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

Britain is, and was, deluded about its negotiating power with the EU

blogs.lse.ac.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 118 posts

Re: Britain is, and was, deluded about its negotiating power with the EU

#81

Post by Myrmornis »

dguaraglia wrote: post #50
WhirlingBirdz wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other explanations for why the working-class voted for Brexit are available.

Is this really a new norm, where troll accounts are created to push bigoted talking points? This account is 9 minutes old. The other day I had a similar “interaction” with a 30 minute old account. Who is paying for this campaign?

Would one of the mods mind explaining what happened in this thread? WhirlingBirdz' comment is marked as [flagged][dead] and their reply further down has now disappeared. It said something (politely and reasonably) along the lines of

"I'm not sure what is bigoted about my comment; many other explanations are more mainstream than that the working class was misled by lies."

Re: Britain is, and was, deluded about its negotiating power with the EU

#82

Post by tremon »

WhirlingBirdz wrote: post #75
interdrift wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. UK has obligations to the EU for the 2020 (already have deals & contracts), other than that they're free to leave. Of course you can just leave and end up with a chaotic situation where nobody knows how trading works, there are tariffs. Opinion : UK is going toward vassal state status to the EU by not having a say but still having to follow their rules.

Similar to the other "vassal states" such as Norway and Switzerland. I'm not sure that the debate here is very sensible or measured. I think that Brexit is a tragedy, and dearly hope it doesn't actually happen. That is my opinion. But it seems difficult if not impossible to have a reasoned argument about any aspect of it; people are entrenched in their corners.

Well, that depends on what Britain wants. Norway and Switzerland still have to abide by the free movement rules of the EU (which also includes air space regulations btw), and I though that Britain didn't want that? Maybe read up on the EEA's Guillotine Clause [0] to understand the negotiation room that Britain will have when trying to curb free movement.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine_clause

Re: Britain is, and was, deluded about its negotiating power with the EU

#83

Post by dahdum »

toyg wrote: post #76
WhirlingBirdz wrote: post #40

Brexit is bad for the UK. We can all agree on that? But it's also a TRAGEDY for the EU. They've lost one of their principal contributors, as well as prestige and status. This is generally not talked about. The EU are negotiating HARD. Why? Because they are in a position of weakness. If they were in a position of strength then they would let the UK go easily. Everyone knows this. The complications are that the UK poli…

> it's also a TRAGEDY for the EU. Lol, this is something only the British press peddles. Across Europe the overwhelming feeling, for people without UK interests, is of relief . Finally they got rid of a recalcitrant member, the main opponent to "ever closer union" projects, the leader of the free-trade gang that is now in ruins (also embodied in the attacks on Ireland and Luxembourg tax affairs, the harshness on Pola…

I'm not in the UK or EU, so I don't know what the mood is or have opinions about how the vote was conducted. But most economists I've read are not bullish on the EU doing better after Brexit, and it seems like "leave" parties have been coming to power over the past year.

Is that view so incorrect?

Re: Britain is, and was, deluded about its negotiating power with the EU

#84

Post by temp-dude-87844 »

It's truly ironic (and unfortunate) that the UK's tribulations to leave the EU have such close parallels to its difficulties joining its predecessor. In many ways, it demonstrates the weakness (both now and then) of the British economy and (peaceful) political force projection when pit against a united continental core -- led then by France and Germany, nowadays by Germany and France.

The UK has much more military leverage than economic leverage. The question of the common market is an economic matter, but the free movement of peoples can go either way. There are factions in all states that would rather treat the latter issue as a matter of civil defence, but that would require the UK engaging in force projection so close to home, which it has for almost half a century closely avoided.

Re: Britain is, and was, deluded about its negotiating power with the EU

#85

Post by orwin »

WhirlingBirdz wrote: post #40

Brexit is bad for the UK. We can all agree on that? But it's also a TRAGEDY for the EU. They've lost one of their principal contributors, as well as prestige and status. This is generally not talked about. The EU are negotiating HARD. Why? Because they are in a position of weakness. If they were in a position of strength then they would let the UK go easily. Everyone knows this. The complications are that the UK poli…

It's bad for german power in the EU, but i don't think it's a tragedy for the EU. The UK paid more to the eu than what he got back, that's a fact, but the right to trade European currency is what made the City this powerfull (compared to Paris, Franckfurt, Zurich). I'm pretty sure the taxes on income from displaced trading centers will make up for the "loss" for EU budget.

Also, the skill loss for EU is almost nil, while UK will lose europeen skilled workers (and those contribute a lot to GPD).

Re: Britain is, and was, deluded about its negotiating power with the EU

#86

Post by 59nadir »

WhirlingBirdz wrote: post #40

Brexit is bad for the UK. We can all agree on that? But it's also a TRAGEDY for the EU. They've lost one of their principal contributors, as well as prestige and status. This is generally not talked about. The EU are negotiating HARD. Why? Because they are in a position of weakness. If they were in a position of strength then they would let the UK go easily. Everyone knows this. The complications are that the UK poli…

The EU doesn't _need_ the UK, but the UK very much needs the EU and it'll have to abide by the same regulations they would as members if they want to trade with anyone who currently trades with the EU anyway. You'll be getting the same regulations without any of the benefits of membership.

Re: Britain is, and was, deluded about its negotiating power with the EU

#87

Post by tremon »

Myrmornis wrote: post #68
dguaraglia wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this really a new norm, where troll accounts are created to push bigoted talking points? This account is 9 minutes old. The other day I had a similar “interaction” with a 30 minute old account. Who is paying for this campaign?

On the other hand, it wasn't a very trollish comment. Certainly not bigoted, unless it has been edited since you commented! Would you like to revise that description? Another explanation of the young account phenomenon would be that there is nowadays a larger proportion of people who read the site without accounts and therefore that more comments are from first-time commenters. Perhaps certain types of stories attrac…

Regardless of how you want to label it, it wasn't a very convincing argument either. It had zero substance, didn't ask any questions, nor did it try to further the discussion.

I think I can fully represent the post with a single vocalization: "nuh-uh".

Re: Britain is, and was, deluded about its negotiating power with the EU

#88

Post by petraeus »

jstanley wrote: post #51
toyg wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I then want to leave the dinner which is only right But you would at least pay for what you ordered. Anyone just upping and leaving would be considered very rude, and nobody would invite him ever again.

But he's already paid for far more than what he's eaten. If anything, the others at the table should be giving him money back.

The difference here is between how children react and how grown ups react. In the grown up world your words along with the SPIRIT of their meaning underpins your actions. in this case all the parties agreed on splitting the costs, not retro actively changing the rules to suit themselves.

Re: Britain is, and was, deluded about its negotiating power with the EU

#89

Post by jstanley »

jjaredsimpson wrote: post #61
jstanley wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or UK citizens would not be able to buy products from the EU because there would be no agreements in place that'd allow companies in the EU to export goods. This is where you and I fundamentally disagree about how trade works. If I want to trade with a person in a foreign country, I don't see why our governments need to even know, let alone come up with some agreement. If the foreign person and I can agree a deal,…

This isn't a real argument. What if you agreed to buy slaves from a foreign person? Governments obviously have a real interest in what their citizen do regardless of where that activity takes place.

What if I'm buying non-slaves from a foreign person? What if I tried to buy slaves from a non-foreign person?

I'd argue the former is fine and the latter is still not fine. So international trade agreements are surplus to requirements, since basic decency is enforced anyway.

Re: Britain is, and was, deluded about its negotiating power with the EU

#90

Post by jstanley »

Anderkent wrote: post #67
jstanley wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or UK citizens would not be able to buy products from the EU because there would be no agreements in place that'd allow companies in the EU to export goods. This is where you and I fundamentally disagree about how trade works. If I want to trade with a person in a foreign country, I don't see why our governments need to even know, let alone come up with some agreement. If the foreign person and I can agree a deal,…

It works on reciprocity. If you never consider disallowing trade with some countries, you cannot use it as an argument when negotiating access to other country markets; and so you open yourself to exploitation via dues etc. And maybe if no one hindered trade in any way, everyone would be better; but you have no ability to decide what everyone does - only what you do yourself. Plus, there's actual reasons to think com…

But we have open unhindered and uninspected trade within countries, and we don't have out-of-control human trafficking within countries. Why is it different just because it crosses an imaginary line drawn on a map?
Post reply on HN