131–140 of 649 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
He gambled 64 million people's livelihoods to defend his party against another, that right now, doesn't even have a sitting MP (for those outside the UK, that's the UK Independence Party). There's tables at Vegas that haven't seen that level of loss.
You seem to be forgetting the part where the British people voted to leave the EU.
A minority voted to leave the EU.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The EU is a novelty in human history. The desire for independence, for better or worse, is human nature.
I wonder if the "desire for independence" is simply born out of the usual ingroup/outgroup dynamics - convince people they're being ruled by an outgroup, and suddenly they want to be independent. The problem with this being that group borders are petty flexible and easily manipulated.
Not that flexible -- it takes long, historical processes to change them.
People were living within the same "unified" culture, state mandated et al, forced to be together in USSR and Yugoslavia for 50 to 80 years -- and yet those states exploded into multiple national countries as soon as they had the chance.
Some borders are organic (based on culture, shared history, geographical boundaries etc) and some are not (based on colonial rules drawing lines in a map which include groups with different cultures which have historically been enemies in the same "country": the British have done this time and again, and is also the most common cause of tension in Africa etc).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except I didn't say that the Falklands happened because of the EU, did I? It happened because Argentina invaded British sovereign territory, and the British defended it. Interestingly, not a single other EU country aided the UK.
Would this be the same EU that wasn't founded for another 13 years? While we're putting forward spurious facts not a single non-EU country aided the UK.
Also France was perhaps ambivalent about the conflict, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/9767736/Thatc... Certainly support from EU countries was not easily visible.
Sorry for the links from the Telegraph since there a clear source of bias there but there are plenty of other references which can back these up.
I'm a bit tired of reading doomsday messages by now. I am an European living and working in the UK and even though this affects me I have no reason to believe that things will go downwards now. If there's anything I've learned so far then that every analysis I've read couldn't have been more wrong. It almost seems like the more the UK economy doesn't collapse the more people shout even louder how bad the Brexit is. M…
I'm from Canada and our economy (and defence) depends heavily on the US, we both strongly benefit from an economic relationship. It's mutually beneficial, as all pacts should be. Yet we don't have to worry about policy being dictated out of NAFTA or worry about the economy of Mexico - which is totally different than Canada - dragging down our own.
Once you look beyond short term economic risks I really don't see thee problem.
It seems to me that smaller countries have the healthiest democracies - one of the reason government functions so well in Scandinavia and here in Canada. The problems with US politics is largely the result of the disparate views of regional communities. Just look at the vast cultural/economic/educational gaps between California, the 'south', or the midwest.
Those gaps are even greater across Europe, so I'm hardly surprised that various countries in the EU, not only people in the UK as we've seen recently, is feeling uncomfortable with the idea. You're just lucky you don't have the Euro to further lock you into the relationship.
Edit: Also the idea the EU stops wars seems ridiculous to me in 2017 given we have NATO and the UN... and that the west only really cares about economics. Sanctions like that were done to Russia or Iran would not last long in a western country, they'd cave in so fast. Pretty much eliminating any risk of internal EU conflict without assuming total economic destruction.
I'm a big believer in not having assumptions and testing things with actual experiments. This is one experiment I'd rather not be participating in, though. It's difficult to see very much positive about this move; certainly there will be some benefits, but I expect greatly outweighed by the negatives (which will include higher prices, lower employment and probably lower standards for UK workers - the EU has consisten…
> which will include higher prices Interesting. I was in a UK supermarket the other day and the asparagus on offer was from Spain and Mexico. The Mexican variety was cheaper, and just as good. Currently, Mexico pays a 14.4% common external tariff on this product, and it's still cheaper than what the EU (with it's massive array of agricultural subsidy) can produce. I imagine this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Time for anecdotal evidence. My weekly supermarket bill has been going up since the Brexit vote.
I'm a bit tired of reading doomsday messages by now. I am an European living and working in the UK and even though this affects me I have no reason to believe that things will go downwards now. If there's anything I've learned so far then that every analysis I've read couldn't have been more wrong. It almost seems like the more the UK economy doesn't collapse the more people shout even louder how bad the Brexit is. M…
>> I am an European living and working in the UK You are lucky then as you always have the choice to leave the UK and enjoy the protections of the EU. A lot of the coverage is focussed on trade/immigration etc. but there are lots of wonderful human rights protections and consumer protections that are provided by the EU which the British government will be excited to get rid of. It's that that worries me. Take the sur…
I agree, there's been some awful rhetoric out of the Tories about dismantling those, but as yet they aren't under threat AFAICT
Whatever one may think of the politics or if one's country should join/leave, it's absolutely true that EU has been a big factor in keeping the peace between European nations for decades. The Nobel Peace Prize to EU got a lot of criticism because of politics, but I think it was important to show that EU has helped keep the peace.
Can we really say that it's the EU though? Europe has many international organizations that include member nations. Is the EU responsible or NATO or the UN or a simple exhaustion of war and extreme nationalism? The EU as it exists today has been alive fewer than 30 years! That's a blip in time. Europe will remain strong, regardless of this, won't it?
For some conflicts, yes. The Good Friday agreement in Ireland is a legal fiction, only possible because of the EU. Basically, the border vanishes because both sides are members of the EU and thus, via the EU have the right to move across that border at any time for any purpose.
I'm a bit tired of reading doomsday messages by now. I am an European living and working in the UK and even though this affects me I have no reason to believe that things will go downwards now. If there's anything I've learned so far then that every analysis I've read couldn't have been more wrong. It almost seems like the more the UK economy doesn't collapse the more people shout even louder how bad the Brexit is. M…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who? And wake up to what? To do what?
The people of the UK. I had the feeling they were resting on the inherited wealth of their empire for rather long now. They always wanted special treatments in the EU. They even pay mad bucks on their royals for basically nothing. Maybe this Brexit will go down bad and they will change their ways and join the EU in 10-20 years as 'real' members. But I don't have many hopes in that. Probably they will end up like Swit…
Royal family costs the UK £307m (highest number) with a revenue from them of £500m [1]. Seems like good business to keep paying for them.
1. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/07/is...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Are British HN'ers taking any mitigating steps due to this whole situation? Campaigning for the Liberal Democrats.
I'm a party member - what's the best way to get more involved with the party?
At 11% in the polls we're not going to stop Brexit right now, but certainly (where I live) we have a real chance of becoming part of the local administration for the first time since 2005. From little acorns...