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The Brexit Story

The Brexit propaganda was fueled by the growing discomfort that immigration from the EU member nations caused the British nationals. Fed up of the hardships they were forced to face due to losing opportunities at the hands of these immigrants, the people demanded an exit.

Though skeptic of the idea, David Cameron in his Prime Ministerial campaign promised a referendum should he come to power. The outcome made way for a poll that all but literally drove a wedge between the British people.

From the British countries to the people to the very party in power, all were divided in their loyalties. The final results of the historic poll confirmed Brexit with about 52% votes in favor of exit.

The votes revealed a divided country. While England and Wales were in favor of the exit, Northern Ireland and specially Scotland voted to stay. This disparity is giving birth to speculation of an impending exit of Scotland from the United Kingdom and seeking individual membership of the EU.

Further, the demographics reveal that the areas with majority population of older people voted for while most of the younger people voted against the campaign.

You can read the full article on the breakdown of voting here.

The Impact

Though the long term impacts of this decision are yet to present themselves, in a corollary impact, the British pound collapsed to a lowest since 1985. The Euro also declined drastically.
Further, having campaigned to keep Britain in the EU, PM Cameron resigned in an address at 10 Downing Street early on the morning of 24th June.

Watch his resignation speech and his address to the EU here -

Further, not just Europe but the entire world is predicted to be affected by the outcome.

"Obviously, there will be a large spill-over effects across all global economies if the "Leave" vote wins. Not only will the UK go into recession, Europe will follow suit," was the gloomy prediction of Matt Sherwood, head of investment strategy at fund manager Perpetual in Sydney.

The decision of the poll and Britain’s prospective exit from the EU attracted remarks from a lot of political giants both in favor and against. The British cabinet members were also seen divided, especially with the resignation of the PM. Many speculate the end result of such a decision. Twitter was abuzz with Brexit hashtag trending all day.

No matter the outcome, #Brexit polls demonstrate how quickly half of any population can be convinced to vote against itself. Quite a lesson.

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) June 23, 2016

The Republican US Presidential candidate Donald Trump praised the decision and said it was a ‘great thing’ while the reactions of the other EU member countries clearly expressed their disapproval.

Donald Trump - “They’ve taken back their independence.”

You can watch all that Donald Trump had to say about Brexit here -

It’s a given that Brexit will affect India along with the world economy. In an address on 24th June, Finance Minister Mr. Arun Jaitley, recognizing the possibility of these effects said that the Indian economy is well prepared to deal with the short and long term effects of the same. But, the stock market seems to be showing signs of impact already as sensex slumped over 1000 points while the rupee fell by 1.4 percent to a dollar on Friday.

Meanwhile India is just blown away that you can get Britain to leave by voting

— Bobby Big Wheel (@BobbyBigWheel) June 23, 2016

You can read about the whole impact of Brexit on the Indian economy as it happened here.

Britain has two years to fully exit from the union. The long term implications will only surface as time passes. But, it is certain that dissension is under way.