Absolute s**t.

Trade is more difficult, travel is more difficult.

It's ridiculous how people actually survive, I don't know.

Mistold as an idea and manipulated.

Often harboured ideas to move to Italy but...

A lot of staff would come over from the EU and that's sort of stopping now.

I don't think that was factored in.

I think some would say it's a bit sub-permanent.

Yeah.

So I fell out with my eldest brother and I haven't spoken to him since.

Has he got an EU passport?

I haven't.

So he's straight through the gate.

Yeah, I hope he doesn't want to go anywhere.

Hiya, welcome to a new episode of Ease the English.

So today is a special episode as we want to find out what the Brits make of the EU.

Now Brexit happened a few years ago so I want to let you guys know what Brits think has changed since we left the European Union.

So what makes this episode super special is that other Easy Languages producers...

...are making the same episode about what the people in their respective countries think of the EU.

Let's go.

How has life changed since we left the EU?

Struggle.

You can't actually do anything anymore, everything's gone up in price.

It's given certain people the right to be even ruder about migration.

Any thoughts of ever moving to Europe has been made that much more difficult.

That was a small idea in your mind, do you think?

Yeah.

It's often harboured ideas to move to Italy but, you know, it's made that much more difficult.

Travelling to see family.

In Europe.

Immigration was really weaponised at that time and it continued to be a real dog whistle weapon.

We don't really feel part of Europe anymore.

We feel as though we're a little bit isolated from it and you feel that way when you travel.

From my own experience I think you have to go through more hoops to get outside of England.

Yeah, sadly I don't think it's had too much of a benefit for us in general.

You're finding food prices are more expensive if you have foods from different countries, especially from Europe.

We enjoy a lot of different foods from around the world and you see that in the cuisine that we have.

Things are more expensive in general.

Back to jacket potatoes.

When you say the price of what?

Everything.

Foods?

Fuel.

Electric.

Fuel.

Food.

No matter what you buy anymore, everything is just... and I can't see it going down.

Things just randomly happen, so everything will go on as normal and then suddenly they'll be like, oh, this is out of supply for something.

Maybe cost of food has increased, but whether that's due to other factors, I don't know.

Price of food has gone up enormously.

I mean, maybe prices of food, but then is it because of Brexit? I'm not so sure.

Do you mean like food?

Yeah, and I think medications as well.

Some of my friends I think have been affected by that.

And the availability of food.

We never saw gaps in shelves in supermarkets like we do now.

Like produce that comes from the European Union.

I've also noticed that recently we've had a lot of things that we couldn't get, like there was an egg shortage, but is that Brexit? Is that just UK politics?

I actually asked that question in one of the supermarkets and they said it's nothing to do with Brexit.

It's British farming. That's what they said.

I mean, there's been a cost of living increase, but I don't think that's because of leaving EU, but that's all over the world, is it?

You see, that's how little I follow.

We looked at going to Greece, Italy, France.

Afterwards? After we'd left?

After we'd left Brexit.

But then you see the red tape and the taxes that you have to pay and you can't do it.

Was that a desire of yours, maybe to work abroad?

It is, yeah. It's hindered much.

You know, you need to get a visa to go and work outside of it.

We rely on Europe a lot for trade.

I'm part of a technology company and even that is creating, even though we have technology cloud environments, we are now developing more what we call sovereign clouds.

So we have to ensure that each country or each region has their own cloud because of perhaps not trusting data leaving one country to another.

So that's made things harder.

So I think, for me, Brexit has kind of made the whole of Europe a bit uneasy about sharing data more holistically across the world.

My sister, mum's daughter, lives in the Canaries, in Spain, in the Canaries.

That's a shame.

So that kind of affects us.

Apart from that, though, as I was mentioning to you earlier,

I don't really notice it very much in my day-to-day life.

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So we're stuck. We've ostracised ourselves.

So that's why we've now taken the opportunity to buy a resort in Thailand, which we've just done.

Congrats.

We live over there, and it's probably... it's less than half of living here.

With a UK dog passport, I think it's very difficult to go abroad now.

You have to really plan ahead, right?

Yeah.

It's expensive and it takes a lot of energy.

I think it takes a lot of time to get all the paperwork through as well.

It's not just, oh, we'll sort that out.

It's annoying. It's expensive. I think it's time-consuming.

What was it that people were mistold on which hasn't come to truth yet?

I think maybe that, you know, if we'd have all this money for the NHS without immigration and that sort of thing, and I work in health care, and there's definitely not been a massive pile of money.

And as well for staffing, a lot of staff would come over from the EU and that's sort of stopping now. I don't think that was factored in.

And I also just think it's a great shame, you know, as well.

Like, similarly the other way, I would have loved to have gone and worked abroad, but now that's kind of more difficult, you know?

So, yeah, I think a lot of those maybe more vulnerable populations were sold something that just was not true.

The whole process of inspections and stuff has massively increased as well.

Is that something that you deal with in your personal life?

Yeah, so I'm with a battery company and getting batteries in and out of the country is...

Wow.

Yeah, it's a lot more challenging now than it used to be.

Maybe 20, 30, 40 years ago we'd be good at making a go of it, but I think we're not really the country we used to be, so...

No, not so industrious anymore.

Not so industrious. We don't really make an awful lot of things.

Maybe in the car market, that's about it.

Yeah.

But, yeah, I just think we're not the powerhouse that we were for many years now.

We haven't been, so now we're going to struggle.

Part of leaving was that things would get cheaper, and we'd be able to decide things ourselves, so do you see that coming at any point?

No.

No?

We don't actually produce anything anymore.

Ah.

But now we can trade with people like Japan and the US freely, and...

So we import all these chickens that are stuffed with chlorine.

Yummy.

Brilliant.

If I want to buy a chicken, I want to buy it locally, but it's grown locally, not from a boat from America that's frozen.

I don't understand that.

Those trade agreements that we potentially could have had with America or Australia, India, that they talked about, they haven't come to pass, and even if they do come to pass, it appears that they're going to be very small, and it also appears that certainly with America, those trade agreements are going to be detrimental to our own farmers.

How did Greeks treat you after Brexit?

Did you get a different response to how you did when you were a part of the EU?

No.

The Greek people are absolutely lovely people.

I felt a little bit like an outsider.

Late at night at parties, you do apologise to anyone from the European Union.

It wasn't me.

It wasn't us.

We had absolutely nothing to do with it, and we were horrified.

Cementing British stereotypes of apologising to everyone.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm always saying sorry.

Sorry.

If I go to Europe, I try to make a point of letting people know that I did not vote to leave.

What was the fallout in Britain after Brexit?

Did it unite us?

Did it divide us?

Once it had happened, yeah.

Yeah.

You can't carry on as it is.

It's ridiculous.

Even today?

Still divided?

Yep.

I think a lot of people know they were missold in hindsight.

How does the land lie now?

Do you think we're more unified as a country now?

We're a few years ahead of Brexit?

Not particularly, no.

I think more people now would opt to join back into the EU if they could.

It didn't get better afterwards.

It wasn't like, oh, we've done that now.

Let's all move on.

It still seems to be quite divisive issues.

Are we now more unified now that we're a few years into it?

Are we sort of...

The seven-page lists are permanent.

Yeah.

I fell out with my husband and I haven't spoken to him since.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Oh, no.

I don't think that that's particularly unusual.

No.

I think people did fall out with family members and friends.

And even if you don't fall out, most of my family voted to leave the European Union, and as we go on and we have more and more negative impact, and we're still not seeing any money being ploughed into the NHS like we were promised on that bus, then I don't tend to bring it up because it's not helpful to my family.

But underneath, I just feel really cross with them.

I think some people still feel very much, and they've almost doubled down on, especially anti-immigration.

I suppose recently I think there's less conversation about it.

It's just this kind of thing that every so often people kind of bring back up.

Yeah, a bit of a mix, I guess.

I feel really angry with the people that voted, but I feel more angry with the people that persuaded them to vote.

Oh, yeah.

The lies, the lie after lie after lie that people fell for.

That's what really makes me cross.

But then does this show you how divisive Brexit actually is, that we're still kind of attributing things like bloody Brexit?

Absolutely. I voted to stay in the EU.

Oh, that's how I saw it happening.

Yeah, I think it has been very divisive.

And if a government suggested that we go back and try to join the EU,

I'd certainly vote for that idea.

Do you see the EU existing for very long?

Do you think that it's realistic to join? Would you like to rejoin?

That's a good question.

It's difficult. I think sometimes you've always got to kind of, you've taken a step and you've got to make the most of what you've got.

Europe has a huge amount of opportunity, though, I think.

I think there's probably other ways you can have trade agreements with the countries maybe around that.

Going back is probably too hard, but I don't think it's impossible.

But I think we also are very happy with some of the things that Europe are bringing upon us as well at the time.

Are people still wanting to go back? Do you get that feeling?

I think so, yeah. I think people still want it rather than how it was before.

Could you see a way back?

We're struggling with all sorts of elements of not being able to be part of that.

So I do hope.

Especially being as so many of the younger generation weren't able to even vote in the referendum, but it was actually directly affecting them.