BREXIT CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES

 

 Outline

Title: Brexit Causes and Consequences

Thesis: Brexit has had negative social, political and economic effects on United Kingdom (UK) as it has created room for political divisions and instability in the country.

1. Introduction:
2. Thesis: Brexit has had negative social, political and economic effects on United Kingdom (UK) as it has created room for political divisions and instability in the country.
3. History of Britain and its experiences in EU that motivated its leave vote
4. Political Consequences
5. Change of government; Theresa May became the prime minister in the new installed government, given the role of helping complete the process of leaving EU.
6. Divisions in Politics; concepts of ‘hard Brexit’ and ‘soft Brexit’ has led to division among political leaders causing instability within the country.

• Economic Consequences of Brexit

1. How the employment sector has been affected
2. How employers are dealing with lack of skills and retaining of staff
3. Social Consequences of Brexit
4. Racism; Hate crime has increased since 2016 mostly in schools and colleges
5. Poverty; the number of children living in poverty has doubled since 2016 because the funding that EU provided to help eradicate poverty is no longer available.
6. Conclusion

Brexit has had negative effects on UK, the EU was beneficial for UK and it greatly contributed to its economic development. Unless a meaningful debate is held to understand what UK hopes to achieve in the world an itself, then there is a risk that UK will fail and not accomplish any goals with its Brexit decision.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Abstract

This article examines the decision for United Kingdom to revoke its membership of the European Union (EU). The paper analyses some of the reasons that led UK to leave the Union and the demographics of the leave vote. This research suggests that one of the main reasons that led to the leave vote by UK is the issue of surge of migrants into UK after the free movement without restrictions decision. This paper suggests negative effects of Brexit for UK both economically, socially and politically. Brexit led to deep societal tensions in matters of education, race, class and income. This research shows that Brexit has had a very negative impact on employment, where UK organizations are still struggling to find the right people to fill their vacancies as most EU workers are scared to come work in UK. The article helps in making sense of Brexit and outlines some of the approaches that can be taken to deal with post-Brexit consequences.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brexit and Its Causes

The decision for British to leave the European Union was a shocking one and it shook the whole of Europe. This has been termed as the most significant event in Europe since 1989 after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Brexit has had negative social, political and economic effects on United Kingdom (UK) as it has created room for political divisions and instability in the country. Britain is country that has a unique history as compared to its European neighbours. It was a nation that has had a parliamentary democracy and so it has always been perceived as a nation that is independent. Britain was never a sympathetic model nation for EU; it only joined EU because it had no better options at the time (Bouoiyour & Selmi, 2018). 

There were many things that motivated the decision or Britain to leave the EU one of them being the 2003 decision by the Blair administration to permit for freedom of movement without restrictions to all the consent states of 2004 (Dhingra et al. 2017). Free movement without restrictions was hence allowed by the United Kingdom to all the compliance states from central all the way to Eastern Europe. All European member states preserved their agreement rights to limit free movement excluding for Sweden (Dhingra et al. 2017). This free movement led to a flow in the number of workers that came seeking for jobs in the UK. It was the decision of Britain not to limit free movement but in the end EU is the one that got accused for the flow of workforces in UK instead of the British government.  This invasion was supported by the economic catastrophe, as the Eurozone failed to source development across its nineteen members, the economy of the debtor states constricted abruptly and more people arrived in Southern Europe (Brakman et al., 2018).

The economy of British rectified itself promptly after this catastrophe because UK was in control of its coinage and debt; it had the authority to organize effective economic stabilisers. UK acted as the employment shock absorber because of the Eurozone addiction to monetarily inflexible economy procedures. The capacity of people that were moving to the UK from the CEE states and Southern Europe can be defined to have been a major factor that drove Britain to leave EU (Bouoiyour & Selmi, 2018). This is evident from the leave votes where areas within Britain that had a rapid flow of foreign workers voted to leave Britain. The areas where foreign workers were a common thing like in large cities like London, immigration did not really bother them and they voted to stay in the EU.

Political Consequences of Brexit

There were many political impacts of Brexit vote both for UK and for EU. One of the main risks for EU is that Brexit led the union to be looked at as weak, and it encouraged other states that are not comfortable in the union to leave (Rashica, 2018). As for UK, Brexit caused divisions in politics and it led to installation of a new government under Theresa May whose authority and competence was fatally compromised by the decision to call for a snap General Election in the year 2017. May’s position as a prime minister is exclusively grounded on incapacity of opponents within the party in regard to agreeing on would replace her (Corbett, 2016). May is currently being used to help warp up the process of leaving EU so that she can be blamed for all the consequences and subsequent problems.

Brexit has led to divisions in politics where some people wanted a ‘hard Brexit’ a position that would seek a clear break and application to the World Trade Organization for trade organizations (Brakman et al., 2018). Others preferred a ‘soft Brexit’ that sought to compromise and retain some aspects of the UK’s economic relationships with EU. Brexit saw the return of Eurosceptic neoliberals like David Davies and Liam Fox among many others to key positions within the government a thing that has led the debates on hard and soft Brexit to prevail even to date (Rashica, 2018). Divisions in UK’s politics mean instability in the economy and also the social elements of UK.

Economic and particularly employment Consequences of Brexit

An Immediate aftermath of Brexit vote saw a fall of the pound on the economic market (Corbett, 2016). The uncertainty about Brexit condensed investments by business by almost 6% which caused an employment decrease by almost 2%. However in spite of the early concerns about Brexit influences on employment, the proportion of employers looking to increase staff set counter to those that were looking to decrease staff has firmly improved (Dhingra et al. 2017). There is a sign of continued, healthy labour demand that is perpetual with official employment figures that suggests employment. In the period between 2016 and current day, the mixture of robust labour demand, low redundancy and a powerful 95% fall in EU residents joining the UK workforces has led to extensive pressure of occupation (Minford, 2019). 44% of employers as of the year 2018 experienced greater difficulty in recruitment while another 34% faced a similar challenge when it comes to retaining of their staff.

 Employers even in the current day are still experiencing a high proportion of vacancies that have become difficult to fill. 67% of the businesses that have marketed their jobs have had difficulties finding staffs that can fill these vacancies, which is a greater number as compared to the year 2017 where this percentage was at 51% (Minford, 2019). Given the shrinking supply of skills and labour, Brexit has not really reduced business’s interest in retaining EU migrant workers. A survey that was conducted in the year 2018 indicated that two thirds of organizations in Britain would continue to employ EU nationals (Anderson & Wittwer, 2018).

Most of the employers indicated that nationality was not a consideration when employing, skills of the candidates are what mattered. In the case of both the semi-skilled and unskilled roles, the employers indicated that the main reason they continue to employ EU nationals is because there are no British workers available to fill these vacancies (Anderson & Wittwer, 2018). In trying to deal with the recruitment challenges, most organizations in Britain have raised their starting salaries and others that had problems retaining employees have increased their salaries to try and retain these employees (Anderson & Wittwer, 2018). The employers have also had to practice the concept of up skilling the employees they have in order to fill the vacancies that are hard to fill. There are many other ways that organizations in Britain could attract staff other than salary increment. The organizations could for one provide more flexible working and clear career development all which will help the organizations to recruit and also retain these employees.

Social Consequences of Brexit

Brexit vote led to an increase in inequality including; cleavages between class, age, wealth, education and skills. Currency depreciation after the vote led people to be poorer as they were forced to pay more for the exported goods and their exported goods went for much less. Poverty has led people to turn on the minority and the minorities are today facing increased racism and abuse. It is estimated that seven in ten of minority people report racial discrimination, a very large number when compared to a percentage of fifty eight before Brexit (Teague & Donaghey, 2018). UK’s police force data has indicated that hate crimes have greatly increased to almost double in schools and colleges within Britain in the last three years.

 So currently, UK society is suffering from poverty, hate crimes and they are forced to deal with the issue of skill shortage in their hospitals and other areas that helped to develop UK. Before Brexit UK received funding to help alleviate poverty in regard to child poverty, homelessness and food poverty. People in Britain are now locked in poverty, it is estimated that almost a third of children in UK are living in poverty and in average classroom, about nine students come from families that are suffering financially (Teague & Donaghey, 2018). This population of poor children is expected to rise by the year 2020 where it is expected to be five million. The shape that poverty will take in UK is dependent on the response of the government, if they increase benefits for the poor then poverty will be decreased. But if it responds by business tax cuts and income tax for top employees, then poverty will deteriorate.

Conclusion

It is evident that Brexit has had negative effects on social, political and economic elements in EU. What is even sadder is the fact that it is not easy being confident that political leaders on both sides of the English channels are capable of the strategic thinking that is required in order to help keep EU and UK in order. UK-Europeans relations have helped understand that crisis management and problem avoidance is an insufficient strategy. UK assumes that the Union no longer matters to it, it however forgets that he remaining 27 states in the union will continue to be its greatest export market. Millions of nationals will live in each other’s territories and so the deep and pervasive economic and social links will still remain. What this means is that UK does need the union one way or another. EU was good or UK and unless a meaningful debate is held to understand what UK hopes to achieve in the world an itself, then there is a risk that UK will fail and not accomplish any goals with its Brexit decision.

 

 

 

 

References

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