With Brexit fast approaching, Emma and Chloe are slowing down to look back at how Britain came to the brink of crashing out of the EU.
In this very first episode of Barely Gettin’ By, they discuss how hard Britain worked to get into Europe in the first place and why, ever since, more and more people have wanted to get Britain out.
Starting with David Cameron’s decision to put the question of Britain’s membership of the EU to a referendum, they go over a long three years of political mistakes, elections, and negotiations. Chloe covers the social and political divisions of contemporary Britain, and what it was like to live through the 2016 Referendum.
Emma and Chloe cover the big and the basic questions, like why Britain just can’t seem to make a deal with the EU, what even is the backstop, what happens next with Parliament revolting and the 31 October deadline to leave the EU suddenly in question.
Reading List
Some illuminating fiction:
Seasonal Quartet Series, Ali Smith
Crudo, Olivia Laing
Derry Girls, on Netflix
The Favourite (2018)
And some non-fiction:
“The Northern Ireland Backstop”, Institute for Government, 12 March 2019
Cahal McLaughlin, “Where politicians fail, storytellers address the Troubles in Ireland”, The Conversation, 29 October 2014
Robert Saunders, “The myth of Brexit as imperial nostalgia,” Prospect Magazine, 7 January 2019.
“The Two Jacobs: James Meek on Post-Brexit Britain,” The London Review of Books, Vol. 41 No. 15, 1 August 2019, p 13-16.

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