What's So Funny About Brexit? with Danny Dorling (2019) 

Small correction: If Germany talks about "homeless", they aren't necessarily talking about people sleeping rough, they are talking about people who don't have permanent housing. Meaning every one in a home for refugees, everyone who is in a shelter and everyone who sleeps at friends until a new home is found counts into that statistic.

I’m an American from Tennessee. And I think this is one of the best explanation of Brexit I’ve heard in a long time. This will someday be Americans in the same position but probably not in our lifetime.

When he was talking about people are literally dying. I just though “come on. Don’t blame COVID deaths on Brexit just because the same people are in charge of it”. Then I realized that talk is from 2019. 🤔

I'm not an academic , just a council house boy, Thoroughly enjoyed this. I've had countless holidays in Europe and enjoyed their company. So sad to become an outsider. Many musician friends cannot now come to the the UK due to expensive visa requirements. I am disgusted by the British "Empire" of the past exploiting people of other nations to "our" gain. OK the EU is far from perfect but at least it allowed us to get to know each other a bit and avoid the wars endured in the past.

Pretty impressive and very kind last words. I as a German have totally no desire to live in some number one country. To me Europe means a lot more. Share the world with fellow human beings.

Brilliant, prediction of the future. Totally agree with him after living in Portugal since 2018. Well done Boris, Jacob and Nigel you sold our country out for cash in your pocket.

Eye opening to me as a German living in the US. I guess Britain never made the mental adjustments from the days of the empire. Germany had to make a dramatic adjustment without any reservations after two lost wars and is existing in a better mental state than ever before. Germany realizes that it is not better than many other countries and that it is European and doesn't have the geographical excuse to think of itself as something else. When I lived in the UK I met many people who referred to the UK as a continent, "Europe, England and America" they would say. Hopefully all of this is not taking as long as Dorling fears and the United Kingdom is coming to its senses, or maybe, we are all sliding back into some kind of madness. I am living the the US after all, where you could get that impression.

This was the university internet should be. Great lecture and lecturer. Thanks!

The truest, most accurate and humble analysis of the situation. My respect and applause goes to you Professor Dorling. Best wishes for the future and good luck!

"Heading towards United States levels of . . . . ." . . . . .its kind of shocking to realise that these days, thats a bad thing. . . . . . . . .

Humbling and very good explained context and a better understanding why...Brexit happened. It's hard to understand from the outside. Thank you for sharing it.

Video posted 2020-07-23 , talks about October 2019 as it was the future at 29:47 . Why not write when this speech was held in the video-information? When did he say all this? When??

I wonder if many Brexiters fully understand just how much they have weakened Britain's global influence and reputation. People will be musing over this utterly self-inflicted blunder for years to come.

"We gonna grow up" , "it's a learning process" good words

India was a civilized country already when the British arrived, in fact, India had 29% of the global GDP. When the British left, it was only 2%. They did not make us civilized.

My 70 year old friend literally said she voted for Brexit because things were better in the past when we had less money, she thought Brexit might solve our affluence problem, she might be right...

A refreshingly reasonable and relevant discussion on this subject, really well developed. Bravo.

Best analysis I've ever heard. Thank you Prof. Dorling!

I have said it before and I say it again, Scotland, our long lost friend, welcome back, dump your arranged marriage with England and start an affair with us in Scandinavia.

The good things which will come from Brexit are Scottish independence and Irish reunification, in both cases followed by Scotland and NI rejoining the EU.

A very insightful and - at the same time - entertaining speech. Should be obligatory in every school!

Really glad to find someone who can articulate my feelings about the Uk's position in the world. Small correction - Scotland did welcome a number of Syrians, some of whom live locally to me and are useful and accommodating members of our communities who have a great deal of get up and go and entrepreneurial spirit. If only Westminster would release Scotland from it's death grip, we could be the little country we know we could be - not world-beating, not dominant, not superior, just happy!

This is the best thing I've ever seen on Brexit mate. Thank you for your truthful and thoughtful presentation. Subscribed.

This is the first sensible thing I’ve seen on Brexit. Thank you. There is much history we were not taught at school. I now plan to make up for that.

Wow, as a European I hope more people in the uk are like this, and one day we will be reunited as brothers.

What a perfect compact yet complete item. Great work

Great talk. I am French and I share the view that England (I don’t think that’s true for Scotland, NI and potentially Wales) has not yet turned the page of the Empire. I am old enough to remember the Suez crisis in 1956, when both France and the UK were told bluntly by the USA and the USSR, the then two superpowers, that we were not playing anymore in the big league. France acknowledged and want on with Germany and four other European countries to sign the Rome treaty and start what is now the EU. The UK declined because it thought it was still a tier 1 country. The following is very well explained in the presentation.

One day in the future, historians will point to Brexit as the moment Britain went into decline, for all the reasons stated in this presentation. The sad irony is that all those flag wavers who wanted Britain to be great again, voted for the very things which will contribute to its break up and decline. All down to the rivalry between two Eton boys!

Brexit to me is the final end to the sadly outmoded "British Empire", which began with the independence and partition of India and provided the lynch pin for the rest of the colonies to press for their own Independence. Successive British governments over the next 30 years were happy to comply. The "Commonwealth" is a poor subsitute where The U.K. has only one voice/vote. Now The U.K. has sadly lost favourable access to a combined, market of 550 Million and any new external Trade deals will not be able to match.. Even the U.S. has only a market of 330 Million. I fear that realistically the British economy will decline substantially within say 5 years and under the reign of the second Elizabeth, Britain will finally no longer be a "World Power"..!

I stumbled across this and I am so glad I watched it. Absolutely brilliant. Should be required viewing for all in UK.

Sure there's a bright side, an independent Scotland and reunited Ireland! 😎

I have been thinking about this subject for a long time and you explain it so well. By the way I live in Germany and is quite apparent that the Germans had to quickly go through the humbling experience after 1945. eventually this leads to the EU and integration rather than going off in an aircraft carrier trying to be best buddies with the US of A.

This is like a lazer beam cutting through all the madness.

This is just reinforcing my views on Scottish Independence. It was seeing how far England has lurched to the extreme right and Brexit, of course, that motivated me. I'm ready to split the union now.

Wow. I sure wish that my professors had the same delivery and passion.

What an enjoyable 33.59 minutes

This is the hangover we get from empire. We are about to get what we deserve. My parents are working class Brexit voters. They have always been Sun readers and racists and that is why they voted for this idiocy

The Brexit gang has always believed that Britain leaving the EU would hurt them more than it would hurt Britain. How they explain that has never been clear, but in broad terms, the EU is a community of 27 countries and more than 500 million people and will be far better placed under any circumstances to weather the storm than the UK is with 62 million. At the same time, the EU will still have all its trade agreements in place with just about any country on the globe, while the UK has, well, practically nothing at this point. Australia is one that does have an agreement with the UK, and it has said, fine, we'll trade, but that doesn't mean they're in any mood to give up their far greater connections with the EU, or that it would even be prepared to deal with British businesses on the same terms as it enjoys with an EU market almost 10 times the size of the UK's. In other future trade negotiations, the UK will always be the "needy" one because it is desperate to somehow replace the trade volume it has lost by leaving the EU, and any new trading partner will be well aware of that! All in all, the EU is NOT going to miss the UK anywhere near as much as the UK will miss the EU. Brexit enthusiasts have always believed the world would be stampeding their doors for trade agreements with the UK, but the simple fact is that in any and ALL of these new separate agreements (none are even under consideration as yet and they will take a long time, if not years, to negotiate) , the UK will never be able to match the negotiating strength that comes with representing the world's largest trading bloc. In other words, if Britain wants to buy bananas for the British market, those bananas will inevitably cost more than the same bananas will cost consumers in the EU. You can multiply that effect across EVERY branch of British commerce, including agriculture, manufacturing, etc, and you get the picture.

Ulster voted 56% to remain and Scotland voted 62% to remain. They should remain.

I just intend to move to somewhere like Germany, having already had to pay off £36k in loans to go to uni, then the prospects of getting a house are near zero and the final straw, this stupid hard brexit we are going for. Screw that, I'm out. I want to be in a country where, yes maybe taxes are higher, but my future kids can have a home and go to uni and have all the opportunities being part of the EU block brings.

Murdoch insisted to Cameron before he was Tory leader, that his papers would support Cameron's bid for leadership only if he gave a cast iron promise to take the Tory party out of the mainstream EU Centre right block, the EPP with Merkel etc. Murdoch knew that this would kick UK and EU politics to the right and assist in getting the UK out of the European mainstream and EU

In germany we had a comedy-drama TV show for two years about a billionaire family who suddenly find themselves poor. It was called _Arme Millionäre_ ("Poor millionaires") and each episode had a specific topic - some more lighthearted (like the struggle to take out your own trash and remember collection days), others a little bit more heavy (like being threatened with eviction from their already too-small living space because they can't pay the rent). The common comedic theme is the inability of the family to adapt to a low-/middle-class lifestyle. These days, the father in that show seems like a great personification of the UK :)

It’s interesting he doesn’t mention the strong influence Murdoch media has with those less well off, older conservatives who were leave voters.

This man got the facts! Respect Sir..

It will be a painful process for Britain to let go and reinvent itself. History forced France and Germany to go through that transformation earlier. It's a bit like hitting puberty but afterwards you can hang around with the grownups which is cool.

Nearly 15 minutes in and it shows the danger of NOT voting

Thanks prof dorling,enjoyable, succinct and insightful 🤗

As an irishman this was very refreshing and that is not to bash my english cousins as their history has many many good parts too. The greatest sport ever invented football. Telescopes , steam engines , modern day economics , vacines , railways , concrete , many scientific discoveries , bicycle , solar panels , tractors , tv , jet engine , cats eyes road markings , first emergency telephone service , first computer , dna findings , carbon fibre , electronic calculators , atms , laptops , raspberry pi even lava lamps lol. The list is endless in all forms of life. But my favourite by far is the music artists and bands they have produced since the start of the sixties up till today. So many it would take many comments to name just a few.

This video deserves so much more viewers.

I have listened to a couple of this man's talks and he is very insightful.

Imagine you got the opportunity to get discounted tickets for a concert in the first row from your buddies but refused to pay full price and sit far back ... far back ... very far back

This video should be viral in UK to understand the reality. It's not Empire 2.0 but Empire 0.0 that is ahead.

Boris didn’t expect to win and it was the same with trump. The two Siamese twins. 🤯

Got to fix up that education problem, the rest will follow. End private schooling, improve all schooling.

Fascinating. Glad to see some attention to the very long tail effects of colonialism.

”becoming a normal European country is actually something to be”. This is it 👍

very good analysis by following the money. powerful finish, as a true european who also lived in the UK and many other countries I wish that the UK will become true Europeans too. I wish I would meet you in an English pub one day for a pint and a good conversation. All the best

After reading a lot of Brexiteer blogs and tweets, this was a warm shower. Because it is a proof that there are British citizens who are realistic. Thanks!!!!

Thank you Professor Dorling. I was always a remainer, an anti-Brexiteer, by simple conviction. I found your analysis intriguing. If I have it right the invasion/colonisation of Ireland by England was the start of Empire. It was started in Norman England in 1171, English colonisation of Ireland went through three main phases, the last phase which ran from 1801 which was peak Empire. The Big Bang in 1986 was the last card the Empire had to play which was proven 32 years later by how the 2008 crash sank us and affected the whole world. The idea of the end of Empire, and the end of the UK as we once knew it, being proven by how much Boris had to beat Dave, one single rivalry within a singularly influential school, seems odd. But more absurd national histories do exist. Dave had half a plan to remain and lost, Boris had no plan, did not expect to win, and won. What I want to know is if the 31st December is not the end of UK membership within the EU, or of UK engagement with the EU, what are the other choices? What new plan will be cobbled together- seemingly out of nothing?

Indeed a very clever and realistic man. Nothing to listen to for the average Brexiteer. In Europe the Brexit phase is over, side line news. Just enough attention for a normal European country. Let that be the first step in the good direction because....as a matter a fact, we like you. We shall miss you.

Um, Mark Blyth wrote a whole book about Brexit and Trump, about a year beforehand. That said, this fella is in the same mould. Good work, chap.

This was a sharp and pointy lecture/speech which has become the truth four years later. The decline goes faster on a slope that gets steeper every year. This means it will be harder to claw back up to even see a glimpse of the other countries on the top or on their way to the top. When you fall deep you have a race to catch up. And in order to catch up, everything has to be okay and fall into place. None of this is happening at the moment, because consecutive governments refuse to acknowledge they fallen deep after their magical utopian Brexit. Afraid of being blamed for failing. Any MP and any government can run a country in good times, but being a good MP and a good government in bad times distinguishes the boys from the men. Conservatives have proven to be boys not men. And worse, there is no man in sight to turn the tables. Vote any other party but the Conservatives!!! Even if you always voted conservative, this is the time to change that. For a better future. A slogan which has never been more true than nowadays. But it will be a long uphill struggle, mind that. It won’t be fixed in one election, this will take decades.

This should be required viewing. Well done.

This lecture has matured well!

A couple of times, you've mentioned university and student loans. When it comes to putting food on the table, many university degrees aren't worth the paper they are written on. The main function of sending any Tom, Dick and Harry to uni. is to keep people out of the job market and thus keep unemployment figures down.

Amazing presentation, thank you !

It was complacency, everyone was being told remain would win so many people voted leave as a protest vote not expecting to win

We are at the start of 2023, over 500 people are dying prematurely every week here in the UK due to underfunding of the NHS and especially the A&E services. The conservatives have served only themselves well during the last decade. The British voting public should never forget that the Tories are responsible for this disaster.

It would be funny that the UK broke up and rejoined the EU in little pieces.

It's vital that the real reason why the UK held a referendum on EU membership in June 2016 is properly understood and more widely disseminated. For those who believe the Brexit plebiscite was some kind of democratic event, ie. giving the British people a say in this vital matter, I can only say; "dream on" - you couldn't be further from the truth - the REAL reason was naked electoral calculus! In 2005 UKIP polled approx. 2 - 3% in National voting intentions - under First Past the Post [FPTP] this relatively small vote share was annoying but completely ignorable - UKIP would effectively win zero seats in a UK General Election with this vote share spread across the UK. However, over the next ten year period, the UKIP insurgency relentlessly burgeoned to the point where they were registering more like 13 - 14% of National voting intention by 2015. This significantly increased support for UKIP represented an existential threat to Conservative Party electoral prospects - why - because under FPTP this perceived hemorrhaging of core Conservative support meant Labour could win a UK General Election WITHOUT having to increase their National vote share - the split in the Tory voting bloc across a swathe of formerly safe Tory seats would let Labour in via the back door in these local contests! Conservative Party strategists therefore had to devise an effective counter to this very real electoral threat. This cold, hard electoral reality explains why David Cameron arrived at his cunning plan to offer perceived defectors from the core Conservative voting bloc a one off chance to realise what potential UKIP supporters most wanted - an opportunity to hold an IN/OUT referendum on EU membership. Of course, we now know that Cameron's strategy worked - across a significant number of key marginal constituencies where the UKIP threat to incumbent Tory MPs was strong, results in the these local contests demonstrated that enough potential UKIP voters switched their allegiance back to the Conservative candidate during the 2015 General Election, in the process providing Cameron with a very narrow 12 seat House of Commons [HoC] majority - most polls in the run-up period to election day had predicted Labour finishing with the largest number of MPs but short of an overall majority, therefore requiring some form of cooperation with other parties, chief among them the SNP - hence the Conservative election strapline "Coalition of Chaos" used during the campaign period, showing a smiling Alex Salmond with a minature Ed Miliband (Labour leader at the time) in his suit pocket. Closer analysis of key marginal constituency results reveals just how close run the 2015 General Election was. Across the seven most keenly contested constituencies where Labour finished runner up but the Conservative candidate became MP, the total winning margin for all seven seats combined was less than two thousand votes - it should be noted that in all of these seven seats the UKIP candidate recorded a relatively strong third place. It is not unreasonable to infer that just a few thousand citizens in these key marginal constituency contests changed their minds whilst actually in the polling booth on election day; 7th May 2015, switching from UKIP to Conservative because they were convinced that they would have a once in a lifetime opportunity to vote in a referendum on the UK exiting from the EU With his very narrow (12 seats) HoC majority secured, David Cameron was obliged to make good on his pledge to hold the promised IN/OUT EU referendum, which took place on 23rd June 2016 - the rest of this sad tale, as we know all too well to our cost, is history!

For a continental european like myself who still mourns that Monty Python split up ages ago: brexit is the gift that keeps giving.

What Danny Dorling said was actually untrue. I remember when the Irish Premier Leo Varadkar gave a speech at Queens College Belfast in the run up to the 2016 referendum were he spelled out, item by item, what the consequences would be if the UK left the EU. So to say that nobody knew what would happen is totally untrue.

Oh look! There IS intelligent life in Britain....

Here speaks a person with no experience of 'working' with or within the EU, who fails to recognise any of the very many failings of the EU. The UK were acknowledged as difficult when it came to making the rules but then followed the rules and policed the rules whilst the rest of Europe viewed the rules as guidance at best. We are and will be better off outside the bloated bureaucracy of the EU, might take a while though. I'm old enough to remember what it was like before we joined the 'Common Market', which I voted to remain in...but I never signed up to a European super state, the dream of nutters.

Well worth a watch and listen.

And now Brexit has become formal. What a loss for everybody.

This is the first time I've heard someone with knowledge on the subject come out and say what I have known in my gut and been saying since 2016: Brexit is the last gasping legacy of the Empire, and no less destructive for it.

Hes described the voters to a tee, my parents are in that group.....

it needs a professor to figure this one out? when I first met British people in larger numbers I understood quite early, that you guys really suffered under the wrong assumption, Britain was still a big thing. but maybe this whole Brexit thing will set it all straight in the heads and than the healing can begin. it is really not that much of a deal. if germans can come to terms with the past, the British should manage as well. and hopefully we can welcome you back in the open arms of the European family. I long for the day.

Tearful, it so humbling. NHS or Aircraft Carriers(.)

I think Danny has a very good point about the Empire - really Australia should now belong to the Aboriginal People and they would be happy never knowing about people from other lands.

My grandfather was Irish he told us he thought the English treated the Irish like shit because they didn't like the Irish so he joined the RAF and after the war he got a job he said it was then he realized it was not because he was Irish but because he was poor so he emigrated to Canada within 3 years he had a house and a good job so he bought land on the east slope of the rockies it was cheap he bought cattle and so today we are pretty well off as a family as the old man said none of this was even remotely possible in Brittain unless you went to Oxford or Cambridge you were where you would stay

What an awesome talk. Thanks heaps ☺️

Bloody awesome. Clear and concise, UK needs to wake up and be the best it can be, not what it thinks it still is.

Very nice conference, I would love to hear what Mr Dorling has to say about what happened since (as it is was made obviously before Boris came into power) and after the whole Covid-19 crisis

Things are not well, therefore they voted Leave! That is so stupid. I pity the UK people, but they did it to themselves.

The most brilliant analysis of UKs position today.

I see the Brexit vote as the most successful of a series of attempts by the public to break the "both parties are the same" status quo. I remember for decades before this, the one thing EVERYONE said about politics was "both parties are the same, we have no real choice any more, it's bad for democracy". Then there was Cleggmania, and there was the 2014 IndyRef, and there was Jeremy Corbyn becoming Labour leader, and there was the 2015 SNP surge, and there was the Brexit vote.

We will be the "Sick Man of Europe" again next year! Let's hope we recover quickly and that it doesn't kill us all!

People who maintain that because the UK has the world’s 5th largest economy, and we will therefore be more prosperous on our own, should consider where we will rank without our exports to Europe (43% of current total). Even if the reduction in exports to the EU only falls by 50%, it will prove disastrous to the UK. How would any nation, or person, survive if 21% of their income was lost overnight, with the same outgoing expenditure?

Im happy somebody have will to finaly break up old times nostalgia and we are empire pathos . It will be long way to go for England .

Fantastic and accurate information well done 👍👏

Very interesting talk which I came across it purely by chance. Sadly it feels a very accurate analysis of the situation we find ourselves in and the current bombastic posturing of the the UK Govt wrt the trade talk negotiations with the EU. I strongly suspect that we will end up without a trade deal and be forced onto WTO rules come Jan 2021, but then that is what the Tory right have wanted all along.

You cannot overstate the significance of Ireland offering food/essential supplies if there is an issue.

Very , very clever man !!

Germany actually built huge numbers of what they described as temporary accommodation. There was one built on a site beside our local church in Münster. It has since been disassembled. The refugees were not left on the street. That is not to suggest that Germany hasn't got a homeless issue. All countries do but I believe he was not comparing apples with apples.

Brilliant speech, great chap 👍

I didn't vote to leave but for me the funny thing is someone like this speaker assuring us British Empire = bad and yet EU Empire = good.

As always with English commentators there is no mention of how trading Scottish Oil and Gas exports funded the City of London and the UK government swallowed the tax revenues from the profits as normal tax income. When the price of oil collapsed in the late 1980s the UK stock market collapsed as well in an event known as Black Wednesday followed by property market. Falling oil prices was a major factor in the failure of the USSR and the main cause of the 1st Gulf War. Scotland's exports are minimum 16% of the total UK foreign exports despite only being 8.8% of the UK population. About a third of England's food stuffs are sourced in Scotland. If Scotland at some point stopped using Sterling the Pound could lose as much as a fifth of it's value. More brutal for England is that more than half by value, of the food in England comes from Scotland, the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Yet exports to England make up less than 5% of Irish trade. Food stuffs being only part of that. The UK government threats about Irish trade were not just hollow but quite silly.

i love that it ended on a note on sharing and looking out for each other.