As a EU resident who is a partner in several UK based businesses, the uncertainty over what's coming next is frightening. When I approached different colleagues, friends & family in the UK, they all had different views on what should happen. To an outsider, it looks like opinions have been polarised.
If you are managing a business that has ties to the UK there are very many unknowns right now. It's a lot easier to plan for the worst than it is to take risks IMHO. Brexit must ultimately hurt the UK economy in some way – jobs lost, money flowing out of the country, talented people leaving?
You're right about the polarisation. The same forces in play in America are in play in Britain right now. It's no accident that Trump described himself as "Mr Brexit". Authoritarian voters support Brexit, liberal ones don't. The major parties split right/left not authoritarian/liberal and are terrified of losing their voting base. I know a die hard leaver, she's one of the few people I'd trust my children with. She's also an authoritarian leftist who can't understand why we're not out already and wants to get rid of immigrants.
The London Tech scene (which skews left/liberal) seems to be hemorrhaging talented people to Berlin and other places. All of these people are what I think of as natural Londoners, but they're deciding for their own reasons that Britain isn't the place they thought it was. (Me, I've got a wife and kids, it's harder to up sticks. That and I love this country.)
Meanwhile, inflation is so bad the supermarkets are quietly reducing the quantity in boxes to avoid giving shoppers a heart attack at the prices, and Brexit _hasn't even happened yet_.
Yes, the polarization is deliberate, following the US culture war template or the older UK colonial practice. Keep the population fighting each other to prevent them uniting to focus on the real inequalities. Lots of people in the most marginalised parts of the country voted for Brexit in an attack on "elites", but of course the "elite"(+) running Brexit aren't going to start caring about Lowestoft.
>Authoritarian voters support Brexit, liberal ones don't.
I don't think that's an accurate analysis. As far as I can tell the vote was driven mainly by economic distress, media (which papers you read) and community (a lot of people just voted the same way their friends or family did).
>The London Tech scene (which skews left/liberal) seems to be hemorrhaging talented people to Berlin and other places.
I know a lot of people in the London tech scene and I only know two off the top of my head who have gone to Europe, and I don't think Brexit was a major reason for either of them.
I also haven't seen much of a significant rise in rates. If all the valuable talent is gone surely that means I'm going to be worth more?
>Meanwhile, inflation is so bad the supermarkets are quietly reducing the quantity in boxes
That's how inflation always works in supermarkets.
Funny you mention economic distress, because people always seem to ascribe the Trump victory to it to. Except that it's not borne out by any actual analysis of who voted and who didn't.
Yes, some very depressed areas voted for Brexit. But Liverpool didn't, and it's seriously poor.
> Funny you mention economic distress, because people always seem to ascribe the Trump victory to it to. Except that it's not borne out by any actual analysis of who voted and who didn't
The non-existent statistical analysis of who voted and who didn't that ascribes the vote to economic distress:
I alluded to a deadweight, or economic intertia, so yeah ... it's early days yet ... but it doesn't really matter because Brexit probably won't happen the way most people think it will ...
From my little time in the UK right before the Brexit vote, similar patterns emerged in public discourse about the vote.
Disclaimed: anecdata below.
From the few people I talked to, both the leave and remain group seemed to leave voters mostly thinking, “the other choice sounds bad,” rather than having real strong reasons and desired outcomes in favor of voting one way or the other. It was a fear-driven vote, one to avoid a bad outcome rather than gain a good outcome.
Similar to the US Presidential election, people tended to have stronger opinions against the other candidate than for their own candidate.
both the leave and remain group seemed to leave voters mostly thinking, “the other choice sounds bad,”
Absolutely, this. The remain campaign was actually labelled "Project Fear" [0], I mean if that doesn't say it all I don't know what does ..
There was never, any actual discussion of what brexit means. How it would look. What consitutional adjustments would be made. Simply a binary "Stay" or "Leave" on the Ballot, which strikes me as particularly absurd and should in some way undermine the constitutionality of it.
Brexit to me, is the outcome of an absolute failure in governance by all concerned, whatever the outcome, and whatever outcome was envisaged by those that voted for it. ..
As a Remainer who voted Yes in the Scottish Indyref, I strongly agree. What it seems to me happened is that Cameron drew exactly the wrong lesson from the Indyref. He thought Project Fear worked there, despite the vote moving from strong No to close No over the course of the campaign. So he replicated the strategy. What he hadn't realised was how corrosive a demoralisation-based strategy that relied on the collusion of the three main supposedly opposed parties was.
Ongoing, Brexit is being run entirely in essay-crisis mode. Nothing will happen until the last minute. The process will run on the EU timetable with the EU's preferred outcomes unless and until the UK government collapses and is unable to send anyone. Nobody from the UK side is proposing serious, workable options.
I did not know this was called Project Fear. That is fascinating.
Fear has always been in the toolbox for politicians, but it seems to be being used more and more. Xenophobic fear is probably the most loudly-proclaimed one, but there are other types of fear, like the fear for one's safety... which, in the USA, is typically related to xenophobia these days, even if statistically it should not be [0].
I don't know the most effective way to fight fear-based messages besides very inspiring, positive-oriented messaging.
There is a rather important point though: Project Fear was a label applied by professional politicians to dismiss the genuine opinions of people who actually knew what they were talking about.
As it is, the UK has gone in two years from the best economic performer in the EU to the worst, and every prediction of how badly the divorce proceedings would go seem to come true. There’s quite a few people who use the phrase Project Fact now.
Ironically, the Vote Leave campaign was characterised by stoking fact-free fear about immigration.
In your opinion, what do you think the consequences with regards to Scotland will be given some time? Might they seek another independence vote to then rejoin the EU?
Yes, but everyone is aware that we would normally get one vote no more frequently than every 20-30 years on the subject. It has to be after the outcome of Brexit is clear. Which may mean short-term disastrous exit from the EU.
(e.g. while Scottish fishermen have a noisy anti-EU contingent, the fish processing industry relies on EU workers and also mostly exports to the EU due to differences in UK and Continental preferences in seafood. People will need to see the actual consequences resolve before they will change their view.)
My take: The evidence right now is that the SNP are all in favour of a second independence referendum, but that Scottish people in general are not. Scotland's caught between a rock and a hard place. It wants to be in the EU but the majority of its trade is with England.
Charlie Stross famously gave up on his Rule 34 series of novels because he was having trouble predicting where Scotland would be in ten years. It's still not obvious and is probably going to be governed by future events.
In some circles, it has been mooted that the discussions going on over Northern Ireland are in preparation for this eventuality. That the UK is hedging against an eventual break up and wants to figure out how best to mitigate any ill effects of this for all concerned.
Leave loses. He gets to keep his "job," and remains a martyr for the cause.
The problem here is referenda and "winning" or "losing" them. Any sane system would have interpreted an outcome like 48-52 with a soft approach (exactly what happened in Norway), not a winner-takes-all mentality. Maybe it's an outcome of FPTP and a two party system.
As long as referenda are treated as football matches, the outcome doesn't really matter. They will sow discord and divide society. "Discord and division" is exactly the sort of environment the likes of Farage thrive in. It doesn't matter to them what the outcome is as long as it creates strife and hardens opinions.
The public voted "no", again, but obviously that made no difference to the deals on offer and no deal remained disastrous, so Syriza were ultimately forced to accept a worse deal: "On Monday, 13 July, the Syriza-led government of Greece accepted a bailout package that contains larger pension cuts and tax increases than the one rejected by Greek voters in the referendum"
He's an MEP. You can argue about their powers out his effectiveness, but he's an elected representative which I'd have thought puts him within the UK power structure.
The powers that the Members of the European Parliament have are mostly eclipsed by the European Commission, national parliaments (and for some stuff, the ECB).
Disagree. He said before the referendum that 48%-52% would be unfinished business, but didn’t seem to lose credibility amongst his supporters from it. Something may eventually tarnish his Teflon, but he’d probably be able to turn defeat in a second referendum into a rallying cry for a literal attempted revolution. (I place odds of UK civil war in the next 6 years at about 10%).
I see little evidence of voters changing their mind, only of non-voters leaning (in recent months) towards Remain.
As a Remain voter I am obviously biased to see mainly the flaws in Leavers, so please synthesise opposite equivalents for the following: If Leave voters agregate around the identity that “Brexit is expensive but worth it”, I think this decreases the risk of them starting the sort of riots that would lead to a civil war; if they instead are surprised by massive economic damage (or by 10% of the doctors leaving at once), that increases the risk they will decide to blame Remainers for “talking the country down” or whatever.
I have seen comments from YouGov users suggesting that people like me should be executed. I do not yet take such comments as a serious threat (they have also suggested nukes, apparently oblivious to France having any of their own), but such comments are part of why I estimate 10% chance of civil war in this timeframe — the other major component of my belief being an assumption that the basic rate of civil wars is 1/(years since last one) per year.
> I place odds of UK civil war in the next 6 years at about 10%
Hmm. Does that include resumption of armed conflict in NI? That's a possibility but there's no real tradition of this in England. I'm somewhat surprised there haven't been anti-Brexit riots but I can only assume that MI5 is pro-Brexit and actively disrupting their organisation. I can't see how we'd actually get to armed conflict unless the government starts it by mistake.
I would reckon there have been no anti-Brexit riots primarily because Brexit isn't really the end of the world – it's just a ludicrously stupid, badly-handled, long-term-damaging project.
It's hard to get riot-angry that "living conditions will get gradually worse over the next decade"
A lot depends on what happens to the EU nationals currently resident here. At some point their status will be crystallised. It's unlikely but if the government goes for "everyone now has 6 weeks to leave or you're deported", that's riot material.
You say that, but then we currently have almost limitless incompetence at the highest levels of government. So many aspects of Brexit that have been completely not thought about. The idea of an absolute trade barrier with our largest trading partner being thrown around as a valid idea.
I could easily see a malfunctioning government unilaterally deporting EU citizens.
given they're barely able to deport a couple of hundred failed asylum seekers, millions of EU citizens (many of whom aren't registered or on any sort of database) is not simply not possible
The whole “not registered” thing is part of the problem — either the UK guarantees to continue allowing all EU-27 citizens who enter the UK to stay, or EU-27 citizens already in the UK have to be prepared for spontaneous deportation when someone notices they’re not UK citizens. The third opinion, to force registration, would be sensible, but is impossible partly because ID databases are politically impossible, and partly because the UK government is incompetent.
Good question. No, I’d rate that as both more likely and independent, as I see the likely causes of each as mostly independent — NI catching fire is mostly down to the NI-RoI border closing or being guarded/inspected (disclaimer: I’m not from that area and people who are often tell me It’s More Complicated Than That), while everyone else in the UK catching fire depends on Brexit being both harmful and surprising people by being harmful.
What's your point? Or are you just reading the headline?
He is saying a second referendum could show the politicians who have been pushing for a soft brexit recently that this is really what the British public want.
> He is saying a second referendum could show the politicians who have been pushing for a soft brexit recently that this is really what the British public want.
What does the word "this" refer to in the sentence above? A yes/no referendum on Brexit will not show the politicians whether the public want a soft or a hard Brexit.
The problem is you can't have a multiple choice referendum because it would split the leave vote. For example:
A. "Hard" Brexit
B. "Soft" Brexit
C. No Brexit
Brexitors would be somewhat split between A and B, and all remainers would pick C.
However, based on polling data it would suggest most people in favour of Brexit do want a "hard" Brexit, or a brexit that would give the UK control over its own trade and immigration policy.
Tick here if you're aware that X% of doctors and nurses on the NHS are from the EU and reducing their number will result in more delays and/or need to have more doctors/nurses from non-EU countries
Tick here if you're aware leaving the EU (hard Brexit) will result in longer times and possible caveats when entering other countries in the Schengen area
Tick here if you're aware leaving the EU single market will increase prices of several goods, both by the reduced value of the Pound and higher import fees.
(oh and my favourite) Tick here if you're aware leaving the EU will make it harder to move between countries, including southern European countries (like Spain) and that retirees might need a visa to move or remain there
The irony is that Brexit will almost certainly mean an increase in immigration from non-EU countries - which is bad economically (EU migrants tend to be contributors to the UK economy and non-EU migrants don't - mainly due to the latter moving later in life with families) and, I suspect, not what a lot of leave voters were actually wanting to happen.
This is an interesting point, which may very well be the end result of Brexit. However, what was the alternative?
The UK public have consistently asked their politicians to reduce immigration since the 60s and this has been reflected over and over again in poll data. However, politicians have always ignored this request and while the UK is in the EU politicians have very little control over total number anyway.
So basically what you're saying is despite the UK public not agree with the population replacement level of immigration currently occurring in their country, they have no choice because politicians either way are going to continue to replace the population through immigration. The only choice the UK people have to choice between between replaced by EU immigrants or non-EU immigrants... Well how brilliantly immoral. Have we learnt nothing from our past?
They absolutely haven't - policy has been rewritten over the past couple of decades to make immigration extremely difficult.
What I suspect is going on is that some people want the absolute number of non-"ethnically british" people reduced, which is ethically impossible given that many were in fact born here or already achieved ILR.
What's your definition of replaced? If Europeans didn't kill any native Americans, but just replaced them demographically despite the them not consenting would that be moral in your opinion? Because that's what's happening.
And are you suggesting the EU's free movement isn't a thing? What exactly makes it so difficult for someone from Eastern Europe to come to the UK?
As an immigrant to the UK from not-the-EU, I can tell you that Mrs. May's time at the home office has turned UK immigration policy into a clusterfuck that works against the interests of the country and forces smart people who the UK didn't have to pay to educate (from Australasia in my experience) to leave, despite them having good jobs and paying tax here.
@kypro It's not 'racially preferenced'. The UK is a member of a club of nations with certain rules, which it seems to be ignorant of - such as the ability to restrict free movement within the rules of FM.
The way the UK treats outside EU migrants is down to the hateful politics of the daily mail et al and has no basis in fact - look at Germany and the Blue Card for a contrasting example.
FWIW, I voted remain (as a Commonwealth citizen, ridiculously, I could vote, but UK citizens in the EU couldn't, despite the referendum affecting them greatly!)
It's not racially preferenced in the same way voter ID, or Trump's immigration ban of "high risk" countries isn't racial preferenced. It's effect is a racially preferenced immigration system for not good reason. There are many talented people from non-EU countries which the UK doesn't take because of unskilled EU immigration taking preference.
Why do you believe that low-skilled workers prevent high-skilled workers from migrating to the UK? Surely it should be the other way around because the high-skilled workers would get well-paid jobs that would price low-skilled workers out of the UK’s dysfunctional housing market?
Yeah, non-EU immigrants do get fucked over, because the immigration system is basically racially preferenced to European immigrants. Non-EU immigrants have to get through countless barriers those coming from the EU don't.
Skilled workers from non-EU country don't have many difficulties getting a work visa to the UK. And unskilled work doesn't usually compete with skilled work.
Every selection is biased in one way or the other, there's no purely fair way of doing that.
> Skilled workers from non-EU country don't have many difficulties getting a work visa to the UK.
Oh? That's interesting. There are people in this comment thread claiming that work visa are really awful and restrictive.
> And unskilled work doesn't usually compete with skilled work.
Well, no, but we are forced to accept a ton of unskilled (and unneeded) immigration from the EU which means we have to restrict the total amount of potentially needed skilled work from non-EU countries.
> Every selection is biased in one way or the other, there's no purely fair way of doing that.
Is an immigration preference people of certain nationalises fair? Can I assume you agree with Trumps immigration bans by any chance?
> There are people in this comment thread claiming that work visa are really awful and restrictive.
I'm not sure about their experience and my knowledge is 3rd party, still, YMMV.
> Is an immigration preference people of certain nationalities fair?
Not really, but no country does this fairly, and they're not wrong (within a limit). Key word: immigration. Is it fair that Canadians don't need a visa to visit the US but Mexicans do? No, but they're not wrong and Mexico is free to require a visa as well.
> Can I assume you agree with Trumps immigration bans by any chance?
The travel ban, not the immigration ban. And no, I don't agree that people with a valid visa (or even permanent residents, which was what the Supreme Court shot down first) shouldn't be allowed to visit (unless there's a specific issue).
> Tick here if you're aware that X% of doctors and nurses on the NHS are from the EU and reducing their number will result in more delays and/or need to have more doctors/nurses from non-EU countries
The racists don't believe this, and want to get rid of those workers, and (delusionally) think we can train our own nurses and doctors and allied health professionals. They just want europeans out, and they'd vote brexit.[1]
But government knows that the NHS cannot run without immigrant staff, and all EU NHS staff have already been told that they're guaranteed to be allowed to stay in the UK. (Although this has happened very late, and many staff have already left).
So we've ended up at a situation that is worse for everyone: the racists are unhappy because we've increase non-EU immigration, and because we've guaranteed residence for EU NHS staff; the NHS is unhappy because employing staff is now much harder (and it's already hard enough).
[1] for clairty: I'm not saying everyone who voted Brexit is like this. (All bookaks are blue. Are all blue things bookaks?)
> This deal gives our brilliant EU doctors & nurses binding guarantees about their residence rights. NHS staff please spread the word to European colleagues: this is your home, we value your life-saving work, and we want you to stay.
(I strongly dislike Mr Hunt, and I'm struggling to keep a neutral tone here.)
The problem is you can't have a multiple choice referendum because it would split the leave vote. For example:
A. "Hard" Brexit
B. "Soft" Brexit
C. No Brexit
Brexitors would be somewhat split between A and B, and all remainers would pick C.
Can I add some disclaimers to?
* Tick here if you are aware there are shortages of doctors and nurses (and other skilled professions) in eastern European countries like Romania because trained professionals tend to come to western Europe to work. This is also true for developing countries.
* Tick here if you understand while in the EU the UK has effectively zero control over it's immigration and trade.
> Tick here if you understand while in the EU the UK has effectively zero control over it's immigration and trade.
- "its" not "it's"
- the UK retains some control of immigration w.r.t EU citizens (some of which they chose not to enforce and it also allows UK citizens to avail of freedom of movement as well) and full control of the immigration of non-EU citizens, so your assertion is false
- Brain drain is debatable, there was never a position for a lot of them in the 1st place (and they might just go somewhere else)
> the UK retains some control of immigration w.r.t EU citizens (some of which they chose not to enforce and it also allows UK citizens to avail of freedom of movement as well) and full control of the immigration of non-EU citizens, so your assertion is false
As you probably know the control the UK does have over EU citizens is extremely extremely limit. They don't call it "open borders" for no reason believe it or not.
> Brain drain is debatable, there was never a position for a lot of them in the 1st place (and they might just go somewhere else)
Yeah, well who cares about developing countries as long as the west benefits right? Perhaps we should be focusing on giving them positions in their own countries rather than requiring them to move from their families, friends and culture just for a better life?
But morals never play a role in this. It's all about the nations gross-GDP isn't it?
Schengen area is an open border (+), UK-France is not. UK has the right to eject EU citizens who can’t support themselves, but lacks the beurocracy to identify such people.
+ and even that has exceptions, I was passport-checked going from Italy into France but not France to Italy, I assume because of the state of emergency from the attack a few years ago.
> Schengen area is an open border (+), UK-France is not. UK has the right to eject EU citizens who can’t support themselves, but lacks the beurocracy to identify such people.
I understand this, but then the assumption is that this is a good immigration system. A nation shouldn't let anyone in who can get a job and support themselves. It's an awful immigration system which we have no control over and the majority of the public disagree with. I simply can't understand why some people fail to understand what a disgrace that is.
I'll also add that it undermines the UK democracy entirely. People who immigrate to the UK from the EU, or have family who did, vote very differently from native Brits. What's happening is people are coming into the UK, against the the public's wishes (and also without them having any political capacity to stop it) then voting against the UK public's wishes in their elections.
> + and even that has exceptions, I was passport-checked going from Italy into France but not France to Italy, I assume because of the state of emergency from the attack a few years ago.
It's almost like open borders isn't good for national security. Who'd of thought.
> It's almost like open borders isn't good for national security. Who'd of thought.
Poor argument. In feudal times, you needed your Lord’s permission to leave your village — if that was still true, virtually every terrorist attack from the time of the IRA (the original) onwards would have been impossible.
The EU requires a right to work and a right to join family. Someone migrating from Poland by themselves without a job is not technically doing so under freedom of movement and the UK is not obliged to let them be a resident.
Okay, so basically open borders. But do you honestly believe this is a good immigration system other countries should adopt? And if so why don't you think other countries aren't applying this kind of thing?
The fact is this type of immigration policy hurts the poorest and lowest skilled in society. It also means even skilled workers have to compete for jobs when there isn't necessarily any need for their skills.
I can't decide if Brexit is good or bad for the UK. On the one hand, there's the common market and freedom of movement. On the other there's Germany's dominance and lots of fragile banks.
What would be worse, losing access to the free market or being around if the banks fail? Or would being outside the market make a difference if Deutsche Bank failed?
If anything because they'll have to rewrite thousands of laws and procedures that came from the EU times, and deal with the caos that that will cause. That only will cost so much money (and pain) that it would justify staying in the EU.
Then, of course there are companies that have left and that will leave, highly-skilled workflow for London that will be harder to get, etc.
They have to negotiate with the EU so that they're not completely cut out of commerce, with nothing to offer in exchange and therefore no negotiating power.
It's old people in the country that have decided this, based on their ignorance on the matter and lies spread before the vote. Funny enough, it's them who mainly benefit from European aid.
Pretty sad, really (I'm Italian, just talking based on what I've read and a handful of friends who live in London).
Your first argument boils down to "it's difficult to leave so why bother". That's an objectively terrible reason to stay, no matter your political affiliation or feelings about the EU.
As far as the "old people did this to us" meme. The 75% of young people who purportedly are so strongly against brexit probably should have bothered to vote if they wanted that outcome.
Additionally, there are other factors than just age that correspond to voting outcome. E.g. degree education, having a passport, income level.
And if we afford those people a bit of empathy rather than casting them all as gullible fools or bad people, we might consider that they actually stand to benefit far less (or have plausible reasons to feel this way) from the EU than someone (such as the average HN reader) who has the privilege to e.g. be choosy about employment opportunities, be able to afford educating themselves, be able to afford to travel at will.
In any case there are many reasons to feel ambivalent about the EU. I do, and I've taken every opportunity that membership has afforded me. I still don't like how (or by whom) it is run or how expansive its powers have become over time.
And if we afford those people a bit of empathy rather than casting them all as gullible fools or bad people, we might consider that they actually stand to benefit far less (or have plausible reasons to feel this way) from the EU than someone (such as the average HN reader) who has the privilege to e.g. be choosy about employment opportunities, be able to afford educating themselves, be able to afford to travel at will.
Thank you for writing your comment, and for this part in general. I voted 'Remain' but I couldn't agree more with what you wrote -- the backlash against those who voted 'Leave' has been appalling. With just a little bit more compassion, willingness to listen, and understanding, the division between both sides could possibly be healed. We seem further than ever from that, and the likelihood diminishes every day.
- It's difficult to beat with a whisk than an electrical blender so why bother.
- It's difficult to play field sports with half a team so why bother.
- It's difficult to cut off your nose to spite your face so why bother.
At this time, this is how this argument sounds to me. The EU is an emergent phenomena. The natural course for a collection of neighbour states that wish to have peace and free trade.
The UK still wants to have peace and free trade for sure, but has decided to construct an entirely different artifice through which to pursue these goals, quite apart from the states with whom she wants to continue to have peace and free trade!
> Your first argument boils down to "it's difficult to leave so why bother".
How
> we might consider that they actually stand to benefit far less (or have plausible reasons to feel this way) from the EU than someone (such as the average HN reader)
Not really. I've seen documentaries where they showed how good Europe was (and still is) to the countryside in many countries where the State didn't allocate any resources and all of a sudden they had money to build libraries in small villages. Those villagers just didn't know where that money came from, but that doesn't change the fact. My girlfriend's sister lives in the Polish country and Europe is giving the area money to take care of the national park around her house that was previously left abandoned and in such bad conditions that you couldn't even walk around with the vegetation left to itself.
> I do, and I've taken every opportunity that membership has afforded me. I still don't like how (or by whom) it is run or how expansive its powers have become over time.
Actually, the EU seems to be pretty efficient, considered the huge amount of stuff they do. Of course, there's always room to complain, but I don't see any better alternative out there. If you're from the UK though, you'll get to see if your government is a better option I guess?
While I appreciate Brexit hasn't happened yet there's little to no evidence yet of any exodus of highly skilled workforces. London remains an incredibly attractive destination for inflows of both investment, workers and tourists. Will some companies leave, no doubt, however the high profile mass departure of European HQs and banks has yet to bear out.
To the OP, and going back to the article, a major issue is that of services, our major export. The EU does not have a single market in services, and has shown little interest in progressing it. It isn't so much Deutsche Bank as the mittelstand that demonstrates that the EU as a whole favours particular economic systems. Italy is a prime example of a sclerotic services sector that their own government has failed to reform, despite the EU being willing and able to influence the appointment of Mario Monti it isn't willing to impose a free market in service in the same way it has for goods - and stand up to blatant protectionism.
This is purely anecdotal, of course, but our company which is a large software developer in the UK, is facing a lot of difficulty hiring from EU(candidates drop out citing Brexit half way through the process too) and we already had several EU employees leaving specifically because they don't want to live in UK anymore due to perceived hostility of Britain towards them. We also work with a local Russel group university and I know for a fact that after the referendum, number of applicants for PhD positions in CS from EU countries has dropped down from an average of 160 applications/year, to....3 applications last year. Everything that is happening is monumentally bad, but I think UK won't see some of the bad effects for years which of course makes everyone think it's absolutely fine.
> there's little to no evidence yet of any exodus of highly skilled workforces
Like I mentioned, I'm speaking from what I read and a few friends living there. My friends all left because of uncertainty (all of them are programmers).
> Mario Monti it isn't willing to impose a free market in service in the same way it has for goods - and stand up to blatant protectionism
It's not protectionism, it's corruption and/or mafia. The government is ruled by companies (much like that of the US), and the mafia. Only when you realize this the initiatives they take (or don't take) start to make sense.
> there's little to no evidence yet of any exodus of highly skilled workforces
The NHS has plenty of evidence that EU workers (doctors, nurses, allied health professionals -- all skilled staff, all hard to replace from UK recruits) are leaving, and that's despite the clear assurances given by SoS Health that EU NHS staff are guaranteed to be allowed to stay.
EDIT: the guarantee of being allowed to stay was provided rather late, so many people left before it was given, but they're still leaving.
Most of what you wrote is mis-information, for example it is written in the Repeal Bill [1] that all existing EU legislation will be copied across into domestic UK law to ensure a smooth transition on the day after Brexit.
Trade wise, there will be bumps, but it is mutually beneficial to both us and the EU to keep trading as much as possible the same as it is now. The only benefactors from making trading more difficult are the EU politicians who want to 'make an example of the UK' (Michel Barnier words).
Also these 'old people' were there when the UK voted to join the EU in 1975. So if they want out, then maybe they are seeing something you are not.
That's hugely misleading. It's one of those things that sounds reasonable if you're not a lawyer, but a lawyer will have questions:
1) Will cases be decided according to the same principles as currently? (No, the bill specifically strikes out specific principles, including the animal rights one.)
2) What will the status of existing EU case law be? (Unclear.)
3) What will the status of post-exit EU case law be? (Unclear.)
In other words, it'll be similar, but different enough that it's going to cause problems.
If anything because they'll have to rewrite thousands of
laws and procedures that came from the EU times, and deal
with the caos that that will cause.
I've never understood this argument. Surely all you have to do is write a law that says: in the absence of British law, default to EU legislation. That's the essence of the great repeal bill, is it not?
They have to negotiate with the EU so that they're not
completely cut out of commerce, with nothing to offer in
exchange and therefore no negotiating power.
Uhm, there is the little matter of the ~£60 billion shortfall that the EU has to find from somewhere.
It's old people in the country that have decided this,
based on their ignorance on the matter...
What makes you so sure that old people are more ignorant than young people? I think you'll find that it usually works the other way round.
I'm Italian, just talking based on what I've read and a
handful of friends who live in London
Take what you hear from London with a massive pinch of salt. The EU has done very well for Londoners, thank you very much, and they aren't very happy about the fact that the rest of the population of the UK have just made their comfortable futures a lot less certain.
Consequently, the rhetoric aimed at the other side comes with more than a little hyperbole.
I've never understood this argument. Surely all you have to do is write a law that says: in the absence of British law, default to EU legislation. That's the essence of the great repeal bill, is it not?
My understanding of one of the big issues with defaulting to EU law is that disputes under EU law are settled by the ECJ and EU regulatory bodies (which are governed by ECJ rulings). This is not suitable for post-Brexit Britain's red lines. Accommodating this requires revisiting and rewriting the law to use British equivalents and I suspect this is a more time consuming process than a simple find-replace job.
This is also why Theresa May plans to use the 'Henry VIII clauses'[1] which allows the Government to amend laws (in this case, the Great Repeal Bill) without further scrutiny from parliament. This is potentially problematic as those amendments can include pretty much anything.
You could argue that that would be a yearly shortfall over a number of years, is that what then comes out to 60 billion? Or are you talking about something else? Also there is the matter of the exit bill, which should offset part of that amount.
Law is not a functional programming language, in which we insert facts, turn a handle and get an answer. The law is essentially what you can successfully argue, bolstered by existing law and case history and all the rest of it.
"in the absence of British law, default to EU legislation" would by no means be any kind of clarity, and I would anticipate such a thing would give years and even decades of discussion and argument in the various legal forums and courts to interpret that in all the various permutations and possibilities.
More than chaos I'm worried that it's going to be used as an excuse to ram through a lot of unpopular and horrible reforms 'under the radar'. Maybe NHS sell offs or a tax hike on "people who work" similar to recent Trump one.
You could practically see the Tories salivating when they mulled over the great repeal bill.
There are some positives - bringing the pound down is good for manufacturing output and employment. This is especially good for some of the more neglected areas of the UK. Of course, that will only give Londoners more reason to despise them - it's probably going to be worst for the London economy.
>It's old people in the country that have decided this
Just going to point out here that Brexit appears to be the ultimate in identitarian politics and that identitarian politics is all about divide and conquer and leave it at that.
> If anything because they'll have to rewrite thousands of laws and procedures that came from the EU times, and deal with the caos that that will cause. That only would justify stay in the EU.
No, we'll keep most of those laws, because in order to trade with the EU we'd have to comply with them anyway. We just lose any ability to control them.
Losing access to the free market would be fine if we gain access to the global market, at least in the medium to long term. The ability to drop tariffs on imports would be a big deal even in the short term.
In reality, though, I don't see us leaving the trappings of the EU with this current govt: we'll just lose our seat at the table (to coin a phrase). This was never going to be quick, though: the Brexit issue will be at the centre of politics for at least a generation.
I'm actually more interested in how this has shone a light on the issue of the slow erosion of our sovereignty and our traditional British liberal values. On this point I agree with the author that the younger generation seem to be far more ambivalent about freedom of speech, democracy, et al. to the point that they seem to be actively suspicious of it.
The severity of this division has been a bit of a shock, but I'd rather we deal with it now than not at all, especially when Trump shows us that the alternative could have been to vote in a radical populist party instead, which would have had far more power than Trump has.
> the younger generation seem to be far more ambivalent about freedom of speech, democracy, et al. to the point that they seem to be actively suspicious of it.
Oddly enough, I suspect that the younger generation probably think that about the Daily Mail reading older generation.
> the ability to drop tariffs on imports would be a big deal even in the short term
That is, the benefit is the ability to replace British-made goods with cheaper foreign imports? I'm just saying because normally people make the argument the other way round.
The UK govt spends a lot of its time rubber stamping EU legislation, which is largely corporatist, not individualist.
I don't have time to give this reply the attention it deserves, but consider that it is now illegal to sell your home made jam in your local charity shop, and it was almost made illegal to tinker with your own motor vehicle. Then there's the never ending torrent of health and safety legislation.
These things aren't intended to destroy individual sovereignty, but that's what they end up doing. Perhaps this sort of thing matters more to the British than other nationals. An Englishman's home is his castle, as they saying goes.
> EU legislation, which is largely corporatist, not individualist
What does that actually mean?
> now illegal to sell your home made jam in your local charity shop
I googled for this, and the only reference I could find was Mail and Express articles, so I suspect it's not true. The EU fake British news debunking site has this to say:
It means that most of the laws that are passed by the EU are done so at the behest of big industry. All laws are proposed by the unelected EU commission, and they are lobbied heavily by the industries.
High tariffs on imported food are intended to protect the farming industry. Laws banning DIY are intended to protect the trades. Laws promoting green energy (read: noxious diesel gases) are designed to provide a ready market for German car manufacturers.
If you're British then you'll know about HS2, the high speed rail network nobody wants and many are protesting against. Everyone seems to agree that it will be a waste of money but the govt are determined to go ahead with it anyway.
Presuming this has nothing to do with TEN-R [1], which I doubt, you would think that the British govt might want to spend British tax-payers' money on British workers to build the trains, to help the economy and stuff, right? Well maybe they do, but they are required by law to put the tender out to the whole of the EU, so British companies actually make up the minority of bidders for the contract [2].
I googled for this, and the only reference I could find
was Mail and Express articles, so I suspect it's not true.
It is true. A friend of mine manages a charity shop and makes homemade jam, which she used to sell at the counter. She was forced to stop selling it after the legislation came in.
It's not illegal to 'sell your home made jam in your local charity shop' in many EU countries, so if it is in UK it has either nothing to do with the EU or is a rule misinterpreted by local legislation (which happens quite often).
"EU legislation, which is largely corporatist, not individualist"
sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. But UK also wants to leave the jurisdiction of ECHR which is a very corporatist move.
I think you mean the ECJ. But either way, European courts aren't popular in the UK because they are able to override British law. Seems reasonable that the country that invented the concept of human rights might want to retain her jurisprudence.
And given that many times ECHR was the court that sided with individuals against either corporations or states, it's really hard to frame this as supporting individual freedom.
Yes, European courts are able to override British courts and British law, because the UK agreed to that. That's the mysterious element of UK's relation to anything European: the UK agrees to some rules and then complains about the consequences.
As for homemade jam:
- what laws banning DIY? Are they UK laws? Are you sure it's the EU who mandated the precise letter of the law?
- Yes, the British have the HS2 to tender out to the whole EU (which it is still a part of you know), because that is actually a way to save money and decrease local connections between builders and politicians, also known as corruption. These are rules the UK has agreed to. But they don't have to build an inch of HS2 against their will, as the HS2 is not financed by Brussels and therefore they don't have the say.
- laws promoting 'green' energy are a mixed bag, I agree with that. But they are getting better, Euro 6 for example has hit diesel car manufacturers hard. And not everything is about cars.
...but Theresa May has been fighting a long war against
the ECHR
I'm not often on May's side but I was in that case. How we got ourselves into the position where we were unable to expel a man as dangerous to civil society as that is beyond me.
Yes, European courts are able to override British courts
and British law, because the UK agreed to that. That's the
mysterious element of UK's relation to anything European:
the UK agrees to some rules and then complains about the
consequences.
It's not that mysterious. The establishment are very pro EU, the British people not so much.
As for homemade jam:
- what laws banning DIY? Are they UK laws? Are you sure
it's the EU who mandated the precise letter of the law?
At this point I don't really care. I get a bit tired of these circular arguments. If this really is just some parliamentary conspiracy theory to blame the EU for its own inadequacies then fine, let's take away the excuse.
To bring the discussion back to sovereignty, we've never had a discussion in the UK about the issue with regard to the EU. I don't think you can deny that have ceded at least some sovereignty to the EU, otherwise we wouldn't have the institutions you have already mentioned. The question is: how do we feel about it? Do we think those institutions are better, worse or indifferent?
You can't just take a country into a new political landscape and expect everyone to be just fine with it.
Not sure how being outside the EU would help the UK against "Germany's dominance" Surely out of the EU means by definition that the UK has less control over Germany?
Sure, but Germany will have less control over the UK.
From what I can tell and have read Germany has huge influence on pretty much every country besides Poland and--perhaps--Hungary (I live in Poland, not sure about Hungary actually). Poland definitely thinks about its own citizens _first_, and _then_ at what's good for the EU, which is after all what politicians have been elected to do.
I'm Italian and Italy is a mess in part because of having no balls to stand up for what Italians would need. Totally different story in Poland, from what I can tell from living here.
"This is a tale of three dates. On 13th August 1969 the Irish Taoiseach went on television and called on the United Nations to send a peacekeeping into the United Kingdom to protect Irish people in Derry and Belfast.
On 30th January 1972 the Parachute Regiment massacred 13 people on Bloody Sunday, and an Irish mob burnt the British Embassy in Dublin to the ground — thankfully with no deaths.
In between on 15th February 1971 Ireland decimalised its currency, the same day the British did. It introduced the new 7-sided 50p coin — designed by the British, identical in weight and shape but with the Harp on it, not the Crown.
Britain was a rule-maker for Ireland and Ireland was a rule-taker: and all its bile and hope and hatred and determination and pride and desperation and anger and fear and dreams could do nothing about it.
Its not as if Ireland didn’t have sovereignty and wouldn’t fight for it. Before becoming Taoiseach Jack Lynch served under Éamon De Valera and Seán Lemass, veterans both of 1916, with Dev coming within inches of being executed for his part.
This is where the UK stands now. There are three rule-makers, the US, China and the EU and everyone else takes."
I just want to highlight an an interesting parallel you've drawn here, between the "sovereignty" Ireland obtained leaving the UK, and the "sovereignty" the UK, or rather parts of England and Wales hope to obtain by leaving the EU.
Though we define ourselves as "different" from the English, we are very much "the same" in a great many respects, and there is nobody more like us in this world than the English. In that respect England is kind of like an older brother that periodically gives us a kick but whom we tell jokes about behind their back. But we love them all the same and they us.
However, you also allude to some human rights abuses by the crown in the North, and in some respects this was a continuation of policy that had heretofore gone on in the rest of Ireland.
Do you think this is far fetched? The potato famine for a start. This was very much a political matter, and not merely a matter of a few spuds. Then there was 1916 where by far in excess the majority of fatalities were civilian and inflicted by the British army trying to regain control. Not to mention the subsequent illegal executions.
This was the backdrop against which Ireland sought independence, which seems a bit different from the narrative beneath brexit which appears to read as "something something sovereignty something something take back control".
With all that said, the UK would do well to look at how Ireland fared economically after independence. Not too well for a number of years but our eventual accession into the European Union helped to relieve that.
And the UK can't really become a major tax haven (too many citizens, it would draw way too many resources from every big country... and too much attention).
> Poland and Hungary (luckily I live in Poland), which seem to me as the only countries that look after their own citizens _first_ and _then_ at what's good for the EU
As someone who lives in a country where loads of Hungarians move to because they don't like their government I'm not sure I can agree. From what I can see here Hungary has a massive brain drain and unless you live in Budapest the state of infrastructure and public services is less than stellar. Hungarians consistently poll as one of the most unhappy countries in the EU with trust to their own government.
I'm also not entirely sure how well the Polish line holds of late either. Hasn't there been a bunch of religious conservatives elected there lately? I honestly don't know if what I'm reading is propaganda any more but it seems they were doing lots of ugly things like cracking down on free speech.
> Hasn't there been a bunch of religious conservatives elected there lately?
Yes, like are most Poles. It makes sense, no..? Not my cup of tea, but what's wrong with that?
> I honestly don't know if what I'm reading is propaganda any more but it seems they were doing lots of ugly things like cracking down on free speech.
It's partly true. You're talking about an incident where they fined a newspaper for their coverage of protests by using a law that prohibited to incite violence. It's sure not cool, but when Italy's Berlusconi was governing 3 out of 6 main TV channels where his, and it was proved in court that he actively censored the other 3 government-controlled ones. Yet, no one is/was talking about Italy becoming a dictatorship.
The truth is that the media is very pro-EU, and therefore any little thing they do is the end of the world.
Having seen how Italy was _absolutely ruined_ by both Germany-fueled mass migrations and not standing up to the EU in general, I can't really blame them for not wanting to repeat other European countries' mistake(s).
Life in Poland is pretty great, honestly. Doing business is easy (or at least 1000 times easier than Italy), very high buying power, etc., and no tanks on the streets in sight so no coup happening anytime soon.
Whoa there. I'm not so sure about Poland, but I'm pretty sure that Orban looks after himself first, second and third... only then comes "citizens" and "EU", and the order there is not clear.
In general, I'm deeply suspicious of politicians that claim "citizens first, EU second" - that seems counterproductive, unnecessary, and more likely to be empty populism than truth.
I'm only speaking from experience and can't really talk about Hungary.
As for Poland, I can tell you that the difference with Italy is like night and day.
As Italians, we are often asked to make sacrifices for Europe (and we did, look up "tesoretto"), like if we were in danger of being kicked out of the EU.
It's a complicated matter, but in general Italy is more corrupt and hardly takes any meaningful step to improve its citizen's lives, while Poland (although barely less corrupt if I remember correctly? Not sure) looks after Poland's interests first, and then at what Germany would like Europe to do. The result is that living here is about 100 times easier compared to Italy.
I live in Sweden and never even thought about how Germany "dominates". Is it just because I come from a much smaller country with much smaller population and therefore much smaller expectations about what we can accomplish on the world stage? Or is it because our views align much better with those of Germany, so we are part of the same "bloc" in EU politics whereas the UK would want to pull in another direction but can't?
If you go back a few years, there was a large hysteria across much of the Eurozone about German domination of the bloc. Magazine cover after magazine cover painting them in terrible light, including some going so far as to reference back to Nazi times.
That coincided with the post effects of the great recession, when Germany essentially refused to allow more liberal central bank posturing and action to try to follow the more aggressive US Fed lead on how to properly respond to the terrible recession and the financial system consequences. Germany wanted a very restrictive, conservative approach. There was a split at that point between the members that were suffering and Germany which was in mostly solid shape (the peak of the Greek disaster was also near a peak of the anti-German sentiment).
The US recovery took root relatively quickly, after about a year, thanks in part to the Fed taking aggressive action to stabilize the banks and financial system (the US would have seen Citi, Bank of America, etc. all collapse otherwise; those banks are now extremely healthy and printing massive profits again). It was only when the ECB finally copied the Fed's approach that the broad EU and Eurozone economies began to rapidly recover (and for those already in good shape, it has pushed them into something closer to economic boom). You can look at a chart of EU or Eurozone economic growth, you'll see a nasty double recessionary dip around 2011-2012. After that, the ECB finally began to shift its behavior and do what they should have done years prior, which has led to a sustained recovery in most parts of the EU since then (you see it in meaningfully increased growth rates, from Finland finally recovering after a disastrous 8-10 years, to Spain and Portugal finally seeing serious improvement, to German growth picking up, to French unemployment finally declining significantly, etc).
> there was a large hysteria across much of the Eurozone about German domination of the bloc. Magazine cover after magazine cover painting them in terrible light, including some going so far as to reference back to Nazi times.
I try to keep up with politics and news and saw none of this (I watch foreign TV but don't read foreign newspapers a lot). So I don't think there has been a lot of painting germany as a bad guy in Swedish media, no. Why that is, I can only speculate. Would be interesting to hear if the same is true in e.g. Denmark, Finland.
> That coincided with the post effects of the great recession, when Germany essentially refused to allow more liberal central bank posturing and action to try to follow the Fed lead on how to properly respond to the terrible recession and the financial system consequences
If the 2008 recession was behind it, Sweden recovered very quickly and wasn't as hard hit (Partly because we weren't as influenced by ECB interest rate politics). Perhaps that is also a reason.
> So I don't think there has been a lot of painting germany as a bad guy in Swedish media, no
I think you have to consider that would very likely be because Sweden isn't in the Euro. For example there has been widespread blame in Finland, that their protracted economic suffering was from being unable to control their own currency to respond better to their long recessionary environment.
It keeps going for a hundred more stories like those. If you dig into local Greek, Spanish, Italian, French, British media over those couple of years, Germany is largely the villain of the Eurozone economic crisis. You'd even see it represented constantly on media sites like Imgur.
I thnk Brexit is a good thing .. for the EU. The UK has refused to adopt the Euro. The GBP is totally overvalued. The UK/Ireland have no plans to join the Shengen zone (which is a good thing for American backpackers I'll admit, as when you're 90 days in the EU run out, you can stay in the UK for 120, until the reset period). Politically, the UK is more closely aligned to US foreign policy (that of war mongering) than the EU.
With such a long transition period, I'm guess most UK citizens living/working in Europe have hopefully started work visa application processes, in case the EU parliament decides to not allow a bi-lateral work agreement.
I believe Brexit is a loose-loose deal. It's bad for the UK because it causes a lot of complications without producing real benefits. Basically, the UK will loose lot of political influence and control while having to abide to the EU's trade rules anyway. It's bad for the EU, because the union may loose cohesion, as it may turn out that the UK is doing not so bad after all and local anti-European socialist and nationalist movements will capitalize on that a bit, because the EU looses influence on the US without the UK, and because the UK provided a counter-balance to the axis France-Germany and now smaller countries fear that the EU will move forward faster than they wish for.
My prediction is that the net result will make everyone a little worse off in 10-20 years from now than if the UK had stayed in the EU, but the effect will not be very noticeable and overall hard to quantify.
Germany's dominance mostly just hurts countries that have to depend on the Euro, so not the UK. They experienced a little bit of the Eurozone's double dip recession brought on by premature tightening in 2011 but that was mostly a matter of trade exposure which isn't something that can change just by leaving the EU. And since the whole reason for the UK's trouble then was getting less trade from Europe then abandoning that trade altogether would be strictly worse.
There are few "firewalls" between financial markets, there's one market and it's global. If there's another bank crisis, it's going to happen everywhere. Iceland was particularly badly hit and is not actually in the EU.
Let's not forget that the last crisis started in the "Anglosphere" (Lehman, RBS, Northern Rock, Anglo-Irish etc) and spread elsewhere!
I thought London was supposed to be one of the major banking centres of Europe? So if the banks are fragile, the UK is just as exposed in that regards, or perhaps more exposed as it will no longer be (as?) able to ask the ECB for assistance?
Amazing how small errors in a text start to degrade your confidence in the content. At the outset the sentences are clear and mostly correct. As it goes on small errors start to appear and occasionally the entire meaning of a sentence becomes unclear. By the end, reading his slightly dramatic flourish, you get the feeling that he wrote with some emotion and wasn't tending to the language very carefully.
On the one hand you can say these are merely typos. On the other you could say they reflect a lack of clarity, a lack of care. I know I find it hard to ignore.
It's full of articles with "it's" instead of "its". It's the internet.
You're (oh, yes--and "your" instead of "you're") not going to have a good time if you stop at typos or grammatical errors instead of just trying to see if what you read is interesting or not.
You're not the only one to feel this way.
I think this is a very valid position, there is nothing superstitious about it.
Any user of (the English in this case) language is able to (easily learn to) write without major mistakes, make their sentences proper, make their thoughts clear. If they haven't done so, it definitely hints at a lack of care, or being in a rush, or simply not respecting the language and/or their readers. Not respecting them in a sense that the author tries to overlay a part of their own work as a writer (the work of forming coherent and correct language structure) onto the reader, making them decipher author's thoughts which were not formed into a commonly accepted standard.
Are there published documents out there with a lot of mistakes that definitely have high quality information and research? Yes of course there are. But the odds are not in their favor.
As a non English speaker some passages were difficult do understand and I had to re-read them several time; I can now attribute that to typos and feel smarter~
I kind of feel the whimper came before Christmas, in the talks discussing Northern Ireland and the status of the border there between the UK and Europe. I can't remember the details exactly but the Good Friday Agreement [0] provided a constitutional footing whereby the UK effectively gave an undertaking to abide by the rules of the EU trade area, while not being a member of the EU trade area.
This to prevent the erection of a "hard border" (i.e. one you couldn't freely traverse without a Visa) which would be required as a customs barrier, rather than for security.
This agreement completely undermines a lot of the wackier ideas around free trade that have been floating around and defangs some of the nastier aspects of brexit.
The UK is still free to set her own internal monetary and social policy but she's effectively bound to EU trade rules, and the EU of course must consult her in setting these.
It's an epic compromise on both sides that basically allows for a continuation of business as usual without undermining the "brexit means brexit" doctrine.
A lovely example of how peace once established can be the gift that keeps giving.
> and the EU of course must consult her in setting these.
What? No. The Eu didn't commit to a single thing in that agreement, beyond graciously accepting for the UK to pay its bills and letting it trade as long as they follow EU rules.
The UK will end up like Norway: paying the price for selling into the EU, without any say in EU rules. Which is exactly what was predicted at the start, and makes the Uk a de-facto vassal state.
The EU agreed that given this agreement there would be no requirement for a customs border.
The term "Vassal state" is incorrect as it describes a nation that has been subjugated to the will of another nation e.g. Ireland's relationship with the UK before the 20th century.
The EU is not a state, it is a "collection of states" and is the realisation of the need for greater alignment of policy between neighbouring countries.
The portrayal of the EU as some kind of evil controlling super-state is a lie, plain and simple.
That's not to say there isn't plenty of things wrong with the EU but the correct response is, as one of the major nations of Europe for the UK to get in there and make it work.
Oh I do agree that the UK position has consistently been silly, all the way back from the very day they joined with their ad-hoc "rebate". I am not trying to portrait anything in an evil light, it's just as it is: UK voters, by their own free will, materially reduced their sovereignty in commercial matters. They put themselves (and us EU citizens in UK) into this situation, although it's not too late to forget the whole thing and go back being a peer.
The Good Friday Agreement basically makes the UK (or Ireland) the single worst country to attempt to leave the EU. The biggest problem with the December declaration being that it's hard to trust the government to make good on it. (The consequences for being seen to be negotiating in bad faith are too awful to contemplate, but the government seems to be post-rational a lot of the time.)
But what's important is that all the UK cabinet got behind it, including Johnson. It's a "get out of jail" card for the whole mess. It solves loads of problems for everybody.
The only person actually grumbling was Farage, which can only be a good thing.
This seems speculative and it effectively posits a worst-of-all-worlds situation resulting - one if which the UK is half inside the single market.
Half inside such that it allows the flow of goods (the UK is a net importer) but not services (which we net export). This would be untenable, worse than a no-deal situation. And the basis of this speculation is that the EU is holding all the cards. I'm really not convinced this is true.
The article reads a little bit like a remain fantasy - Brexit will be a disaster and then people must come around to my way of thinking! The problem with that analysis is that in your way of thinking it was likely unimaginable that the Brexit vote would go through in the first place. And then we heard that no PM would ever actually action it, and then that no Parliament would allow it. None of which has really panned out.
--edit-- I'd love to reply to more of the comments below, but I appear to be rate-limited. Never mind then...
So far negotiations have shown the EU holds most of the important cards. The UK caved in on any negotiation demand.
It’s a fascinating view from Germany:
The UK threatens “No Deal”, the EU informs companies that “No Deal” is a possible outcome and plans contingencies, informs companies that they should too, UK now complains that EU threatens companies.
UK says “Out means out”, EU prepares to move EU institutions abroad, UK complains about EU moving institutions abroad.
I’m also puzzled what’s supposed to happen with such important stuff as rules and agreements for importing nuclear materials for powerplants (currently regulated via Euratom), regulations regarding medicine/medical treatment (currently also handled on a european level) and all of that stuff.
Which other option does the UK realistically have for those things other than just accept the EU rules? Any producer for anything that wants to export to the EU will have to abide by EU rules anyways. Will there be a UK and a EU edition of things?
All of this could be solved with sufficient time, but triggering article 50 was akin to holding a loaded gun to your head and saying “if you don’t do what I want at the end of the next two years, I’ll pull the trigger.”
>Which other option does the UK realistically have for those things other than just accept the EU rules? //
I'm not sure if it was a main driver but the powers that are pushing this whole thing behind the scenes clearly have realised the opportunity to subtely rewrite a lot of regulations/legislation to prefer their interests.
The "sovereignty" part of Brexit is playing out as taking power from a more socialist and green EU and giving it to the hidden capitalist interests behind the Tories.
The incredible sleight-of-hand has been getting the working classes to vote for something that could then be twisted to be so highly detrimental to them.
Anyway, to your question about industry regulations: safety, food standards, and environmentalism costs money. Companies within the EU trading block will sell the stuff that meets the regulations, UK will get to have cheap stuff that breaks easily and no longer have the 2 year 'warranty', or the restrictions on unfair business practices - UK companies will try and foist our lower standards on whoever we can fool in to it, eg with promises of "foreign aid" that end up in developing world officials bank accounts. Bonus, the workers making the stuff will get paid less, have less job security, less rights.
Double bonus, UK environment will be open for capitalists to fuck up if they want to make a quick buck.
> I’m also puzzled what’s supposed to happen with such important stuff as rules and agreements for importing nuclear materials for powerplants (currently regulated via Euratom), regulations regarding medicine/medical treatment (currently also handled on a european level) and all of that stuff.
Obviously there are already emergency plans to set up massive bureaucracies to replace the european ones. Just like there are enormous customs stations being built at the channel tunnel, the construction of which started the day after the election.
Or it isn't.
Because in the end the sheer enormity of the task probably is too much to take in, and even the slightest risk that all of this will somehow "go away" or "be delayed" means politicians aren't really ready to start burying billions of pounds in these projects. And the deadlines creep ever closer.
This at least leads me to think that the outcome of theis "first brexit" negotiaion will be that the Brexit proper will happen in X years. The UK will keep paying nearly all of what it's paying PLUS costs to move EU things from Britain to the rest of europe. The bargaining space is the rebate the UK had before brexit, that is, the EU could possibly concede to let the UK "only" pay what it used to, and not significantly more.
As a Brit working in Europe, one year and a half after the announcement I have absolutely no idea what is going to happen. It makes sense to at least know what the worst possible scenario is.
We have a Prime Minister who was against Brexit pushing for a hard Brexit. An opposition leader who is for Brexit. An uninformed public who were blatantly lied to (350 million a week to the NHS).
Yes. Corbyn has been a long-term left-wing Eurosceptic, who opposed membership of the EC in 1975 and acted consistently with that view until the recent referendum.
While his public statements during the referendum supported remaining in the EU, I would argue that the general consensus among most of the "remain" campaigners was that his support was lukewarm at best (e.g. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36506...).
In reality, the Labour Party membership are broadly not Eurosceptic, and it's my view that Corbyn mostly has to toe a non-too-Eurosceptic line, especially given the support he has among generally pro-EU young people that brought him to power in the first place.
At present, the Labour Party's position on Brexit is hopelessly muddled, something along the lines of "We don't want to remain in the single market but we kind of want something maybe sort of similar". There is no discussion about remaining in the EU.
I'm sorry I can't provide you with a much better source at the moment, but it's more complex than a quote saying "I love
Brexit".
Theresa May for example spoke for Remain prior to becoming PM, I wasn't really expecting an "I love Brexit" quote ;o)
I'm aware Corbyn was against the EC 30 years ago, but that didn't really seems pertinent. He did campaign around the UK for Remain (which was not really reported at the time, I presume those controlling the media felt that best for them not to report) - which presumably was not required of him.
Personally I don't think it matters how personally convinced he is - the party as a whole is the Opposition. But the OP must have something better to state categorically that "Corbyn is for Brexit".
FWIW I Don't understand how Corbyn saying he's for the EU in your linked quote bolsters the contrary assertion.
Isn't a Canada-like solution exactly what current negotiations appear to work towards? Barnier presented a slide with options for the UK and a free trade agreement like with Canada was the only one that doesn't violate red lines set by the UK government.
Such a free-trade agreement would allow most goods to flow relatively freely but doesn't have any provisions for services.
Even not having service trade isn’t a great disaster. Companies with sizeable EU revenue can just set up a European subsidiary (in Ireland, etc) to conduct business in Europe from the UK (or anywhere).
(Though I accept it’ll be a pain for e.g. finance companies which the EU requires to be based within the EU,)
Startups eespecially aren’t held back by these rules right now, they just sell everywhere in USD (and at some point when they’re big enough create an EU subsidiary).
The goods thing would be a real issue, if everything on supermarket shelves became 1.5x as expensive. So as long as that’s solved it’ll be fine.
> Startups eespecially aren’t held back by these rules right now, they just sell everywhere in USD (and at some point when they’re big enough create an EU subsidiary).
It's not all about the money, e.g regulations like DPD and soon GDPR can affect this. Legal departments of our customers won't touch anything non-EU based with a 100 mile pole.
>Companies with sizeable EU revenue can just set up a European subsidiary (in Ireland, etc) to conduct business in Europe from the UK (or anywhere). //
Or anywhere ... Why would you go to the bother and expense of being in UK, puppeteering a company in the EU. You just move to the EU and save yourself the cost/hastle.
OK - but tell me how that would work for cars for example, to be sold in the EU they need to have a certain percentage assembled in the EU. So really all those jobs will need to jobs to Ireland to be sold in the EU.
> Isn't a Canada-like solution exactly what current negotiations appear to work towards?
Quite possibly, but I'm not familiar enough with CETA to know the answer to this question - does CETA restrict Canada's ability to enter other trade agreements with third-party nations?
The partial Single Market membership mentioned in the article does come with that proviso - that the UK cannot make trade deals with other nations, which is why I think it's an untenable position.
Do you think UK is open to leaving with no deal then?
Granted, if the EU position is sabotaged by some members (as the Polish PM was hinting towards), maybe the UK can get a better deal than what implied by the article. But if the EU stands together, I see little reason for them to be considerate to quitters.
> Granted, if the EU position is sabotaged by some members (as the Polish PM was hinting towards)
The biggest problem of the EU is also its biggest strength. It needs unity for this. So if Poland goes rogue nothing happens, article 50 kicks in and no deal happens. That indirectly strengthens the EU now quite a bit ironically enough.
On 21 September 2017 CETA entered into force provisionally. As such most of the agreement now applies.
National parliaments in EU countries – and in some cases regional ones too – will then need to approve CETA before it can take full effect.
"full effect" refers to the remaining 1%, which requires unanimity -- and the 99% can go into effect even if the 1% is rejected
You are correct that basic trade agreements do not require parliamentary approval. The assumption however here would be that the UK wants more than that the EU can just hand out itself.
We don't have bilateral work agreements with Canada. Americans and Canadians still need visas to live and work in the other country. Depending on the deal, UK/EU citizens may lose the ability to work in the others' area.
Interestingly enough, Australia and New Zealand have a bilateral work agreement, allowing citizens of either country to be instant residents of the other State upon arrival.
The UK has a population of 65M. Thus there is a big market for all kinds of exports. As far as cards go this is a big one, but its the only one I can identify.
It goes both ways though; if UK citizens are importing goods it's not because they love the EU and want to support it in any way possible, it's because they want the goods. Making those imports more difficult or more expensive is obviously disadvantageous to the EU exporter, but it's also not exactly brilliant for the UK consumer.
Not just good, but skills. Remember there is a work agreement for EU nations. Right now, essential skilled human resources can easily be grabbed from both sides of the channel, with little to no immigration paperwork.
The EU can unilaterally allow British people to work in th EU, no UK consent required. The UK does want to curb immigration, so that’s not exactly a route they want to take. No card for the UK.
Smaller population, but bigger disposable (credit based) income? Not that I am pro brexit - quite the opposite. I think the idea that we have them over a barrel, and that we can 'have cake and eat it' is bonkers.
Note that is from 2015 - long before brexit. 'if' the UK stops immigration then that number will no doubt be smaller.
Quote:
Between 2015 and 2050, the
top net receivers of international migrants (more than 100,000 annually) are projected to be the United
States of America, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, the Russian Federation and Italy.
Trade with one of the world's larger economies. There is clear mutual interest in continuing trade on an open basis.
I'm not saying the EU is not in a stronger position, nor am I trying to make any claims that Brexit is good or bad, nor that it is being pursued competently by the current government (far from it). But the assessment of the process as being entirely one sided seems to me to be simplistic.
The EU is more than an economic union. In fact, economic integration was/is only one of the strategies to foster lasting European stability, peace and path towards harmony among warring neighbours.
To face these negotiations only on the basis of economic gains/lost is ignoring the political and less tangible goals of the union.
UK membership may not be the keystone of peace (which is good, IMHO) but it does not mean its membership does not contribute to said peace. I agree it is subjective. But I'd argued most people would think this subjective goal is worth of the effort it costs.
Not to rain on your parade, but the last "European" war almost bankrupted the UK. And back then European countries didn't have nukes while the UK still had an empire.
It's hard to imagine how this whole situation could have been fucked-up to a greater extent. I'm a solid supporter of remaining in the EU, but I'm open-minded to the idea that an orderly Brexit could have been planned and executed, with the public being aware of the various trade-offs. A single market on one hand, balanced against free movement and regulatory harmonisation on the other.
But that discussion didn't happen. There was literally no coherent concept in the public sphere about what the goals of Brexit where, or what the desired end state was – and there still isn't. Obviously to some extent because the outcome was unexpected, but that doesn't excuse the ongoing incompetence and failure to be realistic on the behalf of the UK government. Various government ministers continue to be frankly fucking deluded about what they are trying to achieve – in a way that I have to assume that they are deliberately lying. There is still no coherent government policy on what Brexit actually is, and no corresponding public idea of that either.
This is in stark contrast to the Scottish independence referendum in 2014 – though I was on the 'yes' side then. I have a book published by the Scottish government sitting on my bookshelf, which outlines in decent detail the plans and desired outcomes if independence was chosen. Not that all of that would come to pass, or would even be possible, but even to have a stated government plan is light-years ahead of what is happening at the UK level. It's almost criminally irresponsible.
Worse, there is no obvious out – either a reversal of this policy, or any sign of a government that can realistically set out what it wants to achieve. The main opposition party is weak and equally committed to Brexit, and with the leader of the opposition being the only realistic figure around which support could coalesce, there is limited room for manoeuvre.
Now we see the fallout – not in the short term, but taking a longer view. I've had people explicitly tell my startup that they are no longer funding in the UK because they "have no idea what's going to happen". It's become much harder to hire EU-based workers, because of course they have no idea what their position will be in a couple of years. I have watched a number of talented friends and contacts move away from the UK, because they can't really be bothered with this nonsense. In the long-term, this cack-handed mismanagement is going to be another bullet point in the long and slow decline of the UK. It's not like the world is going to end – it's just that everything is going to be a bit shittier.
I know that's a bit of a rant, but it's utterly frustrating to deal with from inside the UK when so many are currently banging on about how good it's great to be to have a different fucking colour of passport.
this euro currency is set to die. The only question is WHEN. Unfortunately, economists are not the ones to decide, but the only politicians are. And people vote ignorant politicians and talk about macro-economy like they do on football matches. In the long run, Brexit will be a GOOD thing for the British but for the wrong reason (xenophobia).
A real shame that Oxford decided to name their department after an oligarch who expropriated huge wealth out of Russia [1]. Sad to admit I consider any position associated with the Blavatnik name tainted.
If you are managing a business that has ties to the UK there are very many unknowns right now. It's a lot easier to plan for the worst than it is to take risks IMHO. Brexit must ultimately hurt the UK economy in some way – jobs lost, money flowing out of the country, talented people leaving?