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'We're all worse off': Britain is now paying the price to leave the EU

theatlantic.com

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Re: 'We're all worse off': Britain is now paying the price to leave the EU

#31

Post by ZeroGravitas »

andrewstuart wrote: post #26

The strangest thing about brexit is that all it took was one single 50% vote to exit. After untold time, money, effort and history put into joining Europe, you’d have thought that tearing the whole thing down would have required best of three votes to exit, or a supermajority, or a 12 month cooldown followed by a deciding second vote, or an “time apart” period before ending the relationship. Instead all it took was s…

The vote wasn't binding, and didn't specify exactly what a vote to leave even meant so there were multiple points at which a functional state could have course corrected.

Re: 'We're all worse off': Britain is now paying the price to leave the EU

#32

Post by nly »

andrewstuart wrote: post #26

The strangest thing about brexit is that all it took was one single 50% vote to exit. After untold time, money, effort and history put into joining Europe, you’d have thought that tearing the whole thing down would have required best of three votes to exit, or a supermajority, or a 12 month cooldown followed by a deciding second vote, or an “time apart” period before ending the relationship. Instead all it took was s…

That's what people mean when they say don't "take things for granted". Peace, health, relationships. All can be destroyed in minutes.

Re: 'We're all worse off': Britain is now paying the price to leave the EU

#33

Post by tonyedgecombe »

garyfirestorm wrote: post #18
throwaway22032 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that too. So we basically have issues with imports, less foreign labour, a ridiculous tax burden and an energy crisis. At the same time.

I guess one way to compare would be how did the rest of EU do vs Britain? If everyone did poorly Brexit had no measurable effect.

That assumes Brexit had no affect on the rest of the EU. Seems unlikely to me.

Re: 'We're all worse off': Britain is now paying the price to leave the EU

#34

Post by quartz »

andrewstuart wrote: post #26

The strangest thing about brexit is that all it took was one single 50% vote to exit. After untold time, money, effort and history put into joining Europe, you’d have thought that tearing the whole thing down would have required best of three votes to exit, or a supermajority, or a 12 month cooldown followed by a deciding second vote, or an “time apart” period before ending the relationship. Instead all it took was s…

I remain flabbergasted that Brexit happened but wasn't the overwhelming victory of Boris Johnson & the conservative party at the end of 2019 basically a re-statement by the population that they wanted it?

IIRC that was basically a single issue election after which Brexit was more or less fast-tracked without continued internal opposition.

Up until that point there had been a series of delays and rejections of Brexit plans in parliament and it looked like it might not happen.

(I'm not British and have only watched this from afar so I'm actually curious about if this read is accurate.)

Re: 'We're all worse off': Britain is now paying the price to leave the EU

#35

Post by zvolsky »

pdimitar wrote: post #4

Can somebody from the UK confirm? It's been a hugely divisive topic from what I've gathered in the last years. Are things on average worse, or the same, or better?

As someone who has spent a significant amount of time in the UK and the Czech Republic (an EU country) since Brexit, both places are worse off now, but the Czech Republic is significantly more worse off than Britain. I have plenty of anecdotal evidence, but it suffices to look at inflation statistics, with Czechia at 15.1% and the UK at 9.07% for 2022. I haven't noticed any empty shelves, except for eggs, which were caused free-range chicken quarantine (according to a store worker). Maybe it's a coincidence, but as far as I can tell, this crisis has nothing to do with Brexit.

Re: 'We're all worse off': Britain is now paying the price to leave the EU

#36

Post by theGnuMe »

Jefro118 wrote: post #29
pdimitar wrote: post #4

Can somebody from the UK confirm? It's been a hugely divisive topic from what I've gathered in the last years. Are things on average worse, or the same, or better?

I would say things are worse but it's difficult to disentangle it from the other major events like Covid and the war. Also worth pointing out that the UK's economic stagnation began well before Brexit and goes back to the 2008 crash: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FvPzCWYXwAEoIRu?format=jpg&name=... . As someone who supports Brexit, I always thought there would be greater costs in the short term but getting out of insti…

The big mistake was that the uk went with austerity in 2008.

Re: 'We're all worse off': Britain is now paying the price to leave the EU

#37

Post by naveen99 »

airbreather wrote: post #3

Everyone except those that keep their money in the British offshore banking system, the real reason behind Brexit as Eu banking regs would have been a big problem. It is estimated that half of the worlds wealth resides in the British offshore banks.

Almost half of the worlds wealth is in real estate, which is hard to store offshore or in a bank. British banks probably store less than $5 trillion or less than 1% of global wealth.

Re: 'We're all worse off': Britain is now paying the price to leave the EU

#38

Post by pdimitar »

zvolsky wrote: post #35
pdimitar wrote: post #4

Can somebody from the UK confirm? It's been a hugely divisive topic from what I've gathered in the last years. Are things on average worse, or the same, or better?

As someone who has spent a significant amount of time in the UK and the Czech Republic (an EU country) since Brexit, both places are worse off now, but the Czech Republic is significantly more worse off than Britain. I have plenty of anecdotal evidence, but it suffices to look at inflation statistics, with Czechia at 15.1% and the UK at 9.07% for 2022. I haven't noticed any empty shelves, except for eggs, which were…

Interesting. So we can guess that this article (and others like it) observes local isolated phenomena?

Re: 'We're all worse off': Britain is now paying the price to leave the EU

#39

Post by tonyedgecombe »

Jefro118 wrote: post #29
pdimitar wrote: post #4

Can somebody from the UK confirm? It's been a hugely divisive topic from what I've gathered in the last years. Are things on average worse, or the same, or better?

I would say things are worse but it's difficult to disentangle it from the other major events like Covid and the war. Also worth pointing out that the UK's economic stagnation began well before Brexit and goes back to the 2008 crash: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FvPzCWYXwAEoIRu?format=jpg&name=... . As someone who supports Brexit, I always thought there would be greater costs in the short term but getting out of insti…

The trouble is the UK electorate has no appetite for the kind of changes that would make Brexit a success. Instead we are going to slowly creep back in over the coming decades. Having such a large trading block right on our doorstep makes that inevitable.

Re: 'We're all worse off': Britain is now paying the price to leave the EU

#40

Post by shawabawa3 »

quartz wrote: post #34
andrewstuart wrote: post #26

The strangest thing about brexit is that all it took was one single 50% vote to exit. After untold time, money, effort and history put into joining Europe, you’d have thought that tearing the whole thing down would have required best of three votes to exit, or a supermajority, or a 12 month cooldown followed by a deciding second vote, or an “time apart” period before ending the relationship. Instead all it took was s…

I remain flabbergasted that Brexit happened but wasn't the overwhelming victory of Boris Johnson & the conservative party at the end of 2019 basically a re-statement by the population that they wanted it? IIRC that was basically a single issue election after which Brexit was more or less fast-tracked without continued internal opposition. Up until that point there had been a series of delays and rejections of Brexit…

It's accurate in that that's what the government said, and they had a huge majority so could do whatever they wanted

But due to our awful electoral system, they achieved that with only around 40% of the vote

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