Brexit: How do Londoners feel about leaving the EU 5 years on?

Evening Standard

The London Standard spoke to Londoners about how they feel about Brexit 5 years after the UK left the `European Union.

Transcript

00:00Out of 10? Probably minus 100 million.

00:03Like with any country in the world, immigration is a big issue,

00:05because you have a lot of people that can't be in their own countries

00:08and a lot of people that need to be somewhere else.

00:10So these people look for countries such as the UK to look for asylum

00:14and hopefully get a better quality of life.

00:17That's what my family did. That's the reason I'm here.

00:19So I have a lot of respect for those families that are able to make it out

00:22and are able to find a new avenue for a life that they can't have in their own countries.

00:27No, you can't just say Brexit means Brexit and then blame the people that came here for it,

00:32because well, there's a bigger cost, you know, like war and it's a famine, etc, etc, etc.

00:38So, I mean, to me, but I also see the other side, which is what I want to say.

00:42With Brexit, sometimes it becomes too much for a country to bear.

00:46And especially the UK and cities like London, where it's becoming,

00:50like it's too much, you know, it's too many people, it's too little jobs.

00:54Like the market is quite literally collapsing in front of everyone,

00:57because if people aren't willing to work, people aren't willing to pay.

01:02I think it's not going very well. I've been against Brexit from the get-go.

01:07As a Pole who emigrated to this country a long time ago,

01:11I feel this was a shot in the foot for the country.

01:16Out of 10?

01:17Yes.

01:17Probably minus 100 million. Couldn't be going worse.

01:21I voted remain. I don't know why we didn't remain.

01:24I can't think of a single positive.

01:27I think it was listed all, some of the negatives in the BBC today,

01:31but the list didn't even begin to touch the surface.

01:34I'm not sure if Europe would take us back. That's one thing.

01:37But I do think that, you know, aligning the UK closer with the EU is a better idea,

01:45especially in the kind of global economic and political climate now.

01:51So the pound crashed immediately after Brexit,

01:53and hasn't really recovered its long-term value.

01:57The stated aims of Brexit to get immigration down

02:00just hasn't borne through in any way, shape or form.

02:04I think immigration is now at an all-time high.

02:07The economic benefits that we would supposedly get from any of the free trade deals,

02:12either the free trade deals like the one of the US hasn't come through,

02:16or they've been with small countries at the other side of the world,

02:19like Australia, like New Zealand, that we don't do that much business with anyway,

02:23all of that has been ginormously offset by all the trade that we could have done with the EU.

02:29I know that sort of the big thing is we can't say exactly how much we've lost,

02:33because we can only compare to where we were,

02:35but I think all major studies suggest now we have lost out considerably,

02:40and for zero benefit.

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