Scotland Before
Beginning from Scotland, before the vote, as you can see from the slide,
Scots tried to have an independence referendum to separate from the United
Kingdom, therefore becoming an independent country, but it failed because
the "No" answer gained the 55% of the votes.
As of today, Scotland's businesses and enterprises are free to trade across
the United Kingdom and the entire Europe, meaning that they don’t have to
pay tariffs and fees to export and import from other countries; they are
also able to hire workers from all across Europe, without having to waste
time and money dealing for complicated paperwork, delays and other
bureaucracies.
Vote Result
On the voting day, the 23rd of June 2016, the majority of Scottish people
voted to "Remain", exactly the 62%, and looking at the map, which represents
how every region in Scotland voted, we can see that Scotland really wanted
to remain in the European Union, in fact the yellow-brown colour indicates a
prevalence of Remain over Leave votes, while the blue colour indicates the
opposite, and in that map we don’t see any blue region.
After
After the results, in March 2017, Scotland’s government proposed a second
independence referendum, but the UK parliament has not agreed to it.
The Leave vote prevalence in UK scares many Scottish people because of the
fear of less work for Scots and the fact that exiting from the EU means
losing all the benefits we have talked about before, losing the large
fundings.
Europe gives to countries to develop themselves, and also the many
possibilities for people, students especially.
Northern Ireland Before
Moving on to Northern Ireland, I would like to talk a little about its
geopolitical situation: it is, as we all know, part of the United Kingdom,
but it is separated from the main island by the sea, and it borders to the
South with the Republic of Ireland which is part of the European Union.
In 1998, eight political parties from Northern Ireland, Britain and Ireland
signed a deal to end the conflicts and the violence between communities in
Northern Ireland, and allowed the dismantling of all physical borders,
surveillance and controls between Ireland and Northern Ireland.
As of Scotland, Northern Ireland's companies and people have relationships
with all continental Europe, and as said a little ago, there aren’t borders,
customs, surveillance and controls between Ireland and Northern Ireland,
allowing free movements in the island for people and goods.
Vote Result
On the voting day, 55.8% of people of Northern Ireland voted for Remain,
but as we can see from the map, the eastern regions voted mostly for Leave,
coloured in blue, while the western ones voted for Remain.
After
After the referendum result, citizens of Northern Ireland fear the return of
physical borders between Northern Ireland and the Republic, meaning in a
loss for the country, and more difficulties to sell goods and services in
the rest of Europe; they are also worried to a return to conflicts because
of the involuntariness of leaving the EU.