The Brexiters have won the debate that has been set forth with the declaration of the referendum on the membership of UK in the EU with a small majority and now the UK will sail alone in the world market.
The present debate whether to be in out of the European Union started in 2013 when a two sitting Tory MPs defected to the UKIP (UK Independence Party) and won their re-elections held thereafter.
The UKIP that hates EU as according to them it has taken away the sovereignty of the UK and blames the migrants for coming to UK to take advantage of the welfare state. Pressed on by UKIP and Tory back benchers the PM David Camron promised to conduct this referendum if his were party is re-elected. Once the party was redetected in 2015 he ordered the referendum.
There was no general demand from the public for such referendum at all. This was a gamble that Camron played and payed for with his job as the PM. When the result came out on 24th June instead seeing off the UKIP the scene David was forced to resign.
As the campaign by both camps progressed the Leavers were able to divert the real issues that the people of UK faced and was able to focus on a single issue, the issue of migration especially from Poland and Bulgaria and to a small extent from Syria. The number of homeless and people living in poverty has increased substantially since the great recession of 2008 when austerity measures were initiated. Getting an appointment with the GP takes time now; getting school place nearer to your place is not easy, the university fees has increased substantially putting the dream of the young far out into the sky. Getting unemployment benefits and other benefits were made conditional as part of effecting cuts to government expenditure to balance the budgets. The Leavers were able to put the blame on migrants for taking places in the schools and even taking jobs away from the locals with manipulated statistics. For example they claimed they would divert the £350 million contribution the UK makes towards EU to NHS and would solve the shortage of funds the NHS is facing due to austerity measures. Even after pointing out that this amount is lie the Leavers kept repeating it.
For the working class this was an occasion to show to the ruling elite that their agenda of pushing the burden of mismanaging the economy through austerity is not agreeable to them. The vote was therefore a vote of protest against austerity measures. It was an expression of anger against the ruling elite of both the leading parties. In the absence of a real alternative the only alternative for the people was to express it this way.
The EU has a neo-liberal agenda to help accumulation of capital with free movement of capital and people within the EU. The elite of the UK benefitted from this as they could use cheap migrant non-unionised labour from Poland and Bulgaria to continue their accumulation of profits. The weakening of the trade unions meant the loss of bargaining power of the labour and consequent loss of real wages for them. The EU policies thus have a clear neo-liberal agenda and which is actually increasing the miseries of the working class in the UK. Instead to taking this issue head on, the political system even those representing the labour did not take a strong stand against the UKIP view on migration.
Days ahead are uncertain for the people of the UK. The young worry that job prospects are hampered by this vote, the older generation seem to have put the blame for neo-liberal austerity measures on the decisions made by the EU institutions parliament which is considered an undemocratic institution, which is true. But then the same policies are supported by those who supported the Leave campaign. One can only hope that the street protests that one sees against Boris Johnson, the leading leave campaigner and one of the leaders expected to succeed Camron takes a concrete shape to reverse the austerity measures.