brexit
A demonstrator wears a European Union themed T-shirt during a protest in favour of amendments to the Brexit Bill outside the Houses of Parliament, in London, Britain, March 13, 2017. Reuters/Neil Hall

Brexit has divided the British people as it raised concerns in terms of the country's economy. As a member of European Union (EU), the UK has an eligibility to the regulations imposed by the union covering trading, security, justice, migration, health and environment. However, leaving the union may remove such benefits that would affect the citizens.

Departure talks

Currently, departure talks are not yet moving forward because neither the union nor the British government are budging to make a move. For the union and parliament, trade talks would be impossible to take place because they perceived it as impractical. They viewed the ratification process to take far longer and far broader.

On the other hand, the Britain government insisted on holding discussions about trade in parallel with the departure talks. The government perceived that the European negotiators were violating the spirit of article 50's instruction. Article 50 stated to take account of the framework for the future relationship. However, the negotiators said that they could not deal with the future status. They rather deal only with the Britain's departure.

Alimony request

EU president Jean-Claude Juncker confirmed that the British government owed them around €60 billion (AU$83 billion). If the amount will be paid to the union, it would settle all of Britain's outstanding financial commitments. However, conservative backbencher Peter Bone claimed that it was actually EU that owed Britain £184 billion (AU$300 billion). Bone said that the amount was a full refund of the country's total net contributions since joining in 1973.

Immigration policy

European chief negotiator Michel Barnier said that the fate of the four million EU citizens should be discussed as they were stranded on the British soil as they were like foreigners hostage. Residency rights of the EU citizens were not yet guaranteed by the British government which led to the genuine anger of Europe. On the contrary, hardline Brexiters acknowledge that EU citizens should be grandfathered in once immigration rules were amended.

Access to single market

Trading is one of the many factors that would be affected once Britain left the EU. Countries that are members of the union are eligible for single market trading. It means that they could trade with other countries within the union as if they were one country. Leaving the union would hinder them to access the single market trading unless they would follow conditions imposed by the union like submitting to Brussels regulation. Unfortunately, the World Trade Organization could not help in such deal.

Another consequence that would affect the British economy was the export trading. EU buys 44 percent of the country's exports and it supplies 53 percent of the country's imports. The total UK exports to the EU are worth 13 percent of the country's national income. In effect, UK would be trading less and there would be a lesser foreign investment because trading with other countries within the union would not be easily accessed.

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