DONT PANIC: a brexit guide
So the UK has voted to leave. what does this MEAN, apart from that we are sad and have fucked some things up????
1. we are STILL IN THE EU until we have finished negotiating etc on how to leave, who gets which bits of legislation etc. So for a couple of years we still have free movement of people, capital and goods with other EU countries. i.e. your passport is still ok and no one is getting deported
2. the volatility in financial markets is due to UNCERTAINTY. Markets hate it when no one knows what the fuck is going to happen, and until we start actually planning shit, until things settle down, uncertainty/ups and downs will continue.Ā
3. iām seeing some people say that weāre not bound by the referendum - but yeah, we are; it would be extraordinarily undemocratic for the govt to ignore it. BUT: the vote was relatively close - 3.8% apart - so I would say thatās not a mandate to totally totally disengage the UK & sail it off into the arctic, no matter what nigel says.Ā
3. The EU has no incentive to cut the UK any breaks in negotiating the divorce: if the UK get too many concessions then that makes leaving look attractive to other countries. (Far-right parties in other EU states, e.g. Marine le Penās Front National in France, are already calling for referendums of their own.) So the EU commission are pushing hard for us to invokeĀ āArticle 50ā³ (the bit of the EU treaty containing the rules on leaving), straight away, which triggers a two-year time limit on negotiations, which have to be ratified by other member states.Ā
The UK Leave campaign, however, are reluctant to do that straight away: if the two years run out, the EU treaties weāre part of just stop applying to us, i.e. not an advantageous settlement. So the Leave camp will, ironically, try to delay invoking āArticle 50ā³ as long as they can. (isnt it fun how brexiters want everything but donāt want to concede anything)
4. Internally for the UK divisions have become really apparent: leaving the EU strengthens the case for Scottish independence, because Scotland wants to Remain. It also reinstates a āhardā border between north and southern ireland, i.e. border checks, etc, which we got rid of as part of the Good Friday Agreement.Ā
5. Foreign policy: by leaving we diminish the EUās military strength, so Putin is pretty happy. Ukraine, for example, very keen to join the EU as protection from Russia, which, let us not forget, has literally invaded part of it.
6. for all the Leave campās stuff about EU legislation, unnecessary laws, etcā¦. we are going to spend YEARS now in legislative hell as we try to untangle 40 years worth of lawmaking and/or make a whole bunch of new ones!!! whoās overlegislated now, boris???? For example, we will need to renegotiate every treaty weāve made as part of the EU. This might be easy! or it might not! we just donāt know because no oneās ever done this before, except for Greenland, and they were mainly concerned about fish. Brexiteers think we are a special and highly luxurious snowflake and everyone else will want to hang out with us. The truth is: we do not Know - and neither does boris!! - if that is really the case.
7. all the shit we make and send to the EU (which was 44% of our exports in 2014) will still need to be made/done to EU specifications/legislation, which we will not have any say in. congrats uk u played urself
8. David Cameron our PM hasnāt exactly resigned; heās just announced heās going to soon. (Remember when Ed Miliband lost the 2015 election and immediately resigned? The Tories really wanted to avoid that kind of vacuum-creating event.) So weāre getting a Tory leadership election in the next couple of months. Boris is obviously going to stand. but although he is popular with party members, Conservative MPs & ministers do NOT want him. (Also likely to stand is Theresa May, who was a mild Remain. Michael Gove is a maybe but he knows heās unpopular.)
9. Weāre also likely to get a LABOUR leadership election: Labour are moving towards a vote of no confidence in Jeremy Corbyn, as a result of his lacklustre campaigning re: Europe. (When was the last time that BOTH main party leaders had to resign over the SAME thing??? someone find out if this has ever happened)
10. what will happen at the other end of the mysterious BREXIT PORTAL? Ā Itās hard at the best of times to predict economics & politics two, three years ahead. And the UK has had a genuinely weird few years of politics! remember the coalition?? remember the Alternative Vote referendum????
11. ANyway in conclusion weāre in for economic instability & a lot of negotiating & just, fucking, xenophobic bullshit, and we will get spectacularly booed at next yearās eurovision
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