{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Yes, I too am talking "Brexit"","description":"visit www.virtualnotdistant.com Hello and welcome to this extra episode of the 21st Century Work Life podcast, I\u2019m Pilar Orti. If you\u2019re a regular listener and managed to listen to last week\u2019s episode, you might know that I was not going to release an episode this week, as I needed to catch up with myself and also, I\u2019m in Madrid at the moment, where my set up is not ideal for working and also, not great for recording, so excuse the audio quality of this impromptu podcast. So today it\u2019s Monday and I never release an episode on Mondays and this week I wasn\u2019t suppose to release any anyway. But, Brexit happened and, almost against my reserved nature, as in, I\u2019m very careful with what I release on social media, and a podcast is considered social media, almost against my reserved nature I do want to share my reflections on this whole\u2026 let\u2019s say, situation. But I\u2019m not just talking about Brexit, also about the political situation in Spain and also about the importance, more now than ever as the political class is crumbling, the importance of creating a world of work that makes people\u2019s lives better.   As I said, three parts to this episode and the first is Brexit. On 23rd June, 52% of 71% of the UK\u2019s British nationals aged 18 and over \u2013 and you do the math, voted for the UK to leave the European Union. So, the first thing I\u2019d like to say is, if you\u2019re British and are ashamed of being British right now, of which there are many, I\u2019ve heard it first hand and second hand, don\u2019t be. Because 48% of the population voted remain. Not just that, I was actually incredibly touched by how much people, in my circles, put themselves out there showing support for the Remain vote and even asking others to do the same. And remember, foreigners residing in Britain like myself, couldn\u2019t vote. So these were British people making it very clear that they wanted to remain in the European Union. More about that later. In contrast to the couple of posts I saw during the campaign by foreign residents in the UK saying they didn\u2019t feel welcome, I\u2019ve been really touched by people speaking against the xenophobic vote. And hang on, I\u2019m not saying that everyone who voted to leave was xenophobic, but there was a proportion of the vote that certainly was. So, I\u2019m not angry at the fact that people voted Brexit. In fact, pretty much like the lovely Bernie who writes a newsletter every Sunday (as opposed to myself who is just incapable of doing one every month) I was actually very surprised at the amount of people who turned up to vote \u2013 72%! Considering that the turnout for the last set of local elections was under 40% and I think the same for the last general elections, not bad at all. So, I\u2019m not angry at that. I\u2019ll tell you what I\u2019m angry at. Two things in fact. This morning on Spanish radio I heard one of the journalists say, \u201c There\u2019s something I don\u2019t understand. David Cameron calls a referendum to see if people want to leave Europe. And then he campaigns to stay. So why did he call it then?\u201d Ah, of course what this very insightful Spanish journalist didn\u2019t know was the context in which the referendum was promised. The UK Independent Party was promising to do quite well in the last general elections, until Mr Cameron and friends, because I very much doubt that Cameron has been ruling the country on his own, they decided that they couldn\u2019t let their votes go to UKIP. UKIP had done really well in the European Elections, when their flagship promise in their manifesto was to get out of Europe. So, as the Tory votes, and politicians, started to migrate (ha ha, I thought I\u2019d use that word), as the Tory votes began to migrate to UKIP, Cameron needed to do something drastic. And that something was promising a referendum. I need to say here too, that a few years ago, I heard Cameron say on Radio4 that Britain would never leave Europe. It wasn\u2019t a reporter summarizing what he\u2019d said, it wasn\u2019t even a soundbyte. I heard the interview live on Radio4. Liar.   So I\u2019m angry at that. At the fact that someone or someones wanted to be in power so badly that they promised something they knew would throw the country and our relationship with the European Union down the drain. The other thing I\u2019m angry about of course, is that I\u2019ve lived 26 years in London. (And yes, only London, which is an entity in itself). I\u2019ve lived 26 years in London and yet I couldn\u2019t vote in a referendum which, let\u2019s face it, is going to affect me more than it\u2019s going to affect many people who could vote. And no, I didn\u2019t ask for a British passport in 26 years. What for? Didn\u2019t need one. Now we shall see. Everyone is asking me, what will you do? Will you become British? I don\u2019t know. We\u2019ll see what the options are and then we\u2019ll see. In all honesty, if I could become a Londoner, I\u2019d do it tomorrow. Which brings to me to a couple of other reflections from the past few days. If you\u2019re in Europe, you might have heard that there\u2019s been a petition on the internet for London to become independent. That\u2019s nice. Whereas I understand the anger of Londoners, which is probably the place in the UK where there are indeed more Europeans and the numbers were more or less 70% in favour of remaining, whereas I understand that I also say, come on\u2026 Think about it, what would happen if London left England? (And I\u2019m saying England, because if we did move towards making London independent, it would be more or less at the same time as Scotland and northern Ireland left, yes, they\u2019re pretty angry too\u2026) But if London left England, the rest of the country would probably not do so well. So really? Do you really want London to be independent? Well, maybe you do, it depends on how pissed off you are\u2026 And there\u2019s of course that other petition asking for a new referendum if either vote won by less than 60%... Over a million signatures in like 24 hours\u2026 a lot of which were fake\u2026. If you believe the Twitter stream of the Petitions Committee, about 20,000 came from North Korea and about 40k from the Vatican. What a laugh. Not just that \u2013 I came across the petition on Facebook , by the way, everyone in my stream was so angry with the result\u2026, anyway, I came across the petition, went to the website and of course the website was down. When I finally was able to read it properly, I thought, 60%... say this petition went ahead, how are we going to get form 48% to 60%? Say there\u2019s another referendum, then Remain wins, by 55% to 45% and then\u2026 well, you need another referendum, because we didn\u2019t get to 60%... and meanwhile, no one is paying attention to the nhs, to education, to Syria, Turkey, the threat from Isis and oh, immigration. Oh, and Donald Trump. OMG. So I didn\u2019t sign the petition because I thought, well, we\u2019d never get to 60% remain. But, oh, was I wrong. Was I wrong because I thought people had brains. And here\u2019s the third thing that\u2019s getting me angry. Well, not really angry because there\u2019s no point in getting angry. So today I came across a new word: Bregret, what people who voted Brexit are now feeling. I\u2019ll give you some anecdotal examples. On Facebook, when I made the point about the petition putting us in perpetum referendum, someone said, well, four of my very informed friends had voted Brexit but they never thought it would really count if the majority was so near 50%. Well, you should have informed yourself a bit better, didn\u2019t you. Or another one, Oh, I only voted Brexit because I wanted to scare off Cameron. Well guess what, a vote is not a suggestion that you are behind something, a vote counts people. And now the Bregret is also increasing as you know, and you\u2019ll be surprised at this, apparently the Leave campaigners were lying. According to an article in El Mundo, which I think has been taken from the Independent, Johnson and Farage were lying about what Brexit would mean for the NHS and immigration. Yes, my friends, this is the problem with democracy, An informed vote counts as much as an uninformed vote. And this goes too for parents of expats in Europe wanting to vote Brexit and children of immigrants in Britain voting Brexit.   Aside from all this, and the other repercussions like the mess that Labour is now in, Scotland and Northern Ireland now threatening with having referendums themselves to leave the UK.   While I\u2019ve mentioned Labour, I know that Jeremy Corbyn has been given a really hard time about not backing Remain earlier or more vigorously but, you know what, his words after the results were the most sensible. This result reflects the divide in society in the UK. It reflects inequality. It reflects a system that focuses on the short terms and doesn\u2019t look at the long term consequences. In one way, it\u2019s no wonder that most of London voted to stay. Those that have been pushed out of London because of the housing prices are probably not that happy. Luxury flats continue to pop up all over London in all sorts of areas. Why are we obsessed with having luxury flats? How can normal people afford to live in London??? And that\u2019s just a small example. In a way, I can\u2019t even blame some of the British for being scared of uncontrolled immigration \u2013 did you know that you can get the leaflets that come through your door from Hammersmith and Fulham in, I seem to remember, 17 languages? And you can choose to have the website translated into over 20 languages? Another anecdote, a friend of my husband\u2019s went to take the UK citizenship test and apparently, you had access to a translator. What? In the Netherlands you need to pass a Dutch test if you want to become a national. I know I\u2019m privileged and have never had problems with the language but, you really don\u2019t want immigration without integration, because this is what you get. The UK has always been so tolerant, so welcoming and so afraid of being intolerant that they\u2019ve gone too far in that direction, forgetting that unless you have integration of all the different nationalities, you can\u2019t live as one. So I\u2019m with Corbyn and many others, thinking that this Brexit mess is unfortunately a symptom of a lot of what\u2019s going on, on many levels and in many different places. Some of it is completely irrational (like those people voting Brexit without knowing it would have consequences like, oh, leaving the EU\u2026) but others, well, there\u2019s a lot that the UK and the European Union need to be looking at, before the whole thing crumbles.   Now before I move onto Spain, where does the world of work come into this? Ok, pause and disclaimer. I can only talk about this form my point of view. From a knowledge worker, middle class European. (Ha ha, I\u2019ll say that again) European. In fact Western European, because the differences between West and East are still quite noticeable. The political class seems pretty much rotten. I\u2019m not saying that they horrible individuals but they\u2019re a little bit out of their depth, some more than others. They\u2019ve got challenges they never thought they\u2019d come across. A flood of immigrants running for their lives, kids who feel like foreigners in their countries of birth but who are looked as foreigners also in their countries of ethnic, who finally find a place to belong to under the wings of terrorists. And economically, let\u2019s face it, we\u2019re not doing that well\u2026 So, ok, I\u2019ll speak for myself. I don\u2019t feel like I can do much about who\u2019s governing the country I live in. We seem to be constantly let down by every political party. So where can we gain a bit of control? Well, I think at work. It\u2019s no coincidence (even though I know it\u2019s not the direct result) but it\u2019s no coincidence that the whole rise in self-management is happening now. Maybe finding more autonomy at work is really what we need. I\u2019m not going to go as far as saying that we have to have a purpose (although some of you will say that that is important), but that at least, we have some sort of control over our destiny. This is where I bring back the world of work. I feel like we need to think of companies and organisations as places where we can belong to; places which we can shape through our actions. It will need a change of mindset, but to me, it seems the only way forwards for now. Make a difference at work and through work, because making a difference in society seems to be getting harder and harder. But work is connected to society, who makes up the world of work if not?   This was the end of the script, I adlibbed after that. I talked about how people looked miserable in Spain in the voting queue on Sunday and how many of my friends just didn\u2019t know who to vote for. Wherever YOU are, whatever you\u2019re doing, please enjoy. ","author_name":"21st Century Work Life","author_url":"http:\/\/www.virtualnotdistant.com\/podcasts","html":"