As a young woman, I want to be able to give the best future to my future children. Young people today are much more connected to other young people across the world, in ways that were not the case even a few decades ago. The June 2016 referendum reflected this, with young voters overwhelmingly choosing to remain in the EU (Goodwin and Heath, 2016: 227). I want my future children to be participants of the globalized and interconnected world we now live in as much as the children of other European nations.

My dad is a UK national, and through the single market’s freedom of movement, he was able to move abroad for work at a young age. Years later I was given the opportunity to live in both Spain and Belgium. This opportunity allowed me to learn how to speak four languages as well as make friends with people from all across the EU and the world. My upbringing taught me the values of cosmopolitanism, which in a way, is the direction the world is heading towards right now. The EU is made of 28 member states, the block has trade agreements with 70 countries around the world who cover 40% of the worlds GDP. However, the UK is choosing to isolate itself instead of embracing the EU with its imperfections but also overwhelming benefits. I am afraid that Brexit will take away from future generations some of the opportunities that I was granted and harm the ability of my future children to interact with our global partners.

I support a People’s Vote because Brexit is depriving 48% of the people who voted to Remain from all of the wonderful opportunities the EU has to give, especially for me as a young person and a woman. Furthermore, regardless of the result of a new referendum, the people need clarity and a chance to vote on the circumstances now, which are very different from what was voted for in the 2016 referendum two and a half years ago and seem to suggest, that people would now vote to Remain as a part of the EU (Survation, 2019).

Sources:

Goodwin, M. and Heath, O. (2016). The 2016 Referendum, Brexit and the Left Behind: An Aggregate-level Analysis of the Result. The Political Quarterly, 87(3), pp.323-332.

Survation. (2019). What does the British public now think about Brexit?. [online] Available at: https://www.survation.com/what-does-the-british-public-now-think-about-brexit/ [Accessed 4 Feb. 2019].