New Delhi: June 23 Referendum in UK, where people voted to leave the European Union with 51.9% voters opting for Brexit, has left the United Kingdom ‘divided’.
Scotland, one of the four nations that make up the UK, vote overwhelmingly to stay with the EU, with 62% people voting for the idea. The country is so desperate to stay with the 28-nation bloc of European continent that it has decided to breakaway from the Great Britain.
Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon vowed on Saturday to protect Scotland's EU membership and said a fresh independence referendum was possible, less than two years after the last one was conducted in September 2014.
United Kingdom is made up of four nations- England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Of these four, two voted to leave the European Union while two supported the idea of staying with the bloc.
While 53.2 people of England opted for Brexit, Wales’ 51.7% voters supported the idea of an ‘independent UK’.
55.7% Voters in Northern Ireland wanted the UK to stay with the EU. But the idea to leave the EU was completely rejected by the Scottish with 62% of the voters saying no to the proposal.
On Saturday, a day after the results of referendum came out, Sturgeon said, “We will seek to enter into immediate discussions with the EU institutions and with other EU member states to explore all possible options to protect Scotland's place in the EU."
"A second (Scottish) independence referendum is clearly an option that requires to be on the table, and it is very much on the table," she added. Scottish independence referendum in 2014 was lost by the independence seekers when 55.30% people chose to stay with the UK.
The Brexit referendum has brought a clear divide within the England itself. London, the most populous city of England, decided to stay with the EU. Around 60 percent of Londoners voted to stay in the EU in Thursday's historic referendum while other of parts of England said no to the Union with 27 European countries. 53.2 per cent voters in England had supported the Brexit.
Within London, 28 boroughs voted to remain part of the EU and five backed Brexit.
The will of Londoners to stay with the EU is so strong that some of them are actually calling to break away with the England itself. Many are calling for the capital to break away from Britain with some showing interest to form a "London Independence Party." By Saturday, a Twitter user had already created an account for the proposed "London Independence Party," with its handle @LdnIndependence.
Some Londoners have now taken to social media to ask London mayor Sadiq Khan to declare the city independent from the rest of the UK and stay in the EU.
Tens of thousands of people are expected to attend a London Stays rally in Trafalgar Square as a mark of protest against the EU referendum result.
More than 35,000 have signed up to attend the event on Tuesday 28 June.
Meanwhile, over 3 million (30 lakh) Britons have signed a petition calling on the British Parliament to hold a new referendum on Britain's membership of the EU.
The number is growing rapidly with over hundreds of signatures being added every minute. On Friday, the website of the House of Commons collapsed for sometime because of the high numbers of people who visited the website.
