Markets Continue to Drop in Wake of Brexit – But Not as much as Expected
The markets continued to drop in early trading on June 27 following the Brexit referendum. Although the massive drops predicted in the early hours after the vote has yet to materialize, the Pound is trading at its lowest level against the US dollar for about 30 years, and the FTSE is a further 2% down compared to the Friday closing level, and is now trading dangerously close to the 6,000 points mark.
It is being speculated that the – after all – less-than-expected fall is in part due to increasing doubts over whether the UK will actually leave the European Union after all. Leading Brexit politicians have stated that they won’t invoke the so-called “exit” article, Article 50 in the Lisbon Treaty, but would rather hold informal talks with the European Commission and other member states before deciding what to do. In addition to this, several voters who voted Leave are now becoming known as Bregretters, as – apparently – they did not want to actually leave the European Union but would rather send a signal to their political leaders. Emily Tierney, who has written a piece about it in the Independent, is once such Bregretter. Brexitters like Nigel Farage and Iain Duncan Smith have probably contributed to the Bregrets, as they celebrated their victory by raising serious doubts about the Leave campaign’s highly publicized election claim that the United Kingdom would save £350 million a week by leaving the EU.
Additionally, the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon (pictured above), has pointed out that the Scottish government may be able to Veto the decision to leave, and that – if Leave becomes a reality – Scotland will hold a new independence vote within the next few years. A similar vote in 2014 rejected Scottish independence with a 55-45 split, but many voters claimed to vote No because they wanted to stay in the European Union. Remarkably, every single Scottish constituency voted to Remain in the June 23 Brexit referendum.
Cover photo of Nicola Sturgeon is released under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license by its author Kenneth Halley.
