Hello again and welcome back to Britain under the Microscope. Hello, Anlan.

Hello everybody. So today, what would you like to talk about?

Actually, there's one thing that I always wanted to talk about. If you think about the hottest topic or one of the hottest topics for people in the UK, for the past couple of years now, it's got to be Brexit. Right? So let's talk about that.

So first of all, probably best to know that we're recording this in January 22. So maybe by the time you’ve listened to this episode, things might have changed a little bit.

It kept changing on this topic.

So we're gonna explain a little bit about the relationship between Britain and rest of Europe as well as some of the underlying causes and some of the underlying common themes of Brexit.

To just give you the background. So talking about Britain and Europe. One thing that I've noticed living in the UK was that when I was talking to people, and sometimes British people would say, next week, I'll go to Europe and I'm thinking, aren't you in Europe?

Yep, we have a very complicated relationship with Europe.

So British people don't consider themselves Europeans?

They do, and they don't. For example, if you're on the continent, that's what we call it in the UK, then probably people are more inclined to say, I'm European, but as a British person, we would be more likely say I'm British or I’m English, Scottish, Welsh, etc.

It sounds like Britain or has had a very complicated relationship with Europe.

Very much so. That's because we've always been connected to Europe. If you think about it, even our royal family originally comes from Germany.

Really? Based on my very, very limited historical knowledge. Queen Victoria, she had some sort of connection with Germany?

Well her mother was German.

Really.

And she married a German and she spoke fluent German. And apparently some people said that she spoke English with a very, very slight German accent.

That was your queen.

But even before that, George the First in the 18th century, he actually came from a place called Hannover in Germany. And when he came to the UK, he couldn't actually speak any English.

So complete German speaking king.

So the only way that he could actually speak with his government was by using Latin.

Okay, I guess you get around it.

It's actually one of the reasons why we have a prime minister now because they had to have a senior minister to take the place of the king to help the king because the king couldn't speak any English.

What about the royal family now? And do they have any connection with Germany or?

They still have family in Germany even their original or what you could call their real name is actually German.

I thought the royal family has the surname of Windsor.

No they've only had the surname Windsor since the First World War. That's because they had to change their name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

That is very German.

Very very very German.

So that was the original surname for the British royal family. Wow. So that's Europe in general. Now let's look at your neighbor, one of the neighbors that you have probably a love hate relationship, more like a friend of me, France. Would you say that you do have kind of a love hate relationship with France?

Absolutely. If you think about our history for the past thousand years, we've been a war with France or we've had some sort of rivalry France.

You actually had a hundred-year war with France.

Yes, but technically it was 116 years.

So longer than 100 years.

We just rounded down.

And who won that war?

Originally it was France.

So England and France, very very close to each other.

Very, very close. The closest point between England and France, Dover and Calais, is only 33 kilometers.

That's why people always try to swim across.

Some people do try and swim across. Then some have been successful. But if you're in France or if you're in England at that point you can actually see the other country.

True neighbors. Now with this whole Brexit thing, it was Britain exiting the EU, European Union. So could you tell our listeners a little bit about EU, about whole? Because when I was in school I remember learning all these EEC, EC, EU, all of these organizations, I get a bit confused sometimes.

Well, it’s bit confusing. The original idea was the EEC. So the European Economic Community in the nineteen fifties, it was just after the Second World War and Europe had to rebuild.

So that's primarily economic.

And then it started to grow further. In 1973, the UK joined what was then known as the European Community, the EC.

So that was the predecessor of EU.

Yeah. And that primary was an economic institution. It was about ease of trade, ease of access. And back then the British economy was doing quite badly. So we wanted to be part of it. And we actually had a referendum in which the UK voted to join the EC.

Oh so back then, people wanted to be part of Europe. And then the EU? That's more than just economic, it's also political?

Yep. The EU or European Union was founded in 1993. And the idea was that aside from economic unity, they would also be greater political unity.

Within the EU, essentially, they are no borders. So complete freedom of movement, including for travelers traveling into the EU. For example, as a Chinese, if I get what they call a Schengen Visa, we can travel from one EU country to another without applying for a different visa.

Yeah, when I was a child, it was very very easy, still is very easy to go to Europe. And you would actually go through all of these different countries. And the only thing that you would know or notice was that the money changed. There were no border guards. There were no border crossings.

No checking points.

No checkpoints. You just go past maybe a very, very small sign saying you are now in Belgium or you are now in Germany.

And apart from traveling, what about to live and work? For example, someone living in one EU country, can they go to another EU country just to work and live there? Without any further permission.

You can go and work in any European country, live and work and you have the same rights as a citizen. The only thing that you probably don't have is the right to vote in a particular country, but you can still vote in European elections.

What about health benefits? So someone when the UK still is in the EU, when someone, let's say a French person comes to the UK, if they need medical services, would they have access to NHS?

Yeah, and all European citizens they have what they call European health card.

Do you also have that as a British person?

Yeah, I’ve got one, it’s outdate now. I didn't bother to renew it. But if you go to another European country, then you still have the same education and health benefits.

So that's mutual access to public health care, a free of charge?

Free of charge.

So, let’s wrap up here. In this episode, we’ve talked about the general background of the relationship between UK and Europe. In the next episode, Anlan and I are going to continue with the topic of Brexit. We’re gonna actually take a look at British people’s attitudes towards Brexit. Meanwhile, if you have anything to say or to ask about this topic, leave us a comment in the comment section. We’ll see you next time, Bye.