“From Empire to Brexit?”
Reasons why a part of the United Kingdom wants to leave the European Union.
On the 23rd of June 2016, the British are going to hold a referendum whether they want to stay in the European Union or not. The result of the referendum and the potentially act of leaving the EU brings consequences. These possible consequences are unclear and they provoked a controversial discussion. Since we can only speculate about the consequences, I asked myself why does Britain wants to exit the European Union.
Therefore, I researched through some media files and collect different aspects for the EU-exit.
The first reason, which pops up when you research, is that Cameron tries to hold his Conservative Party together. His party is split into proponents and opponents of the European Union. However, the Prime Minister Cameron needs his party as one unit and therefore, he announced the referendum. The people of Britain should decide whether they want to stay in the European Union or not. After the referendum, the Conservative Party does not have to argue over the EU, because they will accept the decision of their people. One further aspect is that the Prime Minister has now time to advertise for the European Union, because he thinks that leaving the European Union “is not the right answer”.
Another reason why some people want to exit out of EU is the problem with migration. When you are a member of the European Union, you have to accept the principles of “free movement”. This means that the people from the EU does not need a visa to live and work in EU country. Consequently, the United Kingdom had a high level of migration from the stats in the east after they joined the EU. Normally, this should not be a problem, but in the U.K. it overwhelmed the social living situation, for example in London. Furthermore, there is a working class, which had to accepted the drop of their wages over the last few years and now they see the migrants only has people who want to benefit from their welfare system.
Further problems are that some people think that Britain did estranged himself from the EU. We could argue that the starting point of the Estrangement was the decision not to take the Euro as currency. These people think that Britain has lost his sovereignty in the European Union and that they would do better on the world market without the regulation of the EU.
Personally, I think that Britain needs the EU and vice versa. To compete with countries as China and the USA in the world market, we need to thought out our problems and connect even closer. The people in Europe should start to think as them as Europeans and not as citizen of individuals countries. Furthermore, when Britain would leave the EU and want to trade with the European Union, they had to accept the trade terms of EU. Therefore, they will lose power and control in the economic system of the EU or as President Obama said, “I don’t think the EU moderates British influence in the world, it magnifies it” (http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/04/obamas-brexit-plea/479469/).
