for Boris Johnson's Brexit, but the majority of Parliament is against no deal. And that's because in 2017, the majority of voters, 54%, voted for parties whose manifestos ruled out no deal. So it is only right that Parliament prevent it. Now, is there a majority for the

deal that Boris Johnson just negotiated? Well, you've got significant people, including the Brexit party, who are against it. So the only thing Parliament should be doing right now is giving us a referendum on that deal. But they're still talking about a general election now, which is unfortunate. So looking forwards, can you see this party structure or the way that the government is sorted right now? can you see this carrying on? Or do you think this might actually delineate the whole thing and be a cause for change in the way that we do stuff? Because surely that Labour, Conservative, surely that can't work anymore. No, you're absolutely right.

It is. We have seen the cracks in our constitution over the past few years because um the party discipline has just fallen apart you and the anger with the fact that despite the fact that labor has completely dragged its feet in terms of getting to the right position on brexit um i'm still going to end up having to tell people you know not you've got to vote labor in your constituency because they're the best chance of beating the conservatives in the brexit party even though another party would probably deserve it more because they've been a consistent saying, hang on, we hadn't negotiated Brexit in 2016. Once we've negotiated it needs to be put to the people for a final decision. They've been saying that for the whole way through. And Labour's only just

got to that position. But unfortunately, because the way our democratic system works first past the post, people just are going to have to suck it up and vote labor yes when i listen to you talk about this it first of all makes so much sense you're so eloquent in it and so fluent but how how impossibly how impossible would it be to imagine the whole population understanding the way that you do because i imagine for you it's already a bit of a mindfuck and you seem to be absolutely fluent in it do you think that the way it's set up it is pretty much impossible for the lay person who isn't as invested as you are to really understand what's going on? I think it's a failure of communication from the people in the media and the politicians

themselves. I'm going to rattle through a couple of ones that should be explained and should be public knowledge. Yes. Okay. So right now, as a member of the EU, as EU citizens, you all have the right to live, work and love in 31 countries across Europe that's your right by birth live work and love yeah oh that's nice well I say that partly because I did Erasmus and Erasmus was the best year of my life largely because uh Erasmus is language-based and language-based courses tend to be about 75% female making it the most romantically complicated year of my life oh I love that did you fall in love in your Erasmus pretty hard well it was complicated

I had I was cheated on by a German I fell in love with a French lesbian it was a complicated year oh my god so you sure

you don't want to do Brexit yeah just revenge on the Germans you strewn lovers all around the whole of the EU build that wall so yeah and that meant i studied in a french university um it's 200 quid a bin fee and no tuition fees wow um and that's right by birth i did um a ski season

which was they cover your you cover your flight your accommodation your ski pass and you basically work doing customer service cleaning toilets, cooking or whatever. in an exciting live dealer studio exclusively on FanDuel Casino, where winning is undefeated. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly. Now, that was something I did alongside people

who had just in GCSEs and A-levels. We're not talking about elite privileges. This is something that basically, this is catering work. Now, the Tory policy for post-Brexit immigration to this country says if you want, they're going to have a points-based system for some sectors. But in general, if you want to come here, you need to be making at least £36,000 a year. Now, if other countries do that to us, suffice to say, when I was cleaning toilets in France, I was not making 36k. I mean, the majority of people who are 20, most people aren't making 36k ever. Exactly. Which means that by leaving the EU, you're cutting yourself off from a job market that spans a continent. And that's just not discussed. If we're talking about how Brexit affects the economy, a concrete example

that I like to use is if we're not part of the European market, we're no longer a logical base to base European businesses, businesses that want to sell across Europe. Put it this way, Nissan factory, Sunderland, 70% of the cars that it makes go to other EU countries and 35,000 jobs across the Northeast depend on that factory. Now, if there's a barrier of any kind, be it tariffs when they cross the border, be it having differences in rules, they have to check stuff when they cross the border, then you know that 70% of your cars are going to face an extra cost. Whereas if that factory was based in Frankfurt, Paris, Milan,

then 30% of their cars are facing costs coming this way. So if you're Nissan, where do you want your factory to be? Right. On the other side of that barrier where the majority of its cars are going. What happens to those 35,000 jobs in the UK? Gone. So would it, and how quickly would this happen? This would happen over a period of about, say, 10 years. Okay.

So it wouldn't happen overnight, because obviously they have to build a new factory on the other side of the border but it's just you generally you've shifted the balance of gravity away from the uk and into europe because we're no longer integrated into the market of our continent to play devil's advocate this isn't something i think at all but i was just thinking as you're saying it and it's quite a gross idea but if we did ostracize ourselves so far from all these other countries and we stopped doing trade and we became i don't know how it worked with food and stuff but if there was a means to become more self-sustainable would that in a funny way then protect us more against

climate change if we actually did manage to become this like island of nomad do you know what i mean i mean that's a horrible thought if we if we fully went full-on trump and had and had a wall and everything it would cut down travel, I'd say that but the fact is it's so unrealistic that the efforts to correct it would end up causing more problems I mean I don't think it's a good idea I just always think it's really interesting to imagine

all the different parallels that happen or like, do you know what I mean? Sorry, carry on the next thing you're going to tell me Another thing, let's look at it this way let's look at it this way. Let's look at the NHS. Oh, yeah. So, unfortunately, we have a problem with our respect for the concept of expertise. Now, people our age, 18 to 24-year-olds, and me, 25 to 34-year-olds,

we've also heavily remain. 18 to 24 was 73% remain. My age group was 62% remain. And I think that's largely because our age, we respect expertise. We live our lives on phones, which is technology we know we don't understand. We respect it. But unfortunately, you can't say the same across the board. Right now, the British Medical Association represents over 130,000 doctors across the UK, says a no-deal Brexit would be a catastrophe for the NHS. You've got the Royal College of Nurses, the Royal College of Midwives, the Royal College of GPs, the Royal College of Radiologists all saying the same.

And yet, because Boris Johnson, who majored in Greek poetry, says that it'll be good for the NHS, somehow it's a roll of the dice. Are you kidding me? We are talking, if organisations like that, who are literally the doctors who run our NHS, are saying this would be a catastrophe for the NHS, we are talking thousands of lies over the next 50 years. Because organisations like that avoid using emotive language like catastrophe. If they're using it now, it's because they recognise

that 5% of the UK population is from another EU country, whereas they make up 10% of our doctors, meaning that immigration from EU countries is literally keeping this country alive. If you look at the URATM program, the EU program through which we get radioactive isotopes into this country, that's necessary for cancer treatments. If that goes, cancer is an

issue. This is stuff that should be common knowledge, but they keep talking in all these fancy terms, customs union, et cetera, when it's just boil it down to, hang on, the experts in this area are saying, do not do this. Do you know what else it is? So I always thought I wasn't interested in politics until I realized that all the things i was interested like the socio-political is all completely interlinked and then what you do is you draw it back to like how does this impact the people whereas to me when the whole brexit thing first started happening it felt so far removed from my life and it was just a political conversation about changing laws and things whereas actually as you say like the practical implications of it as we do know a bit more now but even then someone will say this and they'll go oh no they're just saying it or it's this and

that and actually you're right just hearing from the ground up like how is this actually going to impact us like in a domino's way is so helpful but you don't get that kind of rhetoric and the annoying thing is none of us are going to live up none of us have the same wants as Boris Johnson or very few of us and don't have the same privileges. And if the NHS did disappear, Boris would be fine because he can go get his private doctor. We don't have that access. You're absolutely right. I mean, I go to schools, I do talks,

and I speak to 16, 17-year-olds. And there'll be classes that I walk into and I say, who here cares about politics? And not a single hand will go up. My next question will be, who here cares how much stuff costs in the shops? Every hand goes up. I say, who here cares

whether or not they can get a job when they leave school? Every hand goes up. I say, that's politics. Right now, because of Brexit, the pound has less value, which means youth market prices are higher. That's your life.

Right now, because jobs are leaving the UK, because we're no longer part, well, we're looking like we might not be part of the European market. That means fewer jobs for you when you leave school. That's your life. And it's being dictated to us by a vote that was done, well, if you look at it this way,

the under 65 population of the UK, so take out the over 65s, voted remain. That's because in the age group of 18 to 24, 72% remain. Age group of 25 to 34, 62%. 35 to 45 was 52%, and then it flips around. Now, that means that when people talk about how, yes, Brexit will be an economic hit, it might be a little bit poorer, but we'll work through it.

Hang on, who will literally be working through it? Oh, yeah, that's so true. They'll just be living off the pensions. If a generation that will literally be working through it? Oh yeah, that's so true, they'll just be living off the pensions. Yeah, if a generation that will literally have to work through, support their families, feed their families, pay for mortgages, those people voted remain. Those are the people who have to work and struggle through the economy that Brexit creates. Is there any way that we won't have some kind of, well, we're already, as you said, seeing an economic impact, but is there any outcome in which we'll be slightly better? Or are we always going to head towards some kind of financial crash at this point? If we get a referendum, we turn this around.

Completely? Well, because not completely, completely, because there'll be an economic damage just because people have had so much uncertainty for so many years. But if we get a referendum between Boris Johnson's deal and staying in the EU which by the way Nigel Farage a couple days ago said that if the referendum between those two options remain wins every time

so if even Nigel Farage is saying the version of Brexit negotiated by the king of vote leave is what people would prefer to stay we're on a winner there and if that happens we're more or less fine as for is there any way

you could do Brexit and things will be better? Just the overwhelming population of experts, the majority of experts are saying that just no. And what's the quickest way to get, as you're saying, we might be spending the next 7 to 10 years talking about this, in which case we won't get anything else done. If there was a referendum, how quickly would the conversation, how quickly would we be able to move past this? So if there's a referendum, the referendum will probably take

place maybe May, because we'll probably have an election at the end of this year. And whoever wins that referendum, if it's the Brexit party and the Conservatives, possible no deal Brexit, and the country's fucked. If it's Labour and Lib Dems and Greens, as S&P implied, then we have a referendum and we stay in the EU. And that will take place around May. And then it'll be my personal job to spend the next two, three months threatening MPs saying, hey, people vote for change. If they don't get change, they're going to be very angry. If you do not start investing in Hull, Swansea and Uri, then people who vote for change will start turning to Nigel Farage, Tommy Robinson.

And that's who you'll start to see in Parliament. So we will be moving on very quickly because, as you said, everyone is bored of Brexit. But unfortunately, that whole boredom of Brexit is being twisted by Boris's get Brexit done slogans, whereas no, getting Brexit done simply means moving on to starting Brexit. Yeah, exactly. Negotiating with the EU for the next seven to 10 years. The only way Brexit gets done is if we have a referendum on the deal, put an end to it, and then we can focus on other things. Because right now, well, as of last year, the UK government employs 7,000 civil servants to deal with Brexit.

They budgeted for 9,000 more, which they probably started using already. An extra 300 for border issues in case of a no-deal Brexit. They budgeted for 9,000 more, which they probably started using already, an extra 300 for border issues in case of a no-deal Brexit, and an extra 1,000 just in case. Now, those could have been doctors, nurses, teachers, house builders, police. Instead, they are Brexit civil servants. And by the way, Brexit civil servants were saying this is a net bad for our economy. So it is bad money after bad money. If you want to actually move on and devote all those resources to doing all the things that we really care about,

be it the popular in the NHS, be it working on new technologies to fight climate change, that's what we should be focusing on, not something that we're clearly not in any sorts of agreement on. How much money have we wasted overall, like since this whole thing started?

Oh, I couldn't tell you, but I've heard the occasional figure and it's eye-watering. We are, and even if you get the idea of money lost, think about the time we've spent focusing on Brexit. Think about what could have been done with that time, money and resources and government will. Every penny that's been spent on Brexit. Think about what could have been done with that time, money and resources and government will. Every penny that's been spent on Brexit and not on a doctor or a nurse,

those are lives that could have been saved. And how much do you think that comes down to pointing out the fact that like a lot of the time in these rooms, especially when they do their, what's their weekly, I'm literally gone brain dead, you know, PMQs. Yeah. You know how it's literally like a boy's changing room and they're all like lads chat. And like it basically is just, I also spoke to Grace Campbell who was saying that her dad basically said it's literally like arguments they've had since school that they're just playing out now as adults throwing their toys out of their pram. And I think that's highlighted this to the majority of the public that actually these people aren't fit to be in charge. And they're just like private school guys running around throwing their willies about like trying to make and so do you think that because of this in some way and i also think it's pride like i think people don't want to

back down on like boris wouldn't be like oh maybe this is better because they literally are so they can't bear the idea that they might have a bit of hubris and say, you know what, I fucked up. No, you're entirely right. I mean, I've said before, if 100% of the country had voted Leave in 2016, it would have been a lot easier to stop Brexit because you wouldn't have any of that feeling of, well, oh, no, I don't want to admit to them that I was wrong. Right. Whereas right now, people are so invested in the identity of I'm a leaver, I'm a remainer, that it makes the conversation so hard because the moment you criticize the concept of leave or the concept of remain, people see that as a personal attack. Yeah, totally. And so things have gotten a lot more tense in the way we discuss things.

Well, I think it has made younger people invest in politics on the one hand, which is really good, but it's definitely the most emotive thing that I remember happening in my whole life. And I think it went, we got really invested in politics on the one hand which is really good but it's definitely the most emotive thing that I remember happening in my whole life and I think it went we got really invested in politics and then it's a complete dropping off now and actually

if anything I'm not I'd rather I would listen to you talking about something but I wouldn't necessarily rely on our people in power to give me a story

because of the whole fake news thing and everything can I ask some questions that Matt asked me which are going to be much more professional than mine

because he was like, you have to ask me. I won't even probably know what they mean. Hi, Matt. I feel like you've probably actually, actually, do you know what?

Okay. I think you've asked, hit me, hit me. I'll give a new take. Okay. Why is the Lib Dems current position on Brexit undemocratic,

i.e. forget the result of the initial referendum? Yeah, unfortunately, in this country, we have a problem of what is democracy. Now, I've said before, Remain was a very specific relationship, whereas 52% that voted for Brexit want completely different relationships. I mean, it's as bad as you've got, well, first of all, if you start, you've got the Brexit party that are saying they don't accept this Brexit. You've got, I met a farmer who, and this was tragic. I almost wanted to cry because she said she voted Brexit, expecting that we'd have the sort of Brexit whereby we have high tariffs with the rest of the world, so that everybody has to buy British. And so that would be really protect her, protect her goods, et cetera. And then that would mean that things would be good for her.

Whereas the sort of Brexit they're talking about now is a zero tariff where you have tons of American beef coming from America, putting her out of business. So there is no majority for any version of Brexit. Now, unfortunately, the way we talk about this is when we voted leave, we have to leave. And anybody who questions leaving, they're undemocratic. Hang on. Sorry. Are you saying that in a general election, people should be bound by the results of a previous vote? Put it this way. If we had a general election at the end of this year, what would you say if somebody then said, hang on, Labour lost in 2017. Why are they allowed to be on the ballot paper? Haven't we already decided this? That's so ridiculous.

Yeah. It is the same thing. Just because, I mean, you could also say that should Labour have become the party of austerity when the Tories won? Do you know what? It's almost like saying how, so like 10 years ago,

if you asked most people, like, would you go vegan? They'd say no. But now a lot of people might be like, actually, I'd consider it. It's like going, no, you can't. You can't change your mind. Exactly. You said 10 years ago, if you asked most people, like, would you go vegan? They'd say no. But now a lot of people might be like, actually, I'd consider it. It's like going, no, you can't. You can't change your mind. Exactly. You said 10 years ago you didn't want to go vegan.

Because if a democracy can't change its mind, it's no longer a democracy. It's a dictatorship. How do dictatorships work? Right. So true. A dictatorship works by you vote in somebody and then he stays in power regardless of how you vote in the future. And any future vote has to be compatible with that first vote. That's not how democracy works.

If you're saying that parties aren't allowed to offer certain options to people, especially when it's very, very clear that 52% was completely incompatible things, and you're saying that the 48% should never have their views expressed again, that is fundamentally undemocratic. Do you think that we, is there, do you have a fear that we'd ever move towards a more totalitarian dictatorship? Is that something that, say, we ended up with the Boris and Nigel bloody party? Is that something that you think would?

So a couple of weeks ago, Boris Johnson, he shut down Parliament. Basically, he closed it down. And it was basically because he essentially wanted to stop Parliament stopping him from taking us out of the EU without a deal. Now, that went to the Supreme Court. And Supreme Court said that what he did was unlawful. Now, that means you've got a prime minister who, let's not forget, wasn't the leader of the Conservative Party when we had our last general election. So nobody has ever voted in

this country with the intention, let's make Boris Johnson prime minister, other than a handful of Tories who happen to be Tory members. Now, that means that you've got an essentially unelected prime minister illegally shutting down parliament in order to force through a version of brexit that in 2016 he said would never happen and which in 2017 the majority of voters voted against via the manifestos they chose that is horrendously undemocratic and the act of essentially a dictator but how i remember seeing this on twitter i got so confused everyone's like he's lied to the queen and i was like what's he like i literally i get i always get the tail ends of stories and like i don't understand what happened but now has he had any rebut like what's happened now because i forgot about that happening so did he get reprimanded uh well he basically

parliament got reopened uh and that's pretty much it and that's it so they just didn't go ahead with it well it got shut down for a few days but then after that it got reopened again and then that's it and that's it doesn't i, there's no consequences for him. And is that because there's no, I guess there's no gatekeepers of him? Is that the problem? Well, I mean, he can be prosecuted. In fact, people would like to do that. But on that particular instance, the Supreme Court said,

we're not going to decide whether or not he's committed a crime in any sort of way. They said, let's just declare that the shutting down of parliament was unlawful and therefore we're going to pretend as if the shutting down never happened, therefore everybody go back to work. Oh my God, it's ridiculous. I'm just going to see if there's any other questions that still come. But I feel like we've done, you said about the clear majority of Brexit. Do you know what, actually, I feel like I've asked some really good questions.

Said about referendum resolve and is it, oh yeah, is it still the will of the people to leave the EU if some people change their minds? That's kind of what we've been talking about, isn't it? Well, I mean, that's the thing. We've framed it as leave versus remain. But ultimately, if you've got Brexiteers who are saying this version of leave is unacceptable,

then it's not the act of leaving that they're talking about. They're talking about the relationship between us and the EU that follows that. And Brexiteers are not agreed as to what that should look like. And if that's the case, then you may say there's a majority to have a different relationship. But the most popular single relationship is the one that 16 million people voted for in 2016. So it makes zero sense to throw that relationship away when the 52% want completely incompatible ones. Yeah. Well, you've honestly cleared this up for me in my mind a lot. I found

this so helpful. But if you had to say, well, go out and vote, but what else can you, what are you, Our Future, Our Choice is an organization or is it? Yeah, we're basically, I quit my job at the end of 2017 and decided to do this full time, created a group called Our Future, Our Choice, or OFOC. And we are essentially a movement of young people saying, hang on, do not fuck up our futures. And how do you orchestrate that as an organiser? Like, how did you even get, I think it's so cool, but how has that become your career and your...

Well, once I quit my job, I mean, I don't... So in 2016, I had like 20 followers on twitter um but this i saw i saw david cameron wetting the bed so i figured i had to get involved uh and then over that time i got to about maybe 10 000 at the start of 2018 um and so i was able to basically say hi everybody i've just quit my job please make sure I don't starve and we raised like um 12,000 the first three months and then an extra 19,000 in the month in the month or so that followed and we've raised over 100,000 to just basically keep us keep our campaign going across the country um and so we've been on well we're on Sky News pretty much every week uh I'm

on the pledge now um we're we're basically just trying to change the conversation because it's been so bad well you know you're definitely doing it like for someone for me that felt so politically illiterate I've even just like catching because I follow you

on social media and I'll just see snippets and I'll go oh okay I get that now and also just I love watching you take down Nigel Farage I find it really funny

it's my favourite thing to do it's so good so yeah people go out and vote we can still I guess then donate or is it a crowdfunding we have crowdfunders on the site.

But please, especially you listening to this job, I know you don't listen to the show. Your job right now is getting everyone you know registered to vote. Okay. Because otherwise, Nigel Farage will be running this country. Because I mean, the Conservative Party, it's not the Conservative Party. I mean, their name, the Conservative Party is the Conservative and Unionist Party. Now, conservative means taking careful decisions around the economy. Nothing we've seen over the past few years is careful decisions about the economy.

Boris Johnson, about business, last year said, fuck business in relation to Brexit. As for unionist, the idea of keeping the United Kingdom together, the deal Boris Johnson just negotiated means that Northern Ireland, a part of the UK, will be following the rules of the EU, but no longer have any ability to shape them. Right now, the UK, as a member of the EU, has 73 of the 750 members of the European Parliament, where the EU makes its laws, meaning we have three times the voting power of the average EU country. The deal Boris Johnson has just signed means the people of Northern Ireland follow those rules with no say at all. And it will be just them that do that, which means they've effectively split the United Kingdom, disunited the United Kingdom in terms of where laws are made.

Now, that means they're not the Conservative Party. They're not the Unionist Party. So what are they? They are essentially just the Brexit Party. Now, that means that Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson are essentially the same thing. Vote for one, you get the other. And as far as what I think most of you would like for the future of this country, if you do not want Nigel Farage to shape your future, register to vote and make sure you are voting at the end of this year and in the referendum to come. Please, for your future and for your future's sake.

Amazing. Thank you so much for joining me, family. This has been so enlightening. My pleasure. And guys, do go and follow Tammy everywhere on social media. And thank you. See you soon. Bye.

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