EU'VE LOST THAT LOVIN' FEELING
Ties with UK were not ‘an intimate love affair’
EUROPE angrily demanded a quick divorce as sparks flew yesterday over Britain’s seismic vote to abandon the EU, toppling Prime Minister David Cameron, pounding world markets and fracturing the UK.
European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker called for rushing Britain out of the door as the bloc grappled with the impending loss of one of the world’s top economies, the first defection in its 60-year history.
Cameron announced on Friday that he would resign by October and let his successor lead the exit negotiations under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which sets out a two-year time frame to leave.
“I do not think it would be right for me to try to be the captain that steers our country to its next destination,” he said as sterling, global stocks and oil prices plummeted.
Britons, many worried about immigration and financial insecurity, cast aside the prime minister’s warnings of isolation and an economic disaster, voting 52% to 48% in favour of Brexit on Thursday.
Moody’s cut Britain’s credit rating outlook to negative, warning of the economic threat to the country.
Juncker told German broadcaster ARD on Friday: “I do not understand why the British government needs until October to decide whether to send the divorce letter to Brussels.
“I’d like it immediately. It is not an amicable divorce but it was also not an intimate love affair,” Juncker said.
Foreign ministers of the six original EU members — Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, NOT THE CAPTAIN: Prime Minister David Cameron Belgium and Luxembourg — gathered in Berlin for the first of several emergency meetings over the next week.
“We can’t allow ourselves to slip into depression and inaction after this referendum,” said German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
The Franco-German axis at the heart of the bloc, which was born out of a determination to forge lasting peace after two wars, would propose “concrete solutions” to make the EU more effective, said French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault.
EU leaders will open a twoday Brussels summit on the crisis on Tuesday.
Britain faced a historic breakup threat, too, as Scotland refused to be willingly dragged out of the 28-nation EU when more than 60% of its people voted to stay in. Scotland’s parliament held an emergency meeting yesterday.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon had declared a second Scottish independence vote was now “highly likely” after a 2014 referendum.
The Brexit vote, the culmination of an often poisonous campaign, exposed deep divides in British society.
Young people, graduates, and big cities tended to favour staying in the EU. Elder, less educated people and rural populations were more likely to back Brexit.
“I am worried, really sick for my children’s prospects,” said Lindsey Brett, a 57-year-old secretarial worker in London.
“I am worried about all aspects: what it is going to do with our relations with the rest of Europe, with the rest of the world. I was expecting a Remain vote. I did not think we would come out.”
Many others struggled to accept the outcome, too.
More than two million people have signed a parliamentary petition calling for a second referendum.
The British vote will stoke fears of a domino effect of exit votes in eurosceptic member states in the bloc. Dutch farright MP Geert Wilders and French National Front leader Marine Le Pen called for referendums on EU membership in their own countries. — AFP FORE: US Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump gives a speech at the Trump Turnberry golf course in Scotland. Trump suggested his own popularity taps into the same tendencies that prompted the Brexit decision
We can’t allow ourselves to slip into depression and inaction after this referendum