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| UK vores for Brexit. Picture:
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Today marks the start of a week like no other in
Europe, as the UK is no longer an EU country.
However, the formal and legal process of leaving
the European Union only begins after the article 50 trigger is pulled and Britain’s divorce from the
EU will certainly not be finalised overnight.
On Thursday UK voted for Brexit after a very bitter campaign which has
seen families split down in the middle, politicians vehemently attacking each
other during debates and the tragic murder of Labour MP Joe Cox. She was shot outside a local constituency meeting near Leeds a week before people head to
the polls, because of her strong pro-EU stance.
Referendum day saw a 72.2 per cent turnout and a whopping 51.9 per cent of the
nation voted to leave.
Results show a leave side dominance in England and Wales, while Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU.
The northern country of the island of Great Britain will now have to
reapply to the bloc for membership, if it wants to stay in the EU.
According to the Commission, the whole procedure would likely take
years and come with specific conditions; the adoption of the Euro currency is one of them.
The English capital voted strongly to stay as well, and now many
companies in the city are worried for their future.
Emotions have been running quite high anywhere and particularly
on social media, since the final results were announced at the central Town
Hall in Manchester in the early hours of June 24.
Within less than two days, more than three million people had signed
an online petition calling for a second EU referendum, while a petition to
newly elected mayor of London asking to declare the capital independent from
the UK and apply to join the EU, has registered over 150 thousand signatures.
The list goes on and over the weekend tens of thousands of people in central
London protested against Brexit.
Unforgettable is the almost immediate Prime Minister’s speech
of resignation, during which he explained how the country requires a
fresh leadership to take it in the new direction, having British people made
a very clear decision to go a different way.
He added he will stay until the start of the Conservative
party conference in October and will do everything he can as Prime Minister
but it would not be right for him to be the captain that steers the country
into its next destination. His aim is to guarantee a period of
stability before his successor is installed to begin negotiations with the
European Union.
It is however hard to foresee any stability in such a chaotic
scenario.
First of all, there is lot of anger and uncertainty all over the
country: the impact on the pound and inflation has been immediate, as GBP
went down double digits and FTSE down 7-8% within minutes from the polls
closure. The financial market situation is not that dramatic right now;
however, chancellor George Osborne hint at recession this
morning, during his first post-Brexit speech.
On the one hand, the country cannot ignore that there are 1.3 million Brits facing
questions about their future living abroad within the EU. As a consequence
of the new setting, British expats may lose certain
rights, and start being charged for healthcare and higher taxes.
On the other hand, there are over 2 million EU migrants working in
Britain who according to HMRC data, made a net contribution to the economy of
more than £2.5bn (tax year 2013-14). In the near future many of them may lose their right to stay or face
significant restrictions. However, Brexit will probably lead an increase in
migration in the short-term and hundreds of thousands of EU migrants are now
likely to apply for British passports.
Uncertainty is ruling the country and it comes as no surprise.
While surfing on the internet, it is possible to find many comments of Brexiters who regretted their vote soon after UK was announced to be out of the EU. One leave voter even expressed his/her shock to the BBC by saying: “I'm shocked that we actually have voted to leave, I didn't think that was going to happen. My vote I didn't think was going to matter too much (…)".
Are such worrying comments the consequence of a Leave campaign all
focused on immigration and the subsequently withdrawn statement that UK
sends £350 million a week to the EU, instead of funding the NHS?
Is the outcome of what ultimately became a referendum on immigration, actually
marking ‘independence day’ of the UK as UKIP leader Nigel
Farage triumphantly said on Friday?
How is this going to affect those fundamental human rights protected in the EU legal order now that Great Britain has decided to go its own way after 43 years?
All we know right now is that Brexit will still be on the pages and
front pages of many papers abroad for some time and the 24th June
2016 will be the day that changed the course of British history.
The path is still very unclear.
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