Not many could foresee Britain’s exit (Brexit) from the European Union (EU). More than 17.4 million people voted in the referendum on Thursday to sever ties with the European Union, and about 16.1 million to remain in the bloc. It was a win of 52 % against 48 % who voted to remain with the EU. This also means that the United Kingdom is divided down the middle and is no longer so united in ideology. Political analysts see Brexit as a historic decision which would reshape world politics and create tremors In the European continent and the West. Prime Minister David Cameron who led the movement to remain within the EU has accepted defeat graciously and announced that he would step down by October this year. As expected the markets were the first to feel the shock waves. The British pound plummeted and stock markets bore the brunt of the referendum.
Nigel Farage, known to be racist and anti-immigration, led the exit EU campaign. The Brexit referendum has also created a Domino effect. Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon said that Scotland might go in for an independence referendum considering that Scotland voted overwhelmingly for remaining with the EU. Shell-shocked European leaders particularly, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany have said that the British vote would further limit their ability to move forward with economic and political integration, a process that had all but stalled anyway.
Britain is the first country to leave the 28-member EU which has been struggling with its immigration policy over which large section of Britons disagreed the most. The Middle East crisis has led to an unprecedented influx of migrants last year. The over-all migration figure of 330,000 people in 2015, more than half of them from the European Union was what triggered the referendum. Gripped by xenophobia Britons felt that their national identity was under threat and that influx was putting enormous pressure on schools, health care and housing. Besides, the UK’s reducing clout in the economic affairs of the EU was what pushed Britons to reclaim their lost pride.
In India the RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan has allayed fears of any major financial shocks or policy shifts. But the toll that Brexit will take cannot be readily assessed.
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