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UK formally leaves European Union after 48 years

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Re: UK formally leaves European Union after 48 years

#111

Post by mjburgess »

dmje wrote: post #52
albertgoeswoof wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, trade deals and international relationships are bipartisan issues, labour’s last leader was anti EU for decades. The party lines in the UK are drawn along class and aspirational values, not policy decisions- although when a referendum is called 2 sides always step out to divide up the electorate in their favour

Agree. I'd always argue that this was broadly an anti austerity / inequality vote: people just basically pissed off with having a rubbish life voting against some notion of "authority" or "centralisation". The sad fact is that it's exactly these people (in the Midlands, NE, those on lower wages, in rural communities, etc) who (generalising a bit, not much) voted out - these are the communities who will be hit hardest…

I think this analysis has been shown to be false. This does not apply to significant majority of leavers.

It explains a minor boost on the left, not main leaver sentiment.

Re: UK formally leaves European Union after 48 years

#112

Post by mhh__ »

echelon wrote: post #30
hnracer wrote: post #9

.

Exactly what China and Russia want. This weakens the UK and the EU. We should be coming together, not fracturing into scared, nationalistic islands.

> Russia want

In writing, even, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics

Re: UK formally leaves European Union after 48 years

#113

Post by cycrutchfield »

wincy wrote: post #83
hnracer wrote: post #9

.

People on Hacker News, being in general the knowledge workers and (at least in our minds) the intelligentsia that we are, have particular disdain for democracies doing things they disagree with. I remember the day after Brexit passed my high school friend who was then working on her PhD in international theory asking how the government could revert such a decision. It seemed like the most out of touch ivory tower thi…

It was a nonbinding referendum. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to ask why important policy decisions are being made by a simple majority of the voting public.

Re: UK formally leaves European Union after 48 years

#114

Post by vimy »

Arnt wrote: post #110
vimy wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The European identity is not tied to the European union but to a shared culture and history. Or are Swiss and Norse people also not European?

The EU vote in Norway almost 30 years ago was very, very different from the British Brexit affair. Luckily for us Norwegians, we didn't suffer from anyone like Mark Francois, for example. Of course you could say that Brexit has nothing to do with British culture.

The point is that European culture is not linked to the European Union.

Re: UK formally leaves European Union after 48 years

#115

Post by prof-dr-ir »

A sad day indeed, and - as predicted widely - there is not a substantial upside to Brexit in sight.

Following UK politics, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the country is being held hostage by a Conservative (and Unionist, hah) party: past governments have been singularly focused on keeping the party in power and the country be damned. But this is not all: I think Brexit could have been much less destructive if it were not for the remarkable incompetence of and rash decision making of the last few governments.

It has been fascinating to see a country play its hand so immensely badly, even more so because the hand did not even need to be played.

Re: UK formally leaves European Union after 48 years

#116

Post by runarberg »

533474 wrote: post #70
dmje wrote: post #15

Yay. Now we're free. Oh wait, no, it's just that absolutely everything got harder, more expensive, more nationalistic, more pathetic and sad. It's all incredibly depressing. Here's hoping our kids manage to vote us back in as soon as those Tory f's are out.

Personal opinion. Tribalism prevails, humans have no fix. Perhaps in another reality or dimension it is conceivable for people to come together and form a truly resourceful world government. Wait till you see how the lack of world coordination keeps this virus thriving in half of the planet. While we plot beautiful statistics to show which tribe has less cases in a non-uniform response. Hail the great UK for awakenin…

By that logic we would expect the German states to vote them self out of the German federation, Scotland and Wales to vote them self out of the UK, Nigeria to break apart, etc. And not only that we should expect it to happen with hostility towards the old nation, e.g. no trade unions after independence (unlike e.g. Catalonia not only voting them self out of Spain, but also out of the EU).

However that seems not be happening, nor does there seem to be any will towards it.

It seems people actually quite like each other, and they like to be able to visit each other, and trade with each other, even though they speak different language or have different religion. In fact in the world today, tribalism seems to becoming more and more on fringe.

I don’t believe for a second that people voted for Brexit because of tribalism. Some might have, but they were definitely a tiny minority.

Re: UK formally leaves European Union after 48 years

#118

Post by Sebguer »

rhexs wrote: post #102
noncoml wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I visit UK often because of family ties. The most frequent answer I get when I ask people why they voted to leave is that foreigners come over and take their jobs and put a strain on NHS, vaguely referencing the influx of Polish immigrants they got when Poland entered the EU. So maybe not racists, but xenophobes for sure.

Does wanting one’s own country to focus on its citizens first make one a xenophobe?

Yes, nationalism and xenophobia go hand in hand.

Re: UK formally leaves European Union after 48 years

#119

Post by sien »

shirro wrote: post #20
vizzier wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might not be all bad if we get CANZUK out of it. Here's hoping.

Except the ex-colonies want nothing to do with the UK. We can smell the fear and desperation. There is nothing in it for us. We aren't going to bail out the UK or take the influx of economic refugees.

There are 100K Australians in the UK.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australians_in_the_United_King...

There are 900K plus Australians who were born in the UK. Australians who have a British parent or grandparent and can thus get a UK passport would number in the millions.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/almost-30-per-cent-of-the-austra...

Two of Australia's last 3 Prime Ministers did part of their University Education in the UK.

The ties between Australia and the UK are substantial. Many Australians would be keen to work with the UK for some kind of trade deal.

A CANZUK style deal wouldn't be the EU, but it might be beneficial to the countries involved.

Re: UK formally leaves European Union after 48 years

#120

Post by w_t_payne »

mhh__ wrote: post #99
rhexs wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not wanting to be in the EU makes you a racist how exactly? Are we using the word “racist” in the same way as it was applied in the last four years in America?

We're relatively lucky in the UK that our problems with racism are generally subtle enough to be missed by Americans - the EU referendum was fought on seriously dodgy grounds (even ignoring the lying) https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/16/nigel-farag... for example. With the EU the racism on display is usually against eastern European migrants rather than black people. That is not to say that even the most…

It's complicated. I know some minority ethnic British people who voted for Brexit for entirely xenophobic reasons ... and others who would swear up and down that they were not racist one minute, and then spend the next spouting the most hateful sort of lies. Fear and hatred are powerful emotions, and the flames of discontent have been fanned for years by tabloid propaganda and industrialised hate.
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