A fateful referendum, which will decide the future of the UK as part of the European Union, will be held on June 23. Many Eurosceptics consider this referendum as "beginning of the end" of the EU: regardless of its outcome, the fact that this voting is carried out and almost equal number of supporters and opponents of the EU among British citizens indicate the crisis of European idea in the UK. At the same time, as columnist of German pubclication Süddeutsche Zeitung Christian Tsashke rightly points out, the referendum mainly expresses British citizens' hopes on the matter of British identity, not the EU. "While supporters of country's stay within the EU expressed argument that it is in the national interests of Great Britain, their opponents seek national idea. And it is one of the reasons why clashes between two opposing camps were so brutal," she writes. During public debates, British Eurosceptics managed to to connect the issue of Brexit to the issue of migrants, which concerns most of the population. As Tsashke notes, possible secession from the EU will possibly become the trigger for Scotland's secession from the country, since it is friendly towards the EU.
The head of supervisory board of Deutsche Bank, Paul Achleitner, believes that Brexit will become "economic disaster for British citizens and political disaster for the EU." British citizens will actually lose a lot: if Brexit happens, the UK will be out of about 50 free trade agreements with third countries. In turn, Eurosceptics claim that the UK will be able to bargain for new agreements, on more favorable conditions. However, many people doubt this statement, believing that negotiations on free trade agreements can be carried out more effectively while being one of the key players in a major economic bloc, rather than fighting for it alone. The conditions for access of British businesses to internal European market will also be reviewed (45% of British export falls on the EU countries). Financing of various EU's projects in the UK will also stop, and continental part of the union, in turn, will have to redistribute quotas of EU's funding taking into account the fact that Britain seceded. Britain also leads 'Atalanta' anti-piracy military operation and its soldiers are in the EU military forces. In case of Brexit, the prospect of creation of united European army will be much more illusory than today.
It is predicted that Brexit will also have a negative impact on the Russian economy. The head of Sberbank, German Gref, assumes that in the event of the UK secession from the EU, indicators of Russia's GDP will drop by 1 percent, and the stock market will drop by 5-10%. At the same time, Moscow may extract foreign dividends if the loudest "transatlantic voice" in the EU will no longer be heard. As Prime Minister David Cameron stated: "I can only think of one person who wants us to secede from the EU, and it is Vladimir Putin."
