LOC15:05
12:05 GMT
LONDON, June 28 (KUNA) -- After deciding to leave the EU, the UK is facing deep political, financial and social tensions, commentators claimed.
The former late Conservative prime minister Harold Macmillan used to say: "beware of events dear boy", they recalled.
Events now are coming thick and fast: prime minister David Cameron has resigned last Friday after the shock vote to exit the EU in a referendum, although he was confident to win.
Meanwhile, the main opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's allies are resigned to losing a no-confidence vote in him today as Labour rebels prepare a formal challenge backed by 50 MPs in an attempt to topple him.
The secret ballot comes after the party descended into open warfare last night, with a string of furious MPs demanding Mr Corbyn's resignation during a meeting of the parliamentary Labour Party.
In the 36 hours before the meeting two thirds of Corbyn's shadow cabinet resigned in protest at his leadership.
Twenty-two of his 31-strong top team have left including Hilary Benn, whose sacking in the early hours of Sunday triggered the coup, and two Labour peers who said that they would no longer attend cabinet meetings, the commentators added.
In total, 46 shadow ministers and aides have resigned since Sunday.
There are also fears that the EU referendum result will lead to a general election and that Corbyn will lose.
The hard-left leader has refused to quit, however, dismissing the coup attempt as "internal factional manoeuvring".
On the other hand, some commentators contended that the result of the referendum ended so far in a catastrophe as the country was facing severe challenges, in the absence of leadership from the two biggest political parties here.
In the meantime, the world is struggling to keep an eye on everything happening in British politics right now. There is also "a disastrous economic impact of Brexit", the analysts observed.
In addition, there is heated arguments of whether the rapidly spiralling immigration should be curbed.
The thorny issue was amplified during the extensive referendum debate.
Meanwhile, the future of Scotland in the UK after the vote is also a deeply worrying development to millions here and abroad.
"All these developments are dizzying, and there will be no relief any time soon", the analysts said while sounding a note of pessimism.
And there is also "the small matter of England" suffering another dramatic exit from Europe last night after a 2-1 defeat by Iceland, leading to their elimination from Euro 2016 to add to the country's woes.
Roy Hodgson, the England football manager, resigned immediately after the match, which was widely regarded as "the most embarrassing loss in the nation's sporting history".
The analysts suggested that his speech appeared to be pre-written.
This Comes less than a week after Britain voted to leave the European Union, the crushing result at the Stade de Nice on the French Riviera drew inevitable comparisons with the referendum. England supporters joked that a rematch should be demanded if at least half of fans failed to back the outcome.
For his part, Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, tweeted: "UK-Iceland 1-2. Winter is coming."
Gary Lineker, the BBC presenter and former England captain, tweeted: "The worst defeat in our history. England beaten by a country with more volcanoes than professional footballers. Some commentators said in a cynical manner: "To leave Europe once may be regarded as a misfortune. To leave twice in a week looks like carelessness.
Meanwhile, Britain will have a new prime minister by September 2.
Cameron had hoped to stay on until the Conservative party conference a month later, but the powerful 1922 committee of senior Conservatives has decided otherwise.
Nominations will open tomorrow morning and close at midday this Thursday. Names will be whittled down to just two by MPs, before 150,000 Conservative members get to vote.
This speed will favour the former London Mayor Boris Johnson, who has the most advanced campaign team and is still riding high from winning the referendum. But the race to find an ABB (Anyone But Boris) candidate is on.
His main challenger is reported to be the influential Home Secretary Theresa May who commands wide respect among Conservative PMS, the commentators pointed out.
In another development to add to the mounting crisis, the financial markets are still wobbling after last Friday's shock vote.
Britain has been hit with a two-notch downgrade to its sovereign credit rating in a move that is likely to send another wave of panic through markets today.
Standard & Poor's said the decision to leave the EU could relegate sterling from the world's exclusive reserve currencies. It said the downgrade reflected risks to economic prospects, "a marked deterioration of external financing conditions" and questions about "the constitutional and economic integrity of the UK if there is another referendum on Scottish independence".
It cut the UK from AAA to AA and left the rating on "negative" in a major downgrade following last week's shock referendum result.
Just hours later Fitch also downgraded Britain's credit rating to AA from AA+. The credit ratings agency warned that the UK faces an "abrupt slowdown in short-term GDP growth".
The downgrades came on a historic day for government debt. For the first time in more than 300 years borrowing costs on 10-year gilts fell below 1 per cent.
Markets continued to implode, with the pound dropping 3.7 per cent yesterday to a fresh 31-year low of 1.3170 US Dollars and shares tumbling deeper into the red, traders said.
The turmoil came as hedge funds claimed the Bank of England had intervened to support sterling on Friday after it plunged 11 per cent to 1.3232 Dollars in dawn trading.
The pound has lost 12 per cent against the dollar in two days of trading.
The FTSE 250 sank 7.47 per cent, an even bigger decline than on last Friday.
(end)
he.nfm