• Question: what do you think about brexit? i say brexit means brexit!

    Asked by anon-203759 to Vassilis, Tirso, Matthew, Jane, Dawn, Alexandra on 1 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: Jane Aspell

      Jane Aspell answered on 1 Mar 2019:

      At the moment it is so boring! There seems to be no other topic on the news, ever. But more seriously I think it’s a terrible idea – I voted remain. I think it’s important for our world’s nations to become more unified, not less. The EU was set up after the world wars to help maintain peace. To reverse that seems like a very bad idea to me.

    • Photo: Matthew Longo

      Matthew Longo answered on 2 Mar 2019:

      I’m not a British citizen, so I didn’t vote in the referendum. But I agree entirely with Jane. I would add more specifically about science, that leaving the EU is likely to be highly detrimental to UK science. Scientists in Britain have been extremely successful at obtaining grant funding from the various EU funding bodies (my own lab has been funded for the past five years by the European Research Council), obtaining far more funding than the UK pays into the EU science budget. The loss of this funding will make it harder for British scientists to fund their work.

      Even more importantly, it will make British scientists more isolated. Scientific research increasingly requires large-scale collaboration among multiple research groups in different countries. Brexit is already making it harder for British scientists to participate in European research networks, which is terrible for science in the UK specifically, but also for science more generally.

    • Photo: Alexandra Quigley

      Alexandra Quigley answered on 4 Mar 2019:

      I think that we should Remain.

      Brexit has already led to a reduction in funding for universities, and this means that our influence in the world research stage will diminish, and the amount of good quality research that we produce will drop. Clever students and professors who might have come to the UK are now going elsewhere, and this is such a shame. Clever British students and professors won’t be able to collaborate and work abroad either. This will get even worse when Brexit actually happens.

      The NHS will also really, really struggle without European workers. One argument is that British workers will fill the jobs, but I don’t think that this will happen. The reason why the NHS employs so many European workers is that British workers didn’t take those jobs in the first place.

      I agree that we really should stay in the EU.

    • Photo: Dawn Rose

      Dawn Rose answered on 5 Mar 2019:

      For Science, leaving the EU is already having an impact in terms of not being able to set up research partnerships because other countries are worried about what will happen – and we will also not be able to access EU finding for our research in the UK. This really puts the UK puts a disadvantage.
      I am angry about how much disinformation was taken at face value during the campaign and how much this decision will impact on the future of young people and their opportunities in the UK.

    • Photo: Vassilis Sideropoulos

      Vassilis Sideropoulos answered on 6 Mar 2019:

      Brexit is currently one of the hottest topics in the news and that’s reasonable. As an EU Citizen, I am Greek, I am worried a lot as to how the current situation will affect my life in the U.K. – not only at a personal level, but also at a work level. Higher Education Institutes are relying on EU money from different resources, e.g. Grants, and leaving the EU might impact a lot in terms of how researchers will find the money to conduct the research they’ve been carrying out for years now. Apart from the money situation, it will isolate researchers and citizens from the rest of the EU – which is not a positive. However, situations like this one are very complex and the media are misleading the crowds by providing false information, so people – especially the young ones should be very critical about what they read. This thread can go on and on, but I believe it would have been much better if U.K. was remaining in the EU.

    • Photo: Tirso Gonzalez Alam

      Tirso Gonzalez Alam answered on 11 Mar 2019:

      Well, I’m not a UK or EU citizen, but as an outsider I don’t think it’s a good idea. UK science, for example, draws a lot of its resources from the EU, and other things like trade and freedom of movement have greatly improved the economy and quality of life of people in the UK. I get what you say when you say ‘brexit means brexit’, I think. That the will of the people should be respected. But I wonder if indeed the people have spoken. If it turns out that a side of the debate misrepresented or withheldinformation, would you say that the Brexit vote is truly meaningful? A referendum is supposed to reflect the decision of the people regarding a matter, but can you truly make a decision if you don’t have all the information at hand? I’d say no, but I respect your opinion!

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