The U.K.’s vote to quit the European Union has pushed the country’s political establishment into turmoil, causing its two main parties into leadership battles and fostering greater uncertainty over how Britain would disentangle itself from the bloc. The ruling Conservative Party is facing with a political upheaval following Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision Friday to step down in a few months. Senior politicians in the opposition Labour Party, meanwhile, led an open revolt against their leader, Jeremy Corbyn, over the weekend. Nearly a dozen members of his shadow cabinet either resigned or were fired as they voiced opposition to his leadership, though Mr. Corbyn vowed to fight off any coup attempt.
Adding to the unfolding political crisis, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon pledged to protect Scotland’s place in the EU by holding another referendum on its secession from the U.K., if necessary. She also threatened to block Britain’s exit from the EU, arguing that such a decision would need the consent of Scotland’s semiautonomous Parliament. The political firestorm ignited by the vote by Britons to leave the EU after more than four decades exacerbates the acute economic and financial uncertainty now dogging the nation. The U.K.’s economic and political future—as well as whether the U.K. remains a united country—rides on how Mr. Cameron’s successor navigates Britain’s complex divorce from the European bloc.

Source: WSJ