ABD EL KADER ABD EL HALIM
NASIHA A.B.M. ZAHRY

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‍‍The year has entered into 2019, yet the final decision of Brexit is still undecided. Numerous opinions, critiques, and suggestions were voiced out but still unable to do any favor. Naturally, the best people to ask about this particular issue are none other than the country's citizens themselves. 

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Recap on early-stage of Brexit situation

‍After the UK referendum to leave the EU, which was held on Thursday 23 June 2016 and ended with the ‘Leave Campaign' winning by 51.9% to 48.1%, the results were pretty much complicated with significant division in the United Kingdom's four parts.

England voted for Brexit, by 53.4% to 46.6%. Wales also voted for Brexit, with ‘Leave' getting 52.5% of the vote and ‘Remain' 47.5%. While both Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to stay, Scotland backed ‘Remain' by 62% to 38%, while 55.8% in Northern Ireland voted ‘Remain' and 44.2% ‘Leave'. Those differences and dispute led to political chaos in the UK as a whole and in England mainly for being the center of politics. 

Following the results, the former British Prime Minister David Cameron announced his resignation and leaving the mess for Theresa May to deal with. Since then, an unprecedented acceleration of events took place in the negotiations of the UK with the EU accompanied by disagreement in the House of Commons led to a deadline of Brexit sat as 31 October 2019; a date that may see a no-deal exit go through for the United Kingdom. 

Abigail Thorley and Alice Kershaw, students of Leiden University shared their thoughts regarding the Brexit issue as they were joining Marmara University Model United Nations as chairs of the committees. "When I was watching the Leave Campaign, it was pretty much focused on the immigrants, it was like very obvious fake news," Ms. Thorley said. 
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British asked, "What is EU?"

‍Once the news of Brexit broke out, British citizens have made a record of making the issues of EU in Top 5 Most Google-searched questions. According to data from Google Trends, the search of "What is EU?" became one of the most popular questions across all parts of the United Kingdom. This shows that citizens of the UK were in the same boat as the rest of the world, wondering about the real story behind the Brexit. This conflict has raised curiousness among people about the history of Europe and hence urging them to learn and know deeper about it.

"The day after the referendum, Google announced that the most common search on Google was ‘What is the EU'. I don't think people in the UK knew actually what they are voting for and they were mainly old generations. One of the main points of Leave Campaign was about immigrants but people didn't even think that there is a lot of UK citizens work across Europe not only the other way around," Abigail Thorley added.

According to analysis data from the Centre of Social Investigation, two main reasons for ‘Leave voters' were due to immigration and sovereignty. The United Kingdom is well known for being the main destination for finding a better career and education. Therefore, the UK has always been at a high level of annual net migration. In 2018, around 3.7 million people in the country were from other EU countries. However, the number decreased after the outbreak of Brexit. 

‍How the Prime Minister Theresa May deal with the Brexit

‍"Considering that the British parliament is very talkative and a lot of it is about debating, I believe that for a leader in that position they need to know what to say and head straight to the point.  Also putting in mind that she is a woman in a man dominant area, I really think that she could have used this to her advantage. I don't think that she as an individual or even her public relations team have done enough to be a stronger leader which is what I think is needed at this time" Alice Kershaw said. 

Alice Kershaw and Abigail Thorley in the middle during Marmara MUN 2019.

The opposition voters demanded a choice of making a new referendum, however in both Alice and Abigail's opinion it is too unlikely because it will be against the democratic system. The final decision of Brexit has been going on for quite some time due to the democratic system itself. The extreme level of free voice and opinion can be seen as one of the reasons for the delay.

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