Prime Time 7/8, Writing, Arbeitsheft

18 74 18 Politics and public institutions | Rules, regulations and legal matters 18.1 Text input This is how to explain Brexit to your children Are you having trouble explaining the UK leaving the European Union to your children? Here’s an explanation how to do it by Nicky Cox, the editor of First News , which is the UK’s only national newspaper for young people. I edit a children’s newspaper, First News , and one of the biggest challenges I have had to face is explaining what Brexit is to our readers. While adults will be familiar with the rhetoric in the mainstream media and beyond, many children were left wondering what was going on – and it was down to our publication to explain it to them in as simple a way as possible. So, here’s how we have managed to explain such a complex event to the younger generations, so they’re as informed of the facts as possible. On 23 June 2016 a referendum was held to decide whether the UK should remain in the European Union or leave it. More than 30 million people voted, and Leave won by 51.9 per cent to 48.1 per cent. A new word was created: “Brexit”, which is a short way of saying “the UK leaving the EU” by mixing the words Britain and Exit. But what does Brexit actually mean, and how will it affect us all? The European Union is a club of European countries. All of these countries pay to be members and, in return, get access to special ways of working together. This includes being part of a “single market”, which means that countries can trade with one another and people can move around freely as if we were all living together in one big country. The EU has its own parliament, laws and currency (the euro, although the UK doesn’t use this, as we have stuck to our own pounds and pence). The EU was set up after World War II with the idea that, if countries work together, they are unlikely to go to war again. The 48 per cent who voted to remain in the EU felt that being a member of a 28-nation club is better than going it alone. They felt it was easier for us to sell things to other EU countries, meaning it was good for businesses and trade. So why did over half of voters (51.9 per cent) in the UK want to leave this special club? The idea of the single market was to increase trade between countries, creating jobs and lowering prices. However, the European Parliament decides on many rules and standards that EU countries have to follow, and critics felt that we were losing control of our own affairs and laws. The UK used to pay billions of pounds in membership fees to the EU every year, and some people felt that we weren’t getting much back in return for this. Also, many people are moving from poorer countries to richer countries around the world. This made some people in the UK worry about the free movement rule, which allows people in the EU to move to any other EU country without needing special permission (a visa). This was a key issue for many voters and the Leave campaign won by just four per cent. Once the referendum had taken place, Prime Minister Theresa May had to trigger a special plan called Article 50, which she did on 29 March 2017. This is a formal way of telling the European Council about the UK’s plans to leave the EU. (Nicky Cox, www.independent.co.uk , 26 September 2017) 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv