#PunishUK
UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU
151–160 of 649 posts
Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> 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…
The USSR was a re-implementation of the Tsarist Russian empire by another name. The peoples yoked together in the USSR had been absorbed by Russian expansion in the 18th & 19th centuries. Yugoslavia was a variation on the same theme. The north had been part of the Austro Hungarian Empire, and the south part of the Ottoman Empire.
Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
You haven't been affected by the changes because nothing has happened yet. This is the start of the negotiations to decide what those changes will be. And when I say nothing has happened yet, I mean apart from the massive drop in the value of sterling and inflation massively outstripping wage increases. I assume you're based in London, which means you're fairly isolated from the social changes that have happened acro…
And I bet you nothing will happen in 2 or 3 or 5 years either. Except for the "massive drop in the value of sterling" which is due to market and media hysteria, which will correct itself.
If the pound was currently undervalued analysts would be all over that by now. None of the large investors in the world are currently investing hard in British assets.
There is nothing indicating that the market will correct itself.
Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU
#154I'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…
I absolutely see the advantages of having common standards, tariff agreements etc. to make trade across borders easier (i.e. something akin to the European Economic Area). I'm however also a proponent of federalism, because I believe that for a democracy to truly work it is necessary that the people still feel responsible for their votes and their decisions. This is something which I'm missing in centralised and unitary states after they reach a certain size and heterogenity. I'm aware that the European Union is not (yet) a unitary state, but it is certainly shifting away democratic power from a more regional democratic system to a centralised government.
I agree that the UK's decision to leave the EU is not an optimal one (and potentially costly), but I believe it's long term the right one, given the current state. An alternative would be to change the EU within, to force it to focus on its core competencies (which I mainly see as a trade union, and leave most of the political decisions to its nation states); however I'm not sure that this would happen without any big bang, such as the Brexit might have been.
Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
The EU is a novelty in human history. The desire for independence, for better or worse, is human nature.
Right, this is why there have never been empires, kings, large nations or organized groups that have subsumed smaller groups around them, the United States, Great Britain itself, or any organization of peoples greater than just one lone man standing in a field bellowing 'ME!' at the emptiness.
"Independence" it's not about some lone man bellowing "ME".
It's about like-minded people sharing a common culture (as developed historically up to some point), over a hodge podge of states being united by sheer power or top-down dictum.
Empires and kings ruled thanks to tons of bloodshed and continued vigilance and stomping of revolts.
The "Great Britain" itself is a bad example -- it lost colony after colony due to wars for independence, and even sibling states like England, Ireland and Scotland have either split, or want to split. And of course it took some wars (and a lot of resentment) to bring down the Scottish into the UK's stable for example.
Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
>They even pay mad bucks on their royals for basically nothing. 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...
Interesting, didn't know that :)
Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU
#157I sincerely hope that today (and obviously the day it actually happens) isn't something that I look back on with sadness in the future. I live in the UK, and am really saddened by the way that politics is 'progressing' - in fact, regressing to a time where nationalism seems to be the voice, and one which I think will inevitably lead to conflict. Combined with the Trump situation in the USA, I am extremely pessimistic…
We had plenty of conflict while part of the EU: the Falklands, Iraq, the IRA, Bosnia for example. It wasn't nationalism which caused conflicts in Europe, it was a lack of democracy.
>> "It wasn't nationalism which caused conflicts in Europe, it was a lack of democracy."
The Yugoslav wars were centred around nationalism. The Irish conflict, again was centred around nationalism and civil rights (you can't seriously think there wasn't democracy in Ireland?).
Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
The USSR was a re-implementation of the Tsarist Russian empire by another name. The peoples yoked together in the USSR had been absorbed by Russian expansion in the 18th & 19th centuries. Yugoslavia was a variation on the same theme. The north had been part of the Austro Hungarian Empire, and the south part of the Ottoman Empire.
That's what I write. Merely getting people to live together under one "union" doesn't mean it will stick, or that they like it, or that they'll identify with it over their prior and existing identities.
Nor (as happened in both cases) that they wont split on the first chance they get.
Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU
#159Are British HN'ers taking any mitigating steps due to this whole situation? I'm currently in the process of incorporating in the Netherlands, and it turns out setting up a Ltd is a lot more expensive over there than in the UK. I just don't feel that the UK will make good use of my tax receipts any more, so I'm almost obligated to take my work elsewhere.
I'm formally getting EU citizenship (which I'm lucky enough to be entitled to as a citizen of Ireland). There is going to be increased demand for this, particularly as people realise that there is going to be a hard border (which seems inevitable, given the statements on freedom of movement). I won't actually move, but I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of personal and small businesses move in exactly the way you're su…
How are you applying for EU citizenship? All I can find is that it is automatically granted to all Nationals if member states. I.e. if you are Irish then you automatically have EU citizenship.
Is there anything else you can do?
Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU
#160Whatever 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.
I know there has been intra-nation peace in western Europe since the end of WWII, but how do we know it was due to the EU? Both the peace and the EU would seem to as easily explained by the post war situation where European nations were now second tier economicly, and threatened by a big external nation. The reward for war was no longer there, and the need for cooperation was high.
This has been the longest period of Peace in Western Europe in history by a massive margin. That's evidence. Non top tier countries used to fight all the time in Europe before.