Earlier today, the UK voted to leave the European Union by a vote of roughly 52 to 48%. But as the global stock markets tumble and the pound hits its lowest value since the mid-1980s, some on the now more distant island are already regretting their vote to leave.
One UK Brexit voter told the BBC this morning that he was “a bit shocked” that after he voted to leave the EU, Britain will now leave the EU. ”I did not think that was going to happen,” he tells the interviewer. “I didn’t think my vote was going to matter too much because I thought we were just going to remain.”
This befuddlement is also evident in the massive spike in traffic to Google UK in the hours right after the Brexit vote, asking questions such as ”What is Brexit?” and “What is the EU?” Some people, it seems, just may not have realized what exactly they were voting for.
Others are already wishing they could go back and change their votes. One UK resident told Channel 5 news this morning that “the reality is hitting, and the regrets are filling in.” She hopes she’ll have a chance to vote again—but that is almost certainly not going to happen.
The Daily Mail, which publicly supported the Brexit campaign, even went so far as to suggest today that many Britons simply didn’t know “why they voted for Brexit.”