Brexit: Referendum Off & Running

With David Cameron’s recent trip to Brussels to negotiate a better deal for the UK deemed a success (well, in his eyes), a date for the referendum on whether to remain in the EU and the compulsory political flirting with us voters, has been set for 23 June 2016.

 

The Tories and David Cameron would have you believe that the referendum was all their masterplan for the ‘good of the people’. However, it really all started when UKIP caused quite a stir in the General Election in 2015 when their very upfront stance on closing the UK borders and leaving the EU gained quite some popularity amongst voters. To such an extent, major political parties agreed to hold a referendum on whether to remain in the EU by the end of 2017.

 

Broadly, there are 3 major campaigning parties that want to remain ‘in’ the EU and one that wants ‘out’. Those that want to remain ‘in’ wanted the referendum as soon as possible to leave little time for the ‘out’ campaign to gain any momentum. In the same way as the Scotland independence vote, the referendum will dominate press / TV / social media with political twisting for the next 3 months. 

 

The key ‘in’ and ‘out’ campaigning topics are likely to be dominated by:

 

• Cost of Membership 
• Immigration
• Jobs 
• Regulation 
• Trade 
• Foreign Direct Investment 

 

Whilst the principle of the EU is ‘freedom of movement of goods, services and people’, there are some key economic points to consider:

 

               57% of UK goods / services are bought by EU countries.

 

               53% of goods / services bought by the UK come from EU countries.

 

David Cameron’s recent visit to Brussels was to negotiate better terms for the UK so that he can campaign that it is better to stay ‘in’ and that the terms are far better. The key parts of the UK deal he brokered were:

 

• Allowing Britain to opt out from the EU's founding ambition to forge an "ever closer union" of the people of Europe.
• Allow greater powers to national parliaments and to block EU legislation.
• Restrictions on other EU nationals getting in-work benefits in the UK.
• Explicit recognition that the Euro is not the only currency of the EU.
• Obtain guarantees to ensure countries outside the Eurozone are not disadvantaged or have to join Eurozone bailouts.
• A reduction of the "burden" of excessive regulation and extending the single market.

 

So there you have it……the referendum political campaigning trail has officially started.

 

I’m not really too sure I can take months of political spin being force fed……let’s hope the referendum arrives quickly!