By Beth Brogan, Bangor Daily News
FREEPORT, Maine — Maine merchants who sell British goods were, like most of the world Friday, still reeling from the news that residents of the United Kingdom had voted to leave the European Union and said it was too soon to tell how the vote might affect their businesses.
“Along with, I think, 90 percent of all Brits, I’m in shock,” said Mike Fear, a native of England and owner of Now You’re Cooking in Bath for the past 17 years. “I think even the ones who voted for it didn’t expect it.”
Fear, who became a citizen of the United States in 2012, has lived in the United States for about 35 years, he said Friday, though he regularly visits family in England.
“The banks apparently have said they have contingencies for this event, but I’ve got to believe this will have a severe impact on the markets in Britain and a severe impact on their relationships with other European countries.”
Fear said he does not buy British goods directly for his business, a cooking “emporium” on Front Street in downtown Bath, and isn’t sure whether the repercussions of the vote will affect his bottom line.
“Whether in fact it actually means we’ll get British goods at a better price, it’s hard to say,” he said. “I’m not looking for it to influence my business at all, really. It’s more of a personal shock. … I think, personally, that it will not be good for Europe.”
Jay Paulus, who manages the British goods shop Bridgham & Cook in Freeport, said the immediate impact will be positive because the exchange rate will be more favorable.
“I’ve heard smaller businesses in Britain say, ‘This is going to be better for us,’” he said. “A lot of them think they’re going to have more control over their businesses. But the flip side is, will they be protected?”
But Elizabeth Muench of Brunswick expressed no ambivalence as she bought ginger conserve Friday at the Freeport shop.
“I think [Prime Minister David] Cameron was an idiot to put it to a referendum,” Muench said. “He didn’t have to, and now it’s going to be somewhat of a disaster.”
Muench said British voters in their 60s and 70s, who don’t use computers that often and may even have lost jobs to “globalization,” don’t realize how interdependent the world is and how this vote will affect them.
“These are the same people who think Donald Trump is marvelous,” she said. “They like the world the way it was.”
To those who woke up surprised Friday morning, Muench said this: “Whatever your political persuasion is, you’ve got to get out and vote or you’ll kick yourself in the morning.”
This article appears through a media partnership with Bangor Daily News.