Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

To Stay or Not to Stay

jacquesmattheij.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 69 posts

Re: To Stay or Not to Stay

#31

Post by jc80 »

reitanqild wrote: post #12
jc80 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK would have to agree on free movement like Norway and Switzerland to get the same deal, and that's the main thing they voted against. They never really had it anyways, getting into the UK has always felt more like the US border crossing. Good riddance.

> The UK would have to agree on free movement like Norway and Switzerland to get the same deal, and that's the main thing they voted against. I don't think that's the main thing they voted against rather than a percieved opaque, wasteful and possibly corrupt system. (I'm not sure but I'm afraid media cherry picked a bit to present the image of dumb xenophobic Leave supporters.)

My point is mainly that if the UK is even able to get, and agrees to a deal like Norway, they're in the exact same position they were before the brexit, only worse.

Norway has to pay the EU, has accepted free travel and has to adhere to EU regulations.

I don't see how this could be a "win" situation for the UK; it's just a downgrade of their status with the union.

Re: To Stay or Not to Stay

#32

Post by throwawaybrexit »

wanda wrote: post #21
DominikR wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please take a look at how the Swiss are doing outside the EU. They have no oil, just their financial industry. Actually that's quite similar to the UK, just that the UK is much stronger in many other areas too. I suspect that the UK will do really well outside the EU. Edit: Has anyone here even considered that it might be the EU that will break up long before the UK? As I see it the next time Turkeys dictator Erdogan…

Not as well as we were already doing within the EU, for a discounted membership fee. A discount that we will now have to concede in a future deal, and that will likely be finalised after a nice recession. Meanwhile, London will lose its significance as the gateway for passporting to Frankfurt. All the prosperity built up since 2008 has been erased for the sake of what were ostensibly lies. I implore US citizens: do n…

"honestly telling everybody that our financial stability and indeed prosperity since the financial crisis of 2008 is much thanks to EU membership and 'passporting' through the City of London while the EU paid for the economically weaker, rural regions."

Why should the working class be happy with this? The benefits to EU membership accrued to the connected classes in the big cities. The subsidies provided to these regions by the EU are a small fraction of the economic damage which has been done to these people's lives through a triple punch of increased labor / safety / environmental regulations, free trade (with countries powered by low wage and low labor and environmental standards) and immigration of cheap labor.

Everybody wants to tell these people to just eat cake.That's not a reasonable solution to the economic challenges in the rest of the country. If London is doing so fantastic economically, they should have focused on helping those hurt by these policies.

Re: To Stay or Not to Stay

#33

Post by ronnier »

mevile wrote: post #8

I wonder if Britain's exit is really as big a deal as everyone is making it out to be. My pretty much working class family in Germany has made frequent use of open borders in the Eurozone, traveling to Spain and France several times in their lives. I wonder how much that would be true for generally working class British people. Do they go to Disneyland in Paris? Do they travel to music festivals in other European cou…

> I wonder if Britain's exit is really as big a deal as everyone is making it out to be.

Y2K, bird flu, Swine flu, SARS, Heterosexual AIDS, the hole in the ozone, over population, acid rain, mad cow, global cooling, global warming, Ebola, Zika virus...

Probably not.

Re: To Stay or Not to Stay

#34

Post by DanielBMarkham »

mjklin wrote: post #28
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #9

As a yank, this issue is none of my business. As long as the people are voting, there is a feedback and correction system in place, I try not to worry about the internal affairs of allies. Having said that, I am quite taken back by all the drama I'm hearing on my social feeds. It looks completely beyond the normal angst you would see in a nation changing its treaty status. I didn't hear this kind of emotion when deci…

IMO all the drama is not over the significance of the vote itself but rather what it might portend: * The end of the UK (not all parts voted to leave) * The end of the EU (starts a domino effect for other withdrawals) * The rise of the political right in Europe, and what that means for upcoming elections * The rise of populism worldwide, and what that means for the US election * Instability in financial markets due t…

Friday I finally asked some friends on FB to explain it to me.

The answer I got was that this was a symbol that is related to a lot of other issues people care about, both overseas and at home. So the thing itself is not as important as what it might symbolize or portend.

I think this agrees with what you list.

Still, my interest is in free countries peacefully deciding how they want to govern themselves. Much more than their actual policy changes or what it might portend.

If I had to have an opinion, simply from watching the monetary policy sausage-making, I think the EU is a beta. And like many betas, it's structurally broken. That doesn't mean stay or leave. I really have no idea how you would go about fixing these structural issues. I imagine that no matter what some folks might think, there are no easy answers. Anything you do is going to suck in one way or another.

Re: To Stay or Not to Stay

#35

Post by alistairSH »

mevile wrote: post #8

I wonder if Britain's exit is really as big a deal as everyone is making it out to be. My pretty much working class family in Germany has made frequent use of open borders in the Eurozone, traveling to Spain and France several times in their lives. I wonder how much that would be true for generally working class British people. Do they go to Disneyland in Paris? Do they travel to music festivals in other European cou…

Vacation travel (Disney Paris) is generally subject to a much more relaxed set of regulations, EU or no EU. Permanent (or semi-permanent) relocation for work is what's potentially at risk with the Brexit.

Re: To Stay or Not to Stay

#36

Post by kristianc »

wanda wrote: post #21
DominikR wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please take a look at how the Swiss are doing outside the EU. They have no oil, just their financial industry. Actually that's quite similar to the UK, just that the UK is much stronger in many other areas too. I suspect that the UK will do really well outside the EU. Edit: Has anyone here even considered that it might be the EU that will break up long before the UK? As I see it the next time Turkeys dictator Erdogan…

Not as well as we were already doing within the EU, for a discounted membership fee. A discount that we will now have to concede in a future deal, and that will likely be finalised after a nice recession. Meanwhile, London will lose its significance as the gateway for passporting to Frankfurt. All the prosperity built up since 2008 has been erased for the sake of what were ostensibly lies. I implore US citizens: do n…

If no one in the Tory Party has the balls to push the button, the British public will elect politicians who will in October.

Many of the dire warnings about the economy fell on deaf ears with the white working class precisely because they feel like they've got such a poor deal from the present arrangement.

UKIP will reform, re-organize, and probably rename to the UK Nationalists over the summer and stand on a platform of invoking article 50 and rejoining EFTA.

Buoyed by white working class votes they will take a swathe of formerly Labour seats in the north and former industrial heartlands and in the Tory shires. There's very little reason to suppose that working class people who voted Leave at this election will vote Labour at the next.

Re: To Stay or Not to Stay

#37

Post by narag »

temp wrote: post #13
DominikR wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please take a look at how the Swiss are doing outside the EU. They have no oil, just their financial industry. Actually that's quite similar to the UK, just that the UK is much stronger in many other areas too. I suspect that the UK will do really well outside the EU. Edit: Has anyone here even considered that it might be the EU that will break up long before the UK? As I see it the next time Turkeys dictator Erdogan…

>I suspect that the UK will do really well outside the EU. Can you give me some specific insight into how Northern Ireland, Wales or Cornwall are going to benefit from being outside the EU? Will UK's farmers, for whom it is estimated that 55% of all income comes directly from EU subsidies, also benefit from an exit?

I wonder if we should be happy with an organization that pays 55% of UK farmers' income.

Re: To Stay or Not to Stay

#38

Post by Bromskloss »

mevile wrote: post #8

I wonder if Britain's exit is really as big a deal as everyone is making it out to be. My pretty much working class family in Germany has made frequent use of open borders in the Eurozone, traveling to Spain and France several times in their lives. I wonder how much that would be true for generally working class British people. Do they go to Disneyland in Paris? Do they travel to music festivals in other European cou…

Surely, you could vacation easily in other countries also before the EU? I know we Swedes could. Btw, Great Britain is not the only country in the EU that does not use Euros. Sweden doesn't, for example.

Re: To Stay or Not to Stay

#39

Post by narag »

raverbashing wrote: post #22
DominikR wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please take a look at how the Swiss are doing outside the EU. They have no oil, just their financial industry. Actually that's quite similar to the UK, just that the UK is much stronger in many other areas too. I suspect that the UK will do really well outside the EU. Edit: Has anyone here even considered that it might be the EU that will break up long before the UK? As I see it the next time Turkeys dictator Erdogan…

The real question is if the UK can get similar deals as Norway and CH > They have no oil, just their financial industry. So, better? Oh and their watches. And pharmaceutical industry.

Oil won't move abroad.

Re: To Stay or Not to Stay

#40

Post by UK-AL »

johnbm wrote: post #11

I wonder how much of this regrexit sentiment is actually present and how much of it is just isolated incidents being held up as if they are representative. By the same media that predicted the outcome entirely wrong.

Almost entirely anecdotal evidence.

The vast majority votes came from old people. And they really do want to leave.

Post reply on HN