This house believes that Brexit has been a disaster and now must be reversed
Brian Cox as Logan Roy from Succession appears on screen to deliver the prologue to warn the audience to be respectful and suddenly we’re in: 4 people that defend Brexit as a disaster and 4 people pro-Brexit. An open debate with plenty of room for audience interaction.
The amazing crowd control and improvisation from the ex-speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow is commendable as he might have the toughest job in the room.
This debate show, devised by Tasmina Ahmed-Sheik, starts with British politician and economist Alex Salmond:
“Brexit was born to fail.” After 7 years Salmond alerts to the 5% decrease in income with the barriers to trade and decrease in productivity.
“The economic damage is and will be felt by those who can afford it the least.”
David Davies MP follows Salmond with a question: Who resigns more frequently the European commissioners or British PMs? This leads to some audience reaction as the question might not be so easy to answer.
Davies focused on comparisons to other countries before and after Brexit to make his argument, “We were losing from Europe. We’re paying more per capita than Germany.”
While refuting Salmond arguments describing forecasts as guesswork, he claims Brexit gave England a competitive advantage, “since Brexit we’ve had more tech investment than Germany.”
The MP finishes his speech claiming that now we’re free to run our own country. We’re free to make our own decisions, right or wrong.
Business owner and activist Gina Miller starts off with what she calls the “real consequences of Brexit”. She focuses her argument on 3 areas: sovereignty, migration, and the NHS. Regarding sovereignty, Miller reminds the audience of the definition which includes having a seat and a voice at the table, and alerts that we’re no longer in the room so our influence has decreased. The cut in migration meant that nurses stopped coming over and there has been a lack of staff in almost every sector. The funding of the NHS simply hasn’t happened. “The money hasn’t gone to the NHS.”
She brings real numbers and facts which “might be inconvenient” as she looks over at the Brexiteers. “The evidence is here. It’s been 7 years and we’re hurting. We should be there at the top of the table.”
Next up the journalist Brexiteer Mike Graham brings jokes and his amazing comedic timing. He dismisses all the facts by saying “For every single fact you can’t bring a statistical draft from a random university that says you’re completely right”.
His argument is indeed not backed up by facts. Instead of addressing the issue he focuses on the opposition. While the amusing crowd work and great personality make him a breath of fresh air between the tension in the room his views add nothing to the discussion. “Just get over it, you’re not worse than before”.
Andrew Marr comes in sleek as ever “Mike Graham promised a fact-free speech and he’s done it.”
The Scottish journalist and broadcaster brings a different perspective as he defends that while Brexit is a disaster we can’t reverse it because you can’t override a referendum without another referendum and the country can’t go through that again.
He adds “We left a market of 300 trillion dollars to a market of 3 trillion dollars and since we’ve signed off, the US has signed 2 deals with the EU.”
He justifies that all the losses would make sense if the UK had a better plan or an agenda for the future, “you better have a really good plan if you’re aborting and closing your eyes on your neighbour.”
Marr reinforces as the crowd cheers that we’ve made a mistake and we can’t go back but we need to learn from this. “Brexit is not talked about and that’s why we’re here. We’ve lost ourselves”.
Baroness Clare Fox starts off her speech stating the disinformation about Brexit addressing that in her campaigns people who were voting remain didn’t want to be racist and wanted to travel. She struggled to get through her discourse as the crowd interference was stronger than ever. She however was the one to provide some facts in favour of Brexit.
The most wholesome and respectable part of the evening was when we got to hear the voice of the youth by high schoolers Cora and Dominic. Cora defended the reversal of Brexit as she stated that her generation will be the most affected as the generations above have voted for her but got to enjoy the EU while resenting it. “I’d rather be borderless in a creative free space than just an island with rising waters.”
Dominic holds himself well as he admits it was neither a complete success nor a complete disaster.
With a comedic break provided by the stand-up comedian Tony Bennett, we’ve moved on to the audience questions that increasingly showed even more of the divide between the audience and the country regarding Brexit.
Regardless of the outcome and opposing views of Brexit, the only thing every member of the audience could agree is that Brexit needs to be talked about. Politics are broken if the major issues in our government become taboos for fear of backlash. It’s been 7 years but Brexit is an ongoing issue and needs to be talked about, debated, criticised, defended, and most of all consistently questioned as any other issue in our democracy.