General Introduction

Hello. My name is Dr Tim Oliver. I'm a senior lecturer at

the University of London campus,

and I'm going to talk to you today about understanding Brexit.

Now Brexit is a massive topic, and it's a very controversial one.

It is consumed British politics, but how do we understand it?

How can we break it down and come to terms with what Brexit is

and what it's going to lead to?

And in this little course of videos, I'm going to talk you through the causes,

the consequences in the meaning of Brexit

and in a way that's kind of talking about the past, the present

and the future of Brexit.

But let's begin by answering two basic questions.

First, why study Brexit and second, how should we study Brexit?

Well, first, why study Brexit?

Well, as I said, Brexit is consumed British politics.

If you can understand Brexit, you can understand the contemporary United Kingdom.

It's PA politics, political economy and society.

Its unity, its constitution, its place in the world.

It's a great way by which you can cast a

light or look into the heart of British politics.

Brexit isn't only British politics.

There's lots of other things,

but it's one of the best ways we know now to study the contemporary United Kingdom.

But Brexit isn't just about the U. K.

It's also about the European Union,

and it tells us something about European

integration about European politics more broadly,

not just the European Union, about how the EU operates, how it negotiates

and its place in the world as well.

Brexit how some echoes across Europe in terms of how similar it is

in terms of some populist and nationalist

opinions elsewhere in the European Union.

So when we study, Brexit were also studying the contemporary European Union.

Third,

Brexit is a great example of a country

voting for something that could fundamentally change it,

and you don't see that happen very often in the world or in political science.

Brexit could be what what's sometimes called a critical juncture,

something that will change Britain profoundly in terms of its unity, its idea,

entity, its place in the world.

And you don't often get to study that, especially in a country like Britain,

where there's a very open debate where there's lots of information,

lots of analysis, and it's all in the English language which is, of course,

a very easy language to learn

and work with international relations.

Fourth,

it allows us to test lots of ideas and theories

to do with international relations and political science and economics.

We haven't seen a country try and disengage in this

way from its major trading and economic partners before,

or at least we haven't seen it for a long time.

So this is cause us to test lots of theories and ideas about economics

and about European integration

and about how the British state itself works.

So how is it that we're going to understand what's been going on in the UK?

Can we model this? Can we theorise this?

This is a great test. You don't get that very often.

For those reasons. Brexit is something very interesting.

It can tell us a lot of things,

but then there's the question of how not just why study it,

but how are we going to study this

Brexit itself as a word has become a very

big catch all word that can be slightly meaningless.

It can be a bit like globalisation or neoliberalism or europeanisation.

It can be this catch all term

that often define defies any specific meaning, which is one of the big problems

that will come onto in this course. So how are we going to study this?

Well,

the first way we can study this is by thinking

about it in terms of a series of processes,

processes that are unfolding between the UK and the EU within the UK,

at local national regional levels,

processes that are happening internationally between the European

Union and the rest of the world.

Now that the U.

K is leaving and between the UK and the rest of the world,

so you can look at the process is.

But in looking at the processes,

we need to break those processes down and try and understand them.

And that's what this course is going to do.

We're going to look at the causes, the consequences

and the meaning of Brexit.

Now the causes, we're gonna mainly be looking at the past.

We're gonna be looking at what caused Brexit.

How did Britain find itself in a position whereby it held a

referendum on whether to leave or remain in the European Union?

Is that does that reflect a history of UK EU relations?

where Britain has been an awkward partner.

For example, was this inevitable that Britain would vote

to leave?

So we'll look at the causes and we'll also look at the referendum itself,

how the campaign ran

and what legacy that left for what happened next,

which is to look at the processes by which the consequences have been dealt with.

Now those consequences are within the United Kingdom in terms of

attempt to try and define what it is that Brexit means,

but also in terms of what it's meant for the political parties,

for British government, for the European Union,

they've all been wrestling with something that's unprecedented.

We've never done this before.

That, then leads us on to understanding the meaning of Brexit.

How is it that we can define what this issue is about?

What is it that the British people voted for in June 2016, when 52% of them,

or about 52% voted leave?

That also leads us in lots of other

issues to do with Brexit about how you can

interpret Brexit in terms of wider global European trends,

wider political and economic trends.

Is there something about Brexit that can tell us something else about wider issues

in human society?