This is Just Another Post About Brexit

Dear Readers,

Elena, Luca and I would like to talk this week of a very hot topic: Brexit.

We were very good at planning a timely release of this post. However, things have turned a bit messy lately and 29th March is no longer THE fateful date. Nevertheless, we thought we would go ahead and express our feelings and thoughts on the recent events and how they could affect the world of libraries (and beyond).

Brexit “is the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU), following a referendum held on 23 June 2016 in which 51.9 per cent of those voting supported leaving the EU”, according to Wikipedia.

However the word “Brexit” has spurred the most different reactions and assumed the most diversified facets and meanings. We want to give our interpretation of Brexit too and, to do so, we will be using this word as an acronym. We librarians love acronyms, don’t we?

B = Boundaries

I confess I was undecided if using “boundaries” or “Babel”, but the underlying concept is pretty much the same. I will articulate this. When I heard about the referendum result I was very upset. Being a European citizen in the UK, I felt unwelcome and I felt that the UK citizens were asking me to leave. Then, I started to widen my perspective: it was not just about me. Thousands of other people were feeling the very same way. And I suddenly remembered the story of the Tower of Babel: it might not fit perfectly, I doubt there is a religious component in Brexit; but this sensation that humanity is drifting away from collaboration, integration, tolerance and the sense of belonging to the same place. We literally speak several different languages, but our lack of understanding is deeper than that. We don’t want to understand one another and work together. We keep building boundaries. We need to keep the others away. We are selfish. We want to keep our “precious” (hey Gollum!) stuff to ourselves.

I work in an academic library: students come from every corner of the Earth. What is going to happen when Brexit will become a reality? Will the University still be attracting international students? I guess it will depend on factors such as tuition fees and whether their qualification will be recognised or not abroad. What is going to happen to Erasmus projects? Will the boundaries set by Brexit hinder the free movement which students and researchers can now benefit of?

Brexit is a never ending list of unanswered questions. How unsettling.

R = Risk

Considering that a deal has not yet been agreed, it is basically impossible to estimate what the risks of Brexit are. Uncertainty and worry are wide-spread diseases nowadays.

How many jobs are at stake? This is not only true for information professionals of course, but for everyone. I also wonder whether the chances of obtaining a job for European citizens living in the UK will be affected. Will it become more difficult for us to be hired?

Thinking from an academic perspective, there is lots of uncertainty for researchers too: most of the times researchers cooperate with colleagues at international level and receive European funding. There is the concrete risk that UK institutions will lose access to these funds, which would be a hard blow for their budgets.

In addition, I know this is not library-related, but, since I am Italian I have to express my fear: will we still find nice food in the supermarkets? No offence, British pals, but most products are from countries like Spain, Italy, the Netherlands etc. Food is quite an institution for us, you know!

E = Europe

As Laura has pointed out, Brexit means British Exit from the European Union. What does it mean? A UK referendum in 2016 showed that more than 51% of British people wanted to leave the European Union. Why did this happen? Various reasons.

It has been a process involving all the political parties, with different promises from them.

Two separate groups emerged: the Leavers (those who voted to leave the EU) and the Remainers (those who want to remain in the EU).

Different factors influenced this gap: age, geography and education, to name just a few. Alexander Betts, during his 2016 Ted Talk pointed out that the younger Remainers are more open to globalisation and the older Leavers are the most conservative, fearing that the free movement would conduct to too much- open-borders and that immigrants would take away the jobs of the Brits. Hence, this would open the way to nationalism.

This is a widespread phenomenon in Europe: I am thinking about Marine Le Pen in France, or the Italian political panorama, there is a tendency to general distrust in the European Union system.

It is true that the EU is criticized because of some unpopular political decisions regarding fundamental aspects of a Country, the fact that the EU doesn’t act as a democracy. However, many are the benefits for being in the EU, and that freedom of movement so much feared by the Leavers, let the Brits have those cheap flights to those places in Spain, France, Italy, much adored by the same Leavers. Also, it has to be taken into account that the freedom within the EU borders allows European people the chance to study in different Countries, policies about equal-pay and food labelling.

X = Xenophobia

Why are we here now? To politely quote the famously infamous PM answer reported here a couple of days ago, “F*** knows”. My letter probably can show one of the reasons that we think about, but we do not want to admit to ourselves. The big X of authoritarian memory, an X that is coming popular again in Europe (or shall I say it’s a global tendency? Think about big walls and A-bombs). What is “Control Over Borders” if not an euphemism for Xenophobia? Why are we so scared about diversity? I see what is happening in my home country, I see what is happening here. But we keep our eyes closed. Recently, I took part in a meeting about Islamophobia in schools, here, in Edinburgh. And yes, it is happening. More than 50% of people in schools, primary or secondary, have experienced verbal islamophobia. This is something we should think about, as librarians. We should be the ones nurturing our patrons in an enriching environment, promoting communication between all the different cultures that are part of the UK landscape. We are the ones that should be there to challenge fears and unacceptable behaviour, in public, in school and in university libraries, and all other libraries. We should work together, all the library souls that we embody in the representations of our profession should probably start to communicate amongst themselves, and then facilitate communication between the various parts of the UK society. 

I = Interdependence

Do we still believe that we are living in an island? Oh, well, we are. But what I mean is, there are not sharks in the ocean (less than before for sure). No missiles in the air and we can fly? Do you get what I mean? Globalisation is real. And I am talking to the very proud Brexiteer that will get their Blue Passports! It’s public knowledge, but since I am librarian and I like to distribute information, just in case, be aware that those very British Blue passports are made by a European firm, a Franco-Dutch one,  to be precise. As we noticed a couple of letters above, being part of the EU means not only having better food at an affordable price, but also having qualified workforce alongside local one and foster a culture for innovation, where different experiences and backgrounds mingle together to create something more organic and powerful than the two single identities. Not to (re)mention the freedom of movement that goes both ways. Yes, we live on an Island, but we do not live under a glass bell. Think twice.

T = Transition

It is not yet understood what is going to happen with Brexit: what will happen to British citizens, what will happen to EU citizens actually living in UK, what will happen to the UK as a whole. Especially since some of the political promoters of the same exit have left the government, some others have shifted direction and the Remainers movement is not losing hope creating marches and petitions to change the 2016 referendum results.

Obviously, Governments in the EU (as well as the UK) are preparing themselves in case Brexit should actually happen: Florence airport has already built a different section for travellers to the UK; in the motorway, at the borders of France and Germany there are separate lanes for those with destination UK. On the website of the British Government there are instructions for those non-British citizens of EU nationality with residence in Great Britain: it will be possible for them to apply for a pre-settled status (proving the residence in the UK for less than 5 years), or a settled status (with proof of residence in the UK for at least 5 years).

While this is one known consequence of Brexit, there are many others that is not possible to foresee. What we can highlight here is that the UK relies on people coming from the European Union and aspects of the UK society like health, education, public services as well as hospitality would surely encounter obstacles in order to function.

We would like to conclude this post with a notorious and - we feel - very appropriate quote:

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you will join us
And the world will live as one (John Lennon)

References and further reading:

Betts, Alexander (2016) Why Brexit happened -- and what to do next. 12 August. Available at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcwuBo4PvE0 [last accessed: 01/04/2019]

Brexit (2019). Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brexit [last accessed: 01/04/2019]

Dean, Samina. Islamophobia in Edinburgh Schools. Available at: www.sacc.org.uk/sacc/resources/iphobia_schools_web.pdf [last accessed: 01/04/2019]

Green, Hellen (2017) Why Did Brexit Happen? 06 December. Available at:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-did-brexit-happen_b_10716064?guccounter=1&guce_referrer_us=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZWNvc2lhLm9yZy9zZWFyY2g_cT13aHkrYnJleGl0K2hhcHBlbmVkJmFkZG9uPW9wZW5zZWFyY2g&guce_referrer_cs=Dls6B3iDoWV8ytdTvOiqeA [last accessed: 01/04/2019]

GuildHE (2019) Brexit Bulletin, 18 March. Available at: https://gallery.mailchimp.com/b736b238f281eaae80dce598c/files/6eeed75f-f09d-4b15-9529-76257200396f/Brexit_Bulletin_15_March_2019.pdf [last accessed: 01/04/2019]

Hunt, Alexander and Wheeler, Brian (2019) Brexit: All you need to know about the UK leaving the EU, 31 January. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32810887

Rankin, Jennifer (2019) EU parliament's centrist coalition set to lose majority, poll finds, 18 February. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/feb/18/eu-parliaments-centrist-coalition-set-to-lose-majority-poll-finds-european-people-party-socialists-democrats [last accessed: 01/04/2019]

Stewart, Heather and Rawliston, Kevin. (2018) Post-Brexit passports set to be made by Franco-Dutch firm. 22 March.  Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/mar/22/post-brexit-passports-set-to-be-made-by-franco-dutch-firm [last accessed: 01/04/2019]

The Guardian (2019) Is this minister's sweary response where we've got to on Brexit? – video. 29 March. Available at:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2019/mar/29/is-this-mps-sweary-response-where-weve-got-to-on-brexit-video [last accessed: 01/04/2019]