Wife Swap: Brexit Special

31 May 2017

Pauline, her 14-year old daughter Katie and her husband Andy live in Canvey Island, Essex – a traditional white working class area. Pauline works behind the bar in the local private member’s club; Andy is employed in a local warehouse; and Katie is doing her GCSEs.

 

The entire family are keen leavers and Pauline campaigned during the referendum for UKIP. She is a huge fan of Nigel Farage and thinks he is one of the country’s greatest heroes. The couple voted out for a number of reasons, with immigration being one of the most important. Andy in particular feels that the country is losing its identity and that the UK must regain control of its borders. The family believe that many Remainers look down on them or think they’re racist and they get very upset by this allegation.

 

Kat, her 17-year old daughter Sophie and partner Roger live on Roger’s family farm in a prosperous area of rural Nottinghamshire.  Kat is a psychotherapist who works for the NHS and is also a Green party Councillor; Roger works on the family farm; and Katie is studying for her A-levels.

Kat has dual-nationality, but was born in Germany and came to the UK 17 years ago. She originally fell in love with the country, but feels that a wave of xenophobia has been unleashed since the referendum and is now thinking seriously of leaving the UK.

 

Pauline and Kat will be swapping home and lives for one week. For the first half of the week they will need to live by the others house rules, but then they'll have the chance to change the rules and show their new family how they see things in the Brexit Britain.

 

Upon arriving in Canvey Island, Kat is struck by just how white the area is and how lacking in diversity. She immediately notices the reading material in her new home, the Daily Express, which she thinks would be better used as dog litter for Katie’s new puppy. When she meets Andy they waste no time in having a robust conversation about Brexit.

 

In Nottinghamshire, Pauline hosts a dinner party for some of Kat’s friends. One guest, Helen, is quick to interrogate her and the conversation quickly turns to whether Leavers are racists. Pauline is shocked to hear another guest, a German immigrant, fears being deported. It’s not a side effect of Brexit that she ever imagined when she voted.

 

Kat and Andy travel to Whitechapel, a part of London’s East End that many Canvey natives originate from. It’s an area with a large Bangladeshi population and Andy explains why it’s a good example of how he sees the country has changed. Kat explains that multi-culturalism is a good thing for her, but in any case sees this as a separate issue from the Brexit debate.

 

Pauline spends a morning canvassing with the Green Party. She meets a Spanish nurse, who is thinking of leaving the country. He explains that he came to the UK as it was a welcoming country, but that living and working here no longer appeals.  He says he fears for the NHS, as so many EU nationals who work for the health service feel the same and are also planning to leave.

Kat does Pauline’s shift behind the bar in the local private member’s club.  Both landlord Lee and many of the regulars are strong Leavers and Kat finds herself drawn into a heated debate. The experience leaves her tearful and further questioning her future in the country.

 

After living under house rules for half a week, both Kat and Pauline get to make changes. Pauline immediately puts a picture of Nigel Farage on the wall.  She also tells Roger and Sophie that she has signed them up to help with the local UKIP party. Despite refusing to wear a UKIP rosette, they agree to spend a morning canvassing and Sophie challenges the local party Chairman over the infamous refugee poster from the Brexit campaign.

 

Kat’s rule changes include using the Daily Express as doggy litter and she tries to encourage puppy Milo to aim at Nigel Farage's picture. She also proposes taking Andy’s St George’s cross bunting down and replacing it with EU flags. Andy refuses and Kat leaves the house in anger.  They eventually find a compromise and spend a night dancing away in a Polish restaurant.

One of Pauline’s biggest reasons for voting out was an experience of being homeless and forced to live in a B&B with her young family. She takes Roger and Sophie to a similar hotel in Nottingham and tearfully explains that she thinks it was wrong that she saw a number of foreign families housed before her. Roger feels that what she’s suggesting is unfair and they leave the B&B further away in their opinions than ever

 

In Canvey Kat returns to the local club to hold a Brexit pub quiz. She feels that many leavers have had the wool pulled over their eyes by misleading stories and statistics in the tabloids. The locals, however, answer most of her questions correctly and Kat is left even more frustrated when landlord Lee introduces his own round to the quiz. She leaves the pub angry and upset.

 

The two couples travel to East Hertfordshire, a part of the country approximately halfway between their two homes, which voted almost exactly 50/50 in the referendum. Across the table, they challenge each other on what they’ve learned from the experience and what they really think of each other. Andy asks Kat if she thinks he's a racist. She says she thinks he is xenophobic. Kat says that she does understand more about the other side from the experiment, but that it hasn’t changed her mind. 

 

Both wives leave relieved to be heading home and talk candidly about the swap to their partners. They discuss what they've learnt and the value of listening to the other side of the debate.  In Nottingham the Nigel Farage picture is consigned to the flames but in the garden a Brexit present from Pauline lurks undiscovered - a Farage garden gnome!