BREXIT“BRITISH EXIT”

Prepared ByPraveen Venugopal

• European Union was originally formed with six nations in 1957

• UK joined in 1973

• EU now include 28 countries

• UK continues to use the Pound as its currency, while most EU nations have moved to Euro. Neither does it participate in the Schengen border-free zone, which allows passport-free travel in EU.

UK History with EU

BREXIT

Shorthand way of saying the UK leaving the EU- merging the words Britain and exit to get Brexit.

What is a referendum ?

• A vote in which everyone of voting age can take part

• Normally giving a “Yes” or “No” answer to a question.

• Whichever side gets more than half of all votes cast is considered to have won.

Why is a referendum being held?• Prime Minister David Cameron has promised to hold a referendum if he won the 2015 general election, in response to growing calls from his own Conservative party MPs and the UK Independence Party (UKIP), who argued that Britain had not had a say since 1975, when it voted to stay in the EU in a referendum.

• The EU has changed a lot since then, gaining more control over their daily lives, they argued. Mr Cameron had said: “It is time for the British people to have their say. It is time to settle this European question in British politics.”

Who Will be able to vote ?

• A British, Irish or Commonwealth citizen over the age of 18 and are resident in the UK.

• A UK national who has lived overseas for less than 15 years.

Who wants the UK to leave the EU?• The British public are fairly evenly split.

• The UK Independence Party, which won the last European elections- received nearly four million votes – 13% of those cast – in May’s general election

• About half of Conservative MPs, including five cabinet ministers, several Labour MPs and the DUP are also in favour of leaving.

Why is Britain leaving the European Union?

A referendum - a vote in which everyone (or nearly

everyone) of voting age can take part - was held on

Thursday 23 June, to decide whether the UK should

leave or remain in the European Union. Leave won by

52% to 48%. The referendum turnout was 71.8%,

with more than 30 million people voting.

Reason for UK to leave?

• Membership Fee - Britain is being held back by the EU, which they say imposes too many rules on business and charges billions of pounds a year in membership fees for little in return.

• They also want Britain to take back full control of its borders and reduce the number of people coming here to live and/or work.

• Britain joined the European Economic Community in 1973 and hence the EU in the 1990s. But Britain never fully accepted the legitimacy of European control over British institutions in a way that other EU members did. It refused, for example, to join either the Schengen Area, which eliminates internal border controls, or the common currency.

• Immigration Issue - Britain refused to participate in the Schengen agreement and fully

dismantle border controls with other EU countries.

• But EU law still requires members to admit an unlimited number of migrants from other

EU countries. With the eurozone suffering from dismal economic performance, a lot of

workers from less affluent EU states like Poland and Portugal have moved to the UK in

search of work. There's little Britain's elected officials can do to stem these flows, and that

rubs a lot of British voters the wrong way.

• Large-scale migration of low-wage workers from elsewhere in Europe has depressed

wages for native-born Britons.

• Unrestricted immigration from Europe could lead to greater competition for government

services and even put British women at greater risk of sexual violence.

Older and Less Educated Brexit Supporters

• According to one poll, 73 percent of voters between age 18 and 24 voted to stay in the EU, compared to just 40 percent of voters over age 65. Unfortunately for the Remain campaign, older voters turned out in greater numbers. So even though younger people were more pro-EU than older people were anti-EU, the older voters carried the day.

• And as this chart from the Guardian shows, better educated voters were more likely to vote to remain in the EU

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