Nina Kojima is a well-respected former Slovenia journalist from Partisan Media in her 24-year career, and has released her debut documentary ‘Brexit Through the Non-Political Glass’. As the title suggests, this documentary lends a voice to the non-political and non-partisan experts with no hidden agenda to hear their thoughts of the United Kingdom’s Brexit Referendum.
On a high-level summary of the Brexit movement, UK declared a “British Exit” withdrawal from the European Union (EU) on January 31, 2020 and completed their exit on December 31, 2020 after 47 years of being a member of the union. This means the EU law has no control over British laws, and UK will now have the ability to amend the laws as they wanted.
For this documentary, the timeline of this film is after Brexit was completed, giving the opportunity to reflect on the social impact that took the world by storm. One unique fact about Brexit is that this is not the first time this has happened, as the first Brexit happened 200 years ago. When they were trying to get back into the EU union in the 1960s, there was a struggle due to the fact that they were not part of many key foreign policies such as the Euro Zone (e.g., adoption of the Euro currency) that EU has successfully implemented without UK’s help. To take advantage of this policies led to UK’s own internal issues where they want in on these established programmes, but also want their own independence from the rest of the Union.
UK wanted to be a part of the economic integration with the EU however they don’t want to deal with the political aspects as that may potentially leave power to parliament in doing what it likes to do due to the lack of a constitution. In one expert’s point of view, UK believes they had some worldwide links to the commonwealth and the United States that would give them an advantage to controlling the political side of things within the UK.
With UK leaving EU, this leaves France as another higher power member that could steer the union back to their visions of how they want to shape their political and economic policies for the rest of Europe. In a way, it could be seen as a positive for the EU as France and the union no longer has to deal with the conflicting principles that the UK wants to pass leading to the delays of the laws that could have been passed.
Experts in the documentary makes a lot of the historical references to what Britain had that stood for its nostalgic independence, such has having one of the biggest land masses in Europe, being an island nation that defended themselves through the Navy in the 1900s, and that they were their own foreign empire. These are some of the examples that are likely drivers to the idea that UK was able to stand on their own in the past, giving them the feeling that they can do it again after Brexit is completed. In a sense, UK may have always considered themselves of superiority that can not be held back in the EU, as it much rather be the significant influencer to the ways of the laws they believe should be constitutionalized.
Even though UK’s Brexit may seem like a complicated and controversial decision as reflected from the political, social media, and mainstream media views, it can also be seen as a way to separate themselves so that they can help improve the relationship of working with EU instead of dealing with the in-fighting that would create a dissonance and delays of shaping the landscape of European laws and affairs. In today’s rapid evolution of globalization, both EU and UK will have to still work together in some capacity, just in different circumstances.
Their historical relationship speaks in a way that just like in human nature, their values and principles may never change, and the only optimal way to move on from the issues is to separate themselves from each other so that both sides can focus on the important issues, rather than continue this rivalry between two entities. Yes, there may be a significant cost in terms of finances and time, but without the consideration of trying to change, we may never know if it would improve the overall relationship. And these experts provide a refreshing take on the positive sides of what has happened to this day.
by: Trevor Brooks