BRITONS SAY ‘WAIT!’ – EU SAYS ‘SCRAM!’
2.7M sign revote petition Bloc nations rush to split UK’s commish quits, too
Don’t let the screen door hit you on the way out, some European Union leaders are telling Britain, urging them to be quick about leaving the 28-nation bloc.
France and Germany are asking the UK to sever ties as promptly as possible in hopes of easing the transition.
Meanwhile, by early Sunday, more than 2.7 million people had signed an online petition on the House of Commons site calling for a do-over.
The petition, originally posted in late May, asks that the government hold a new referendum if the winning side receives less than 60 percent of the vote and if voter turnout is less than 75 percent.
The Leave camp won Thursday’s referendum with 52.2 percent of the vote and 72.2 percent turnout.
By law, petitions with more than 100,000 signatures must be debated by Parliament.
There also was talk Saturday about putting any Brexit deals negotiated with the EU to a referendum.
Prime Minister David Cameron, meanwhile, was joined by Jonathan Hill, the Britain’s commissioner to the EU, in resigning to let Leave supporters handle the separation.
“There’s no point crying over spilt milk,” said Hill, who was the commissioner in charge of financial services.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker transferred Hill’s responsibilities to Valdis Dombrovskis of Latvia.
The next prime minister will name Hill’s replacement, a Cameron spokesman said.
Cameron, who had led the Remain campaign, said Friday that he would step down in October rather than work for months on the separation.
Before announcing his resignation, he reportedly told aides, “Why should I do all the hard s--t?” In other Brexit developments:
Cameron’s chief rival, former London Mayor Boris Johnson, emerged as the favorite to take his seat.
Jeremy Corbyn, head of the opposition Labor Party, came under fire, as at least a third of his top team threatened to resign unless he goes, the Sunday Times of London reported. A motion of no confidence that was expected to be discussed at a party meeting Monday was tabled but could be voted on Tuesday.
The European Central Bank said Britain’s financial industry, which employs 2.2 million people, would lose the right to serve clients in the EU unless the country signed up to its market.
A day after Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon hinted at a second independence referendum for her country, leaders in Northern Ireland called for a vote on leaving the UK, raising the prospect of a single united Ireland as part of the EU.
In Northern Ireland’s six counties, 56 percent voted to remain.
The post office, meanwhile, reported “an unusually high number of people in Northern Ireland seeking Irish passport applications.”
Generally, members of Northern Ireland’s Irish nationalist Roman Catholic community seek Irish citizenship, while Protestants identify as British.
Angry European leaders urged a rapid British departure. Foreign ministers of Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg met in Berlin and said they want negotiations to start quickly.
“There must be clarity,” said Luxembourg’s foreign minister, Jean Asselborn. “The people have spoken, and we need to implement this decision.”
The EU appointed Belgian Didier Seeuws, a longtime aide to the former EU president, to head a task force to handle the exit talks. Britain must first formally inform the European Commission it plans to leave.
Natacha Bouchart, the mayor of Calais, France, said migrants should be moved across the English Channel so Brits “take the consequences” of Brexit.
She wants to revise a 2003 deal between France and the UK on bordercontrol rules, including checking migrants looking to get to Britain. That process has led to huge camps in Calais.
Britons vacationing overseas had trouble exchanging the pound. With the currency plunging Friday, banks and hotels had no official exchange rate from the European Central Bank.
Americans started searching for good deals on travel to Britain as the dramatic drop in the pound sent the price of vacations there down.