What is Brexit?

NEW YORK (FOX 5 NEWS) - Brexit is a combination of the words "British" and "exit" and British Twitter and British news reports have used it liberally in recent weeks and months, but that still fails to explain: "What is happening across the pond?"

Alison Thomas declined to disclose her age but did say she moved to New York 42 years ago from the Isle of Wight. It isn't known for much, she said, which is why she came to America. Allison supports the Brexit because she'd like the United Kingdom to leave the European Union, an economic and political partnership founded after the Second World War to prevent a Third World War.

"Because of open borders there are like thousands of refugees pouring into England and really using up resources and space," Thomas said.

"Logic means we should stay but there's a growing sense that we need change, so people are thinking we should go," said Leicester's Joe Ladd. He opposes the Brexit because he believes the U.K. stands stronger as a part of the E.U. -- with its trade deals and joint benefits --than alone. He thinks Brexit supporters just blindly want change.

"I don't think they understand what it would actually mean, 'cause if they did, they'd stay," he said. "So I'm very much in favor of staying."

"People who aren't as adventurous. And feel safer being in one big unit," Thomas said. "And maybe people who don't think Britain's able to stand by herself."

To settle this dispute and appease his party, the British prime minister allowed a referendum -- we'd just call it a vote -- among every British, Irish and commonwealth citizen of voting age, Thursday.

"If they do leave, I think Britain is smart enough to get its act in order, the house in order," Fox Business Network Senior Correspondent Charles Gasparino said. "It could basically impose more tax cuts and other fiscal policies to change regulations here."

Gasparino expects this debate to continue for many years regardless of the result of Thursday's referendum.

If they stay, little changes. If they go, the U.K, the E.U. and the rest of the world must evaluate exactly what that means for them. And until a chief counting officer announces the result, Brexit is all anyone in the U.K. wants to talk about.