By now everyone has heard of how Britain voted to exit the European Union. We were happily nestled in the Tyrollean mountains in north Italy when the results were announced. Despite us being in the mountains, the wifi reception was incredibly good (we were well impressed). We streamed the live results on the BBC website but after enduring till 2am (1am UK time), I fell asleep. In the middle of the night I woke up to see K on his phone typing furiously. He told me the first few cities such as Sunderland and South Tyneside had announced had voted to leave. "Geez wow ok... well I still think it will be a very narrow fight but overall Britain will stay" before falling asleep again. To be honest that night I doubt K slept much. Some of our friends in finance had shift work to cover their trading desks 24h on the day of the referendum in anticipation of the market's reaction following the results, hence their whatsapp chat group with K was very active that night.
I jumped up at 8am (7am UK time) to hundreds of messages on my phone. My first groggy thought was "wow what's going on?" K was still asleep and all my messages were a mixture of 'Brexit!!' 'Doom and gloom!!' and concerned friends and family asking if we were ok. Actually we were more than ok - we were enjoying our break in the mountains until this piece of Brexit news came and shocked us to our core. I couldn't believe it. I shook K and shouted "omg it's Brexit!! It's Brexit!! Noooo it can't be!" He stirred and said "yeah you didn't know? Of course it is Brexit. By 5am we all knew it was a gone case.." "Wait, did you even sleep??"
So yes the world and us are still reeling from the Brexit shock and markets reacted in the worst way possible, even today, markets crashed and I never imagined I would see the GBP to SGD at 1.75. 1.75 people! When I first moved to London in 2008 the exchange rate was 2.7! OMG shocking. K thinks it is an overreaction but who cares what we say. Fact is, investors have lost confidence in the GBP. Investments are pulling out, and most scarily, xenophobia is on the rise. An article which I read said that the results of this EU Referendum seems to have given people a boldness to show racial discrimination openly, as if the outcome is all about discrimination. I saw a video of two white teenagers hurling vulgarities at an African guy in a bus screaming for him to get off and better still, go home. This is scary - sad too - for such xenophobic reactions. Thankfully London is very cosmopolitan and so less display of such reactions, though I still believe there are some elements of it.
And then we have the politicians. To be honest I was sad when David Cameron announced his resignation although I understand where he was coming from. He did say he would step down if Britain voted for Brexit. He was running the Remain campaign so now that the citizens have said otherwise, of course he would not want the glorious job to start his two year negotiations on this divorce which he didn't want. On the other hand, look at the Leave camp. The two main politicians lobbying for people to vote for leave, has left themselves! Local media are saying they are acting like two rats abandoning a sinking ship. Now the country (really feels like a sinking ship) is looking to elect the next Prime Minister, with the most likely candidate Theresa May. People are watching and waiting for Britain to invoke Article 50, which starts the 'divorce' process with the EU. Friends say once that happens, the GBP will slide again. This slide in CCY value seems to have no end?! And let's not even mention those people who voted for Brexit without second thoughts are now regretting...
Besides the falling GBP, we haven't really experienced any direct effects of Brexit. The negotiation process will take 2 years, and jobs in banks.. well we don't really know. It all depends on how the negotiations go. The next PM will really need to fight for the finance industry otherwise many jobs will be lost and London will lose it's title as one of the leading financial centers in the world. If that happens, K says the country will not survive due to the over reliance on this industry. EU citizens in the UK are worried for their future in this country. I don't blame them if they feel they are unwelcome. People at my work are shocked, sad and in disbelief. One of my British colleagues told me she's really, really sad and hoping they will hold a second referendum. She told me her parents did vote for Leave though.
At the moment we do rely quite a bit on Eastern Europeans in our daily life. Remember the team who came to clear our garden? It was mainly a Polish uncle if you remember me saying.. our cleaner Edina is from Hungary. We go to Polish workers to wash our car (GBP 5 for outside wash, GBP 10 for both in and out) whereas local Brits charge at least double. So yes, in time to come (hopefully not too soon), we will be paying more for our cleaner and car wash with our depreciated GBP.
For now, we just have to KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON.
I jumped up at 8am (7am UK time) to hundreds of messages on my phone. My first groggy thought was "wow what's going on?" K was still asleep and all my messages were a mixture of 'Brexit!!' 'Doom and gloom!!' and concerned friends and family asking if we were ok. Actually we were more than ok - we were enjoying our break in the mountains until this piece of Brexit news came and shocked us to our core. I couldn't believe it. I shook K and shouted "omg it's Brexit!! It's Brexit!! Noooo it can't be!" He stirred and said "yeah you didn't know? Of course it is Brexit. By 5am we all knew it was a gone case.." "Wait, did you even sleep??"
So yes the world and us are still reeling from the Brexit shock and markets reacted in the worst way possible, even today, markets crashed and I never imagined I would see the GBP to SGD at 1.75. 1.75 people! When I first moved to London in 2008 the exchange rate was 2.7! OMG shocking. K thinks it is an overreaction but who cares what we say. Fact is, investors have lost confidence in the GBP. Investments are pulling out, and most scarily, xenophobia is on the rise. An article which I read said that the results of this EU Referendum seems to have given people a boldness to show racial discrimination openly, as if the outcome is all about discrimination. I saw a video of two white teenagers hurling vulgarities at an African guy in a bus screaming for him to get off and better still, go home. This is scary - sad too - for such xenophobic reactions. Thankfully London is very cosmopolitan and so less display of such reactions, though I still believe there are some elements of it.
And then we have the politicians. To be honest I was sad when David Cameron announced his resignation although I understand where he was coming from. He did say he would step down if Britain voted for Brexit. He was running the Remain campaign so now that the citizens have said otherwise, of course he would not want the glorious job to start his two year negotiations on this divorce which he didn't want. On the other hand, look at the Leave camp. The two main politicians lobbying for people to vote for leave, has left themselves! Local media are saying they are acting like two rats abandoning a sinking ship. Now the country (really feels like a sinking ship) is looking to elect the next Prime Minister, with the most likely candidate Theresa May. People are watching and waiting for Britain to invoke Article 50, which starts the 'divorce' process with the EU. Friends say once that happens, the GBP will slide again. This slide in CCY value seems to have no end?! And let's not even mention those people who voted for Brexit without second thoughts are now regretting...
Besides the falling GBP, we haven't really experienced any direct effects of Brexit. The negotiation process will take 2 years, and jobs in banks.. well we don't really know. It all depends on how the negotiations go. The next PM will really need to fight for the finance industry otherwise many jobs will be lost and London will lose it's title as one of the leading financial centers in the world. If that happens, K says the country will not survive due to the over reliance on this industry. EU citizens in the UK are worried for their future in this country. I don't blame them if they feel they are unwelcome. People at my work are shocked, sad and in disbelief. One of my British colleagues told me she's really, really sad and hoping they will hold a second referendum. She told me her parents did vote for Leave though.
At the moment we do rely quite a bit on Eastern Europeans in our daily life. Remember the team who came to clear our garden? It was mainly a Polish uncle if you remember me saying.. our cleaner Edina is from Hungary. We go to Polish workers to wash our car (GBP 5 for outside wash, GBP 10 for both in and out) whereas local Brits charge at least double. So yes, in time to come (hopefully not too soon), we will be paying more for our cleaner and car wash with our depreciated GBP.
For now, we just have to KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON.
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