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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

#451

Post by concinds »

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.

Calling Leavers "white nationalists" is like Glenn Beck calling Obama a communist.

Jews voted for Leave more than any other demographic group, even more than whites. Arguing about hypothetical white nationalists is total FUD.

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

#452

Post by whiskers »

afandian wrote: post #396
hiddencost wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^-- 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.

As a British citizen I have more in common culturally with my German, Swedish, Austrian, Spanish, Danish, French etc friends and colleagues than I feel with a large chunk of my own country. The people who tell me that I should be patriotic and culturally identify with them as British are the people I'd want to run a million miles from.

Hear, hear.

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

#453

Post by stale2002 »

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"?

Sure. Lets say the UK wants to implement an immigration point system for evaluating which immigrants to let in. They can't do that while being in the EU.

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

#454

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

david-gpu wrote: post #159
ealexhudson wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If you are from Northern ireland, you have an automatic right to irish (and UK) citizenship. If your parent is Irish, and still alive, if they become a citizen, then you can too. This can be continued down the generations (presumably, but I'm not aware of it happening very often).

edit: added UK part

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

#455

Post by barrkel »

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…

The core concept in EU law is subsidiarity. Look it up if you're unfamiliar - by treaty, the EU may only make laws where actions by individual countries are insufficient. I think you're being incredibly one-sided and myopic, if not ignorant.

Collective action problems are real. Nation states are a poor way to deal with many cross-border problems, just like individuals without a government is a poor way to deal with many problems in a community. Pooling sovereignty is a bargain: it's trading away freedom on one axis to gain freedom on another - freedom from certain kinds of problems. Whether it's war vs peace, mercantilism vs trade, security, administration of commons - there are real tradeoffs, and real wins to be had from pooling sovereignty.

The single biggest practical loss, that I feel most for the UK, is how her youth will have their horizons cut much shorter. The EU will be just another country; work visas will dissuade millions.

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

#456

Post by barrkel »

folli wrote: post #154
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…

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…

The EU isn't about trade; it was never about trade. It was about peace.

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

#457

Post by meheleventyone »

vidarh wrote: post #274
Nursie wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Commission gets a bad rap because basically it's been stuffed with cronies and friends of council members. The UK may be the worst for this, we had one Commissioner who had been disgraced out of the UK cabinet twice, and then found himself in a nice 'untouchable' position on the Commission. He's now a Lord. There are flaws in UK democracy certainly but I don't think the EU got it right. I also fundamentally have…

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. The result was basically a giant hack on top of the existing systems by leveraging the authority that the member state governments have to act as agents of their state in carrying out their du…

Iceland is part of the EEA through EFTA and as such needs to follow much of EU legislation without any real say in what it is. The country is actually split about 50/50 in whether they should continue talks to join the EU proper.

Edit: Replied to the wrong comment. :(

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

#458

Post by millak »

afandian wrote: post #403
djmobley wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Indeed, it's frustrating to see it constantly said that the "decisive will of the British people" has spoken!

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

#459

Post by genericpseudo »

Piskvorrr wrote: post #447
vkou wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Britain is over within ten years, that's what today means. Scottish independence, some kind of enormous fudge in Northern Ireland, and Wales beginning to look towards the door.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

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

#460

Post by presidente20 »

JPKab wrote: post #362
rbehrends wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is almost certain that the British economy will not collapse. That said, it is also virtually certain that there will be at least a loss of economic growth, possibly a recession. The worst prediction I've seen by reputable economists (though that was before it became clear that May was going to push for a hard Brexit) was a loss of 9% of GDP growth by 2030. The bigger problem is that Britain is already facing sign…

Is it possible that some of the areas outside of London may benefit by having more competitive trade pacts with individual nations outside of the EU? One note on productivity in UK: My observation of UK business culture can be summed up as low-energy and stagnant, and that's compared to US business culture, which I don't like. An example of this is how low developer salaries are in the UK compared to other nations, r…

That is exactly what I see too.
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