04
SCHOOL
The final interview with Miss Lusk before she leaves
12
NEWS
What does the sugar tax mean for us?
SUMMER ISSUE
19
FEATURES
Are Christians right to claim that they are persecuted?
Abingdon School’s Leading Newspaper
27
SPORT
Tom Brady for dummies, the football star explained
ISSUE 10
Brexit - Where Next?
Nick Harris responds to the shock result to leave the EU
B iENTER MR WINDSOR P.3i
THE FESTIVALS OF 2016 P.17i
HENLEY REGATTA MOORS UP P.30i
ritain has voted out. Against all the odds, against the academic consensus, against the markets and most importantly, against the Prime Minister, Britain has gone. So before we begin any sort of post-Brexit re-evaluation of the arguments let us remember that such an endeavour is entirely in vain. Britain is going whether we liked or loved or hated or loathed the idea and painful as it may seem for many of us to have not been able to participate in this important decision, that is now the way it will be. What is much more important is what happens to Britain in the short to medium term and what we can possibly learn from this historic vote. At the time of writing, all we know so far is that Britain is out and the Prime Minister will go before October. It is all very vague and uncertain. However what is clear to me is that there must be an election before then or at the very least before the post-Brexit negotiations begin. The current government was elected on a mandate of, predominantly, continuing austerity, the carrying out of an EU renegotiation and a referendum on that renegotiation. It has done these things but during the campaign the official government has campaigned for Remain with such admirable passion that the administration as it is can not be the one to re-negotiate our status with Europe. Neither would it be appropriate for a clique of Leave campaigners led by Michael Gove and Boris Johnson to assume power in the vacuum left by the Prime Minister. This would be an administration that no-one has voted for and would be one that would be only supported by the right leaning half of the Tory party that is completely unrepresentative of the UK overall, with absolutely no mandate to
govern. Therefore there must an election, as soon as possible. This would be feasible, despite the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, with the support of two thirds of the house. It would give all parties a chance to re-assess their policy following this vote and to decide their stance on the future of Britain’s relationship with the EU. But most importantly, it would give the electorate a chance to select their chosen renegotiation strategy. A Brexit government is the only one which can carry out these talks with the EU and find a way through the stunned disbelief with which much of the world has reacted to this vote. Once that government is in place we can answer many of the questions that have so befuddled many such as, among others, whether we are a member of the EEA, EFTA, have our own free trade arrangements, or find another path. One other result of this referendum is the striking and unavoidable observation of how divided our country is. The truth is that, on the whole, the educated and higher income south east and London voted for Remain, along with Scotland and Northern Ireland. The Out votes came predominantly from working class areas such as the North and the Midlands. This is not to say that votes from any particular area were driven by any particular argument but the fact remains that this is how the votes were distributed. We can each draw our own conclusions from this but perhaps the biggest thing to think about is how different the priorities of different strata of society have been during this referendum and why that is. It is not enough anymore to abandon such people as political parties have done for far too long, and in this allowed for the rise of parties like
Continued on page 2