UK citizens decided to leave the EU

[Riven]

And Scotland is almost certainly going to have its own referendum (another one) on leaving the UK so it can stay in the EU, at some point.

Nicola Sturgeon has since confirmed that she will be seeking legislation for a second Scottish Independence referendum.

[Parmenides]

Parmenides - supposing we make it work? It isn't as though things are going to change overnight - the idea of the two year exit is to enable all sides to negotiate an exit strategy. The UK import far more from the EU than we export, so will the EU want to cut itself off completely from that market? It isn't going to be easy and the UK will be in for some 'interesting times'

If you'll make it work then the eurosceptic are right.

[Telecaster68]

Nicola Sturgeon has since confirmed that she will be seeking legislation for a second Scottish Independence referendum.

Yes, but not actually activating till she's got a better idea of what's going on, which sounds to me like giving herself an escape route. She phrased it to mean if she didn't start with the formal enabling process, it would remove the option at all.

I agree it's pretty likely though.

[TRexPhilbo]

Regardless of which way I voted. It feels bad that the fate of my country is being decided by a 4% majority. Nearly half of the British public disagreed with this, therefore Britain didn't decide this. I'm hoping the Lords take this into account and offer a re-vote later. Maybe try to negotiate with the EU rather than leave it.

I hope so. 4% of the people is in no way representative.

And getting rid of Cameron is all well and good, but what if we get someone worse?

[Telecaster68]

Maybe try to negotiate with the EU rather than leave it.

I don't think that's politically tenable - everyone knew the rules of a referendum. A win's a win, and 72% of voters took part. And we can assume that the new PM will be Eurosceptic, and the Tory Eurosceptics will now be in the ascendancy for quite a while.

The only good thing that could even potentially come out of this is that people will see their vote making a difference and maybe be a bit more likely to get involved with other elections.

[Tanwen]

There was much speculation about those matters before the vote. As I said, the markets don't like change and only time will tell how long it will take to pull out of the slump - but it's been done before.

[Parmenides]

I would also add that Cameron has been a fool, first he made a lot of anti-EU propaganda, he then proposed a referendum to gather more votes from the eurosceptics and now he is shocked by the consequences of his own actions...

[Blaiddmelyn]

A friend of mine is a moderately big-shot corporate lawyer, and the other night was predicting that if 'leave' won, the pound would crash, shares would be hit, Cameron would go straight away, and Scotland would start talking about independence.

I thought he was being a bit apocalyptic at the time.

And apparently there might be a Labour leadership contest as well.

Nope that's what we said at my law firm as well.

[Member4445]

Regardless of which way I voted. It feels bad that the fate of my country is being decided by a 4% majority. Nearly half of the British public disagreed with this, therefore Britain didn't decide this. I'm hoping the Lords take this into account and offer a re-vote later. Maybe try to negotiate with the EU rather than leave it.

I hope so. 4% of the people is in no way representative.

And getting rid of Cameron is all well and good, but what if we get someone worse?

Like that knobhead Boris Johnson. Ew.

I could always play on my Spanish ancestry and get a passport there, I suppose.

[Tanwen]

Again, I ask - if it had been only a 4% overall to 'Stay' would those wishing to leave have been told 'It was the right result'

Luchtime news: Recovery in the market and £1 from the dramatic fall first thing this morning.

[Blaiddmelyn]

Again, I ask - if it had been only a 4% overall to 'Stay' would those wishing to leave have been told 'It was the right result'

Luchtime news: Recovery in the market and £1 from the dramatic fall first thing this morning.

Leave campaigners said right from the start that a narrow remain win wouldn't be representative in their eyes and would only show they needed to tackle the issue again. So had it gone the other way, Leave campaigners would be saying even more strongly that it wasn't the right result. The difference is they would have that second chance. Remain does not.

[Maz]

The problem with the EU is that some politicians believe it to be a cultural union and from that perspective thought it would be realistic to have a single parliament to govern all the countries at some point. That perspective is totally wrong. The only fundamental cultural connection is Christianity and even that is not a very important factor nowadys (if Turkey ever joined the EU which is luckily impossible in the near future not even that would hold true anymore). In reality the EU has always been nothing more than a trade and job based (financial) union.

Unlike the USA Europe has a tradition of independent national states, lots of different languages and also different reasons why they want to be part or leave said European Union. For example the primary reason why many eastern countries want to be part of the EU is the danger of getting to close to Russian influence which following their experience with Russia would be far worse than being dependant on e.g. Germany but they don't have much of a cultural affinity to western Europe at all. Even the cultural differences between countries with more of a common history are huge. German, Italian and French People have very little in common considering their mentality and language. On the other hand German and English People have a lot more in common although France lies in between ;)

[Skycaptain]

72% of the electorate voted, so 28% don't care about their future . Thanks folks

A motion of no confidence has been tabled against labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Not least because labour totally misunderstood their own voters opinions.

What happens. Short term financial markets will fluctuate wildly, as traders take advantage of the volatility to make a profit. Stocks and Sterling will ulbe down for a while until everyone sees what trade deals are negotiated and with whom

As oil is priced in US$ this weakening will result in higher fuel prices, which may trigger inflation.

More interesting is migration. When we officially leave the EU member states may not check vehicles heading to Britain for stowaways and when they get here we won't be able to send them back.

[Zerο]

The logical side of me wanted to see a Remain vote, the sadistic curious side of me wanted to see a Leave vote.

It'll be interesting to see how bad things get. I just hope the UK owns up to it.

[Telecaster68]

Why can't we send them back? They'd be trying to enter without the right papers, and all countries send people back for that.

[Member4445]

Skycaptain: "72% of the electorate voted, so 28% don't care about their future . Thanks folks"

Im actually part of that 28%. Not because I 'don't care about my future' but because yesterday I was in so much pain that I nearly went to A&E. I would have loved to have been able to vote, I was fully planning on turning up at my local polling station and I'm absolutely gutted that I couldn't physically get there.

So no, not all of that 28% are because they don't care.

[Zerο]

To be fair, there were some massive weather problems that may have stopped people from voting too.

[michaeld]

Absolutely devastating news. Beyond comprehension.

I do think Scotland may well get independence, but I don't think it will be to their advantage even if they (re-)join the EU. As far as I can see, this whole situation is lose-lose... for everyone.

[Tarfeather]

How long until my country has to close borders because of the refugee crisis of people fleeing from the UK? ;)

[Hobbes∞]

The good news is the age of retirement is going up so much that it's statistically likely I'll die before I even need to try and claim a pension that no longer exists~

[TRexPhilbo]

Again, I ask - if it had been only a 4% overall to 'Stay' would those wishing to leave have been told 'It was the right result'

Luchtime news: Recovery in the market and £1 from the dramatic fall first thing this morning.

That's not what I'm saying. Regardless of the way the vote went, a 4% majority is a bad result and in no way represents the population as a whole. The ideal case would be another referendum, but I understand that's difficult. But in the end, I don't know.

[Perkins]

/

[ThaHoward]

Again, I ask - if it had been only a 4% overall to 'Stay' would those wishing to leave have been told 'It was the right result'

Luchtime news: Recovery in the market and £1 from the dramatic fall first thing this morning.

That's not what I'm saying. Regardless of the way the vote went, a 4% majority is a bad result and in no way represents the population as a whole. The ideal case would be another referendum, but I understand that's difficult. But in the end, I don't know.

That's democracy. The majority have decided. Accept it. You can still partake to influence the future process of your country.

[poindexter]

I've decided to hold judgement until things REALLY start getting bad. People were saying this kind of thing when Cameron got in for a second time "oh the UK is doomed, time to leave, etc.." No, I'm not sure what will happen, but neither is anyone else. What we know is that there will be two years of renegotiations, shuffling and probably quite volatile markets, but that is part and parcel of this choice. The UK was given a chance to break free of the EU's tyranny, and yes, apparently people decided to take it. That's the democratic decision of the country. And if it doesn't work out, I suppose at least we'll only have ourselves to blame. No, I didn't vote for it, I reserve the right to say "I told you so", but in some sense I understand why people want out. I don't think it was an easy/obvious choice by any means.

[Joe the Stoic]

With things like Donald Trump, Brexit, the Front National, and other similar movements, I fear the West is entering a dark age of politics. =(

[Telecaster68]

The UK was given a chance to break free of the EU's tyranny

A tyranny in which we freely elect a parliament, our government signs off legislation before it comes law and has an open, fair court system to settle disputes?

[Parmenides]

We are starting to forget the lesson of WWII and so the right wing nationalisms are rising again...

[Guest]

Regardless of which way I voted. It feels bad that the fate of my country is being decided by a 4% majority. Nearly half of the British public disagreed with this, therefore Britain didn't decide this. I'm hoping the Lords take this into account and offer a re-vote later. Maybe try to negotiate with the EU rather than leave it.

So HoL can - in theory at least - still overrule the referendum? *hope dies last*

Seeing as the first "leave" voters have already come out in shock and went all "damn, I just voted to protest... I never really meant it! :o "... I'd be kinda glad about the chance that some elected/appointed "experts" could overrule direct democratic decisions.

It's a very Churchillian thing to think - but this does show to me that people are really just too effin' stupid for democracy to really work as a system. We just, sadly, don't have an alternative to democracy that works any better... quite the contrary. -_-

[Telecaster68]

So HoL can - in theory at least - still overrule the referendum? *hope dies last*

Legally, the referendum has absolutely no force whatsoever. It's entirely about politics. No politician could say 'yes, I know there was a referendum that we all agreed to, but I'm just going to ignore it'.

[Grabovsky]

We are starting to forget the lesson of WWII and so the right wing nationalisms are rising again...

There has been a recent trend world wide(even worse in europe and america) towards conservatism. These things come and go. But the one difference between the nationalism that lead to the world wars, is that there is a very strong left that is constantly moving the conversation back away from the radical right.