00:04Thank you, so about two years ago today,
after I'd first moved out to the US,
00:10I went up to Tahoe with
a group of GSB classmates.
00:14And the GSB really started our
immense carry-on with the holiday.
00:18But when we were up there, I remember
walking through the beautiful mountain
00:23air overlooking the lake, when suddenly
the silence and the bird song were
00:28shattered by someone shouting, you are
such an asshole, you can say that here!
00:34I was a little bit shocked.
00:35Someone was shouting at me, why?
00:39Because I had just said that I voted for
Brexit.
00:43Now I have to say I felt pretty taken
aback by someone that I'd really
00:48only just met, who was from Boston and
had really zero affiliation with
00:53the UK at all getting angry at me for
how I voted in the Brexit referendum.
00:59That it made me realize that Brexit
is a controversial topic and
01:03engenders a lot of negative
stereotypes and negative emotions.
01:08And this guy had made an assumption about
me that really was totally incorrect and
01:14misconstrued why I voted for Brexit.
01:16And so I want to use this opportunity
today to tell you about why I did vote
01:22I voted for Brexit because I want
Britain to be more open, more global.
01:28I've not voted for Brexit because I
want Britain to close in on itself.
01:33And I'm worried that all the bright,
intelligent people here at Stanford and
01:36across the rest of the world will be
scared about going, and living, and
01:41investing in the UK because of those
negative stereotypes about Brexit.
01:48I look forward to a post-Brexit
Britain that's more open, more global,
01:53and more inclusive, than it was before.
01:56And I want you guys all to be
excited about that, as well.
02:00So let me start off by putting
the EU in an American context.
02:06In my mind, the European Union
can be split into two parts,
02:09a political union and an economic union.
02:12So if we apply this to the Americas,
02:14if we apply an economic union, imagine
a federation of all 23 countries in
02:19the whole of the Americas from Canada
all the way through to Argentina.
02:23Trade would be free and tariff-free.
02:26Argentinian steaks could be enjoyed
in Anchorage in the same way
02:30that the Alaskan oil and
gas could be traded in Buenos Aires.
02:34People would also be able to move freely,
traveling wherever they liked to live,
02:39to work, to study without discrimination.
02:43How many of you in this room,
and I want to see some hands,
02:46how many of you in this room would vote
for such a system in the Americas?
02:51So a few of you,
now think about the political union.
02:55Under the political union, we take a new
parliament and paste it, say, in Peru.
03:02And this would supersede the US House and
03:05Senate and would start to make the
majority of the rules that govern the US.
03:10Now for the Americans of you in the room,
I'm sure you all love and
03:13you all respect the Supreme Court, but
we're going to replace that, as well.
03:17We're going to put a new court,
say, in Belize.
03:20And this court is going to be staffed with
judges from across the Americas and will
03:24make the majority of the legal decisions
that mattered to the United States.
03:28Now how many of you would vote for
that system?
03:32So I don't see any hands.
03:35And that, for me,
is what the European Union is about.
03:41Now people in this room, I'm sure you
like Mexicans, you like the Canadians,
03:46especially if they look like
Justin Trudeau or Rachel McAdams.
03:52you do not want the good people of
Ottawa to be telling you what to do.
03:57You don't want the good people of Ottawa
to be telling you how many hours you
04:01should be allowed to work in a given day,
04:03whether your prisoners should
be allowed to vote or not, and,
04:06most bizarrely of all, the size and
shape that your bananas should be.
04:11Now those are all things that the EU does.
04:15Britain leaving the European union is
about leaving that political union.
04:20Taking back those decisions to the UK is
not about leaving the economic union.
04:26I think leaving the economic union of
the European Union would be bad for
04:30both Britain and for
the rest of the world.
04:34It's going to make people poorer if
Germans can't sell their cars into
04:37the UK and we can't sell our scotch
whiskey into the rest of Europe.
04:43But by leaving the political union,
I hope that we can expand our trade
04:47beyond just the European boundaries and
embrace more global trade.
04:52At the moment, global trade deals have
to be negotiated at a European level.
04:57Britain is not free to go
negotiate trade deals on its own.
05:01And that results in complications.
05:03Within Europe, there's lots of different
countries with lots of different economies
05:07and different motives and interests.
05:09And those trade deals, as a consequence,
take a long time to negotiate.
05:12The most recent one was with Canada.
05:14And that took seven years for
the European Union to negotiate that deal.
05:20My hope is that Britain can embrace the
trading networks that we historically had.
05:25Britain has a great commonwealth and, for
a long time, traded around the world.
05:3270s, when Britain first applied to
join the European Economic Community,
05:37which is the precursor of the EU,
it was actually vetoed.
05:41Us joining was vetoed by the French.
05:43And the French reason was precisely
because they believed that Britain's
05:48trading networks were to too far-flung,
distant, and diverse lands.
05:54So I believe that by leaving the European
Union, Britain can re-embrace and
05:58reestablish those historical trading
networks, embracing the world,
06:02not closing in on itself.
06:05Now embracing the world does
not just mean economically.
06:10It also means embracing
the world's people.
06:14When I moved to the US two years ago,
06:16it was the first experience I'd ever had
of being an immigrant to another country.
06:21And I realized quickly how difficult and
how many difficult decisions you end up
06:25being forced to make when
you move to somewhere else.
06:28The hardest one for me involved my
girlfriend at the time, called Sophie.
06:35Now Sophie and I had gone out for
two and a half years.
06:39And I loved her very much.
06:41But when I got the phone call from
Derrick saying that I got into Stanford,
06:45the six months following that, the elation
of getting into Stanford, and coming and
06:50living in California, and meeting all you
amazing people, that elation slowly turned
06:55to despair as we realized that the US visa
rules meant it'd be almost impossible for
06:59Sophie to move out with me.
07:02Now I ended up, obviously,
coming, and Sophie stayed behind.
07:06And unfortunately, the 12-hour flight and
07:09the 8-hour time difference was too
much for our relationship to bear.
07:13That struck me as being incredibly
unfair that bright, young,
07:18ambitious people could not come and
work in the US and
07:22could not come and
contribute to the economy here.
07:26But unfortunately,
the same is true of the UK and for
07:29Americans wanting to go and
work and live in the UK.
07:33You would find it extremely difficult
when Britain is part of your,
07:38to go and move and work there.
07:40And the reason is is that you would be
behind the queue of people from Poland,
07:43from France, from Italy that are all
entitled to come, and work, and
07:49By having open borders to the whole
of Europe, you build walls for
07:53the rest of the world.
07:55And I want those walls to come down.
07:57Britain should be open to accepting
the Ben's and Sophie's of China, of USA,
08:03of India, of Africa and accepting as many
bright and brilliant people as we can.
08:07We should not just be restricted
to the Benjamin's, Bonjaman's,
08:11and Benzino's of Europe.
08:18So for me, opening up to the world
is really what Brexit is about.
08:24It's not about closing in.
08:27And if I go back to that time in Tahoe,
I wish I hadn't been so taken aback.
08:34There are fundamental misconceptions and
stereotypes
08:37that are applied to people that voted for
Brexit, but Brexit is going to happen.
08:42And it's time that people that voted for
Brexit to stop feeling demonized for
08:46the way they voted and start coming out
and presenting a positive image for
08:50Brexit and for post-Brexit Britain.
08:53For my part, Brexit for
08:55me was about opening Britain up
to the world, not closing us in.
09:02I'm excited about the future
of post-Brexit Britain
09:05as a hub of globalization, accepting
brilliant people from around the world.
09:11And I hope some of you will come join us,
thank you.
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