Prime Minister David Cameron has announced that he will resign in October, heeding calls by his rivals that his position was untenable having failed to convince Britons to remain in the bloc.
"I will do everything I can as prime minister to steady the ship in coming months, but I do not think it would be right for me to captain that ship," Cameron said on Friday morning during a news conference outside 10 Downing Street. There is no need for a precise timetable today, but we should aim to have a new prime minister in place by the start of Conservative conference in October."
Brexit consequences: What happens next?
On the economy, a plunge in the value of the pound and share prices is expected in the coming days, which would cause the Bank of England to raise interest rates. Indeed, the British pound fell to its lowest level in more than 30 years during the vote as a victory for Leave looked increasingly likely. Markets also plummeted as a Brexit was confirmed.
Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which guides member states wishing to leave the EU, is a vague map towards the exit door. Cameron has previously said that in case of a Leave victory, the government would invoke this article immediately and start the long and complicated Brexit process.
"There is no turning back if we leave," he wrote in a Telegraph article. "If we choose to go out of the EU, we will go out - with all of the consequences that will have for everyone in Britain."
Once Article 50 is invoked, it could take Britain up to two years to actually leave the EU. During the two-year negotiation period, EU laws would still apply to the UK. The UK would continue to participate in other EU business as normal, but it would not participate in internal EU discussions or decisions about its own withdrawal.
Once Article 50 is triggered, the terms of Brexit will be negotiated not by British politicians or diplomats, but by the other 27 nations of the EU. And, when the members are ready, they will present the British government with a departure agreement on a "take it or leave it" basis.
Negotiating Brexit
With the stability of the global economy at risk, the European Central Bank is widely expected to make a statement to reassure markets on Friday. EU President Donald Tusk, European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker, European Parliament head Martin Schulz and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, whose country holds the six-month EU presidency, made a joint statement in Brussels.
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| Left-wing Take of Brexit Monty Python Style |
Foreign ministers from the EU's six founding countries - France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg - are expected to meet on Saturday in Berlin, according to European sources. French President Francois Hollande will meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel next week to discuss "European initiatives".
The Merkel-Hollande meeting could be the occasion to announce plans for a long-rumoured Franco-German initiative on a better integrated defence and security strategy for Europe. The leaders are seeking to use the plan to dispel doubts on the EU project unleashed by the British vote campaign.
On Monday the European Commission's top officials, who are nominated by the EU's member states, will begin mapping out the long road to an official Brexit at an extraordinary meeting in Brussels. MEPs have also called for an extraordinary session of the European Parliament to be held in Brussels on Monday in the case of a Brexit vote.
'Brexit summit'
The 28 EU leaders - still including Cameron - will meet on June 28 and 29 in Brussels to digest and debate the results of Thursday's Leave vote. It was originally due to be held on June 23 but was postponed after the British referendum date was announced.
On July 1, the Netherlands hands over the EU's six-month rotating presidency to the relatively inexperienced Slovakia, which now must lead the negotiations towards Brexit. Britain had been due to take the helm at the end of 2017 but will now give that up. EU civil servants will delay summer holidays to begin the painstaking legal work to bring about Brexit.
The official British divorce from
Europe would take at least two years. But EU president Donald Tusk has warned
that the whole process of negotiating trade and immigration deals with a non-EU
Britain could take seven years in all.
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The media elites are somewhat right that the Brexit victory was about the UK voters’ disdain for globalization, immigration, and lost pride, but the real cause of the British asking for an EU divorce was the $46.6 billion in hard costs for intangible benefits.
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The media elites are somewhat right that the Brexit victory was about the UK voters’ disdain for globalization, immigration, and lost pride, but the real cause of the British asking for an EU divorce was the $46.6 billion in hard costs for intangible benefits.
Open Europe is a non-partisan think
tank with offices in London and Brussels that produces an annual report
measuring the cost burden of 40,000 EU-derived legal acts, 15,000 Court
verdicts and 62,000 international standards on the United Kingdom.
Their 2015 report for the “Top 100”
regulations estimated the financial burden on the UK economy at $46.6 billion.
To put that drain on the economy in perspective, the top 100 EU regulations
cost more than the $37.8 billion in local property taxes, called “Council Tax,”
paid by British citizens to the UK Treasury last year.
The top five costliest EU-derived
regulations in force in the UK were:
1) UK Renewable
Energy Strategy cost: 6.6 billion a year;
2) Capital
Requirement Directive IV on financial institutions: $5.9 billion a year;
3) Working Time
Directive on labor standards: $5.9 billion a year;
4) EU Climate and
Energy Package mandates: $4.8 billion a year; and
5) Temporary Agency Workers Directive
on welfare: $3.0 billion a year
EU bureaucrats cleverly claim that the
annual economic benefits to British citizens as members of the EU are $82
billion. But $65.2 billion of the so-called benefits stem from three
unmeasurable and vastly over-stated items.
As an example, the EU bureaucracy
claims that the UK receives $29 billion in “value” for participating in a
global pact to reduce carbon emissions. But that falsely assumes that the Paris
United Nations Framework on Climate Control treaty was fully implemented by all
196 participating countries with immediate mandated curbs on emissions,
increases in renewable energy, and/or reductions in deforestation that will
achieve a global warming temperature reduction of 2.7 to 3.5 degrees
centigrade. The final Paris agreement is only “voluntary” and exempts China and
India, the worst polluters, for decades.
The UK Parliament’s non-partisan
“Impact Assessments” (IA) analysis of the EU’s regulations revealed that Prime
Minister David Cameron’s Administration signed off on at least 26 of the top
100 EU-derived regulations, despite the IA explicitly stating that the
financial costs outweighed the estimated benefits.
According to Open Europe: “Another 31
of the most costly EU-derived regulations have still not been quantified.
Between the over-stated benefits, the regulations that come with a net cost and
the ones with quantified benefits, it remains unclear how many of these
EU-derived rules actually come with a net benefit in reality.”
Although Open Europe’s analysis found
the cost of membership in the EU far outdistanced the tangible benefits, the
organization does believe there is substantial value in free trade between
Britain and the other 27 EU members.
Open Europe suggests that with the
approval of the Brexit, the UK should work to negotiate a type of trading and
cooperation relationship called the “Norway Option.”
After the Nordic country voted down a
1972 and a 1994 referendum to join the EU, Norway negotiated a semi-detached relationship
with the EU through its membership of the European Economic Area.
The EEA agreement allows free movement
of persons, goods, services and capital within the internal market of the
European Union. The only supposed “cost” if the UK negotiates a similar
relationship is that British will not be able to vote on the onerous Rules
written by EU bureaucrats and hated by a vast majority of the UK public.
Related posts at following links:
Brexit: Escape From Failed and Frightening European Union
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| Despite a scary campaign of Fear and Hate by Remain Camp brave British people voted for Leave camp. |
Related posts at following links:
Brexit: Escape From Failed and Frightening European Union