September 28, 2016
Brexit Flash Quiz
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The biggest news is that Great Britain has voted to leave the UN
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Britain votes to no longer be great
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And perhaps not to be a United Kingdom
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What’s the broader context of all this and why should we care?
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What happened??? Why did they vote out?
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The whole thing is a fluke
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The current prime minister of Great Britain decided to have the referendum
to basically appease the members his own party
o
When he came into power he said things to appease all people and so
he said that he would start a referendum
o
People who don’t like the EU not people anti western civ or anti-
Europe
o
There have been euroskeptics in Great Britain and throughout all of
Europe itself
o
There has always been this group that said they want out of the EU, so
he said he will have a referendum and a vote
o
He had no allusions that this would actually word
o
He didn’t think it would even be close
o
No biggie, but then accidentally became a biggie
o
It was held Thursday June 23
By 52%, the people of GB decided to leave the EU
Referendum: single policy or single issue voted by the people
A law or policy
Doesn’t happen in US
Pretty close to direct democracy
If you live in California they have them all the time
Its state to state
US doesn’t do national referendums
We don’t even do that for the presidents, we have the
electoral college for that
Largest voter turn out in GB for the last 25 years
72% turn out
pro leave versus we should stay people
gotten really nasty
looks very much like a US presidential election—lasts
forever, people go crazy

September 28, 2016
there are a significant portion of Euroskeptic people in GB
there are people who don’t want to be in it all over
GB, Latvia, and Iceland have had a fairly large Euroskeptic
group
So why?
There are those in Europe and in GB who believe that the
EU is not that democratic
Different people different religions different ethnicities
They don’t feel represented by this bureaucracy
Many felt that their tax dollars were going too far away to
issues they don’t care about
Paying all this money for policies they don’t agree with
The one specific issue that became the hot button issue is
immigration
Sub sahara Africa and north Africa
Immigration has always been an issue and exaggerated by the
Syrian refugees
The british people dont want to have to take Syrian people in
based on what the EU said they had to do even though they
didn’t want to do it
o
When David Cameron put this forward a couple of years ago no one
thought it would actually pass, even the people who were pro-leave
didn’t think they were gonna win
o
He himself is pro-EU and he campaigned to stay in EU and he lost
o
No one on either side thought that it would pass
o
No one has any plans and no one knows what’s going on and that’s
why there is so much chaos
o
The government has no plan and the pro-leave people have no plan
either
o

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