If you’ve had a TV on, been on the internet, or interacted with social media at all over the last week or so, there’s a chance you’ve heard about Brexit. Unless you were keeping up with the event, it’s likely you didn’t even know what it was or why it mattered. If you’ve been clueless this entire time or want everything slowed down and easier to understand, here’s a little bit of a breakdown.

Basically, the UK (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) took a vote on whether they should leave the European Union (EU). The EU is an organization of European countries that follows similar laws, allows for freedom of movement and labor, easy travelling and trade with each other. The EU is incredibly important because it helped establish a sort of peace after the first two World Wars and the Cold War.

Now, why did this happen?

Essentially, David Cameron (the Prime Minister) decided on the referendum because he was trying to gain support from anti-EU parties like UKIP during the general elections. Except now, as you’ve probably heard, he’ll be resigning in October.

During this entire campaign, Michael Gove, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage stressed on immigration laws if the UK leaves the EU. Apparently, immigration has been a big problem for the UK as it’s reducing jobs, so the Leave campaign said “Hey, we’ll tighten the borders if you vote to Leave the EU!!” and now, here we are (Trump, anyone??).

They also talked a lot about the economic benefits. They promised that if the UK were to leave the EU, they could set aside money to go to important things like their national healthcare instead of the EU. They spread lies about the amount of money the UK was putting towards the EU to help gain support. However, once Brexit was official, a lot of conservatives admitted that they had lied and that their promises would be impossible to keep.

In short, this caused a bit of a financial crisis.

The British pound dropped from 1.5 to 1.3 in a matter of hours, which is the lowest value it’s had in 30 years. This, in turn, causes banks to increase interest to prevent inflation. It also affects the entire world’s currency, including the United States. All of this can cause the UK to fall into a recession, which isn’t exactly unfamiliar with the U.S.

“But,” I hear you saying, “that isn’t that bad! Surely they can recover!”

Here’s the thing, though. Scotland showed that an overwhelming amount of their citizens wanted to remain in the EU. It’s incredibly likely they'll call for a referendum so they can leave the UK and join the EU on their own as an independent nation. If Scotland decides to leave, it’s likely Northern Ireland and Wales could follow suit.

Brexit also triggered a lot of other European right wing conservatives to want to leave the EU too, and places like Germany, France and Italy are wanting to call for a vote. All of these countries abandoning the EU is downright dangerous, as none of the European countries were stable and peaceful until the EU came along.

It’s also interesting that after the vote happened and it was made public that the decision to Leave was decided, a lot of voters admitted they had made the wrong decision. A lot of people were saying “what have I done?” and wishes they could take back their vote. Some say they even regretted their decision the second they dropped their ballot! The entire campaign was built on lies and scare tactics, and once it was all said and done, England saw the consequences.

So for anyone who can vote in the Unites States election in November, let this be a lesson to you. Get involved in politics. Do your research and understand what you’re voting for. Do the math and don’t trust politicians’ every single word. Don’t think that your vote doesn’t matter, because it does. At the end of the day, your voice and vote are incredibly important. Don’t be silent and GO VOTE!