User:Johnaugustine94/Brexit effect

The topic that this paper will be focusing on is the possible trend that the British exit or “Brexit” from the European Union may have on the world at large. The act of uniting people together has been a theme that has existed from the earliest times of recorded history. The connection or unification has been based off of varying characteristics but a few examples are race, ethnicity, political association, religion, economic ideology, morals, culture, language and laws. In most recent times the unifications or reunifications are often linked to economic policies and the creation of a world where peace can reign and thus business occurs. This was the ideology behind the League of Nations, The United Nations, and this was the guiding ideology behind the formation of the European Union (EU). The European Union has come under fire recently for the bailouts of certain nations, the acceptance of Middle Eastern refugees, and the overall push to invade the sovereignty of certain nations regarding those who they didn’t want to bail out or allow across their borders. This along with other factors, mainly stemmed by a general discontent with the economic prosperity of Britain’s membership in the European Union, sparked the call for a vote and the eventual victory of the leave campaign within Britain. I believe that Brexit will usher in an era of the breaking down of economic unifications in Europe because of the economic stress this places on remaining nations in the European Union, known as the Brexit Effect. Europe is a diversified area with a massive population and at times in the EU’s history, nation’s voices have been ignored as part of the push for cooperation within Europe. When Pollsters asked citizens of Britain who belonged to the leave campaign what their main reason for leaving the EU was, their answers mainly concerned “the condition of the NHS and the health of the economy.”1 The NHS is the nationalized healthcare system that exists in Britain and the leave campaign claimed that exiting the European Union would help improve the level of care that could be provided. The leaders of the leave campaign perpetuated the idea and “claimed that up to £350 million more a week could be spent on the health service that, they say, currently gets sent to Brussels.”2 These findings show the world where the concern of the majority of the British population dwells but this claim isn’t widely believed to be true according to “experts” .“The fact that the claim does not stand up to much scrutiny - the figure is calculated using sums which were disputed by the Treasury Select Committee and described as potentially misleading by the UK Statistics Authority - did not reduce its potency.”3 The BBC claims here that though these statistics are not completely accepted as being accurate, this is the reason cited for many leave campaign members. So even though the fears of these voters may not have been accurate this tactic still worked in convincing the citizenry of a member of the European Union that it was best to break this unification. Though there was great anxiety over the stability of the British economy and the welfare of the NHS among Britain’s people many news sites have claimed that Britain may “just be the first of many nations to pull out of the alliance.”4 This move to exit the European Union shows what the citizenry of Britain believe the government should do for them. The referendum was provided and both the leave and remain campaigns were allowed to vote whether they believed Britain should stay or go. The majority of referendum voters chose to leave the European Union and they cited concerns over the economy and the healthcare system as their reasons to leave. This reason shows that the British citizenry believe that it is the duty of the government to put the needs of its people as its first and foremost priority. While critics of the leave campaign have problematized the idea that remaining in the EU would hurt Britain, they were unsuccessful in their push to gain a majority of support. Membership in the European Union is not forced upon nations and there is an approval process that must be undertaken which was highlighted recently when Turkey joined the European Union. Turkey had a bad track record upholding human rights and they were required to take steps to show they were more tolerant of ethnic/religious minorities when they sought access to the EU. So just as there is cooperation among nations in the EU there was cooperation among the people of Britain as they submitted their fate to a referendum that showed a majority wished to leave the EU. Thus far in this paper I have summarized the situation surrounding Brexit and I have given some context, I will now discuss my thesis that I believe that Britain’s exit from the EU will become a trend throughout Europe for economic and political reasons. This decision to leave the EU, on the part of Britain, has sent shock waves from the EU’s headquarters in Brussels around Europe as some of Europe’s foreign leaders have chimed in on the subject. In the wake of the Brexit vote, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said:” Brussels must hear the voice of the people, this is the biggest lesson from this decision.”5 Danish Prime Minster Lars Loekke Rasmussen also commented that Britain’s exit “will echo for years to come and change the Europe as we know it.”6 Reasons for concern over the existence of the European Union, in the wake of the Brexit vote partly stem from the contribution that each nation must put in, in order to maintain the Economic trade structure and well-being of the members of the European Union. Sky New reports that: “As it stands, the UK's exit may cause Germany's contribution to the EU's budget to rise by 3bn euros (£2.44bn) a year.”7 This would obviously bring up similar discontent among German citizenry as found by pollsters in Britain. The Brexit vote has done more than just cause the founding nations of the European Union to worry “as far-right leaders in France and the Netherlands demanded their own referendums on EU membership.”8 This move by Britain has come in the wake of two distinct crises involving the connection of the European Union, the refugee issues that have plagued Europe over the last few years and the bail out of Greece. One of the main reasons that the EU was founded was to break down issues of migration throughout Europe and this has led to problems when refugees from the Middle East have come into parts of Europe and moved around. The flow of people, goods and services was supposed to be one of the greatest assets of the EU but over the past year and a half, some nations closed their borders to Middle Eastern refugees and some prevented Middle Eastern refugees from other European nations from entering. This free movement also affected the number of refugees that entered certain nations and caused and a higher rate of migration from other European nations than was wished for. According to former Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez: “Those of us who believe that the European Union (EU) is the solution and not the problem are to lose ground if we fail to define our goals in a serious and understandable manner.”9 While the goals of taking in Middle Eastern refugees were made known to the public, I suggest that it was not completely understood by all as this was another added responsibility. As the European Union has grown, the weight to carry for all nations has grown as well, this push to aid the Middle East seemed to some to be an added responsibility that continued to cause the EU to become less popular. In closing, Britain’s move to leave the European union has been brought about largely because of the wish to protect its own economy and to free up more funds for social programs, such as healthcare for its citizens. Other issues have helped influence the British people such as Middle Eastern refugee issues and the bail out of Greece. To put it in different words, these are situations where it is difficult to find a consensus among the nations of Europe and participation in the EU has grown less popular because the lack of representation for all nations in front of the EU. I reaffirm my belief that other nations will follow Britain, in hosting referendums to leave the European Union, because of the problems in recent years that the entailments of membership have caused. The issues are unlikely to subside in the near future as I think the growth of the EU has now come back to bite itself because the more nations it has added, the more likely not all will agree with the policies of the leading nations of the EU. For me, Brexit was just the first step in what I believe will be a journey that will either cause the EU to crumble or will severely weaken its political and economic influence.