Brexit - Should they stay or should they go?

Sort of interesting side effects - the French and Spanish stock markets have fallen much further than the UK's.Questions being raised about how strong the EU actually is.

When one of the lifeguards quits, those who are already drowning are bound to be worse off. Might be better for the lifeguard though.

The contagion from this vote could be very dire for the EU. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that other parts of the EU are now going to question whether it makes sense to stay.Take Greece for example. They have had copious problems financially. And although they called a vote before to stay, that was prior to the migrant crisis. My guess is that pendulum could swing the other way now. Spain has strong nationalistic elements as does France.The problem now is the world and European members in particular are seeing the EU as the Angela Merkel show. It's almost like Germany won WWIII without firing a shot. Granted, that is an exaggeration, but it is still a sentiment.I have to say by the way, Jean-Claude Juncker looks and sounds like an old Nazi. He was about as useful as a hemorrhoid in the build up to this vote.

The EU has been an attempt to drop the artificial boundaries between various cultures. We are now reverting back to us and them, or basic tribalism instead of working co-operatively.

Likewise. This is a disaster. I dread to think what will happen.

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Sort of interesting side effects - the French and Spanish stock markets have fallen much further than the UK's.
Questions being raised about how strong the EU actually is.

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The E.U. is the largest trading partner of the United States, so we are hurt when the U.K. is too weak (due to currency or per capita income issues) to purchase goods.That's an argument against nationalism and borders, not for it.When both the U.K. and the USA are hurt, then the rest of the world suffers, especially the E.U. countries. It cuts all ways in a not so virtuous cycle. Witness the Great Depression.The British have a national debt to GDP ratio of about 90% (the USA is about 75%), and that was based on an economy with immigration and a growing economy. Now that the U.K. seems to want to shrink its way out of its problems, then expect the debt to GDP ratio to get quite a ways worse. (as things get worse,the nationalists will point the finger elsewhere, of course)If other E.U. countries follow suit - leave the E.U. - then a depression is guaranteed.But expect all stock markets to be hurt. This is bad news.The other E.U. countries aren't going to solve a thing by leaving the E.U. Remember that the common currency Euro issue is a totally different one from the European Union. Perhaps the countries can solve their problems by dumping the Euro and having their own currency, then they can devalue their own like 99% to "pay" their debts. That is a different issue.

There a huge amount of regret around atm. People saying that they didn't think it would actually happen and theirs was only a protest vote. Dickheads.It turns out that 73% of 18-25 years olds voted remain but only 29% of them bothered to vote.I suspect that if we had the vote again today, remain would win by a large majority.

Or... the EU was an attempt to put economics before democracy.

I was pro-EU for a long time and it has only been through painstaking research that I have become euro-sceptic. I am not sure that all the Greeks have the knowledge, the education or the will to find out about the real agenda. A faster way to be euro-sceptic but without the understanding would be to simply hate immigrants. You are suggesting that this faster approach would result in a real pendulum swing which may or may not be true. Alternatively, maybe people in the UK are more hateful. I would still like to believe it's thanks to a better understanding.

Remember that we destroyed their nation after World War 2, because their "communist" people actually had the audacity to defeat the Nazis.The people overthrew our CIA installed right wing dictators in 1974, and became a democracy that hates the CIA and votes more often with our "enemies" (Russians, Palestinians, Africans etc.) in the UN.Our state department used to classify Greece as part of the Middle East until recently.The CIA propaganda against Greece is just unreal. Greeks understand most of it, but they don't have a clue about the lies the CIA spreads among American blacks. All sorts of "Cleopatra was black" conspiracy theories are very very strong in every single state in the USA.Greeks aren't ignorant of the E.U. or anything. They can read the New Testament in its original language too.

Maybe, but a strong economy means that people have jobs. As an aside, where democracy is concerned, it seems that most elections nowadays seems to see the majority having to vote for the candidate they dislike the least.

People had jobs before governments became obsessed with tweaking the economy. You must be old enough to remember when we had things like flag debates. I don't think that's true of the recent (Canadian) Federal election, or the Saskatchewan provincial election.

Certainly Brad Wall is well liked. However federally I don't think that the Canadian public were as enamoured with Trudeau as they were fed up with the Conservative negative campaign.I do think that people are feeling more and more disconnected from government which certainly fed into what happened in Britain and what continues to happen south of us.The point is though, that instead of working co-operatively with our neighbours we are putting up walls. Trump even goes beyond the metaphor.

That's ironic, considering the fences that the EU nations are putting up to keep out refugees.

But none of these are being put up by the EU as a collective institution, but by individual member states. One of the things that I think drove the Brexit vote was opposition to the EU commission's failed attempts to get member-states to accept refugees.