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A police officer stands guard at 10 Downing Street in London on March 29, 2017. According to local media reports, British Prime Minister Theresa May signed the Article 50 document on Tuesday, officially launching the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union. Nine months ago, the UK decided to leave the EU through a referendum. (Xinhua/Han Yan)
Xinhua News Agency, London, March 29 (Reporter Chen Cong) The United Kingdom officially activated Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty on the 29th and withdrew from the European Union. This move caused mixed reactions on the streets of London.
“I guess we’re all Brexiteers now, but I really wish this hadn’t happened,” said Phil Paterson, a teacher from Bermondsey.
“I voted to remain in the EU, but it was a difficult decision for me. In the end, I chose to put safety over keeping parliament fully in power, and my views have not changed since the referendum,” he told Xinhua.
Bermondsey is a working-class area of London adjacent to the new financial centre of Canary Wharf, where international banks and financial institutions employ tens of thousands of people.
Goldman Sachs announced last week that it plans to expand its operations in Frankfurt and Paris over the next 18 months to support Brexit. Richard Gnodde, chief executive of Goldman Sachs International, said the number of people involved is in the hundreds.
But on Friday, Deutsche Bank said it would build a new headquarters in London for its employees, who currently work from multiple locations in the city.
At Canary Wharf, bank employees expressed their views on Article 50 of the Constitution to Xinhua during their lunch break.
A financial analyst who was educated in the UK but has an overseas background and who wished to remain anonymous said it was unclear how the Brexit process would affect the financial industry.
He added that he believed London’s status as a global financial centre would not be lost but might change.
“We knew this was going to happen. I’m sure my job is safe, but I wish we hadn’t done this. It would certainly have made it difficult for some businesses in my industry,” he said.
Bank clerk Louise Davies said she voted for Brexit and was delighted that Brexit was now officially underway.
“The EU likes to tell us what to do and I hope this puts an end to that,” she said.
Before the UK’s Brexit referendum on June 23 last year, experts predicted that the Brexit referendum would have a shock to the UK economy.
Since June 23, the exchange rate of the pound against the US dollar and other foreign currencies has continued to fall. The exchange rate of the pound against the US dollar on the night of the referendum was $1.48, and the exchange rate of the pound against the US dollar on Wednesday was $1.24.
This makes British exports cheaper, but also makes raw materials and imports more expensive. The economy has been quick to feel the impact, with inflation, as measured by the CPI measure, now at 2.3%, up from 0.6% before the vote.
But the economic shock predicted by some experts has not occurred, and GDP growth has remained strong, at an annualized 2.5% since the June vote, above its long-term trend.
“We were told Brexit was bad for the economy, but that hasn’t happened,” Davis said.
People showed their support for Brexit outside a supermarket in Lewisham, a south London borough that voted strongly to remain in the European Union and has a large number of immigrants from within the EU, the Commonwealth and developing countries.
Paul Lee, an electrician from Wales who works on a large construction project in London, said wages and benefits in his industry had gotten worse over the past decade, rather than improving.
He hopes the situation will improve after Britain leaves the EU.
He said: “I voted to leave the EU because we were losing our jobs to foreigners.”
Welder John Royle said he earns less now than he did 17 years ago and his work contracts are less secure.
“The jobs are going to Poles and Romanians,” he said, hoping that would change after Britain leaves the European Union.
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