What will
be the consequences of Brexit?
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| Source: https://rts.org.uk/article/brexit-what%E2%80%99s-best-british-tv |
As we all know, on 23th of June more than 30
million British people took part in the referendum on UK’s membership of the
EU. They were answering the question:
‘Should the United Kingdom remain a member of
the European Union or leave the European Union?’. The result was 52% to 48% for
leaving.
People who voted for leaving said that Britain
was being held back by the Union. Brussels charged a huge amount of money per
year for being a member of the EU and gave little in return. It was also blamed
for dictating British sovereignty and democracy. People wanted back the
capability of own decision-making in such cases like: border control or
immigrant problems.
Why will the process of
leaving the EU take years? A vote to leave the EU was only the
start, not the end of the complex process. The “breaking up” with Brussels
depends on British government’s decision
to announce its retreat. In this case, according to the procedure it has to
officially notify the Union following the Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. What
is interesting, this Article has not been used yet in the history of the
European Union. According to Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, the process of
exit arrangement lasts for not less than two years. Theresa May (Prime Minister
of the UK) claimed, she intends to use Article 50 until March 2017. Calculating,
UK should leave by the end of March 2019.
There are two versions of
Brexit - hard and soft. The hard one proposes the scenario of the UK not
agreeing to compromise on such topics like free movement of people. On the
other hand, the soft version foresees Britain may act similarly to Norway,
which is not a member of the EU but has access to the European Common Market
(ECM).
When it comes to staying
united, leaving the EU might transform the UK in a fundamental way. It is
called united because it consists of four, let’s say, “countries”: Northern
Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England. Looking at Britain now when it is at the
last step towards leaving the EU, there is a real risk that it will persist in
the current shape for a lot longer.
At the end of the serious
considerations I recommend watching a short and funny video (published few days
before the Brexit referendum) from Last Week Tonight with John Olivier about
Brexit.
Please feel free to present your opinion on this topic.
Bibliography:
Comments
http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/06/24/480949383/britains-google-searches-for-what-is-the-eu-spike-after-brexit-vote
Brexit can also have a big impact on the situation in Poland - if all our countrymen living in the UK (or only some of them) have to return to their own country, we will have serious problems here e.g. high level of unemployment.
I think that imigrant policy is a big problem for the UK and one of main resons why people voted this way. Polish people living in the UK after brexit stared to fell consequences. For example young people stared attacks on Polish people. In my opinion brexit will take a lot longer time than until March 2019.
Let's see on our GDP ( http://goo.gl/YTrQRp ). We has had one of the highest (percetage!) increases in Europe. which is much more difficult than in other, smaller, countries.
Of course, GDP is not the only measure, but it shows some part of our economy compared to other countries.
That's why, as I said, I believe that despite EU will become weaker, Poland will be able to use it in "economically wise" way.
Independent: “Nigel Farage also told Good Morning Britain that the claim written on the side of the Vote Leave Battle Bus – that leaving the EU would release £350m a week that could be spent on the NHS – was "a mistake". "It wasn’t one of my adverts," he said.” It was a pure lie and no one will hold them liable.
What will come to Britain: first, attacks on immigrants mainly Poles because other minorities are protected by political correction. Second, British Treasury analysis suggests the costs of Brexit would be high and I quote: “the central estimate touted by George Osborne, the chancellor, is that GDP may be 6.2% lower than it would otherwise have been by 2030, an annual cost that he reckons works out at some £4,300 ($6,000) per household.” It will mostly affect those poor uneducated households which voted “leave”.
On the other hand, many companies, that have their offices in London and other cities in Great Britain, might want to move headquarters to EU, for example Warsaw.
In my opinion, we have to wait more than 2 years to see, how EU will survive without Great Britain.
After all, Brits are just like any other people in any other country. I also recommend watching this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfDtylU8ZEA. Have fun ;)
When talking about military case I think that EU do not create any military forces but I might be mistaken because I'm not really interested in this topic.
We will see what will happen next...
Talking about Brexit:
I'm not sure how you would square the circle, to be honest. I realize it's an inconvenient truth, but the way I see it is like this;
-Scotland voted to remain in the UK.
-The UK held a referendum on leaving the EU.
-The UK as a whole voted to leave, but Scotland (plus Northern Ireland and London), when taken in isolation, voted to remain. However, the franchise of the referendum was pretty clear that it was a UK wide issue and the result was to be UK-wide, and the condition for winning was a simple majority. It's now pretty awkward to change the franchise after the fact.
Hard to accept though it may be, I do think May has a straightforward mandate to take the entire UK out of the EU. I'm not saying it's going to make her popular in Scotland or be supported by the population, but that doesn't nullify her mandate to do it. It might increase support for independence, but again it doesn't oblige May to keep the UK in the EU.
The UK is going to become impossibly clunky if Scotland is going to remain in the union but then undermine that union by vetoing every attempt government.
Brexit will really happen. It was just the referendum. Maybe in a few years they will stop this and return to EU. There are a lot of signals that it is a very likely scenario.
On the other hand, they can be dissatisfied and frustrated, because they are one of those countries that felt used and they didn't see as many profits.
I hope that we are going to deal with the soft version.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQp_OWKCW9U