I know that Americans don’t really follow much what’s going on in other countries — I know in part because my hometown newspaper, the Boston Globe, didn’t even cover this on their front page because they were too mesmerized by the question of whether Tom Brady is a cheater based on the Deflategate report (spoiler alert, he is) — but there was a major election in the United Kingdom yesterday. This one was supposed to be a cliffhanger, but in the end, it turned out, not so much.
David Cameron and his wife Samantha returning to #10 Downing Street on Friday. Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP
That’s not really good news for the rest of us, at least those of us on the progressive side of the spectrum. For one thing it means that the Brits will probably be given a referendum on whether to stay in the European Union, which David Cameron promised to give them if re-elected. CNN has a piece on the election, if you’re interested.
Reblogged this on christineogutu.
No one was expecting a majority government, we were all surprised, but hopefully he just negotiates our involvement in Europe rather than have us leave…
I highly doubt the referendum will result in the UK leaving the EU. It is essential for business and trade, which David Cameron is very pro, proven by the successes of the BBA and CBI during his last term. The only people in his party that are against the EU, are eurosceptics, are the backbenchers and those who fear EU legislation will interfere with their anti-terrorism legislation. The other group of people against the UK membership of the EU are UKIP. Since they only had 3 million votes, I highly doubt this will be enough core support to change the views of the entire country. I can only hope that they push forward the referendum from 2017 as this will give less time for a rise in eurosceptic support.
There is another group of people against the UK membership of the EU – small to medium size businesses. The huge corporations can easily afford all the red tape and bureaucracy that comes with membership as they simply pass it on to their customers but SME businesses who probably employ more people than the multi-nationals are not so fortunate.Personally, I want to remain a member but the terms need to be re-written. UKIP (who actually got 4M votes) many more than the SNP and yet only ended up with one MP whereas the SNP ended up with 56 and I believe that should Cameron hold a referendum within the next 12 months or so, the result may well be a resounding YES to leaving the EU.
Ah- thank you for correcting me. I agree that small businesses may be against the UK being a member of the EU but since these small businesses employ 15 million people, whilst the population of the UK as a whole is at 64 million, hopefully this will not play out too much in the referendum or the media frenzy lead up to the referendum. I can only hope that if the referendum is pushed forward, as Cameron wants, the people will decide to keep the UK as a members.