Citizens of the World: A Stoic Podcast for Curious Travelers - Brexit: How Did We Get Here? (Part 1)

Episode Date: March 15, 2019

On March 29, 2019, the U.K. is scheduled to exit the European Union (Brexit). But no one has any idea what is actually going to happen.    My fellow expats and immigrants are worried about our future legal status in the U.K., which we have made our home. Business owners, especially farmers, are losing business contracts due to economic uncertainty. Mental health issues are on the rise. People are stockpiling food. In recent days, people have been comparing the U.K. to Venezuela!   A lot of the news stories about Brexit are wonky and confusing, so I invited my British friend, Mark Robson, to come on the Postcard Academy podcast to explain what Brexit means in language everyone can understand. (head to postcardacademy.co for show notes).    In part one, Mark and I dive into some European history to explain how Brexit came to be. In part 2, we talk about how it feels to be living in England during this crazy time, which has been described as serious as WWII, and we share our predictions and dreams for the U.K.    I’m your host, Sarah Mikutel. Ready to travel? Sign up for my newsletter and get your free guide to cheap airfare.    Thank you so much for listening to this show. I know you’re busy and have many listening options, so it means a lot to me that you’re here. You are the best.   This podcast is brought to you by Audible. Not a member yet? Postcard Academy listeners can get a FREE audiobook and a 30-day free trial if you sign up via audibletrial.com/postcard   This podcast is also brought to you by World Nomads. Need simple and flexible travel insurance? Get a cost estimate from World Nomads using their handy calculator at postcardacademy.co/insuranceDo you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

Welcome to the Postcard Academy. I'm your host, Sarah Micatel, an American living in England amongst all this Brexit craziness. My fellow expats and immigrants are worried about our future legal status, and business owners, especially farmers, are losing business contracts due to all of this economic uncertainty. Mental health issues are on the rise, people are stockpiling food, but let me back up a second. So this is all happening because the UK is scheduled to leave the European Union in a matter of days. This British exit has been coined Brexit, and I've received some questions about what this means exactly.

A lot of the news stories that are out there are wonky, they're confusing, so I've invited my British friend Mark Robson to come on the show to help me explain what Brexit means in language that everybody can understand, and to also discuss the global consequences of Brexit, which I believe are going to be catastrophic and I am not alone in that opinion. Many economists agree. In part one, Mark and I will dive into some European history to explain how Brexit came to be. And then in part two, we will talk about how it feels to be living in England during this crazy time, which has been described as being as serious as World War II.

And we also share our predictions and dreams for the UK. You should know that there are two types of people over here. Leavers and Remainers. So Leavers are the pro-Brexit people they want out of the European Union. The Remainers are anti-Brexit and want to stay in Europe. So one of the slogans is better together. And if it is not already obvious, Mark and I are both Remainers. I hope you find this episode useful. I will include links to some other Brexit explainers on PostcardiCats. Academy.co in case you just cannot get enough of Brexit. Enjoy the show. Welcome, Mark. Thank you so much for joining me today. It's a pleasure, Sarah. Thanks for asking me along. So at a really high level for anyone who doesn't know, what is Brexit? So Brexit, it's pretty simple word construction. It's broken down to British exit. So it's the process of the UK leaving the EU. The UK had a referendum back in 2016 and voted quite narrowly to leave the EU, that's the European Union, by 52% to 48%. And a lot of people talk about it was the biggest political vote in the UK's history

and 17.4 million people voted to leave. And a lot of those guys hadn't ever voted before. I just want to touch on what the European Union is because after the vote, I think that was like one of the highest Google searches in the UK. People were saying, what is the European Union? It would have been nice if they had Googled that before the vote. Exactly. So after World War II, you know, millions of people died.

Like 40 to 70 million people died in World War II around the world. And a few European countries after that decided it would be a good way to stop killing each other if they formed an economic alliance and that eventually became the European Union. And so today, there are 28 countries in Europe that are part of this alliance. Not all European countries are part of it. And the UK just voted two years ago, as you said, to get out of the EU. So why do you think the UK, why do you think people voted to leave? The UK's always been a bit of an odd fish. There always been a bit of a funny fit. There's a lot of sort of intrinsic pride in the old school UK, so their British empire, the independence, the thing that we helped win both world wars. There's this massive pride

in the UK. And so people have had a real tough time adjusting to the decline of all that, even though it's been over years and kind of it's your grandparents' generation and all that kind of thing. And so we went into the EU, not right at the start, but in the early 70s, we finally decided to go in, and we got a referendum through then. And while we've always been a key player and seen as one of the most important countries in there, along with Germany and France, we've always been the one that's kind of said no to stuff. so we're not in the euro the currency that about half of the countries in the EU use

we're not in this area called Schengen which is this area of again about half the countries where you can just pass from country to country without a passport and we're not in a couple of other things and we've always sort of said no to this and no to that and various other things

so we have been this funny fish and that can have a bad fit but having said that There's millions of people around the UK who love the freedoms that the EU brings. So that's things like being able to work or live anywhere in any of those 28 countries without any extra paperwork. You know, as it stands, either of us, because I know you've got an Italian passport, we could move to Slovakia tomorrow, or I could move to Denmark and set up a business there without anything right now. And so it's massively popular amongst UK citizens.

And yet there's always this kind of little niggle about Brussels telling us what to do. That's a common thing you'll hear over here, that Brussels sets the rules and we just obey. Rather than thinking we're actually part of that decision-making body in Brussels. Yes. And there's like a generational divide as well. The people who voted to leave were more older, and then the people who wanted to stay, like in London, the majority voted to stay in the European Union. Yeah, that's right. So that's typically the case. It's also places like Scotland and Northern Ireland also voted to stay. And the bulk of people who wanted to leave tended to be sort of the rest. So it's a lot of the population.

but kind of the north, a lot of people voted to leave. But you're right, your point about young people and old people. Broadly, that's the case that the older people, maybe who have those memories of Britain being a more powerful nation, voted to leave. And the younger people who are pretty cool with all the opportunities that it offers typically voted to stay. Yeah, because as you said, like, they're the ones who are going,

I think there's like at least a million British people who are working in continental Europe. Do you think that Erasmus programs have had anything to do with people's feelings of, you know, feeling more European than just part of their own country? Yeah, I think certainly, I certainly took advantage of the Erasmus program when I was at university. And the percentage of people in the UK going to university has just gone up and up and up. I think it's around 50% of people now go to university. And Erasmus is a popular feature of all of those courses. It's an option for a lot of people.

And so Arrasmus. Sorry, I should have said what Arasmus is in case people don't know. That's a study abroad program where you're mixing with a bunch of kids from other countries. You're not just sticking with your own university. Yeah, so I did a German and politics degree. And of course, I spent time in Germany. But while we were there, we met English folks who, were doing like a business study program and they had some time in Hungary, some time in France,

as well as Germany. So yeah, I think that could definitely be a factor for younger people. And then so you mentioned that maybe the older generation, they're thinking back to a time when England and the UK were stronger and I guess they're feeling like British identity is sort of fading away. It's threatened in a way. Yeah, completely. Another word that comes up a lot is sovereignty. So sovereignty over our own laws.

And yeah, this kind of pride thing in the past and that was still a world power. I mean, in some extent, we are a strong power. We're kind of up there in the top 10 of GDP. We've got a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. but a lot of those things nowadays are because we're a part of the EU. And so the kind of the two things are linked. It's not just because we're the UK and we're super great and with this big economy where it's linked, I think, to the EU and that's why we're still on those things.

But I think people don't necessarily see that. Also, you know, there's been a rise in nationalism all over the world. this week, I believe, is the eight-year anniversary of when there was a peaceful uprising in Syria. But then the world completely turned their back on the Syrian people when Assad cracked down on them. And then there was a flood of refugees and asylum seekers in Europe. And then there was a huge backlash because millions of people left Syria to save their lives. And yeah, so politicians just sort of fan the flames to, you know, make excuses, I guess, for any problems that are in their country.

Yeah, absolutely. And then I think the other thing that's a factor, something I'm trying to figure out today was that the 2008 crash hit. And that led to a kind of government change. So the Labour Party that had been in power for ages gave way to a coalition government. government. It wasn't necessarily just linked to the crash, but it happened around the similar sort of time. And then there was a lot of government debt because they'd bailed out banks and this and that and the other. And so this program of austerity came in. I'm not sure if it's that well

known around the world, but all the public services were cracked down on. And so people found themselves kind of with less benefits and taking longer to get help. that hospital and public services schools went into decline. And so there's a lot of kind of resentment built up because of that period, which with just talking about, the Chancellor's just talking now about maybe we can start to come out of austerity. But during that period of austerity, people are then seeing immigrants from the EU coming and taking jobs and living their good life and they're kind of putting two and two together and blaming them for their sort of poor situation when a lot of it could have come from this

austerity piece that the government's doing. And yeah, just to be clear, the Europeans who are coming and immigrants who are coming, you know, they're working. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And they're part of the European Union, which is, you know, as you said, it's freedom of movement. So not only is it like free trade, but also people can move where they want.

It's completely, and, you know, it's completely reciprocal. So there's a load of British people living all over Europe. Like if you go to the South Coast of Spain, it's pretty much like a tiny little bit of the UK with kind of bars named after English footballers and everybody speaks English, you know. So it's completely reciprocal. It's not like it's one-way traffic coming into the UK. I think the UK is one of the more wealthy countries. And so you do tend to get people coming here to make more money to do.

then go home after a couple of years. But yeah, like you said earlier, there's a lot of Brits all around Europe. So you mentioned the Chancellor. Could you just give us like a really high level quickly, the political system in the UK? Absolutely. So if you've seen any of this stuff on the TV over the last couple of weeks, because there's a lot going on at the moment, it seems like this thing from another time. It's kind of super anachronistic and looks like it's from Harry Potter or something. But yeah, it's this kind of system where there's 650 or they're about seats, but a seat represents a constituency.

And a constituency is defined every now and again by the government. And so not all of those seats are equally representative. So I can't give you the exact numbers. but let's say one seat could have 10,000 people in it and one seat could have 20,000 people in it. And so it's not that fair system like you would see in Europe. Some Central European countries have this thing called proportional representation where every single vote from every single person counts. That seems fair. Which is fair, right? That's a good system.

So can you tell us the two parties and then who Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn are? Because those are two names that are always in the news now. Yeah, so conservatives are currently in power. They've been described as the most successful political party in the world or something because they're a bit like a chameleon. They kind of change to whatever's popular to get them in power. But they're roughly equivalent to the Republicans. So they are middle to right wing.

They believe in small government. Now our government in the UK is like loads bigger than the US and they do far more things because we're kind of a bit more European and a bit social, but we don't do anywhere near as much as sort of like in Germany or a Denmark where they have these super high taxes and the government runs everything. Then Theresa May, by the way, is the leader of that party. She's the prime minister, yeah. And she's the prime minister.

But the US, you have your two parties and then you vote separately for the president. Here you don't. It's the party with the most vote is in power. and then the leader of that party becomes the prime minister. And so that's how, if Theresa May quit tomorrow, the conservatives will still be in power. They don't need an election. They just put the next person up who they decide is they elect leader of their party.

So when Tony Blair left a few years ago, we may have heard of him, Gordon Brown instantly became prime minister without them having to have an election. Okay. So that's a little. was a quirk of our system. So then the other side of the party, which are roughly equivalent to the Democrats, that's the Labour Party.

And their current leader is this guy called Jeremy Corbyn, who, for kind of a rule of thumb, it's a bit like Bernie Sanders. He's this older guy been campaigning all his life for these very right-on policies. What kind of policies?

Like right on, like politically correct, like the really good thing. he looks after or he tries to look after the poorer people really well. Yeah, he's very, very liberal. When you said right on, like I don't think American listeners would be familiar with that. They may have misered you as right. Right. No, no.

So he's definitely not right wing at all. No, he's not right wing at all. He's kind of the opposite. People accusing him being a communist and a socialist. But he was great. So this is my opinion now. So he was great as of this campaigner and, you know, never gives up campaigning for poor people and all these things, but pretty much nobody, including a lot of his own party, think he would

be a good Prime Minister because he is sort of stuck in his ways and he doesn't do the whole political thing. And I think to be Prime Minister, you need to figure out that there are other ways and you need to kind of bend a bit and flex a bit. And he's a bit, yeah, he's got his thing and he's that. But the funny thing is, over the last few years where he's been in, there's been this kind of halo around him, there's kind of these videos from Glastonbury where people are chanting, oh, Jeremy Corbyn, forgive my singing, but they got really into him for a lot of time.

But I think during this referendum campaign, he's been a bit of a letdown. Yeah, he's, when they do polling, he is always ranked like the least favorite when they give like a list of different politicians. Yeah, the problem is, and this is again, a bit of. detail so I apologize but the problem is his party is sort of the party of the less wealthy people so if you've got a load of money you tend to vote conservative because they're probably going to tax you less and they kind of look after rich people the labor party traditionally looks after the poorer people and so even though some of these poorer people voted leave

a lot of them now are coming round to the idea that they won a second referendum and they'd actually quite like to remain because the EU is super good for social policies, for looking after people, for making sure that there's care for people and that kind of thing. So it is a kind of a left-wing concept. And at the political conference, Corbyn said, we're a Democratic Party, and I'm a Democratic Party, and I'm I will enact what my party tells me to rather than, you know, me and my buddies at the top of the party are going to decide what goes on. So he's like, this is great. This is cool. This is the future. And so the majority of his party won a second referendum. But Jeremy Corbyn himself is pretty Eurosceptic. He's not a big fan of Europe. So you might hear this term Eurosceptic, which is sort of dislike Europe. And so he innately is Eurosceptic. So he's having a real tough time. doing what he said he would do, which was listen to his party, and vote for a second referendum.

And so he begrudgingly has allowed it onto the table, and it's always described as on the table. And yet, they never get there. Yeah. And that's so interesting to me that he doesn't like Europe, because as you mentioned, they are more for, I think, the values that the EU declares are human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, rule of law, and human rights. I mean, that sounds pretty great to me. That sounds exactly like what we need in this world right now. Exactly, right? Who wants to go against that?

Yeah, so it's an interesting one. Yeah, and so Teresa May and Jeremy Corbyn have like a strange dynamic. Because Jeremy Corbin, as you said, does want to leave Europe, but now his people are changing their minds and they would like to stay. And Teresa May originally wanted to stay in the EU. but since the vote, she's been very robotic and sort of, you know, just on automation of trying to get the UK out, even though she probably doesn't think it's good for the country. Yeah, there's some crazy stuff going on. And I've been reading the detail of these last few votes, which we might touch upon later. But there's all sorts of criss-crossing of kind of this party should be voting for this.

but it's good because the people are kind of going against their party and going with either their heart or their head instead of being loyal to their party because this is kind of so serious and we're so close to the wire that people are giving up on this party loyalty thing that they're used to. With Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn, there's also this other thing I read about recently, which is super interesting. and both of them are seen as their antidote to the previous leaders of their party. So Tony Blair was in power for 10 years and a lot of Labour people didn't like him because they thought he moved too far to the right. But what he was was a super great political operator. He was kind of a charmer. He wooed the middle people of voters, the wavering voters, to vote for Labour, which is why they were in power for long. And then David Cameron came in, who you may have heard of, he was the previous prime minister,

and he again was this kind of fairly slick charmer, always had the right thing to say, and again, was this kind of personality politician, which I guess you're used to in the US. And then Corbyn and May are kind of the opposite. There's almost devoid of personality. May really isn't comfortable in public situations. She just kind of gets on and does the job like a robot like you were saying. And then Corbyn is just so nailed to his policies and almost gets, when you hear him speak in the houses of parliament, he's almost like he's flustered the whole time. He's got no smooth charm offensive on top of everything.

So it's really interesting that their reactions to their sort of visceral reaction to their to their predecessors. So you mentioned David Cameron and he is the. reason we are in this whole jam. Can you talk about him and his whole role in the Brexit? Yeah. So you can't really talk about Cameron without talking about this guy called Nigel Farage. So Nigel Farage is a comedy figure, sort of. But as yet, it's done really quite well. And before I talk about Cameron, I'll just tell me a bit about Farage. I can't really compare him to anybody other than all you need to know is his best buddies with Donald Trump, or was it,

one point. I think you're going to need to break it down a little bit more for people outside of the UK. Okay, cool. So he is, his whole life has been dedicated, political life, to getting us out of the European Union. And so a few years ago, he formed this party called UKIP, which pretty simply stood for UK Independence Party. They had this pretty terrible pound sign as their symbol for a lot of the years. And because of the whole austerity and people being poor and them thinking that, you know, the immigrants are all to blame, they're like, oh, well, maybe that's right. Well, maybe it's all the EU's fault. And so he became more and more and more popular. And where his votes sit is right in the territory where people who would normally vote for the conservatives would

sit. So he wasn't really making inroads into the Labor vote. He was making inroads into the conservative vote. And so he wasn't really making inroads into the conservative vote. And so he wasn't really making inroads into the conservative vote. And so the conservatives felt threatened by this and thought that they needed to react. Now, the conservatives have always been pretty Eurosceptical, or at least quite a big part of their party, have. And the part of the party, this Eurosceptical has always had a lot of power, and you can still see that again in these votes over the last few days. So the conservatives were out of power. They felt threatened. And so what they did was, well, they thought, well, we'll maybe take on some of these policies to win more votes back to us,

even though, you know, we don't really think they're the best policies. And so this UKIP effect changed the way the conservatives were. And that basically led to the referendum. So when you say it changed the conservatives, it made them more anti-immigration, or in what way did it change them? So it made this whole thing of leaving the EU, I think leaving the EU, a thing for them. So if you'd have asked anybody, what are we now, 2019, if you'd have asked anybody 15 years ago, I don't think anybody would even thought of living the EU, but because of this

UKIP raising this issue up and kind of moving this blame towards the EU, then the Conservative party adopted it to get those votes. And then the Conservatives came into power, I think it was 2010 and slowly this policy kind of raised itself up through the more extreme wings in the party and to keep them happy David Cameron said right we're going to have a referendum and so he said he would do it and so he had to do it even though he himself didn't want to get out of the EU a lot of the party didn't want to get out of the EU but this this became their policy and so they went through with it and and this is where we are now yeah so they never thought that people actually would have voted for Brexit.

And then everybody was completely shocked. And then for the last few years, we've been trying to figure out, what do we do with this? This was our Trump moment. So in the office I work in, I've got European colleagues, British colleagues, and American colleagues.

And that year, we had the twin shocks of Brexit and Trump. And there was just the faces of people the next morning were like, what just happened? That wasn't meant to happen. I think when a lot of people hear Brexit, they don't really know what's going on. You know, maybe it's just like some sort of internal political thing. The consequences, if this actually goes through, are huge, not just for the UK, but I don't think it's an exaggeration to say it threatens democracy.

You know, as we know it, the EU was formed because there were several wars in a row where There are millions and millions of people that, and like in today, we think, you know, it's been peaceful for forever, but actually peace is like the rare exception. And if the UK falls, then the European Union is worried that other countries are going to want to leave. And it just breaks my heart that this institution that I think this world desperately needs to counterbalance some other forces in the world, like their values are. human rights, freedom, democracy, equality, rule of law, and human rights, as I said. And so,

I mean, if you can't stand for that, what else do we have? Right? Exactly. Exactly. I would think it's like, you know, you see these kind of future movies about people exploring into space. And when they come back to the earth, there's kind of this government that rules the earth. And I think the EU is like a foretaste of that. It's like if the UN was super powerful, you know, the UN does a great job. But I think they're at the whim of powerful countries that go against the UN rules. And then the UN sort of goes, okay, we can't do anything about that. But the EU is like the next level up where it's like a club. But the governing body can overrule individual countries.

And so it's pretty powerful. And it has got all those great values you're talking about. The one thing they didn't get right is the representation of the people. And it's because they have to inch a, because you've met French people, you've met German people, and you met Italian people. And they're all pretty different. And they're all pretty proud. And they've got these super long histories of amazing events and amazing things that they've done and achievements and stuff.

And so you can't just suddenly say, hey, we're going to be one country. It's going to be called the United States of Europe. We're starting tomorrow. And so this progress has been gradually been made sort of like tiptoeing along since the 1950. when it was started. And we are where we are today, but they haven't got the democracy bit right. So there's this NEP thing, so you can vote for your member of the European Parliament. But they have super strange powers, and the Council of Europe still has a lot of powers who aren't elected.

And so that puts a lot of people off them as well. But again, you can't just jump in and overall the votes in the other countries. So it's really kind of tricky. But you're right. Sorry, just to come on your other point, the thing about if the UK does end up tumbling out, then could that lead to other disgruntled countries tumbling out as well? And then does the whole thing disintegrate? And then we're back to where we were in 1939 or whatever.

Yes, the European Union is not perfect by any means, but better together, as we say. Absolutely. As we say. And gosh, I'm just thinking about to what you said about, austerity and different world events that have happened over the years. So I guess, in a sense, the Americans can be blamed because of the financial crisis that we kicked off in the rest of the world. I think that had a lot to do with it.

Yeah. Yeah. So we've got the financial crisis. Then we have Syria and then the nationalism that went global after the fact because politicians, you know, exploited death and used. immigrants as scapegoats, even if they were in countries that weren't even seeing these immigrants and refugees. Crazy.

So does the European Union want the UK to stay? Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I think there's some people in their hearts would be like, oh, please leave. You've been such a pain in our side for so many years. Because like I say, we've always been that country once said no or tweak this or tweak that. But then, you know, I think if you've got to, if you think about your bunch of friends, it's going to be really boring if they're all the same, right?

And everybody goes, yeah, let's do this. And everybody goes in the same direction. It's great. So that person who sort of says, how about this or how about that? Or no one only that's a good idea. What about this? And so the UK being this sort of bigger country, like a Germany, like a France, has always had this powerful way of slowing them everybody down.

And not always in a negative way. You know, it's maybe stopped some of the things that might have gone too quickly if you hadn't had been there. And certainly some of the other countries who are a little bit half in, half out, like maybe at Denmark, I'm sure people of Denmark won't mind me saying that. But they're also not in the Euro. They're also a little bit reticent about some of the EU laws. And I think they've enjoyed the UK being there because they kind of speak for them.

There's the guys in the middle who probably. are doing this because of all their tragedies they've suffered. But the Germans, the French, the Italians, the Spanish to some extent, all there, sort of, they joined a little bit later. But they're the ones that are super keen on pushing ahead with everything. And you know this talk of a European army,

this talk of a European, this, that, everything with Europe in front, basically, this talk of. And a lot of that has been slowed down by countries like the UK. And so, yeah, I do think they all miss us. I do, think, like I say, that if for nothing else, then they're scared that there'll be a domino effect. But yeah, I do think they're trying to do everything to keep us in. And so they've been really tough with the way that we're leaving. They've been really tough. They're not giving any ground.

But at the same time, today, the UK voted for an extension to the process. And I think they're going to try and make that work as hard as they can. Because I think they actually hope that we overturn the decision and we stay in. Well, I think, well, that's definitely what we hope. We actually were in a People's March. What do you remember about that March? What was that like for you? It's just awesome. I think the first thing was not being able to get in touch with you. I was like, this is kind of weird. My texts aren't going. My, I'm not getting the internet. I was kind of wanting to look up in newspapers and see what was going on. And it's kind of only after the fact that you realized instead of the 100,000 people they thought were going to be there, there were 700,000 people

there. And so everybody's on their phone and everybody's texting. And so it's like, you know, when you go to a big football game or if you go to a big concert, you know, where you have that thing where you can't text anybody because there's just too many people using the signal. So that was the first sign. And then just this variety of people from all walks of life, old and young and just a passion. And one of the nice things about it was that whenever I've been to things like that before, this sort of, the thing that gets handed out is like

a thing that's been perfectly printed and a slogan that's been worked on by the PR people or the marketing people and the flag is all the same and all that lot. And everybody's carrying this uniform flag down the thing and it's great. Here there was a little bit of that but mainly it was like homemade stuff with banners and face painting

and like, woolly hats that people have made at home. And there was this real genuine, I've done this from my heart and I've made this because I really believe this, you know, rather than, yeah, give me the thing and I'll carry it. The sun was like shining down on us. Everyone, it's like a party atmosphere. Everyone was like so happy and so hopeful. And I think that was something that we desperately needed at that time because the world is just going crazy right now. Like if you read the headlines, And everybody is stressed out. And I just had the best time that day walking around with you.

So I'm glad that we found each other. And yeah, just being in that environment with all of those people, like you said, with homemade signs. And everyone just felt like, yes, actually, our voices are actually being heard. I think that's something that just felt so good. But all the news stories after this one were like, wow, look at all these people. This must be serious. You know, this is like nearly a.

million people on the street. And just to slip in a little bit of an advert, I can't unfortunately make it. But on March the 23rd, there's going to be another one, which is supposedly six days before the end of the Brexit period. So we're supposed to be leaving on March the 29th at 11 p.m. And so March the 23rd is sort of the last Saturday before that. And so if anybody's listening to this and they can get to London for March the 23rd, there'll be another huge march. I wouldn't be surprised if it's more than 700,000 people, because this is kind of

the last chance saloon. And I'm slightly gutted that I'm not going to be able to make it. Oh, I can't believe you can't go. No, I'm on a trip, unfortunately, but I bet it's going to be fantastic. So yeah, it was just a wonderful day, wasn't it? And just great to make you feel like you're doing something that matters. Yeah, because there's so much going on in the world where you feel like, oh gosh, I have like no control about this. This is all just spinning out of control. And when we were all there together and we were marching toward Parliament

and there were so many people together that we couldn't even get anywhere near it because the entire street walk, like going up to parliament was blocked because there were so many people there and we just couldn't go any farther. And we conveniently got stuck in an area where there was a man who had a gigantic stereo

and it turned into a giant dance party near him and then we were near the grocery store and we were able to buy beer and wine so that was just the perfect end to that day. It felt very European and yet very British at the same time, right? Just like pop into the supermarket to get a beer. Dan's just a guy who just rocked up on his bike.

Well, it was like a tricycle, wasn't it? With like a big stereo and people were dancing and it was just like, oh, this is cool. Yeah, and like you said, it was British and Europeans together because there's a few million Europeans living here and working here in the UK. And yeah, so it was nice to have like the British flags and then the EU flags, but then flags from all over Europe. So that was great.

That People's March was seriously one of the best days of my life. To be surrounded by all of those people who believe that we can reverse our mistakes and strive for something bigger and better and greater than ourselves, that is the kind of world that I want to live in. Yesterday, if you are listening to this show on March 15th, 2019, Parliament voted against having a second people's vote on Brexit, and that was why Mark and I were marching that day in October, but hope is not lost.

In part two, Mark and I will explain why there is still a chance there will be another vote, and a chance that the UK will remain in Europe. If you're flying to the UK, this story, spring, invest in some travel insurance in case Brexit complicates your flights or gets them canceled altogether. Hopefully that doesn't happen, especially for you, Mom, who's coming in April. If you haven't booked any travel recently, head on over to postcardacademy.co slash airfare, where you can download my free guide to finding the cheapest flights.

That's all for now. Thanks for listening, and have a beautiful week wherever you are. Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot. I created a free conversation sheet sheet with simple formulas that you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you're in a meeting or just talking with friends. Download it at sarah micotel.com slash blank no more.