Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

491–500 of 649 posts

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

#491

Post by presidente20 »

thenomad wrote: post #441
presidente20 wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well as I say, they keep their heads down. However as you asked here's a couple off the top of my head:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/09/04/britain-can-l... https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/dec/26/mervyn-king...

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

#492

Post by 99_00 »

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…

> It takes fairly heroic assumptions to make this into a specific number, but 2-3 percent lower income in perpetuity seems plausible.

https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/06/30/the-macroeconom...

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

#493

Post by astrodust »

raverbashing wrote: post #474
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…

While national independence is important, at a certain point, "sovereignty" is just a code word for some politicians or businessmen (like newspaper owners) to get more power. Your complaint seems like a good parroting of the brexiters "worries", but they are mostly uninformed complaints "hetrogenous body politic with hundreds of millions of other people with which they share little other than said bureaucracy" What a…

> "hetrogenous body politic with hundreds of millions of other people with which they share little other than said bureaucracy"

Sounds a lot like the USA.

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

#494

Post by rbehrends »

dnautics wrote: post #485
rbehrends wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False. The Commission election involves several steps. First, the President is nominated. While this is technically a power of the European Council (not to be confused with the Council of the European Union), in 2004 the Parliament won the right to determine the president and the nomination by the European Council is only a formality. (Similar to the appointment of the British PM by the British monarch). In practice,…

1) you do understand that "unelected" doesn't mean "no vote was held". For example in the us system the supreme Court justices and the president's cabinet are referred to as "unelected" although they are held to confirmation votes in the us legislative assembly. 2) it doesn't strike you that this convoluted process with several confusing and in some cases similarly named governing organizations is itself the problem…

> 1) you do understand that "unelected" doesn't mean "no vote was held". For example in the us system the supreme Court justices and the president's cabinet are referred to as "unelected" although they are held to confirmation votes in the us legislative assembly.

Then the British PM is also unelected, as is the British cabinet. Heck, it's even worse, as they're directly appointed without the House of Commons even getting to vote.

> 2) it doesn't strike you that this convoluted process with several confusing and in some cases similarly named governing organizations is itself the problem?

I am not particularly enamored with the names myself, but the process is not particularly convoluted in practice. I was spelling out the details in an effort to avoid technical quibbles.

The moment the EPP won the EP elections in 2014, it was pretty clear that Jean-Claude Juncker would be Commission President, even though it technically involved a couple more steps, which mirror the steps that other countries have, too (for example, in Germany, the Chancellor is also technically nominated before the election by the President and thereafter formally appointed, but as in the EU, these are purely formal steps in practice).

And let's not get started with the election process for the US president.

The election of the Commission is not more complicated than the election of the American Cabinet. One could do away with it, of course, as Britain does, but that would reduce democratic legitimacy, so I don't see the point.

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

#495

Post by mpweiher »

barking wrote: post #248
mpweiher wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So far it's looking good. Wilders did not make significant headway in NL, AfD is down significantly in the polls in Germany and the EU politician who returned to head the SPD in Germany has dramatically reversed that party's flagging poll numbers. Opinion polling for the expected 2nd round of polling in the French presidential elections put Macron at almost 2/3rd majority vs. Le Pen. Overall, pro-EU sentiment in EU m…

Maybe, but opinion polls got it wrong in the cases of Trump and Brexit. It seems a lot of people who intend vote on the right (for the want of a better term) are coy about it when asked.

I knew someone was going to mention that.

Yes.

However, I mostly talked about relative movement of polls. While not entirely impossible, it seems implausible that people should suddenly all get more coy. Especially after "their side" just had huge victories. If anything, I'd expect them to be less coy than before, because they just got validated.

And the one absolute I mentioned about the French runoff is 2/3rd vs. 1/3rd. Trump and Brexit polls were never that far apart.

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

#496

Post by ehllo »

lhopki01 wrote: post #218
dmix wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The risks are really only economic. And those can be solved with trade pacts... without having to sacrifice any other independence such as with laws, courts, and borders. 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…

Trade pacts don't really cover what the EU does. The EU goes well beyond traditional trade pacts in services. Take for example passporting for financial firms. Also it provides a much better legal framework for disputes than arbitration tribunals. Unless you think it's a good idea for your judge one day to be your lawyer the next. Comparing NAFTA to the EU shows a fundamental lack of understanding of how far reaching…

>> The EU goes well beyond traditional trade pacts in services.

another good example is research and research funding.

https://royalsociety.org/~/media/policy/projects/eu-uk-fundi...

https://royalsociety.org/~/media/policy/projects/eu-uk-fundi...

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

#497

Post by rayiner »

barrkel wrote: post #455
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…

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 m…

> 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 agree that collective action problems are real and centralized government is one way to address such problems. But selling the E.U. on the idea that it'll only invoke supra-national powers "where actions by individual countries are insufficient" is a bill of goods. The U.S. federal government was supposed to be a narrow one that acted only in specific areas where a national response was necessary (military, trade, foreign policy). But that got obliterated over time because it's much easier to dictate from the national level instead of getting buy-in from dozens of state legislatures.

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

#498

Post by diminish »

another-dave wrote: post #466
zigzigzag wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, Britain organised a full blown referendum for Scotland after Scots voted a separatist party into their own local Parliament ... a referendum the nationalists then lost. Now perhaps there'll even be a second, despite said nationalists saying it would be a "once in a generation" event. How is that being dragged, kicking and screaming?

If I remember correctly, the SNP ran in 2016 (after the Scottish referendum) with a manifesto that said if UK voted "Leave" in Brexit but Scotland voted "Remain", they would push for a second independence referendum. So this was the platform on which they were returned to government. Also, I think it's fair to say that Britain leaving the EU is a sizeable enough change to counter the "once in a generation" line — the…

Also the "better together" argument for UK is hurt. If not better together (eu) then why better together (uk)? Actually Scotland can join the Nordic examples of a very rich and welfare states in Scandinavia if not EU.

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

#499

Post by waqf »

pluma wrote: post #426
presidente20 wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. People see the EU as undemocratic because Parliament is neither the main policy-making body nor the main executive power. It is more of a supervisory body, akin to the role of Congress or the House of Lords. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament#Control_of...

Sorry, I missed the bit where the Council doesn't consist of the democratically heads of states of the member nations (or their individually appointed delegates). If your country's Council member doesn't represent your interests, that's not the EU's fault, that's your government's fault. Literally every person who gets to do anything in the EU Parliament, Commission or Council is ultimately in that position because o…

Let's caricature this a little bit: suppose it were a rule of the EU that each national government had to appoint half a dozen people to receive a million-euro salary straight from EU funds (that means, of course, from funds that ultimately the member states paid into the EU budget themselves) for doing nothing.

Even assuming the citizens of member states were fully conscious that this was happening, who do you think would be appointed to those positions? Who would you say sucks in this scenario, the member state governments or the EU?

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

#500

Post by Nursie »

rbehrends wrote: post #463
Nursie wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Commission is appointed by the Council, not elected by the Parliament. The Commission then originates all legislation, which Parliament can approve or not. It's not a system I would buy into voluntarily.

False. The Commission election involves several steps. First, the President is nominated. While this is technically a power of the European Council (not to be confused with the Council of the European Union), in 2004 the Parliament won the right to determine the president and the nomination by the European Council is only a formality. (Similar to the appointment of the British PM by the British monarch). In practice,…

I'm sorry it's not false, and in fact you've more or less confirmed what I said, the Commission is put in place by the Council and they originate all legislation.

This byzantine system, so thoroughly removed from the populace, is one of the reasons I'm not sad we're leaving.

Post reply on HN