There seems to be a lot of people going around asking "Why has this happened?" as if it was such a huge surprise. The simple fact is that there have been a lot of heads buried in the sand in recent years and the simple fact is that across the UK, and Europe as a whole, there are a hell of a lot of people who genuinely feel that there is something fundamentally wrong with the EU. Yes, in many cases this was born out of fear, but in many others there were legitimate concerns being raised that many in the EU did not want to address.
For years now many have felt that the modus operandi has been that should anyone raise a concern over immigration they will simply be branded a racist and summarily ignored. Similar situations were felt when people raised concerns that the EU helped big business to no end while continuous EU regulations strangled smaller businesses out of existence.
The continued rise in popularity of Eurosceptic parties across Europe, from UKIP in the UK, the National Front in France, The People's Party in Denmark and Five Star Movement in Italy, particularly during the European Parliament Elections of 2014 only further emphasised how much people were turning against the EU and should have been a stark message that people wanted the EU to change and soon.
Simply put, many people were very angry for a very long time. Had people felt that their concerns were genuinely heard and addressed the referendum may have gone differently, but many people felt like they have been ignored and took the chance to send a message that they felt needed sending.
It didn't help matters that many felt that the EU was undemocratic - every year the UK parliament had to pass multiple statutes handed down to them from the EU, slowly overriding British Common Law in favour of laws dictated by people in the EU - and these were happening in all areas, not just trade.
Which brings up another point - the last time the UK got a referendum on the EU was in 1975. Back then there was no actual EU and the referendum was actually to join the European Communities, which is something quite different. The European Communities (EC) was made up of three international organisations - The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSE), The European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC).
The ECSE was to make a common market for coal and steel, with the intention of neutralising competition over these natural resources amongst member states.
The EAEC was to make a specialist market which would supply nuclear power to the member states of the EC
The EEC was to provide a common market and customs union which would make trading other things easier.
At the time of Britain's joining the EC, the other countries involved were Belgium, France, Italy, West Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, with Denmark joining at pretty much the same time. Greece then joined in 1981 and Spain and Portugal joined in 1986, and for the most part things were fine.
Then the EC became the EU and things began to change. Free movement of people was began to become a thing and largely people were happy with it. Then other countries, now from Eastern Europe began joining up and people began to go "Um, I don't remember voting for this!" Passport controls (and any kind of control) was abolished between borders and the UK quickly opted out of that one, and numerous other things since.
The issue of border controls (or lack thereof) has only become a worse issue in recent years in the wake of the threat of terrorism and have been driven home by the ongoing migration crisis and the recent terror attacks in Paris.
In short, the EU became something vastly different to what people thought they were voting for in 1975. Talk of a United States of Europe certainly did not help matters there!
Add in economic downturn, especially Greek Government Debt and you have a recipe that was ripe for disaster.
As Euro-scepticism has risen there have been more and more calls for the rejection of the EU and implementing commonwealth free trade agreement with other members of the Commonwealth of Nations (such as New Zealand, Canada, Australia, India, Malaysia, Kenya, South Africa and the Bahamas) - the thinking here is that the UK already shares the these countries a lot of shared values, which are laid out the the Charter of the Commonwealth - it is worth noting that many of these countries, such as Malaysia, actually paid absolutely no export duties when trading with the UK before the UK became more Europe-oriented. New Zealand also once did huge amounts of trade with the UK - at one point over 65% of New Zealand's exported products were sent to the UK, though again this ended once the UK began focusing more on Europe.
Anyway, to sum up - I think that this could have been avoided had there been more listening on both sides, but this didn't happen, so here we are. Maybe if the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 had come about sooner and had gained more traction, things would be different, but it came too late.
Will others follow the UK? Possibly.
Will the UK be ok? I think so, but possibly Scotland-less.
How do I feel? Slightly optimistic.
