The referendum, described by many as historic, has come and gone with Britain narrowly voting in favour of leaving the European Union.
While the result has polarised opinion as much as the campaigns did, one good thing we can all agree on is just how many people voted in this referendum. In fact, here in Lincolnshire the number of people who turned out to vote was the highest since the general election in 1992.
As a county Lincolnshire voted in favour of the so called “Brexit”, with the people of Boston showing one of the highest percentages of votes to leave at 75.6 percent of all votes in the area being in favour of exit.
Across Lincolnshire the turnout ranged from a low of 69.3 percent of the local population to as high as 78.4 percent in other places. This falls in line with national turnout which was around 72 percent.
Overall the leave campaign won by the narrowest of margins nationally, 51.9 percent in favour of Brexit to 48.1 percent in favour of remaining with the EU, and with such a close result it means almost half the country is feeling disappointed this morning, as demonstrated by many angry posts on social media.
In the wake of the decision we’ve already begun to see change and controversy here and abroad. In the early hours of this morning, with Britain’s exit from the EU looking ever more likely, the value of the pound plummeted to its lowest levels for the last thirty years. Following the defeat of his remain campaign, Prime Minister David Cameron announced he will be stepping down in the near future. UKIP leader Nigel Farage caused controversy as he admitted the money being saved from the EU probably wouldn’t go to the NHS, as suggested by leave campaign slogans, which he then distanced himself from.
The state of the EU as a whole and the UK itself have also come into question as Britain’s exit has increased calls from other independence parties around the EU, such as in France and Austria. Meanwhile there have been rumblings of Scotland and Northern Ireland, who overwhelmingly voted in favour of remain, seceding from the United Kingdom in order to remain within the EU independently.
Next comes the lengthy business of setting terms for our leaving. Leave campaigners want to wait to enact clause 50 of the EU, which will make the vote to leave binding, so they can negotiate a good deal for Britain’s future working with member states individually. EU leaders and David Cameron feel that it is best to act on the public’s decision quickly and the Britain should leave as soon as possible or it will still be subject to EU laws until it does.
The high turnout however does give us a truer opinion of the country’s feelings as a whole, as opposed to most elections or referendums where a large number of people do not vote and we have no idea as to whether the decisions taken represent their feelings or not. While the remain campaign lost, we can still see that support for it was almost as strong as the leave campaign but ultimately the majority of Britain felt pro exit.
At this point, the morning after, it’s really too early to tell what’s going to happen. There are already predictions the pound will bounce back in the coming weeks; we really won’t know for some time how the pieces will fall, but what we do know is that this decision and its repercussions has the potential to reshape not only Britain, not only the European Union, but the world.
