Circumstances

The Brexit referendum

Cristina Ruiz’s article “That Uncertain Feeling: An Italian Living in London On Brexit Britain” was published in 2017 on the website of Vogue magazine, as a reaction to the 2016 Brexit referendum in which the majority of British voters opted to leave the EU. These circumstances are mentioned from the beginning of the article (ll. 2-4). The referendum was called by the Conservative Party which was in government then, and which was led by Prime Minister David Cameron. The referendum was promised to British voters as part of the Conservatives’ campaign for the 2015 general elections. At the same time, the party was pressured by the anti-EU party UKIP to organise it.

Ruiz notes that the referendum results were unexpected, and reminds readers that the UK has been a member of the EU for a long time and has benefited from this free trade area:

So the referendum result was profoundly unsettling for me. I was shocked, of course, that Britain would choose to divorce itself from the largest trading bloc in the world, an assembly of nations that has presided over 60 years of peace and stability.  (ll. 11-13)

The article also mentions the areas which were most in favour of the UK remaining in the EU: “London, a city whic...