To Brexit or not to Brexit. Leave or not leave the European Union (EU) .Esa is the question that British citizens be answered in the referendum of June 23, and things are burning. The distant campaign promise he made in 2013 Prime Minister David Cameron, to resolve the issue at the polls in response to pressure from the nationalist party UKIP, could have dire consequences for the unity of the United Kingdom and the survival of regional integration most advanced in the world. With the “leave” (leave) first in the British polls, this could be the record that could trigger a domino effect to the rampant Euroscepticism in several member countries. Does the EU support the coup?
The campaigns of both the “REMAIN” (stay) and the “leave” (leave) look like a street fight that has only helped increase the enormous polarization on Thursday 16 June claimed the first victim. Indeed, a man stabbed northern Atlántico and the Labour Party Congresswoman Jo Cox as he left a bookstore in Birstall. Police arrested the main suspect, Thomas Mair 52, which, according to witness reports collected by the British newspaper The Guardian, shouted “Put Britain First” ( “Put the UK’s first”), possible reference to the far-right UKIP. Research also found that the alleged assailant frequenting extremist pages and had bought manuals to build home to a US neo-Nazi group on the web weapons, although some of his associates argued that had a history of mental illness.
Cox fought by the “REMAIN”, as the new mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, most trade unionists of the Trade Union, the Scottish nationalist Party (SNP), the Welsh nationalist Plaid Cymru and the Northern Ireland Sinn Fein. These sectors consider that the single market and immigration of young people favor economic growth and the brexit (term linking “Britain” Britain and “exit” to leave, as in 2012 when he spoke of “Grexit” of Greece) undermine the international status of the country. According to predictions the British Treasury Department, leaving the European system would cost about 3 percent of GDP to 2.2 percent London and the UK. Cameron said that the exit could jeopardize “peace and stability in Europe”, at a critical time for the recession since 2008, the multiple bailouts the Greek economy, the refugee crisis, the terrorist threat, Russian imperialism and rising nationalism. In addition, Cox was known to be a staunch defender of the rights of refugees and advocated by the arrival of 3,000 Syrians to the UK, a position that hurt susceptibilities there, where there has always been a special awareness of its insular character.
For this reason, it is not the first time that a popular consultation is carried out as the 23-J. In 1975, two years after entering the European Economic Community (EEC, forerunner of the EU), 67 percent of Britons voted for permanence. However, exceptions against the other members did not wait. In 1985, they decided not to be part of the Schengen area, and although in 1993 accepted the single market, never agreed to be part of the euro. Earlier this year, Cameron negotiated new special conditions on justice, migration and economics, and managed to shield London as a financial center against European regulation.
But for supporters of brexit is not enough . The UK has the second largest economy in Europe, is not Schengen space and the British pound has not suffered falls of the euro. But some politicians in the Conservative Party and UKIP nationalists claim that their country is being affected by the single market, and be strong enough to negotiate an economic agreement that does not involve the free movement of persons. Resent the lack of democracy of the “troika”, ie, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Central Bank and the European Commission, the German leadership, policies generalized adjustment after the crisis, financial aid Portugal, Spain and Greece, the lack of borders makes more elusive jihadists, the stampede of the immigration crisis and cuts in welfare state, once the pillar of European construction. Boris Johnson, conservative former mayor of London, and Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP, the main leaders of the “leave”, especially representing the lower middle and the British class old mature nostalgic for the might of the British Empire.
and the media have not been left behind, the Sun, the most widely read newspaper in the UK, took the side of the exit, and summed up the Eurosceptic position: “We have to free ourselves from the dictatorship of Brussels. The EU has become increasingly hungry for money, spendthrift, intimidating and extremely incompetent in times of crisis. On Thursday at the polls we can correct this huge historical mistake. If we were, in some years we will be swallowed up by a federal state that expands constantly and is dominated by Germany. “
Threat to drive
There is no doubt that support for cross-permanence is in almost all sectors, who cry “Britain stronger in Europe” ( “UK is stronger in Europe”). For the Scots, Brussels is a kind of alternative power to London; even the nationalists of the SNP, represented by the Prime Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, want to stay and claim that the brexit would be a “substantial change”. Indeed, most of Scotland has run a campaign of blackmail and threaten another separatist referendum as 2014.
However, the biggest concern is around Ireland and Northern Ireland. The output of the EU would be a jolt to the Northern Ireland economy, agriculture being highly dependent on European subsidies. Also, the border is a thorny issue and the brexit could become a hell. The northern nationalists are threatening a referendum to redraw the border, which not only would stress the relations between capitals, Dublin and Belfast, and between Protestants and Catholics, but would jeopardize the Northern Ireland peace process that culminated in 1998 with the Good Friday Agreement.
the effects of brexit not be immediate, it would be followed by at least two years of negotiations on the exit and conditions. Also, technically the referendum is not binding and that parliamentarians have the power to block it, but this decision would go counter to the popular will and a clear political suicide. However, after the murder of Jo Cox, the new situation gave a boost to the pound sterling and British markets, so it is possible that the tragedy ends benefiting the “REMAIN”.
23 -J is D-Day for regional governance because, whatever happens, the 28 should rethink the European project, previously considered an irreversible process of integration. The output of the UK EU could be the catalyst for European Euroscepticism, give wings to the nationalist movements as the National Front and the Alternative for Germany, and create a domino effect in other member countries, who have seen grow in their breast disdain for Brussels. So verge of a possible British divorce, it is clear that the future of Europe is at stake.
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