It is a crazy world we live in today. Shootings in Orlando, Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton running for president in the United States, and now England has left the European Union after a historic vote on Thursday. The votes came in incredibly close, with 48.1 percent voting to stay in the EU, and 51.9 percent voting to leave. After the votes were officially counted, Prime Minister David Cameron announced his resignation, leaving the country out of the EU, and without a Prime Minister by early Thursday evening. It seems like things are a little difficult for England right now, as their currency’s value has dropped substantially due to their decision, and it almost seems that they will be starting over from scratch at this point. But, how do these happenings affect the rest of the world? And what will come out of this historic decision? At this point, only time will tell.
There were some quite instant effects of this decision, however. Reuters Online Newspaper stated that “…the outcome of the vote sent global stock markets plunging, and inflicted the biggest one-day drop on sterling in history.” This global stock market plunge included the United States Stock Markets, and truly spanned “globally” as immediately as Thursday night.
Often times, a vote is very cut and dry. One side wins, the other side loses, and life goes on. But in this case, there is nothing at all simple about this decision. The Daily Mirror Newspaper has been quoted as saying, “So, what the hell happens now?” as Englanders descend further into turmoil, with protests already being planned for early this week.
A big group that has been protesting these decisions is the English youth. They have realized that, while they were not permitted to vote on Thursday due to voting age restrictions, they are the ones who will be forced to clean up the mess in the aftermath of this vote. This is a problem that has been facing the United States recently as well, with the upcoming presidential election. If young people are the ones who are going to be dealing with the consequences of the decisions being made in their countries, why are they not given the right to have a say in them? The youth protestors began their fight before the vote even occurred on Thursday morning, demanding to have a voice.
Reuters newspaper even went so far as calling this the “European Titanic” in their article titled “Merkel sees no need to rush Britain into quick EU divorce”. This almost seems appropriate, because there does not seem to be much good coming out of this decision yet; just a lot of chaos and turmoil spreading very rapidly. Will England be able to pull themselves up and carry on with this decision behind them? Well, the jury seems to be still out on that one, because a lot of Englanders who are against the vote to leave the European Union do not seem to have plans to back down any time soon.
