Brexit will take many years to complete and some legal experts are even suggesting that it cannot even be completed considering other matters like NATO.
That it seems like a reaction against cheap labor migration amidst austerity makes it seem “populist” in the US and might even resemble the voting of rural areas against cities as well as upper versus lower classes. Neo-fascist assassination of a Labour MP makes it even have that Eastern Oregon RWNJ craziness. And racists will think this is some sort of green light for their ignorance.
But despite those resemblances, Brexit is symptomatic of much deeper conflicts going back to the Common Market origins and excerbated by the historical burdens of colonialism and military adventurism with regional poice actions going back to the end of WWII. Now it’s de-globalizing using austerity policy.
Today would have been good for currency speculation as Pound Sterling will take a beating (presently down 10% on the USD) but for those of us having trouble rubbing nickels or euros together, we’ll just have to console ourselves with predicting that there will be more chaos. Probably there’ll be greater pressure on US H-1B visas as we proceed to the continuing absurdity of “making America grape again” in November. If anything, much like the implosion of the UK’s Conservative party, tehDonald’s ascendency and current presence there golfing also signals GOPfail.
Campaigners have agitated for EU withdrawal ever since the UK joined the common market in 1973. Labour’s official policy for the next decade was to quit, and a sizeable proportion of Conservatives have never been comfortable Europeans.
The issue hounded John Major’s premiership, lay dormant through the Tony Blair years before rearing its head once again as the economy turned sour at the end of the last decade.
David Cameron was keen to move his party away from “banging on about Europe” after he become leader. But once in Downing Street, he found it impossible to resist pressure from his backbenchers to call a poll as the idea of leaving the EU gained wider traction in the country with the rise of Ukip, populist rage against remote elites and discontent about immigration…
The other force that welled up during the campaign was a wholehearted distaste for the thing that Brussels had become in the 40 years since Britain last voted in a referendum on its place in Europe.
The UK has never voted on being part of the EU, which was formed at the time of the Maastricht treaty in 1993 and expanded its remit from an economic community to include foreign affairs, justice and policing.
No matter the outcome, #Brexit polls demonstrate how quickly half of any population can be convinced to vote against itself. Quite a lesson.
Both have reason to feel victimized by a global economy that has left them behind.
Both have concluded that the culprits are out-of-control immigration and an unresponsive government far away, in Washington or Brussels.
And both have decided the answer is disengagement, solving problems alone at home rather than preventing them through cooperation abroad.
Standby for new PM within months. Already calls for referendum on Scottish independence & on Irish unity. It’s only just begun #EUref
Nicole Plyler Fisk
Gene Howington
FFS Guest Blogger
Joy of Fishes
Chuck Stanley
shortfinals
Terry Welshans
ann li-summers
wordcloud9
Flowers For Socrates 
I understand why they wanted this, some that voted were uninformed. If they had to do over they would stay.
On the other side of the pond, there were folks that made a substantial fortune because of the Stock Markets knee reaction to the exit.
I myself, bought some stocks in blue chip companies that I had been waiting for months to go lower.
The Scottish have had this referendum before, if it come up again, I am almost certain em that it will succeed.
There may be a do-over unless Cameron and his replacement don’t screw it up. This was not an election, it was a referendum. There are now more than 1.5 million signatures on a petition for another referendum. That is way more than is necessary to trigger another vote unless things go sideways so fast the bell cannot be unrung. One of the things that happened was so few voters turned out. It was worse than some of our mid-term elections. Getting down to the number crunching, a very vocal cohort of low-information voters won the referendum.
I read earlier today that Google is saying the most searched terms in the UK are something on the order of, “What is the EU,” and “What in the hell did we just do.”
In other news, Bloomberg reports that the 400 richest people in the world lost $127 Billion overnight. That is bound to cause some fallout.
Chuck,
Many people trade on exchange fund rates. I am not in that ball park. Yes, many folks lost money, because they panicked and sold. Some of the day trades were unbelievable. It was not a good day for around the world.
Just like the barrel of oil is hovering, yet, something happened in China so they Jack it up .20 cents a gallon. The USA in the petroleum industry is self sustaining, there is so much processed petroleum we are shipping it over seas. So why do we get jacked at the pump? Because they can…