London: At least a million Brits — and mostly living here in London — believe their nation has made a huge mistake. They want a second referendum on Leaving the European Union, and they want it as quickly as possible; so much so that the House of Commons website that keeps track on online petitions crashed under the sheer volume of the disaffected.
“I’m in shock,” Anne-Marie Jennings told Gulf News yesterday. “I can’t believe it. No one thought for a minute that we would actually vote to Leave.”
The Reigate-based office worker voted Remain, and so too did another 16,141,240 others — leaving them more than 1.2 million votes short of winning.
“We need to have another vote,” she told Gulf News. “All of my friends are in absolute shock. All of London voted to Remain, and now we’re going to lose our future.”
But if the Leave side had lost, would there be a second vote? “No,” she says. “That because the consequences of staying in are not like the consequences of leaving. This is for good. There’s no going back. We need a second referendum.”
Jennings isn’t alone in her views. If there are more than 100,000 signatures to an online petition, the committee at Westminster that oversees the system can recommend it be raised in the House of Commons. That meets on Tuesday, and in less than 24 hours of a petition going up, the Commons’ website crashed under the sheer volume of simultaneous visitors clicking the second chance request.
But those who voted Leave are absolutely delighted with the result. Julie Skinner told Gulf News she was thrilled.
“It’s the first time in a long time that I’m proud to be British,” she said. “Politicians weren’t listening to us. I work in the NHS [National Health Service]and if terrible the cuts we’ve had to endure. We have one person doing two jobs. It’s about time the Tories [Conservatives]listened to us.”
But Thursday’s vote was about membership of the European Union?
“Yes, and now that we’ve taken back control of our own laws, there will be more money to be spent on health care,” the Redhill woman said. “And there’s too many immigrants coming in here and taking jobs and using NHS services that need to be reserved for English people who paid taxes all their lives. “
Would she support a second EU referendum?
“No [expletive] way,” she said. “The vote was fair and square. Everyone had an equal say, not like when you vote in a general election. We all had a say. We don’t want to belong to Europe no more. We’re English.”
Sadiq Khan, the newly elected Mayor of London, said the fact that 60 per cent of London voters voted to stay in the European Union shows that there is a disconnect between the rest of England and the capital.
He said that every person who is working and living in London, regardless of what passport they hold, is very welcome, and that nothing will happen anytime soon.
In Newry, in Northern Ireland, close to the border with the Republic of Ireland, there were fears that the Leave result would mean a return to the days of hard customs and security checks.
Right now, and since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that formalised the end of three decades of political and sectarian violence in the province, there is no effective border, with vehicles driving freely between North and South, with only the road signage changing.
And in Scotland, where the London government used the argument that a vote for independence in the September 2014 referendum would mean Scotland would not be a member of the EU, the result of the Leave victory on Thursday means that while Scottish voters overwhelmingly voted to Remain, the UK is now out of the EU.
“The British government can’t have it both ways,” said Jamie Wallace when interviewed by an Edinburgh publication. “I voted No in the independence referendum because I wanted Scotland to stay in the EU. Now I voted to Remain in the EU, and I’m being told I have to leave. We need a second independence referendum for Scotland before the Brits take us out.”
