Things that will be more difficult after Brexit
5x5 Two days to go, and five things that will not be made easier by leaving the unwieldy economic and political block that is the EU.
1 Keeping the elderly alive Make no mistake, the real strain on Britain’s public services isn’t immigrants, it’s the elderly. People just aren’t dying fast enough and they aren’t saving enough money to be not dead either. Meanwhile, young people aren’t reproducing fast enough to create new taxpaying workers, partly because kids are expensive but mainly because being young is bloody good fun. The solution isn’t Logan’s Run: immigrants are the solution, an instant generation of ready-to-work taxpayers raised at another country’s expense. Older voters, who need immigrants’ taxes to pay for their winter fuel allowances, free TV Licences and subsidised Ovaltine, are most likely to vote for Brexit. And there’s a lot of them. It’s an irony that would make Alanis Morissette weep. Thanks, Grandma.
2 Holidays in Europe Why? Because we’ve been a lot of pissy shits about our neighbours — many of whom would also like to reform the EU — and now they’ve got no good reason to be nice to a nationality which already refuses to learn even a few basic phrases of foreign-speak. Imagine the disdain of a French waiter delivered with cool German efficiency, or Greek restaurants smashing the plates before they’re delivered. And those cheap cocktails around the Med? Now delivered to the British with extra jizz. Romantic dinner in Split? Now with spit.
3 Work and study in Europe Britain is the EU’s 5th largest exporter of people to other European states, and it’s becoming more and more common for Brits to live around the EU, whether for study, work or retirement. If you’re a student it’s often cheaper than the UK to study overseas, and in some places it’s free. I would imagine that it looks more attractive than ever to British students. However the exit is negotiated, it’s unlikely that working or studying on the European mainland is going to get any easier.
4 Science No human endeavour benefits more from international collaboration than science, and British scientists benefit enormously from European funding and collaboration with their European counterparts, not just in the pure sciences but in medicine, technology and engineering. European money which comes to British universities will go elsewhere if we leave, and I have no faith that a Brexitly-minded government would have the wisdom to replace it (STEM funding creates employment but it doesn’t win votes). Pan-European organisations and companies will continue, like CERN, the ESA, and Airbus, but their work will be made more difficult by unravelling EU agreements on employment and travel. Major Tim Peake may not be the first British astronaut funded by the British government, but he may be the last for a long time.
5 Looking foreigners in the eye Britain will be known worldwide as “the country that left the EU”. At best this will be embarrassing, but it’s quite possible we’ll also be known as “the country that collapsed the EU and lost our industries a major consolidated export market” or even “the country whose hissy fit ended more than a half a century of peace and prosperity after centuries of war, in turn destabilising the delicate balance of geopolitical power around its borders, distracting the world from the urgent task of dealing with global climate change and removing the diplomatic tools necessary to do so”. But I’m looking forward to a more uncertain world, where encountering strangers is a Game-of-Thrones style encounter in which no-one’s right hand is far from whatever crude weapons we have left to defend our goods and chattels.
(thanks to https://fullfact.org/ for background data)
