Hello, what is going on in Britain right now?

tazmanianbrit:

pinkargylesweater:

1) 52% of British voters voted to leave the European Union. Most experts have said that Britain leaving the EU would have dire consequences for the economy, the NHS and Business, both in the UK and abroad. It has been given the nickname “Brexit” (British + Exit)

2) The current governing party, the Conservatives (or Tories) is split between pro-Brexit and Remain campaigners

3) The Prime Minister, David Cameron, backed Remain. He has announced that he will resign by October.

4) The head of the leave campaign, former London Mayor Boris Johnson, may well be his successor. Throughout the campaign he was backed by MP Michael Gove. Both of these guys want to privatise the NHS (Cameron probably wanted this too, but he never outright said it. Johnson and Gove did). 

5) Ironically, Vote Leave’s main campaign slogan was “We spend £350 million a week on the EU. Let’s use that to fund our NHS instead” – after the referendum, they backpedalled. It was also a false claim, as it failed to mention the money we get back from the EU. Just 0.5% of our GDP actually goes to the EU. 

6) Nigel Farage is the leader of UKIP, which basically exists purely to get Britain out of the EU. UKIP supporters and politicians are generally very racist, and the main focus of their campaign to leave the EU was immigration. As the EU has free movement between member states, a lot of our work force is made up of non-British EU workers. But of course, a lot of our work force is made up of non-British, non-EU workers. They did not take this into account.

7) Brexit has given the far-right a bigger platform. Just before the referendum, a left wing British MP, Jo Cox, was murdered by a right wing terrorist. Since the referendum, there has been a rise in racism and xenophobia. I mean it always existed, but there are an alarming number of reports from across the country of harrassment against anyone to be deemed “not British enough”, that have been coming through in the last 3 days since the referendum. It is very frightening to see so much of this happening in just a few days. Both non-white people who were born in the UK and people who were not born in the UK no longer feel safe or welcome in their country.

8) Scotland voted remain. Every single constituency in Scotland voted remain. In 2014, there was a referendum for Scottish independence. Scotland was promised security from the EU if they voted to stay a part of the UK. The deal was broken, and now the Scottish first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, is calling for another rerendum for independence. This would see the break up of the UK.

9) London, Manchester, Liverpool, Cambridge, Oxford and Bristol all voted remain. 

10) Northern Ireland also voted remain. The Good Friday agreement was initiated by the EU. This is a huge blow to the peace process and could very likely reignite the troubles.

So yeah, a lot of shit. That’s what’s going on.

Yeah tons of shit, like almost end of the world shit kinda.

Most of the cities in Britain that voted to leave are cities where most immigrants live as well. I wanted to stay (like the majority of my city) but because other cities voted out and that got the majority, we all left the EU which yeah, will mean a Scottish referendum but also since N Ireland voted leave, might mean they want to leave the UK too.

But there are dire consequences to this as well. We can’t use the EHIC (European Health Insurance Card) when going on holiday to places like Spain and France since we are no longer part of the EU. I could rant as well but basically all I can say is Britain fucked up in a massive way.

If Scotland does end up having another referendum and they do leave the UK, I’m moving to Scotland. Simple as.