Britain makes its choice – shockwaves rock world
‘We must now have our own referendum’
Anti-EU and anti-immigrant parties across Europe plan to step up the pressure on their governments to hold their own votes on whether to leave the troubled bloc.
Europe’s far-Right parties have rejoiced at the Britain’s vote to leave the European Union , hailing it as a victory for their own anti-immigration and anti-EU stances and vowing to push for similar referendums in countries such as France, the Netherlands and Denmark.
France’s Front National (FN) has hailed Brexit as a clear boost for leader Marine Le Pen’s presidential bid next year, as well giving momentum to the party’s antiEurope and anti-immigration line.
‘‘Victory for Freedom! As I have been asking for years, we must now have the same referendum in France and EU countries,’’ Le Pen wrote on Twitter.
A jubilant Le Pen delivered a Brexit victory speech from her party’s headquarters outside Paris, styling the referendum result as just the start of an unstoppable new wave of support for parties and movements like the Front National.
‘‘The UK has begun a movement that can’t be stopped,’’ she said.
Le Pen swiftly changed her social media handles to the Union flag and stated her ‘‘warmest and friendliest’’ congratulations to ‘‘very brave’’ Boris Johnson and the Leave campaign. Specially printed Front National posters showed hands breaking free from chains, with the caption ‘‘Now it’s France’s turn’’.
Le Pen, who has been calling for a French EU referendum for three years, seized on the British referendum to bolster her critical stance on the bloc, and on Brexit as a new opportunity for the far Right to win over new French voters.
She has said that if if she wins the French presidency, she will within six months hold an in-out referendum on the country’s membership of the EU and campaign for a French exit, or ‘‘Frexit’’.
Brexit, she said, was also about a wider resurgence of what she called ‘‘patriotic’’ movements across Europe. Many of those movements – Right-wing, far-Right, and Eurosceptic parties – appeared similarly emboldened and energised by the Brexit vote.
In the Netherlands, far-Right and anti-immigration leader Geert Wilders called for a referendum on Dutch membership of the EU.
‘‘Now it’s our turn. I think the Dutch people must now be given the chance to have their say.’’
In Germany, Beatrix von Storch, an MEP for the Right-wing populist party Alternative fur Deutschland, welcomed the result.
‘‘It is Great Britain’s independence day. The people were asked – and they decided. The European Union as a political union has failed,’’ said Storch, who was recently expelled from the conservative party group in the European parliament after suggesting that German police might be within their rights to shoot refugees trying to cross Europe’s borders.
The far-Right Sweden Democrats, who hold the balance of power in Stockholm, tweeted: ‘‘Congratulations to Britain’s people on choosing independence! Now we are waiting for a #swexit!’’
The powerful far-Right Danish
The UK has begun a movement that can’t be stopped.
People’s Party congratulated the British people on their ‘‘bold’’ choice, which it said was a ‘‘stinging slap to the whole system’’.
The party has said it wants a Danish referendum on less binding conditions of EU membership. But Denmark’s prime minister, which relies on the DPP to prop up his minority administration, said there would be no such vote.
In Athens, Golden Dawn, Europe’s most violent Right-wing party, rejoiced at the result. Predicting it would further empower ‘‘nationalist forces’’ across Europe, the neo-fascist group said it hoped a similar referendum could take place in Greece.
Italy’s anti-establishment Five Star Movement, which won a remarkable 25 per cent of the vote in the 2013 national election, and this month gained new momentum when its candidates were elected mayors of Rome and Turin, reacted to the Brexit vote by saying the EU should change or else it would die. The movement has been demanding a referendum on the euro single currency for years.