A lot of people have no clue why Europe is currently in a state of uproar and the only word people seem to be saying is “Brexit” so here’s a not-so-quick and easy-breezy explanation on the past 24 hours of CHAOS that has ensued:
The European Union (EU): an organisation of European countries that follows similar laws, allows for freedom of movement/labour, easy travelling (@people who planned on doing Eurotrips, not sure if you can count the UK in that anymore!) and trade with each other. The EU is important because before it was formed, the European continent was ravaged by 2 world wars, and a division because of the Cold War. This organisation has provided all the stability we’ve seen in the past 40-odd years.
So what the heck is a “Brexit”? Basically, the UK has just voted to leave the EU. Now this doesn’t seem like a TERRIBLE thing, but there are some serious political and economic consequences.
Economic implications:
– The British pound crashed from 1.5 to 1.3 in 6 hours, the lowest value in 30 years, which in turn affected the US dollar which affects all other global currencies. I wish I was joking but I’m not: South Africa, Poland, Norway, Mexico. Hungary, Australia, Switzerland all saw their currencies plummet. Countries that don’t rely on exports as their means of production cannot have a devalued currency. IT’s not good. The Japanese Yen which has been strengthening reached an all-time high which is terrible because Japan is trying to reverse its deflationary state. The Bank of Japan is now out of options and Japan literally STOPPED TRADING IN BRITISH STOCKS/INVESTMENTS.
– A devalued GBP means that the Bank of England is going to have to hike interest rates to prevent inflation (domestic prices going up even further) whicH WILL CAUSE A RECESSION. SOUND FAMILIAR ANYONE? YEAH. FINANCIAL CRISES.
– The UK leaving the EU means its market has gone down a LOT in size making them a less attractive destination for trade partners/investors. They’re going to have to draw up new trade agreements with basically the whole world since all their trade was previously tied to the EU. This will be tricky because countries liked having a market with a population of ~500 million compared to the UK’s size of ~50 million.
– GDP will go down. Retirement income will go down. The British economy is in a state of panic. The global economy is basically, fucked. For now at least.
The thing is, given the precarious nature of the economy right now with markets out of control and stagnant growth practically everywhere, it was a really really bad time to have this referendum – a lot of countries have been banking on a “Bremain” before making their next move when it comes to monetary/fiscal policy. The IMF has predicted that 2016/2017 will see the worst years for growth, but we might see upward growth trends from 2018 onwards.
So how does it still get worse?
– Scotland showed an overwhelming majority of votes to remain in the EU. It’s likely that they’re going to call for a referendum (again) to leave the UK so that they can join the EU as an independent country.
– Northern Ireland also wanted to stay in the EU. It’s likely they’re going to join the Republic and join the EU.
– Not sure about Wales. They could go “haha fuck it mate” and potentially leave the UK too.
– David Cameron has just announced that he will be resigning in 3 months which means that extreme conservatives who managed to sway the vote in favour of Leave could come to power. That’s right. We’ll be stuck to suffer with the likes of Farage and Johnson.
– Brexit triggered a lot of nationalist/extreme right-wing movements in the rest of Europe. Some leaders already calling for “Frexit” (France), “Itexit” (Italy) and..”Dexit” (Netherlands)? We may see more in the next few days.. A disintegration of Europe is risky business because Europe has not been able to remain stable until the EU was formed. This could give way for an aggressive Russia too, who would want to take advantage of weak/vulnerable European states. An aggressive Russia will trigger US skepticism and we all know how that goes.
SO HOW DID THE GOVERNMENT LET THIS HAPPEN?
Basically David Cameron came up with the idea for the referendum because he was desperate to gain support from anti-EU parties like UKIP during the general elections last year. Except now he’s resigning. So.
During the campaign, Michael Gove, Boris Johnson (conservatives) and Nigel Farage (UKIP) stressed on immigration laws if the UK leaves the EU because immigration/refugees have been a big problem for the UK as its reducing jobs being given to UK locals/residents and they think the UK is becoming “overcrowded” so the Leave campaign was like WE WILL TIGHTEN OUR BORDERS! YEAH! Except now they’ve displaced millions of UK citizens living/working in the rest of the EU. Let’s see how they figure that one out.
Additionally, they talked about the economic benefits because if the UK were to leave, they would be able to allot the money that goes to the EU to other things like the NHS (national healthcare) etc. The Leave campaign went on about how the UK spends 350 million pounds a week on the EU but actually it spends less than half of that, so really, their campaign was built on scaremongering and lies.
Article 50, aka the means of exiting will be triggered in 3 months when the new Prime Minister is announced (most likely one of the extreme conservatives/Farage who are riding high on their “Independence Day” fuckery which is even more proof of xenophobic, colonialist bullshit) after which the UK will have 2 years to complete its official withdrawal so hopefully that will provide short-term stability.
But the world is in a dark place right now and everything is terrible.
I KNOW ITS LONG BUT PLEASE READ THIS IS IMPORTANT THIS IS GOING TO GO IN HISTORY TEXTBOOKS
i know everyone is panicking rn and i am too but i’d just like to emphasize that the referendum is not actually legally binding in any way. the government is not legally required to act on the result. it’s basically just a very fancy opinion poll.
while the pressure to respect the vote of the people and the democratic process will be intense, the results were so incredibly polarizing (especially since scotland and northern ireland unequivocally voted remain and the leave result is literally solely england’s fault), and the consequences would be so devastating that there is a definitive chance the government could elect not to invoke article 50 of the lisbon treaty anyway.
they are very likely not gonna ignore it outright but they might take the issue to a parliamentary vote instead, which ironically could be argued for as the kind of parliamentary sovereignty leave voters complained brussel is taking away from the uk. if this should happen, MPs are majority pro EU and would very likely vote to remain.
considering the the pound has had its worst drop since 1985 and is still freefalling and the international stock markets were already reporting fatal crashes while a leave win was just projected, not even sure, the horrific economic effects leaving the eu would have should become clear quickly and might sober up quite a few people who didn’t (or didn’t want to) realize how catastrophic the result would be.
The UK has left Europe. Which means we’ve also left behind all the laws Europe put in place for the protection of LGBT people and a shit ton of other good laws as well. The pound is at its lowest worth since 1985 meaning that thousands will loose their jobs as major companies try to save money by cutting the number of staff they employ, and a loaf of bread will probs cost more than fixing the teeth of everyone who’s ever been on Jezza Kyle ever. So no, we’re not really alright but it’s our own fault tbh.
The EU referendum is on the 23rd JUNE and here’s some scary stats the BBC decided to throw at me this morning:
“just over a third of 18- to 24-year-olds intend to or are certain to vote, compared with well over two thirds of the over-75s”mix that with “those under the age of 35 are roughly twice as likely to vote to stay in as those over the age of 55″
DO YOU SEE WHERE THIS IS HEADING? No? Then let me spell it out for you, Hamilton style:
We are outgunned Outmanned Outnumbered Outplanned
We are gonna get ourselves kicked out of the EU if you don’t get your arse down to the polling station and VOTE for us to stay on the 23rd June.
So, here I am, doing my best to convince you to VOTE STAY.
WHY SHOULD YOU CARE?
I get it. You’re apathetic. Politics is boring/corrupt/pointless, all the parties are the same, we’re screwed anyway etc etc. I FEEL YOU. Mate, do I feel you. But THIS referendum has NOTHING to do with political parties or alliances, even the muppets running this country are split. THIS is about the SINGLE QUESTION of if you want us to stay, or want us to leave.
And if you don’t vote for us to stay, then the older generation will most likely vote for us to leave.
SO WHY ARE WE HAVING A REFERENDUM?
The EU has been going pretty great considering it was all one giant experiment, and it’s been swimming along mostly A-OK for years, but then… the Tories got desperate. Last election, they promised a referendum to get some of the right-wing *cough*UKIP*cough* votes, so now, here we are, having a vote about the EU even though, WE HAVE NO FUCKING PROBLEM WITH THE EU.
BUT WHAT HAS THE EU EVER DONE FOR US?
Being a member of the EU means you can hop across borders as you please: you can study abroad, live abroad, and go on holiday abroad within the EU with much less hassle than if we were outside it.
But they are also responsible for a bunch of welfare laws that we take for granted:
👌👀👌👀👌👀👌👀👌👀 good shit go౦ԁ sHit👌 thats ✔ some good👌👌shit right👌👌there👌👌👌 right✔there ✔✔if i do ƽaү so my self 💯 i say so 💯 thats what im talking about right there right there (chorus: ʳᶦᵍʰᵗ ᵗʰᵉʳᵉ) mMMMMᎷМ💯 👌👌 👌НO0ОଠOOOOOОଠଠOoooᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒ👌 👌👌 👌 💯 👌 👀 👀 👀 👌👌Good shit
But seriously here’s some other things that you might not have realised were thanks to the EU:
At the minute it’s a great symbiotic system where we have plenty of freedom but also, plenty of support.
SO WHY DO PEOPLE WANNA BREXIT?
Because it sounds like a breakfast cereal and I’m guessing they’re hungry af. Admittedly, we have to pay a fee to be in the EU (but relatively, this is minimal) and it can also mean more “red tape”. But as far as I can tell these are all just very polite ways to say that the EU just have too much gosh darn ~power~ over us. URGH. First of all, this is not the British Empire, we’re allowed to have allies, and it’s a good thing that we have other nations keeping us in check. (And with the Tories destroying the country, you might find yourself hoping that the EU did have more power to keep us in check). Secondly, we’re already a special snowflake in the EU, and they grant us PLENTY of leeway, so it’s not as if they’ve got us by the tighty whiteys.
The Leave campaign are scapegoating refugees as to why we need to leave the EU which would be hilarious if I didn’t live in the middle of nowhere surrounded by white middle-class racist UKIP voters that are goddamn licking it up. (Cornwall. Don’t even.) They are using the recent “migrant crisis” to emphasise that as soon as someone becomes an EU member they can live anywhere in the EU, as in, all the EU countries that are nicer than we are and actually let people fleeing from their wartorn country stay, can therefore decide to move to the UK. But, yo, leaving the EU won’t stop immigration. And even more hilariously, our borders are actually more likely to be weaker if we leave the EU than stronger.
Putting aside the fact that apparently millions of people in our nation don’t give a fuck about refugees that are in part OUR GODDAMN FAULT and certainly if you’re a human being OUR GODDAMN CONCERN, the Leave campaign are apparently forgetting about OUR IMMIGRANTS.
As in:
2.2m British nationals that, if we leave the EU, are suddenly dumped into muddy water. Oh yeah, Leave campaign, I really see you caring about them.
I’ve honestly never seen such hypocrisy in my life.
Our economy is now so tied to the EU that it would be a fucking MESS if we left. It’s 57% of our trade. It’s 1 in 10 of our jobs. It could take us a decade just to untangle ourselves. And, lord knows, we’d never win Eurovision again.
TO SUMMARISE
On JUNE 23RD please vote to REMAIN IN THE EU. If you do nothing, it’s likely we’re gonna be outvoted by hypocritical racist UKIP-wankers and get our country in an even worse financial state.
The reason I am here BEGGING my 12 followers and 200 spambots to VOTE TO STAY is because the last time there was a referendum, I was a naive little undergrad, and I thought “this option is so obviously better, everyone’s going to vote for it” and HAHAHAHAHA DID THAT NOT HAPPEN. You may think you don’t need to vote, but YOU DO.
Governments are only as smart as the people informing them.
We need to give our idiotic government as close to an actual representation of our country’s opinion. That means we need to get our turnout percentage up to AT LEAST two-thirds like the over 75s so that the result of the referendum is an actual reflection of opinion.
This is the BIGGEST MOST IMPORTANT thing that this country has voted for since before we were born and will likely shape us as a country for many years to come. I’m proudly going to be voting to stay but whatever you want for us PLEASE PLEASE VOTE!!!!!
British followers/people with a big British following – PLEASE spread this post like the black plague. It’s super important that as many people as possible realise how serious this all is, and the more people register by June 7th and vote in favour of staying the 23rd, the better. Please choose wisely.
The Doctor Is Out 