What you might need to know

Design by Emmanuelle Schon
This video includes AI-generated content produced under human supervision. Script by Dr Emmanuelle Schön-Quinlivan.

This class focuses on Brexit.

Brexit came about because the Prime Minister, David Cameron, who was re-elected in 2015, promised the British people a referendum on whether the UK should stay in the EU or leave the EU. It was a political calculation on the part of the Prime Minister to please the increasingly vocal people in his party who wanted out of the EU. Cameron himself campaigned for Remain. He hoped that a strong victory of Remain would keep the anti-EU people in his party quiet. A referendum was organised in 2016. This is a good opportunity to remind the children that an election is a vote for a person (or a political party) and a referendum is a vote on a question.

The Brexit referendum was about whether to stay or leave the EU. On 23 June 2016, 52% of the people living in the UK voted to leave. However, there were huge disparities across the UK. A majority in Scotland and NI voted to stay; it was the same in London, for example. But a majority in England and Wales voted to leave. Overall, a majority of people across the UK voted to leave the EU. This is why it is important to get the children to understand the difference between England and the UK. The UK is a four-piece puzzle country with England, Wales, Scotland and NI. It was the UK leaving even if not all the pieces voted to go.

There are many reasons why the UK wanted to leave. It is incorrect to say that the UK never wanted to be part of the EU but they certainly didn’t want a political union or an ever closer Union. The UK liked the idea of an economic union limited to free trading in a big Single Market.

One reason given during the campaign was summarised in the slogan:’Take back control!’ The UK didn’t want to implement rules and regulations that it hadn’t voted for at a national level. It didn’t want the shared sovereignty which is at the heart of the EU whereby you pool in common decisions about certain issues. They wanted to decide for themselves who could come into their country. They didn’t want the freedom of movement of people which applies across the Single Market.

A lot of lies were told during the campaign, on both sides. In particular a double decker bus stated that if the UK left the EU, they could use the £350 million sent to the EU every week to fund the NHS. The day after the referendum, one of the leaders of the campaign, Nigel Farage, was invited on TV and admitted it was a lie.

Ultimately, the UK spent over 3 years between June 2016 and end of 2019 negotiating with the EU the conditions of its withdrawal. One of the main issues in this withdrawal agreement was the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Indeed the only land border between the UK and the EU is now on the island of Ireland. To avoid a hard border, which would have breached the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, it was decided that Northern Ireland would stay in the Single Market for goods and the border between the UK and the EU would be in the Irish Sea.
After 2021, practical challenges emerged, especially around the Northern Ireland Protocol and rules to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland by keeping NI aligned with some EU standards. This caused political tension and trade friction.

Over 2022–2023, the UK and EU negotiated adjustments. In 2023, the Windsor Framework was agreed to simplify checks and ease tensions. In particular, the Windsor Framework created a “green lane” for goods staying in Northern Ireland, reducing routine checks on products coming from Great Britain.

The Brexit Deal means a lot more checks, red tape, therefore costs and delays. Brexit was always a lose/lose scenario – For many members of the EU, it was good to have the UK as part of the trio of large member states rather than a tandem of France and Germany.

To add a little twist to this story, we could see another independence referendum in Scotland, which would lead to Scotland’s independence and its potential application to become a member of the EU. A little bit of fictional politics, but some children have asked!

Good links to help:
BREXIT: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-32810887
The Windsor Framework: https://www.europeanmovement.ie/the-windsor-framework-explained/