In the almost month since my previous post, I’ve moved across the country and started a new job. I suppose that will mean I need to update my bio on this page, which I’ll get to later. Right now, I want to go ahead and get a quick post up–I have an internal goal of at least 2 posts on this blog per month, which I generally meet…in the last few days of each month. May was an unusually productive month for me at 3 posts.
Last week, British voters decided by a slim (yet convincing) majority in a referendum to leave the European Union. This shocked most observers and politicians, led to Prime Minister David Cameron’s resignation (to take effect after a successor is elected by his Conservative Party in a few months) and an ongoing revolt in the Labour Party against Jeremy Corbyn. Oh, and complete economic turmoil–the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell about 1000 points from Thursday to Monday, for starters.
One of the key reasons for Britons’ vote to leave was opposition to immigration. The EU’s freedom of movement principle has resulted in a lot of immigration, but so has British policy toward many of its former colonies as well. Most of the leave vote came in England–except for the London area–while Scotland and Northern Ireland, along with London, voted to remain in the EU by considerable margins. This complicates the unity of the UK, to say the least.
So, the task facing Cameron’s successor (former London mayor Boris Johnson, most likely) is not an easy one. Negotiate Britain’s exit from the EU, face an almost certain economic recession and highly likely independence pushes from Northern Ireland and Scotland. The other option would be to disregard the results of the referendum, which is obviously fraught with its own dangers. It’s an unenviable position, to say the least.
Drastata review 