Brexit gives UK its own Independence Day, How ours wasn’t much different. By Austen Bundy, Arizona State Student and political anchor on the Cronkite File (www.cronkitefile.net) Photo credit is linked here Early into Friday morning, the United Kingdom voted to essentially sign its own John Hancock on a Declaration of Independence from the European Union. In an approximate two year transition, they will have full control over their economy, foreign policy and domestic relations. It looks like they were given a taste of their own medicine. A foreign leader, in this case Angela Merkel of Germany, was making all approvals on any decisions made by the U.K. and Europe as a whole. Welcome to the club, Britain. The only differences in their ‘revolution’ and ours, besides the time periods, was the way they went about it, which was a vote rather than a war, and their leader, which, instead of a moderate George Washington, they were led by their equivalent of Donald Trump in Boris Johnson. But after this two year transition period is up, they’ll be left in the same predicament the U.S. was in. They’ll be left asking, ‘What now?’ But more on that later. Let’s focus on what exactly the Declaration of Independence did for us. The most common explanation is that it cut all ties from King George III’s Empire. That’s partly true. Instead of me giving you the technical details of the document, I’ll give it to you in plain language. (You’re welcome.) In that document we decided we wanted complete autonomy from the British crown and wanted to give our people (mainly white land owners) the chance to be represented in a new form of government. But while the Continental Congress did declare a separation from Britain, technically we weren’t separate at all. The Continental dollar was worthless compared to the British pound and where it was claimed the majority of the country wanted to be independent, it was a slim, uneducated majority fueled by patriotism. The Continental Army still used British money to buy supplies and food, and Loyalists were easy to come by in any part of the colonies. Just like the Brexit vote, the British pound is worthless compared to the Euro and only a slim, uneducated majority fueled by patriotism voted ‘leave’ on Friday. So after this ‘revolution,’ as it’s being called, settles down, where does the U.K. go from here? Will they now experience the same period of isolationism the newborn U.S. went through? Only time will tell. So as it seems, history really does repeat itself. Welcome to another age of revolution. So, who’s next?
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