Live From London – UK Citizen Reacts To European Union Exit Vote
Early Friday morning, the world received a shock. The United Kingdom had voted 52 to 48 percent to leave the European Union.
With the news, UK Prime Minister David Cameron resigned, the British Pound Sterling lost over ten percent of its value, and stock markets around the world trembled.
KGVO News spoke with Andrew, a citizen of London who reacted to the vote with a sense of alarm.
"I was genuinely shocked, and kind of scared, actually", Andrew said. "I was just lying in bed a 5 a.m. for an hour wondering what it means, because, really, nobody knows."
Andrew said the main force behind the exit vote was a dissatisfaction with the current state of the UK government.
"There's a growing apathy and frustration with the economy and politics, especially in the United Kingdom," he said. "For the last 20 years, we've been ruled by the Labor and Conservatives, and they haven't been listening or caring too much about what people say or think, especially working-class people."
Andrew also said the UKIP (UK Independence Party) was a galvanizing force in the vote to leave the EU.
"They've really driven this whole referendum. They've tapped into this zeitgeist, and into the fear and instability in the country," he said. "Immigration is the most visual thing, When you've lived in the same place for 10 or 20 years, and you look out the window and you start to see different people coming in and that whole sense of identity and Englishness has just broken down"
Andrew drew attention to Scotland, which voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU.
"Most Scottish people voted to stay, so that's going to have a massive effect on their claim for independence," he said. "I think they're already calling for another referendum. They want to secede away from us and back into the European Union."
"I think it has just completely rewritten the rule book," he said. "Every single thing that we took for granted and relied on in terms of our standing in the world, our trading with the world, our economy, our identity, culturally, everything's changed."