Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit • Hacker News Board

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#331

Post by Tomte » Sat, Jun 25, 2016, 11:26 AM UTC

volatilitish wrote: post #138

nickbauman wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. One of the illusions of control people have is that Britain now has a free hand to negotiate trade agreements with EU member states. The EU charter expressly forbids this. So Britain (or perhaps merely a rump England after Northern Ireland and Scotland EExit ) will be dealing with that same body but on unequal ground with other member states. Meet the new boss: Same as the old boss. I'm pretty sure you'…

No. We will now be free to negotiate trade deals with countries outside the EU (Which we currently are not able to do. The EU has been absolutely awful at trying to negotiate trade deals with other countries). We will negotiate a trade deal with the EU as a whole. Everyone in the UK knows those facts.

You'll have lots and lots of smaller deals, all of them dissimilar to each other and with their own peculiarities.

Sounds like a nightmare to me. On the other hand, Switzerland seems to be doing well (although they are maybe focussing more on the EU than the Britain that you advocate).

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#332

Post by cygx » Sat, Jun 25, 2016, 11:30 AM UTC

sgt101 wrote: post #307

vonnik wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Independence is a mirage, as is control. No individual nor country in the world is independent. We are all interdependent on one another, and ever more so as the movement of data, goods and people accelerates. The EU is a framework is facilitate that interdependence, and while it has many faults, it was created to prevent another world war and in that it has succeeded. Great Britain's future is very dependent on the…

"Great Britain's future is very dependent on the decisions of its neighbors and trade partners, and it has just told those neighbors and trade partners to go to hell. The EU will make the UK pay a price for Brexit, and rightly so, otherwise all member states would leave and still enjoy the free movement of goods and people." If you remove the free market from the EU's mission (as painted by your scenario above of eve…

I hear all the time that the EU prevented war in Europe, but frankly war in Europe has been prevented by occupation by Britain and the United States. There are currently 21500 British troops in Germany. This is going to end in 2020, it will be fascinating to see what happens at that point.

Not really. Once the dust had settled, it was French-German reconciliation that kept continental Europe stable, not the British or US military. Sure, foreign troops in Germany had their role to play, but since the collapse of the Soviet Union 25 years ago, not so much as far as domestic affairs are concerned.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#333

Post by Tomte » Sat, Jun 25, 2016, 11:33 AM UTC

tomp wrote: post #100

yummyfajitas wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more like one spouse saying "I'm leaving you, please don't hurt the children". (By analogy, the citizens of Britain/France/etc are the children, who'd like to continue to play with one another, but perhaps one of their abusive parents will use violence to prevent this.)

I agree with yummyfajitas here. A rational person would say "OK, we're not compatible, let's split up, but no point destroying the house, spending all our money on lawyers and kill each other". An irrational, emotional, greedy or terribly insecure person would say "You? Leaving me ? How could you?! You FUCKER! I'LL RUIN YOU!!! AAAARGGGGGHHHH!!!!!"

Noone really advocates any form of punishment.

But the UK got extraordinarily preferential treatment in the EU all those decades.

What most people actually advocate is real, tough negotiations, driven by both parties' interests.

And the outcome will --predictably-- not what the Leavers wished for. It will also not be what the EU wished for. That ship has sailed.

Britain will get a deal, based on relative strengths and things the EU and Britain have to offer and the other side wants.

And very much depending on the timeframe the Brits are shooting for. If they want something quick (one to three years) only the Norwegian EFTA model is realistic.

If ten to fifteen years are quick enough all kinds of complicated deals can be negotiated. Can Britain really wait that long?

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#334

Post by kalleboo » Sat, Jun 25, 2016, 11:37 AM UTC

Tomte wrote: post #330

kalleboo wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a snarky side remark, what will the UK do in the future instead of continuing to import cars, regardless of terms? Rely on its domestic automotive industry? One of the more credible arguments for leaving the EU is so the UK can negotiate their own international trade deals, as they feel the EU has been slow in negotiation. Opening up free trade to the US and Japan would probably be a priority.

That's the same United States who have already said that deals with Britain will be scheduled for after a deal with Europe and other big trade blocks?

Obama said that. Probably just to help the Remain campaign as a favor to Cameron. Trump has said the opposite, Hillary has said nothing aside from repeating how "close our ties are".

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#335

Post by Tomte » Sat, Jun 25, 2016, 11:41 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #308

jerven wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not even that the EU really wants to make the UK pay. It's just that the UK had so many advantages that it negotiated before. Now they basically reset themselves back to 1972, but the problem is the EU is much bigger at 27 members today then in 72. Making it extremely unlikely that the re-negotiation is going to end up as well today. Also the UK will want a super fast negotation, the rest of the EU are not so muc…

> Also the UK will want a super fast negotation, the rest of the EU are not so much in a hurry. It seems to be rather the opposite. The EU is calling for fast negotiations whereas the UK is taking it easy.

You're confusing the start of the process of leaving and the following negotiations. Britain and the EU have symmetrical, opposed interests there:

The EU wants a fast official declaration from the UK that they want to leave. They want to start the clock running. If after two years there is no agreement, so what, let's negotiate for however long it takes.

Britain wants fast negotiations, because their economy depends on results, but they don't want to formally start the process. Because if they can't get a deal in two years after article 50 invocation they are in a very, very bad position.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#336

Post by retox » Sat, Jun 25, 2016, 11:44 AM UTC

tjallingt wrote: post #325

tokensimian wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea what your original comment is referring to, but from my perspective you just lost the game of "let's not appear completely insane in front of strangers." That's an ineffective way of communicating your point.

The original poster is referring to an incident that happened in Cologne around new years; supposedly there was a "mass raping" (as some newspapers put it) which was soon blamed on the large amount of "fresh" immigrants in Cologne. As it turned out the "fresh" immigrants had, almost, nothing to do with it and most of the perpetrators were people who had stayed in Germany for an extended period of time already. Althou…

>"fresh" immigrants had, almost, nothing to do with it and most of the perpetrators were people who had stayed in Germany for an extended period of time already.

Oh that's OK then.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#337

Post by Tomte » Sat, Jun 25, 2016, 11:44 AM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #91

zeveb wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The EU will make the UK pay a price for Brexit, and rightly so, otherwise all member states would leave and still enjoy the free movement of goods and people. So it was always about power, then? Why shouldn't all states enjoy the free movement of goods & people without giving up their sovereignty? The EU should have required only as much authority as it absolutely needed; instead it demanded too much.

> Why shouldn't all states enjoy the free movement of goods & people without giving up their sovereignty? Free movement between sovereign entities always entails yielding some amount of sovereignty loss, you can't have free movement of goods and people between two cities if there isn't a supra-city structure. > The EU should have required only as much authority as it absolutely needed; instead it demanded too much. T…

The leave campaign was explicitly and to a very large part about not having free movement of people.

They just want to keep free movement of goods and services.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#338

Post by Tomte » Sat, Jun 25, 2016, 11:49 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #70

return0 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to regain independence. I hope that word doesn't stick. All EU countries are independent, as is the UK. For the sake of all 27 EU countries , please stop using divisive and wrong rhetoric. > Long term, we now have control of our future. I would like to hear one concrete way in which the future is going to be, after the negotiations, substantially different than what it is today. > And can anyone on here really stan…

> I hope that word doesn't stick. All EU countries are independent, as is the UK. For the sake of all 27 EU countries , please stop using divisive and wrong rhetoric. Lesson from the US: You can't have sovereigns with superior sovereigns. Individual US states are on paper sovereign, but in reality have been relegated to being administrative districts of the federal government with little meaningful right to self-dete…

The EU is not nearly comparable to the US from a state-theoretic point of view.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#339

Post by phicoh » Sat, Jun 25, 2016, 11:52 AM UTC

hsitz wrote: post #146

p4wnc6 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's unlikely for EU nations to significantly damage trading relationships with the UK. Germany, for example, exports a huge volume of cars to the UK and it comprises a significant portion of German GDP. Yes, there's volatility around exactly how such a trade deal will get worked out, but it's unrealistic to lump "access to European markets" into one big ball and assume that Brexit means that whole topic will be…

"In reality, most significant European trading partners with UK just want to keep on trading with them mostly as they have been, and will work out deals that allow such trading to mostly continue." Do you know what you're talking about? That's a sincere question. My understanding is that the UK's significant trading partners are members of the EU, and that it's the EU, not the individual partners, who will have to de…

Logically, it doesn't make sense for the EU to impose harsh restriction on trade with the UK. The reason the UK is allowed to leave is that the EU is a voluntary association. By and large, the EU is an association of individual countries, not a federal nation state with its own army. So the countries in the EU have a lot of freedom. If they misbehave you can only kick them out.

What countries would want to leave the EU? I'm not aware of any of the poorer countries wanting to leave. And it would not affect the EU much. For the richer countries, the EU is an enormous benefit, so leaving would be rather silly.

The UK is the only country that has been questioning its EU membership for many decades. But it seems to be unique in the position.

So for normal trade in goods and services, it doesn't make sense for the EU to impose too many barriers.

The financial sector is an exception. It does make sense for the EU to grab more power there.

The big issue however, is that many countries have significant parts of their population that are against the EU. So there is a real risk that the UK will be hit with sanctions, not because it makes sense for the EU, but because it makes political senses in some of the EU member countries.

That would be sad, but that's the world we live in.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#340

Post by Oletros » Sat, Jun 25, 2016, 12:00 PM UTC

kalleboo wrote: post #310

mioelnir wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But a hit to german trading to the UK is a small price to pay instead of the hit it would take by setting precedent that you can just willy-nilly leave with all the perks. And I can tell you, the german-language media is already full of "priority number one if to stop a cascading copycat effect". As a snarky side remark, what will the UK do in the future instead of continuing to import cars, regardless of terms? Rely…

> As a snarky side remark, what will the UK do in the future instead of continuing to import cars, regardless of terms? Rely on its domestic automotive industry? One of the more credible arguments for leaving the EU is so the UK can negotiate their own international trade deals, as they feel the EU has been slow in negotiation. Opening up free trade to the US and Japan would probably be a priority.

> Opening up free trade to the US and Japan would probably be a priority.

And how the deal will be better than the deal between EU and USA/Japan?