UK votes to quit EU
Britain has voted to leave the European Union, forcing the resignation of Prime Minister David Cameron and dealing the biggest blow since World War Two to the European project of forging greater unity.
Global financial markets plunged yesterday as results from a referendum defied bookmakers' odds to show a 52-48 percent victory for the campaign to leave a bloc Britain joined more than 40 years ago.
A wave of shock is reverberating around Europe as countries across the EU and beyond digest the decision by UK voters to leave the European Union.
This represents the biggest setback in decades for those who support the idea of European unity. The EU will be changed forever.
It has already been dealing with multiple crises in recent years, but this could, and probably will, dwarf them all.
The rest of the EU will want to forge a good deal with the British government, but in many capitals there will be little appetite for doing the UK any favours.
That's partly because Euroscepticism is on the rise across the continent, and influential political leaders will not want to give the impression that leaving is easy, writes BBC.
France and Germany along with other like-minded countries may now try to push ahead with further integration in some areas, without the UK holding them back. But for the moment they are trying to digest the fact that Europe's political order has been overturned -- with far-reaching consequences that no-one can accurately predict.
The United Kingdom itself could now break apart, with the leader of Scotland -- where nearly two-thirds of voters wanted to stay in the EU -- saying a new referendum on independence from the rest of Britain was "highly likely".
Yesterday's vote triggers at least two years of divorce proceedings with the EU, the first exit by any member state. Cameron, in office since 2010, said it would be up to his successor to formally start the exit process.
An emotional Cameron, who led the "Remain" campaign to defeat, losing the gamble he took when he promised the referendum in 2013, said he would leave office by October.
Quitting the EU could cost Britain access to the EU's trade barrier-free single market and means it must seek new trade accords with countries around the world. A poll of economists by Reuters predicted Britain was likelier than not to fall into recession within a year.
The EU for its part will be economically and politically damaged, facing the departure of a member with its biggest financial centre, a UN Security Council veto, a powerful army and nuclear weapons.
The world's biggest trading bloc -- which rose out of the ashes of two world wars, fascist and communist totalitarianism to unite a continent of prosperous democracies -- will lose around a sixth of its economic output.
"It's an explosive shock. At stake is the break up pure and simple of the union," French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said. "Now is the time to invent another Europe."
'EU'S FAILING'
Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK Independence Party, told supporters at Westminster yesterday morning that the victory of the campaign to leave the European Union was only the first step in a larger effort to dismantle what he called an arrogant and impersonal bureaucracy in Brussels.
Farage also said that elites in Westminster, where Parliament is based, were too far removed from ordinary citizens who are concerned about competition for jobs, classroom slots and long waits to meet with doctors -- in particular, general practitioners, or GPs.
“There is still a massive disconnect between Westminster, SW1, and real communities,” he said, referring to the postal code for Westminster. “They're too wealthy. They don't get what open-door mass immigration as a result of EU membership has done, to people's wages, to people's availability of getting GP appointments or their kids into local schools. This was the issue, ultimately, that won this election.”
He added: “So I'm thrilled that we've done this. I believe that the other big effect of this election is not what's happened in Britain, but what will happen in the rest of Europe.”
Farage, a longtime member of the European Parliament, has been determined to dismantle the European Union.
“The EU's failing,” he said. “The EU's dying. I hope we've knocked the first brick out of the wall.”
He said that other countries, like Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden, were likely to follow Britain's example in leaving the European Union, reports The New York Times.
“June the 23rd needs to become a national bank holiday, and we will call it Independence Day,” Farage declared.
Not for the first time causing outrage, he said the result had been achieved "without a single bullet being fired", reports Reuters.
The comment drew accusations of insensitivity after the killing of pro-EU lawmaker Jo Cox last week, after which a man charged with her murder told a court his name was "death to traitors, freedom for Britain".
But with his blunt approach, Farage has finally achieved the goal he has pursued relentlessly in his 25 years in politics.
"It's been a hell of a long journey, this," he told reporters, recalling that in the first election he contested, in 1994, he came second-from-last, beating only comedy candidate Screaming Lord Sutch by a handful of votes.
'VICTORY FOR FREEDOM'
The result emboldened eurosceptics in other member states, with French National Front leader Marine Le Pen and Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders demanding their countries also hold referendums. Le Pen changed her Twitter profile picture to a Union Jack and declared "Victory for freedom!"
Cameron's Conservative Party rival Boris Johnson, the former London mayor who became the most recognisable face of the Leave camp, is now widely tipped to seek his job.
Johnson left his home to jeers from a crowd in the mainly pro-EU capital. He spoke to reporters at Leave campaign headquarters, taking no questions on his personal ambitions.
"We can find our voice in the world again, a voice that is commensurate with the fifth-biggest economy on Earth," he said.
Lawmakers from the opposition Labour Party also launched a no-confidence motion to topple their leader, leftist Jeremy Corbyn, accused by opponents in the party of campaigning only tepidly for its Remain stance.
There was euphoria among Britain's eurosceptic forces, claiming a victory over the political establishment, big business and foreign leaders including US President Barack Obama who had urged Britain to stay in.
On the continent, politicians reacted with dismay.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who invited the French and Italian leaders to Berlin to discuss future steps, called it a watershed for European unification. Her foreign minister called it a sad day for Britain and Europe.
TRUMP PARALLEL
The shock hits a European bloc already reeling from a euro zone debt crisis, unprecedented mass migration and confrontation with Russia over Ukraine. Anti-immigrant and anti-EU parties have been surging across the continent, loosening the grip of the establishment that has governed Europe for generations.
US presidential candidate Donald Trump, whose own rise has been fuelled by similar anger at the political establishment, called the vote a "great thing".
Britons "took back control of their country", he said in Scotland where he was opening a golf resort. He criticised Obama for telling Britons how to vote, and drew a comparison with his own campaign.
"I see a big parallel," he said. "People want to take their country back."
Obama said he respected the UK vote to leave, and that the United States' relationship with Britain would endure.
Britain has always been ambivalent about its relations with the rest of post-war Europe. A firm supporter of free trade, tearing down internal economic barriers and expanding the EU to take in ex-communist eastern states, it opted out of joining the euro single currency or the Schengen border-free zone.
Cameron's ruling Conservatives in particular have harboured a vocal anti-EU wing for generations, and it was partly to silence such figures that he called the referendum.
Back then it looked like a sure thing. But the 11th hour decision of Johnson -- Cameron's schoolmate from the same elite private boarding school -- to come down on the side of Leave gave the exit campaign a credible voice.
World leaders including Obama, Merkel, Chinese President Xi Jinping, NATO and Commonwealth governments had all urged a Remain vote, saying Britain would be stronger and more influential in the EU than outside.
The four-month campaign was among the most divisive ever waged in Britain, with accusations of lying and scare-mongering on both sides and rows over immigration which critics said at times unleashed overt racism.
At the darkest hour, a pro-EU member of parliament was stabbed and shot to death in the street. The suspect later told a court his name was "Death to traitors, freedom for Britain".
The campaign revealed deep splits in British society, with the pro-Brexit side drawing support from voters who felt left behind by globalisation and blamed EU immigration for low wages.
Older voters backed Brexit; the young mainly wanted to stay in. London and Scotland supported the EU, but swathes of England that have not shared in the capital's prosperity voted to leave.
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