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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

#441

Post by thenomad »

presidente20 wrote: post #412
thenomad wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It depends on the timescales of the predicted problems. I believe the studies predicted choppy waters whilst the UK divorces from the EU (short to medium term) which in my view is likely. However that's not the same as saying that leaving the EU is in principle bad for the economy. Secondly there are plenty of economists that think Brexit will work out fine but that is a somewhat unfashionable view so they keep their…

"plenty of economists that think Brexit will work out fine"

Whom? I would be absolutely thrilled to see a credible study which suggests Brexit will be good for the UK.

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

#442

Post by pvaldes »

lurker456 wrote: post #283
mattmanser wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't help the EU is acting like a petulant wronged partner. We didn't even cheat on you! I mean, seriously, £68 billion for stuff we're not going to be able to use? Grow up and rework your budget. No trade negotiations until we leave? It makes them look like utter fools, one dose of actual democracy deciding they've had enough of backdoor federalisation and they're threatening every punishment they can think of…

As a collective, you voted to leave. Now Junker et al represent the interests of the remaining members, of which you are no longer a part. Game theory dictactes that the EU must offer unfavorable terms to leavers.

Big Money is, in itself, in a different game level

Taking in mind the recent past we can expect that Juncker will represent the interests of Juncker. Maybe also the interests of a small fraction of Europeans. No more, not less.

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

#444

Post by zeveb »

mrcarrot wrote: post #203
coldtea wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then the point is you can make your own laws and not wait for some committee of 20+ countries and some Brussels bureaucrats to decide their "one size fits all solution", especially one designed to fit Germany better because it bullies and controls more lackey states' votes? Also note that by "nothing happens" I mean nothing that negative as the hysteria implies. Not that "nothing at all" happens.

Can you point to any case where the UK could not make a law that it wanted to because of "having to wait for Brussels"?

The EU forbids its member states from reinstating capital punishment; if, for example, the fellow who attacked Parliament last week had lived and the UK wished to execute him it would be unable to.

As I recall, EU directives were behind the ban on traditional units of measure in the UK, although that may be incorrect.

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

#445

Post by GlobalFrog »

dingaling wrote: post #364
enraged_camel wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America, as well as all empires in history, were created and then kept together via military force. In contrast, the EU started out peacefully as a trade organization. Membership in it is purely voluntary. This makes it quite unique.

> Membership in it is purely voluntary. This makes it quite unique. NATO arose from the ashes of conflict but membership is entirely voluntary, and unlike leaving the EU there is no talk of 'punishing' those who no longer wish to remain. For example France left the NATO integrated military structure in 1996 and rejoined in 2009 without penalty.

To be more precise: in 1966, France left indeed the integrated military structure, but it did not left NATO itself which is also a political structure. The goal of de Gaulle was to have all French troups under only French command (and not US or UK who were leading nearly everything then in NATO) and to have all foreign military bases leave France, so that France regains its full sovereignty. De Gaulle was very critical of the US wars led at the time actually and he wanted to have Europe independent from both the USSR and the USA (and as he considered the UK as the pawn of the USA and not reliable in their commitment to Europe, he was opposed to them entering the EU). A fun fact was that it was also a incidentally a smart move economically, even if those US military bases closings were hurting the towns they were in: because of the Mansfield agreements around precisely 1966, Germany which still had US bases was giving more and more money as part of participating to the defense of Germany (2 billions $ in the year 1971 alone for example). This is quite like what president Trump tried to reinstate very recently by presenting a bill to Angela Merkel, but Germany now is not the same as West Germany in 1966.

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

#446

Post by danmaz74 »

krona wrote: post #199
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be because the minimum wages are massively different for the two countries, with $0.48/hr in Mexico vs $4.98/hr in Spain[1]. Globalism does exploit the lower standard of living of other countries, after all. That means that even though there are massive tariffs, these "third world" countries can still make a profit because of the abysmal quality of life for its citizens. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lis…

Of course it's because of wages! The point is, it is because of protectionism that Mexican and African farmers cant sell their products in to the EU at a fair price, and once outside the customs union, the poorest consumers in the UK and the poorest farmers in the world both stand to benefit. Global trade is lifting billions of the poorest people out of poverty, and long may it continue.

Try to tell that to UK farmers. Or blue collars. Or anyone working on producing things.

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

#447

Post by Piskvorrr »

vkou wrote: post #439
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…

> What's at stake here is more fundamental than federalism: it's self determination. Yet, Britain has done its best to deny the same right to self-determination to its subjects. Self-determination seems to be an excuse trotted out to support existing power structures. "We should secede from _____ - but nobody should secede from us." Britain and Ireland, Britain and India, Britain and Scotland... Britain had to be dra…

Indeed, there's the Troubles on the horizon again, as various Irish factions start talking about a united Ireland.

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

#448

Post by concinds »

vkou wrote: post #439
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…

> What's at stake here is more fundamental than federalism: it's self determination. Yet, Britain has done its best to deny the same right to self-determination to its subjects. Self-determination seems to be an excuse trotted out to support existing power structures. "We should secede from _____ - but nobody should secede from us." Britain and Ireland, Britain and India, Britain and Scotland... Britain had to be dra…

That's not jut tangential to the point (whataboutism?), it's what every country does. The UK has a better negotiating position than Britain would have. The EU(28) would have a better geopolitical posture (thanks to UK's military, as the EU has a hard power problem) than the EU(27) will have. Geopolitics is highly competitive and mostly zero-sum, which is why you have "unethical" behavior like that.

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

#449

Post by folli »

lostboys67 wrote: post #286
djmobley wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turnout was amongst the highest for any vote in recent history. What do you propose? Compulsory voting? Many were genuinely undecided and made a conscious decision to abstain.

2/3 or 75% majority which Is the standard for major changes

What was the outcome of the vote to enter the EU?

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

#450

Post by avereveard »

cJ0th wrote: post #409
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…

> 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,…

countries have many element in common, but the eu as organization has given the middle fingers to those values putting economic interests of few above all else.

i.e. why do Italians have milk quotas, spain has orange quotas, but germany has not car quotas? the general feeling is that few are getting the advantages of the free market and many are taking the piss.

on the other hand where's the democracy in the Dublin III agrement? 15 or so states voted to screw the three southern states, of course those kind of provisions gets passed, the majority gets an advantage, but the minority of states having to bear the weight will breed resentement for years to come. and to add insult to perjury now that migrants have forced their way to the other countries they want to renegotiate migrant quotas

this is not the europe that was sold on us, and if it were to be an italeave I'd vote yes in a heartbeat

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