What Brexit means for UK — Commercial Times

The markets have predictably reacted sharply to the referendum result with the pound falling to its lowest since 1985. Britain will have to try to negotiate new deals covering those issues. “It is interconnected… It promises to bring extraordinary benefits, but it also has challenges”, Obama said. It now is a union and it wants its own currency and now wants its own defense forces.

“He has been one of the most extraordinary politicians of our age, a courageous and principled man”, said Johnson, who seems to be the most likely successor of Cameron.

He suggested his replacement would be in place by October. The result also led to calls for no-confidence motion against Labour Party’s popular chairman Jeremy Corbyn who pushed for remaining in the EU.

Interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose took a more even-handed approach, saying Canada will be a “steadfast ally, trading partner and friend” to the United Kingdom, and urging the government to continue championing Canada’s free trade deal with the EU.

Scottish government ministers were meeting on Saturday to decide their next move.

The 27 leaders will meet on Wednesday morning to discuss the fallout from the referendum.

Obama said he was sure Britain’s exit from the European Union would be orderly and vowed that Washington would maintain both its “special relationship” with London and close ties to Brussels. Militant Islamists took to the internet to applaud the British vote, with one saying it marked the “beginning of the disintegration of the Crusaders”. The euro slid 2.0 percent against the dollar and world stock markets saw more than $2 trillion wiped off their value. European stocks ended down 7.0%, the biggest one day fall since 2008. USA stocks fell suffered the largest selloff in ten months sharply, with the Dow Jones industrial average losing 3.4%.

Investors put their cash in the safety of gold, which clocked up its biggest daily gain since the global financial crisis of 2008, ending Friday up 5.0% at $1,315 an ounce.

Ivo Daalder, a former US ambassador to North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, said Britain’s ability to press its views and policy preferences with its European allies and within North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, where it provided strong political backing to the United States, will be diminished.

Spain’s acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said the European Union should be reformed to focus on economic growth, jobs and greater integration after Britain’s vote to leave the bloc. “There is no doubt that this is a blow to Europe and to the European unification process”, Merkel told reporters in Berlin. Le Pen changed her Twitter profile picture to a Union Jack and declared “Victory for freedom!”

Their decision will stoke fears of a domino-effect of exit votes in eurosceptic member states that could imperil the integrity of the bloc.

“Across the world people have been watching the choice that Britain has made”.

“It was the day the quiet people of Britain rose up against an arrogant, out-of-touch political class and a contemptuous Brussels elite”, the Daily Mail added. Those which backed staying the bloc were more circumspect.

Cameron’s ruling Conservatives in particular have harboured a vocal anti-EU wing for many years, and it was partly to silence such figures that he promised the referendum in 2013.

“(Corbyn) clearly isn’t the right person to actually lead the party into an election because nobody thinks he will actually win”, said Labour legislator Frank Field. Cameron apparently made the remark to an aide, explaining that he would leave the tortuous break-up negotiations to those who campaigned against him.

“The drivers of Brexit are the same as the drivers of nationalist movements in western Europe and the U.S.”, Clifford Young, President of Ipsos Public Affairs in the United States, told Reuters.

China on Friday called for Britain and the European Union to reach agreement as soon as possible after Britain’s vote to leave the bloc, adding that China respected the choice of the British people.

Britain’s shock decision to exit the European Union should have little impact on Australia’s diplomatic and trade relationships, according to the EU’s ambassador to Australia.

The EU’s founding members have demanded the United Kingdom urgently invoke Article 50 and start the process of Brexit.