Places and forms of power : How much can a country be powerful?

Places and forms of power :

A place is an area with defined or undefined boundaries and power is the capacity to exercise control over someone. It can be a person, a group, or a nation having great influence over people. How much can a country be powerful? To answer to this question we will focus on the Brexit which is a more than topical issue. indeed, British people voted to leave the EU in an historical referendum on the 23rd of June 2016. First, we will see that Brexit triggered different reactions all over the world and then will that it is the subject of many debates.

The day following the referendum, Brexit was on the front page of every newspapers all around the world. In class, we saw many covers of newspapers from different nationalities: American, German and French, and the result of the referendum was on the front page of each one of them. Everybody in the world was shocked by the news because all surveys thought that Brexit would not pass. In Great Britain, there are two kinds of reactions. We studied two different British covers. The front page of the Daily Mirror represented the face of a child covered by the Union Jack. He probably symbolized the future whereas the flag stood for nationalism. He seemed worried because his generation will have to lead the country without help. This cover makes us think that this tabloid was against Brexit. On the contrary, the sun was in favour of Brexit. The cover represented people celebrating their victory and the title « see EU later » was an ironic pun took after the famous expression « see you later alligator ».

We also watched the underground interview from BBC News that showed the testimonies of Londoners, some think that it is a victory and other ones think it is a disaster. A man said that there will be economical consequences but it will not be everlasting and another one said that Great Britain made the wrong choice for the future generation. Everyone talked only about Brexit that shows its big impact on the world.

As soon as it was decided, lawyers against Brexit contested the triggering of the article 50 which allows a country to leave the EU without a formal act of parliament as we read in an article of the Economist. The new prime minister, Theresa May had to hold a parliamentary vote before invoking Article 50. The parliament recently voted and GB will definitively leave EU. Even though GB wants her total independence, the country still wants all the economic advantages of the EU. Brexit implies a lot of negotiations with the EU as the documentary entitled Brexit: Deal, or no deal explained it. GB has two years to manage to agree with the EU. Theresa May wants to assure a soft Brexit which means that Britain will keep the advantages of Europe single market. A hard Brexit would imply that no agreement would be found between B and EU. We read an article from the Guardian which explained that a hard Brexit would damage 'almost every sector' of the UK’s economy. The negotiations in Brussel will be very hard and will implies a lot of politicians.

The Brexit referendum created reactions all over the world which shows that GB has a great impact on the world. The Brexit vote will involve a lot of changes and negotiations in the EU. Moreover, GB has an influence on the rest of the world because Scotland has just announced that they will organize a referendum

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