Your Chad asked Mansfield shoppers their thoughts on whether the UK was better off post-Brexit or not, and why.
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00:00 Would you like to share your thoughts?
00:02 Yes, I was a Brexiteer and voted to come out of Europe,
00:06 but I'm not sure whether we're any better off or not now.
00:10 I know it's affected a lot of my friends
00:13 who can no longer stay abroad for six months of the year.
00:19 They're limited to 90 days now, and then they have to come back.
00:24 Apart from that, I don't think much has changed, really.
00:28 That's my thoughts.
00:29 When would you vote differently this time?
00:31 Where are you unsure?
00:33 I'm on the fence now, so I don't know.
00:37 So what's your thoughts?
00:38 Is the country better off or worse?
00:40 Worse off, especially areas like this.
00:43 It's just been a colossal mistake.
00:49 And worries that people have have been used and abused
00:55 by people funded by hedge funds who just
00:58 wanted to avoid EU regulation of what they could do.
01:02 Yeah, and what are you doing in Mansfield today?
01:04 Are you shopping or yet?
01:06 Just came up to--
01:07 I live in Europe.
01:09 And every now and again, I'm at Mansfield just to get
01:12 a change of scenery.
01:14 But no, it's funny.
01:16 Even Europe voted massively for Brexit.
01:21 And I just couldn't understand it when it happened.
01:26 And that is just based on pure ignorance.
01:31 It's like, when you see all these people talking about
01:34 global Britain, that's laughable.
01:37 Britain hasn't been a global power since 1950.
01:42 That all stopped years ago.
01:44 We're not a global power in anything.
01:46 We don't invest in technology the way we should.
01:50 We don't invest in our firms the way we should.
01:54 It's all a bit of a chimera where you have to say
02:00 something positive because people like
02:02 to hear something positive.
02:02 But actually, all the metrics, the hard numbers, are all
02:07 going in the wrong direction.
02:09 So all nonsense.
02:11 Mind you, I moved here from the south of England, near Henley.
02:15 And if you live in Henley, everything's wonderful.
02:19 Because Henley's one of the richest places in Britain.
02:23 And if you live in the wealthy parts of London,
02:26 everything's fine.
02:29 But it's not fine when you come away from there.
02:32 And when they tell you Britain is the sixth largest economy
02:35 in the world, that's because they count the capitalisation
02:39 of the stock market.
02:41 Does this look like the sixth richest country in the world?
02:44 I've been round Europe and America.
02:46 I can tell you, it isn't.
02:49 Not at all.
02:51 But people like to be told a tale.
02:53 And they like to be told things are good.
02:56 Biggest army in the world, all of a sudden, twaddle.
02:58 Actually, British army's been cut by 7,000 this year
03:03 after Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine.
03:07 That was planned to save money.
03:10 And it's all like that, unfortunately.
03:13 So I think I would--
03:16 if I genuinely took British politics seriously,
03:20 I would despair.
03:22 Because the leadership here, it's just nonsense.
03:27 If you want to see a country which does things well,
03:30 a trip to Germany will put you right.
03:34 Germans, generally, the average German family
03:37 and the average French family is 18,000 pounds a year better off
03:42 than their equivalent here.
03:44 18,000 pounds.
03:45 That's 50% better off.
03:48 And it's that way because in Germany,
03:51 firms invest heavily in automation and everything
03:55 like that so they stay competitive.
03:57 Our lot couldn't wait to export their firms to China.