Voters in the United Kingdom have voted to leave the European Union.
"I hope this victory brings down this failed project and leads us to a Europe of sovereign nation state"
It’s a major blow to European political and economic integration, and a
huge embarrassment for Prime Minister David Cameron, who might lose
his job as a result. *Cameron just announced he will resign
"Britain is better off inside the EU than out on our own.
At the heart of that is the single market. 500 million customers on our
doorstep. A source of so many jobs, so much trade, a such a wealth of opportunity
for our young people."
Britain’s exit will also have huge implications for
the British economy. The EU functions as a single integrated economy kind of like
the United States. And now that Britain is out regulations could make it harder
to move goods across the English Channel.
Lots of multinational corporations have their headquarters in London, but now
they might find that it makes more sense to have their European headquarters in
the European Union, which could lead to job losses in Britain. The EU also allows
for the free movement of people within its member states, which means that any
EU citizen can live and work in any other EU country without a visa. And the
UK high employment rate has drawn migrants from poorer countries in the EU
like Poland and Lithuania. But many in Britain resent these migrants, and that
resentment was a key driving force in the decision of for Britain to leave the
European Union.
So now that Britain's out, nobody really knows what's going to happen to all
those EU migrants.
So what comes next? A long negotiation between the UK
and the EU member states where they have to hash out issues like trade tariffs
agriculture immigration and a whole host of other issues.
Nobody really knows what this means for the other EU countries – they could rally
together and push for even more integration, or some countries could look
at Britain and say we should get out too. But one thing is clear:
Britain's exit is a huge blow to the dream of a united Europe.