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After 41 years, the UK has voted to leave the European Union after a historic referendum on Brexit held on Thursday.
Current British Prime Minister David Cameron has announced that he will stay in office for the next three months and the country will need a new PM by October.
Even as the big yes came for the ‘leave’ vote, the ‘remain’ vote saw a thumping majority in Scotland, London, and Northern Ireland, triggering a whole new set of debates for these regions.
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In the 2015 general elections of Britain, Scotland’s Scottish National Party (SNP), led by Nicola Sturgeon, won 56 out of 59 Scottish constituencies.
In 2014, in a referendum for Scottish independence, the voters gave it a ‘no’ with a 55% majority. The turn out in this referendum was recorded the highest after the referendum for Universal Suffrage.
The SNP had made its agenda very clear at the beginning of the campaign by siding with the ‘remain’ vote and true to its campaign, Scotland got the highest majority for the ‘remain’ vote.
However, even though the SNP holds 56 seats in the House of Commons, the Brexit result may trigger a new referendum to decide on the status of Scotland.
Nicola Sturgeon, current First Minister of Scotland, expressed Scotland’s desire to stay with the European Union even as the UK largely voted against it.
Her statement, as reported by The Guardian, said, “Scotland has delivered a strong, unequivocal vote to remain in the EU, and I welcome that endorsement of our European status. And while the overall result remains to be declared, the vote here makes clear that the people of Scotland see their future as part of the EU. Scotland has contributed significantly to the remain vote across the UK. That reflects the positive campaign the SNP fought, which highlighted the gains and benefits of our EU membership, and people across Scotland have responded to that positive message. We await the final UK-wide result, but Scotland has spoken – and spoken decisively.”
All is not well in Northern Ireland either, which also voted to remain in the European Union. The region’s Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness has called for a poll for a United Ireland as the Brexit favouring vote can lead to border issues with the Republic of Ireland.
The Irish Republican political party Sinn Fein’s, national chairman, Declan Kearney, said (as reported by The Guardian), “All the indications are that we are going to see English votes overturning the democratic will of people here in the north of Ireland. Republican and unionist, Catholic and Protestant people have voted in favour of remain.
The British government as a direct result have forfeited any mandate to represent the interests of people here in the north of Ireland in circumstances where the north is dragged out of Europe as a result of a vote to leave.”
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