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UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU

bbc.com

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Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU

#401

Post by lhopki01 »

stephen_g wrote: post #315
lhopki01 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Pounds fell as an immediate result. Since then the economy has been held up by very strong consumer spending which can only last so long in the face of rising prices and increased capital inflows taking advantage of the weaker pound. The decline is not going to be sudden it'll be a gradual thing as companies move staff out and new investment fails to happen. I'm guessing that your let's chill and watch comes from…

The IMF said in 2015 that the pound was up to 20% overvalued though. I recall people talking about it being overvalued for many years before that - in fact, the pound being so highly valued (which was great for the financial industry but not that much else) probably led to a lot of the deindustrialisation over the last few decades which is probably where a lot of this really started. Anyway, the U.K. is a fairly larg…

The pound has been 20% overvalued for 30 years?

I'm struggling to see why being outside of a large trading bloc is better than being inside a large trading bloc. You've said it is better off long term so there must be advantages to being outside.

EDIT

Just to clarify the UK exports much more in services to the EU than it imports from the EU. Services are exactly the type of thing that the EU is different from other trade deals. The UK loses what it has a surplus on and has to pay more for all the goods that it has to import.

Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU

#402

Post by logicallee »

The EU should treat this like America treated secessionist states - the UK should be compelled to stay by force. Obviously there should not be any actual war, since the Brtis should just say, "well, all right."

Afterward they should be full, normal participants, just as every state is a normal participant in the United States and has equal and fair votes in the Senate and House of Representatives.

Why should this be done:

1 - America shows that it is great that there is a unified country, which benefits from huge economies of scale.

2 - Can you imagine how much money is saved by not having to have border control, separate visas and citizenships in the United States? The same applies to the EU.

3 - The EU should directly compete with the United States as the second of three world poles (Asia being the third).

4 - The good of the Union outweighs the UK's selfish and shortsighted act.

Why shouldn't history repeat?

Would America be better-off if it were split into two countries?

Would America be the world's leading economy (by far)?

Citing the close historical precedent I have mentioned, I do not think that the UK should be allowed to leave the EU. Its request should be denied.

Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU

#403

Post by afandian »

djmobley wrote: post #375
eyko wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The referendum was not legally binding.

It would have been untenable, however, for a government to defy the will of the people as expressed in the referendum.

I have no desire to re-hash this particular argument, but the margin, 48/52 was very small. Very close to 50/50. And the turnout wasn't perfect. I've heard that only something like 30% of the eligible voters voted to leave.

There was no "will of the people". The people were undecided.

Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU

#404

Post by thenomad »

nthcolumn wrote: post #352
nicky0 wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which will include higher prices, lower employment and probably lower standards for UK workers I often see this kind of sweeping statement here on HN as if the consequences of Brexit are an already an established fact. How do you substantiate these predicitons? Are you aware of the term "project fear"[0]? 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Fear_(British_politics...

Maybe the small matter that every single economic authority on the matter from our foreign allies like Barack Obama, to the IMF, the Bank Of England, the Confederation of British Industry, (and endless list) said it would be an unmitigated disaster... and then there are the people who think it is a good idea... Trump, Putin, Lafarge, Gove, and not even the the PM thought it was a good idea to start off with. Project…

Also, every single study bar one, from credible institutions like the London School Of Economics (and indeed HM Treasury), predicted a significant downswing in the UK economy post-Brexit.

The lone study is worth paying attention to. It's from a group calling themselves "Economists For Brexit". It proposes that the UK should, post-Brexit, unilaterally scrap all tariffs. Under those conditions, it predicts a minor rise in the UK's GDP, but notes that it also expects "a sharp rise in inequality".

So basically, everyone credible who has studied Brexit, including the guys calling themselves "Economists For Brexit", reckon that it's going to make the UK worse in some significant way.

Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU

#405

Post by presidente20 »

rbehrends wrote: post #272
dnautics wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The eu's Parliament has de facto no power and all of the authority rests with the European commission, which is an unelected entity.

False. 1. The European Commission is elected by the European Parliament. 2. The European Commission has the power to initiate legislation, but EU legislation is enacted by the European Parliament (lower chamber of the legislature) and the Council of the European Union (upper chamber of the legislature). This is why EU legislation begins with "REGULATION/DIRECTIVE ... OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL" [1]…

The point is that powers of veto are less influential than powers of creating policy.

I don't think people are saying that the EU is completely undemocratic (as pointed out above, democracy is a somewhat muddy concept in practice), more that it falls short of the standards of a typical democracy (which to me means a directly elected executive body).

Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU

#406

Post by [deleted] »

hiddencost wrote: post #388
rayiner wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's at stake here is more fundamental than federalism: it's self determination. Throughout history, discrete groups have waged wars of independence to ensure that they can have a government that reflects their shared history, culture, and values. My family is from Bangladesh, which fought a war to separate from Pakistan over cultural/linguistic differences. In another example, Israel is engaged in an existential b…

^-- Submarine argument of the current white nationalist movement. Basic flaw: it elides "the wants of white nationalists" with "the culture of the country" and tries to imply that the wants of white nationalists are the only one that exists. A subset of people are being prodded to give up their sovereignty; a significant chunk of folks in the UK actually wanted the EU, most notably immigrants, students, young folks.

[deleted]

Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU

#407

Post by genma_it »

dep_b wrote: post #297

Sure enough Henry VIII leaving the Holy Church of Rome will lead to all kinds of disaster for the kingdom. Oh wait no, they actually went on to rule about half of the world afterwards.

Sure, and they ruled so well that today that half of the world lives in peace and it is proud to have been a British colony.

Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU

#408

Post by hosker4u »

ealexhudson wrote: post #3

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…

On those negatives: "higher prices" our food prices are rather high due to EU Tarrifs from none-eu countries. Food Prices can fall as the UK free to make trade deals with others. (Specific meat and Australia)

"lower employment" we have low-unemployment and a plan to reduce immigration. Employment will perhaps rise which may not be a good thing.

"lower standards for UK workers" labour opposition myth, its a good one "nasty tories". If they lower standards we elect labour in again to raise them. yey democracy

Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU

#409

Post by cJ0th »

rayiner wrote: post #308
folli wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 unit…

What's at stake here is more fundamental than federalism: it's self determination. Throughout history, discrete groups have waged wars of independence to ensure that they can have a government that reflects their shared history, culture, and values. My family is from Bangladesh, which fought a war to separate from Pakistan over cultural/linguistic differences. In another example, Israel is engaged in an existential b…

> People are being prodded to give up their sovereignty to a supra-national bureaucracy, and to be assimilated into a hetrogenous body politic with hundreds of millions of other people with which they share little other than said bureaucracy.

It's just not true. People of the European continent have been mingling with each other for about 2000 years. The whole continent's juristic thinking roots in the Roman Empire, so do Romance languages (like Spanish and French). What's more, in the past various countries formed alliances to protect themselves against threats from the orient. There even have been "economic zones" like the Hansa which could be understood as a predecessor of the EU and so on. In short: EU countries do have a lot in common and these commonalities are part of national identities. Countries do also feature peculiarities and these may or may not decay (thanks to the EU). But change is inevitable anyhow.

Re: UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU

#410

Post by Nursie »

pluma wrote: post #397
Nursie wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>The problem with the structure of the EU is basically: How do you set up a supranational state without massive constitutional changes in all the member states? Because the appetite is not there for large constitutional changes. Perhaps, don't? If you can't take the people of a democracy with you on a project, perhaps it's best not to try and build such a thing anyway, and then end up with a hack? On the rest - I wo…

The reason the EU always wanted to have the UK on board had more to do with marketing than with necessity: Europe is France, England and Germany; if the EU was to be Europe, it needed those three in it or it isn't going to happen. It's also Spain and Portugal, Belgium and the Netherlands. The more the merrier. Open a history book and if a country playing a major role on the European continent is in it, it should prob…

Heh, I hope this sort of attitude prevails on both sides of this. There's no need for nastiness and lets hope the outcome is relatively positive with the repective parties feeling more free to pursue their own directions.

Bon Chance!

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