The departing Prime Minister reportedly told members of his inner circle that he would rather hand over control sooner than spend time negotiating Britain’s tricky exit from the EU. As German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, the Brexit vote is “a watershed for Europe and the European unity process”.
Advertisement
It’s impossible to separate this negotiation from the question of Britain’s future. The turnout for Thursday’s referendum was 72.2 per cent.
“There is no need to be particularly nasty in any way in the negotiations”.
British Prime Minister David Cameron announced the referendum earlier this year after promising members of his Conservative Party that he would hold an “in-out” vote on the UK’s status in the European Union if he won re-election.
Holding back tears during his speech on Friday, Mr Cameron said he would not depart immediately and would seek to “steady the ship” and calm the financial markets over the coming “weeks and months”.
“There is urgency. There is no time to lose”, said French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault. “We have to follow the rules of the game”, she said Saturday.
Britain seemingly has the luxury to pick and choose when to start the laborious, intricate process of disengagement from the 28-nation group, which is expected to take years. This, they worry, could lead to a domino effect of other countries wanting to leave too.
Slovakia’s far right People’s Party yesterday launched a petition for a referendum on the country’s future in the EU. “Citizens of Great Britain have chose to refuse the diktat from Brussels”.
Paragraph two of Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty says that “a Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention”. The chief task now, she said, is to “make sure that the economic uncertainty created by these events does not hurt working families here in America”, while also making clear “America’s steadfast commitment to the special relationship with Britain and the transatlantic alliance with Europe”. “You get the market reaction – but in terms of trade patterns that’s going to be way down the road”.
On Saturday, Britain’s representative on the EU’s executive Commission, Jonathan Hill, stepped down, saying he was disappointed by the referendum result but “what’s done can not be undone”.
Meanwhile, Britons were taking in that the fact that their anti-establishment vote had pushed their economy into uncertain territory, sparking a crisis for a bloc founded to unify post-war Europe.
“Britain has always been more skeptical”, Berman told the NewsHour. This move has certain big ramifications for not only Britain but also the EU.
Britain will remain an European Union member until the divorce is finalised, but its influence inside the bloc is already waning.
After speaking to Cameron on Friday, Obama said he was “confident that the United Kingdom is committed to an orderly transition out of the European Union”.
Instead, his fate was sealed by two former close friends within the Conservative Party who helped lead the campaign to leave the EU: Oxford University mate Boris Johnson and close family friend Michael Gove.
“Take a bow, Britain!” eurosceptic newspaper the Daily Mail wrote across its front page on Saturday.
Britain made its choice.
Sierra Leone, another major beneficiary, received 238 million pounds in aid from the United Kingdom – the equivalent of almost 6.8 percent of its economy. In the wake of the Brexit vote, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon even said that a second Scottish independence vote is likely.
Advertisement
“The vote is damaging to the European Union”, said Hall.
