It’s just past 9am and
- The UK has voted to leave the EU 52% to 48%
- The pound has fallen so much so that it is at a 30 year low
- Seriously like 10%? it dropped so fucking fast guys
- As a result the UK is no longer the fifth largest economy, France has overtaken us
- David Cameron the Prime Minister has just resigned with a new leader to be elected in October
- I say elected, I mean Tory members will vote on who from their party should be a our new Prime Minister..they have 150,000 members
- That’s right 150,000 people will choose this entire country’s leader
- Oh btw Scotland? ALL voted to remain so guess who is probably gonna hold another referendum on whether to leave the UK? And probably vote out? And then probably join the European Union on their own
- Meanwhile Northern Ireland (who also voted to remain) are talking about possible unification of Ireland
- Wales let the whole Remain side down by somehow being the country that gets the most EU support and yet also voted to leave
- Nigel Farage has already backtracked saying that the £350 million (not true) we apprently sent to the EU would not in fact go to the NHS as promised and it was a mistake to give that impression
- It’s looking likely that Boris Johnson (Basically Donald Trumps British cousin) is going to be our next PM
- He did a shit job as London Mayor once but apparently he suddenly knows his stuff idk
- he looks like this
- an economic shit show is happening right now as all the experts predicted but we did it anyway
So yeah. How was your morning?
uk
i know everyone is panicking rn and i am too but i’d just like to emphasize that the referendum is not actually legally binding in any way. the government is not legally required to act on the result. it’s basically just a very fancy opinion poll.
while the pressure to respect the vote of the people and the democratic process will be intense, the results were so incredibly polarizing (especially since scotland and northern ireland unequivocally voted remain and the leave result is literally solely england’s fault), and the consequences would be so devastating that there is a definitive chance the government could elect not to invoke article 50 of the lisbon treaty anyway.
they are very likely not gonna ignore it outright but they might take the issue to a parliamentary vote instead, which ironically could be argued for as the kind of parliamentary sovereignty leave voters complained brussel is taking away from the uk. if this should happen, MPs are majority pro EU and would very likely vote to remain.
considering the the pound has had its worst drop since 1985 and is still freefalling and the international stock markets were already reporting fatal crashes while a leave win was just projected, not even sure, the horrific economic effects leaving the eu would have should become clear quickly and might sober up quite a few people who didn’t (or didn’t want to) realize how catastrophic the result would be.
as much as its fun to laugh at these brexit memes i don’t want anyone to forget how serious this actually is. i have one of my housemates crying in my room bc her career relied on the uk being a part of the eu (she wanted to go into foreign diplomacy). my mum is freaking out because the uk basically just put xenophobia and racism ahead of its own interests and she doesn’t know what that means for her immigrant self, or her british born foreign children. my brother-in-law who works for a french company is terrified that his job won’t be there tomorrow. i’m living in the netherlands rn and the pound has plummeted so much that the money i budgeted at the start of this month is no longer enough for me to make rent and eat. this is just the beginning and this is only how brexit is effecting one singular person (me). i can’t even imagine the wider damage this is gonna cause.
this day in history
a bunch of xenophobic british people may or may not have tanked the world economy because they don’t like southern europeans
God, fuck my country today.
way to go uk
[Image Description:
A tweet by Emma Kennedy @EmmaKennedy saying “In two hours the UK economy has lost $350 BILLION. That’s equivalent to 40 years of EU contributions.
Käännä kielestä englanti]A big reminder nearly half of us Brits wanted to remain in the EU. Please don’t generalise that the whole UK wants this. I’m devastated today by the success of the far-right and its lies… And now we have no prime minister. God knows who’s going to fill that role… :(
We’re sorry, everyone.
Jo Cox, however, was not just any MP doing her duty. She was also an MP who was driven by an ideal. The former charity worker explained what that ideal was as eloquently as anyone could in her maiden speech last year. “Our communities have been deeply enhanced by immigration,” she insisted, “be it of Irish Catholics across the constituency or of Muslims from Gujarat in India or from Pakistan, principally from Kashmir. While we celebrate our diversity, what surprises me time and time again as I travel around the constituency is that we are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.”
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What nobler vision can there be than that of a society where people can be comfortable in their difference? And what more fundamental tenet of decency is there than to put first and to cherish all that makes us human, as opposed to what divides one group from another? These are ideals that are often maligned when they are described as multiculturalism, but they are precious nonetheless. They are the ideals which led Ms Cox to campaign tirelessly for the brutalised and displaced people of Syria, and – the most painful thought – ideals for which she may now have died.
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This was no random event, and the police are investigating reports that the assailant yelled “Britain First” during the attack. This is not merely a chauvinist taunt, but the name of a far-right political party, whose candidate for City Hall turned his back in disgust on Sadiq Khan at the count, in sectarian rage at a great cosmopolitan city’s decision to make a Muslim mayor. The thuggish outfit denounced Ms Cox’s murder, as it was bound to do. But their brand of angry blame-mongering could very well serve to convince particular individuals – especially those who are already close to the edge, as it is reported Ms Cox’s murderer was – that some people are less than human, and thus fair game for attack. The rhetoric of western racism and Islamophobia is the mirror of the ideology with which Isis and al-Qaida secure their recruits and that persuades them to strap explosives to themselves, and die in order to kill. It might be especially powerful in Britain, at a time when divisive hate-mongering is seeping into the mainstream.