UPDATE: Via the UK’s Express, Denmark and Italy have joined a chorus of nations pondering their own referendums. In Italy, Luigi Di Maio, vice president of the Chamber of Deputies, wants a vote on whether Italy should remain using the Euro. In Denmark, the leader of the Danish People’s Party said that his country should follow Britain with a Brexit-like referendum. The publication added that Sweden’s state secretary, Irene Wennemo, said that should Denmark move forward with a referendum on the EU, than “anti-EU sentiment could spread through Scandinavia and raise the possibility of a vote in Sweden.”
UPDATE II: UK Prime Minister David Cameron has resigned. Leah wrote about how Brexit fever is indeed catching on in other European nations.
As Cortney wrote last night, the United Kingdom has filed for divorce from the European Union. Some are calling this the end of the massive decades-long political project that has bedeviled UK conservatives. These Eurosceptic tendencies within the Conservative Party was explicitly shown under the government of then-Prime Minister John Major when the Treaty of Maastricht, which established the European Union proper, was debated in the early 1990s. The division partially led to the destruction of Major’s government, paving way for Tony Blair to score a landslide victory in 1997.
Yet, before we hold a funeral for the European Union, other states have to follow. There are reports that politicians in the Netherlands, France, Spain, and Germany have made their voices know about leaving the European Union. On the UK’s domestic front, Ireland’s Sinn Fein demanded a vote on Irish reunification, saying that UK’s exit from the EU has erased the nation’s mandate on guiding the socioeconomic destiny of Northern Ireland, according to ITV News.
Nigel Farage on the #EUref, "We'll have done it without having to fight, without a single bullet being fired." https://t.co/4D5aUNakkU
— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 24, 2016
BREAKING: Dutch Party for Freedom leader Geert Wilders calls for Dutch EU referendum after Brexit
— BNO News (@BNONews) June 24, 2016
ITV now reporting that Sinn Fein calling for new vote on united Ireland. Brexiters were adamant that this wouldn't happen.
— Simon Nixon (@Simon_Nixon) June 24, 2016
#Brexit isn’t the end, it’s the beginning.
— Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) June 24, 2016
Look for similar uprisings from the people of Germany, France, and Italy.
Several politicians in Germany, France, Spain & Netherlands have been more vocal than Britain's in wanting to leave the EU. #brexit
— Anirvan Ghosh (@anirvanghosh) June 24, 2016
Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders already calling for referenda in France and the Netherlands respectively. Future of the EU is at stake.
— Chris Morris (@BBCChrisMorris) June 24, 2016
In France, National Front Leader Marine Le Pen said that the UK’s referendum showed that the EU was in a state of “decay,” and that she would push to hold a referendum vote for France. In the meantime, her niece tweeted congratulations to their neighbor across the channel.
— Marion Le Pen (@Marion_M_Le_Pen) June 24, 2016
It could be that the UK is clearing the way for the end of the EU. Let’s see what happens.