I find the subject of Brexit and its
possible implications quite interesting. When I initially heard the news that
Britain had officially voted to leave the European Union, I was shocked because
it was such a drastic change from the status-quo. However, we have discussed in
class how the geographic situation of the country has shaped its attitudes.
Since Britain has always been an island separated from Europe, it is not
surprising that many of the citizens feel isolated from Europe. Also, the fact
that Britain continued to use the Pound after they became an EU member shows
that they never fully integrated with the union economically. However, these
divides are only some of the reasons behind the anti-EU sentiments in Britain.
The anti-immigration attitudes behind
Brexit are very reminiscent of the anti-immigration attitudes in America that
helped Trump rise to power. I find this comparison interesting because not only
are these two countries far apart geographically, but they also contain quite
different political systems. Despite this, the two countries seem to have felt
the same anti-establishment wave at the same time.
One uncertainty created by Brexit is the
question of what will happen to European Union citizens that are living and
working in Britain. Personally, I have seen this when I was talking to a girl
from Italy who was working in advertising in Britain because she was very concerned
about the future.
Personally, I think that Brexit will have
more negative effects than positive. Not only may this decision hurt the
economy of Britain by adding obstacles to travel that are not present when
traveling within countries in the EU, but this decision could also led to the movement
of multinational corporations away from Britain- and these companies would be taking
thousands of jobs with them.
I am interested to see how Brexit will
affect the borders of the country. If Scotland has another referendum on
independence, I wonder if the outcome will be different than it was in 2014.
No comments:
Post a Comment