Just about everywhere I go lately people ask me what I think about “BREXIT” and the ramifications it will have for Great Britain, Europe and even the United States. My standard answer since the vote on June 23 is that I don’t think about it much.
The reason is that, other than the vote itself wherein the “Leave” crowd won 52%-48% over the “Remain” crowd, nothing else has happened to make Brexit the law of the land, and may not happen for months to come. British Prime Minister David Cameron resigned the day after the vote didn’t go his way, but offered to stay on until October if need be to find a replacement.
In order to officially initiate its withdrawal from the European Union, Britain must invoke “Article 50” of the 2007 Lisbon Treaty with the EU, and it now looks likely that such a notification won’t happen until after the new Prime Minister is in office. And then withdrawal from the EU is a two-year process after that.
I last wrote about Brexit on Thursday, June 23, the day of the referendum, in my Blog. At that time, I noted that some of the final polls showed a slim lead for the Leave crowd. I also noted that the Leave crowd in Britain is part of a “global anti-establishment movement” that is growing around the world – which has brought us the likes of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.
While the Brexit outcome roiled the global equity markets for the first couple of days following the vote, some of those losses have been recovered. Frankly, I expect Brexit will fall out of the headlines soon, if it hasn’t already, and the media attention for the rest of this month will be on the GOP convention on July 18-21 and the Democratic convention on July 25-28.
Nevertheless, I will give you my thoughts and those from others I read on Brexit as we go along today. Just keep in mind that we don’t have any idea when Brexit will happen, under what terms it will happen or even if it will happen at all.
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