Brexit, Brexit, Brexit. Oh my god, I'm going mad. What is this word? Why is it all over
the place? Are you feeling the same thing? Are you as confused about this Brexit issue,
which seems to have taken over the world? Well, don't worry, we'll learn today about
how you can understand, what Brexit means and how you can talk about the Brexit issue in English
Hello and welcome to today's lesson. My name is Rima and today's lesson is about a very
very important issue, that seems to have overtaken the entire world. And the issue is , The Brexit
issue, that's right. We're gonna learn about how one can talk about brexit in English.
Now if your'e confused about this term, Let's start with this very term, Brexit. Now what
exactly does Brexit mean? Okay, don't get so confused, because if I break it up, It's
actually not that difficult. So Brexit actually stands for, Britain, which is United Kingdom
plus exit. Does it make more sense to you now? I'm sure it does, so Britain plus exit
together make the word Brexit meaning they're actually talking about Britain's exit from
the European Union meaning United Kingdom as a country has gone out of the European
Union. Now I really hope you know, what the European union is? It is the union of all
the European countries together forming the European union together. Now Britain meaning
United Kingdom or the UK for short used to be part of the European union until about
recently, but now it has gone out meaning, it has exited out of the European union. Which
is why the issue that we're talking about is called Brexit meaning Britain's exit from
EU or the European Union.
So actually the term in itself is quite simple. But there are a lot of words related to this
issue, which are slightly tough , but we're gonna talk about them. We're gonna make them
really easy for you. Now basically the fact that Britain has walked out of the European
Union or broken up with the European union has become a huge issue, because there are
certain people, who are okay with this and certain people, who are so not okay with this,
So well the next word, you may have heard this word before, It's called Democracy. Now
what is Democracy? Democracy means, the people's rule. Meaning a country is run in such a way
that the people themselves elect their leaders by voting, by casting their vote and then
these leaders make decisions for the country and run the country. So basically the word
Democracy is very, very related to Brexit, because Britain's exit from the EU was voted
upon. Meaning every single person in the United Kingdom was asked, Are you okay with Brexit?
Are you okay with the fact that Britain would leave the European Union? And a vote was taken
and then once the vote was taken, the majority opinion was that, yes Britain should exit
the European Union and that's how based on democracy brexit actually happened. So democracy
is people's rule, where people decide.
Moving on Referendum. A long word sounds very formal, very political. But it's actually
very easy to understand. Now let's say, There's a country, let's call the country X and we
want to change one particular rule in this country called X. So the process of asking
each an every person in the country whether or not we should change this rule is like
issuing a Referendum. That's right, so when they were trying to decide, whether Britain
should walk out of the EU, which is the European Union. They obviously asked all the citizens
of Britain or United Kingdom, whether or not, this change should happen. Now issuing this
change was obviously in the hands of the people, so yes a referendum was issued. Meaning a
process of asking for people's opinion was started and then of course depending on what
the entire country said, the decision was that yes Britain is going to walk out of the
EU. Moving on the next word. Now this word is really important. It's pronounced as, Sovereign.
Now remember in the word sovereign, the G is silent meaning one does not pronounce the
G. So the word becomes Sovereign and the meaning of sovereign is Monarchy or Autocratic rule.
Now if these words are confusing you, don't get confused because sovereign basically means
that the country is ruled by a single ruler and not by the people. So sovereign actually
is the exact opposite of democracy, which means it's people's rule. Now why is the word
sovereign so important in talking about brexit. Now the reason why majority of people from
the UK decided to move out of the European Union is because they wanted the United Kingdom
or Great Britain to be a sovereign country. Meaning they wanted the rules and the control
and the regulations of the country to be in the hands of the British people and the British
leaders rather than listening to anything what the European union has to say. Now let's
say, You are part of a classroom and there is one teacher. You have to listen to the
teacher, coz your'e part of the classroom. But if you decide to walk out of that classroom.
You can do your own thing. That's exactly what happened over here. So Britain was part
of the European union and obviously it had to listen to all of rules that were laid down
by the European union. So obviously because it has left the European union now, It will
become a sovereign country. Which means it will make it's own rules , own regulations,
own policies and basically be independent. I hope you got the difference between Sovereign
and Democracy.
Moving on this word, sounds scary, looks scary, It's very easy actually, Plebiscite. Now plebiscite
actually means the same thing as referendum. So referendum and plebiscite actually mean
the same thing they are synonyms in English. They mean the process of asking for people's
opinion. So if I say, They have issued a referendum meaning they have issued a process in which
people can express their opinion or caste their vote or say yes or no to the exit. Similarly
I could also say, that there's a plebiscite, which will allow people to decide whether
or not they should be part of the European union. So that's what it is, Plebiscite and
Referendum mean actually the same thing. Moving on the next word, you may have heard or read
this word before, Racism. Now racism actually means a certain dislike or bias against a
particular race of people. Now in fact UK has been accused of racism, because they no
longer seem to want to associate with another race or people from other races and they want
to become sovereign.
Similarly there's a word called Xenophobia. Now this may sound scary, but it's actually
very simple to understand, It's actually the dislike for a certain country. Meaning there's
a country called X, It doesn't like a country called Y that means the country X is practicing
Xenophobia. Once again Xenophobia is another accusation towards UK because of their decision
to exit the EU. Moving on a very interesting term Unity ticket, two words very easy to
understand. Unity means being together and ticket is basically something that gets you
entry into some place. Now how do you use these two words Unity ticket together? Unity
ticket actually stands for a group of people, who are very powerful and who have a particular
opinion. Now let's say there are people, who you know have a problem against say wearing
black. So they will say, okay let's all get together because all of us don't like the
color black. And then there's another group of people, who want to make the color black
you know very wearable, so these people who are against wearing the color black will get
together and form a unity ticket against the color black, that's it. So unity ticket is
actually a group of people standing against something. And that's pretty much what happened
in the case of brexit. A group of people actually formed a unity ticket for brexit and another
group of people actually formed a unity ticket against brexit. Moving on the last word. Now
this word actually is not part of the dictionary, It's a slang word, In fact it has come into
being because of the Brexit issue and it's called Regrexit, So it's really very simple,
It's a breakup of two words. It's regret plus exit. Now regret is feeling bad about something
and exit is moving out of something. So there are lot of people especially in the big cities
in UK, who are not happy about the fact that Britain has walked out of the European union.
They are regretting the exit, which is why the word regrexit actually comes into play.
So well that is my list of words about the issue of Brexit. I hope that I have been able
to make these words really simple for you and the next time probably your'e sitting
in a cafe and people are probably discussing about Brexit. I hope that your'e able to have
a conversation on this issue in the English language.
Well, I really hope you enjoyed today's lesson and that I have been able to make Brexit a
very simple issue for you and that now you will be able to have a conversation about
this in English. Make sure you subscribe to our channel and keep enjoying our lessons.
This is me Rima signing out saying good bye and take care.