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

The UK's Brexit dream is dead

politico.eu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 85 posts

Re: The UK's Brexit dream is dead

#61

Post by Rinzler89 »

rsynnott wrote: post #53
robertlagrant wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She is correct. I really doubt anyone will care in practice, unless they're conditioned to care.

Thing is, the UK _was_ conditioned to care about this sort of thing, over a period of decades. Remember the bendy bananas? Basically since the UK joined, the UK's media engaged in a sustained campaign to convince people that EU regulations were unreasonable. The EC actually had a website for this at one point: https://web.archive.org/web/20200131192225/https://blogs.ec....

>Remember the bendy bananas?

The WHAT?

Re: The UK's Brexit dream is dead

#62

Post by mmaniac »

Rinzler89 wrote: post #61
rsynnott wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thing is, the UK _was_ conditioned to care about this sort of thing, over a period of decades. Remember the bendy bananas? Basically since the UK joined, the UK's media engaged in a sustained campaign to convince people that EU regulations were unreasonable. The EC actually had a website for this at one point: https://web.archive.org/web/20200131192225/https://blogs.ec....

>Remember the bendy bananas? The WHAT ?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromyth#Straight_bananas

Re: The UK's Brexit dream is dead

#63

Post by maxehmookau »

jfengel wrote: post #16
maxehmookau wrote: post #8

Anyone who thought the Brexit dream was going to be anything other than a nightmare was either a fraud, or convinced by one.

Oddly, it's not nearly the disaster I anticipated. It looks like an ordinary weak economy, the kind you get from time to time. It's certainly a disaster compared to "we hold all the cards", said by a fraud and many were convinced by that fraud. I hope they are coming to understand that relative nightmare and turn out the fraudsters for a very long time. At the end of that time I suspect they'll find themselves mostly…

It depends who you are.

If you're a small business that traded with the EU, it was a disaster. If you're a consumer who buys things from the EU, it was a disaster. If you were an assistance dog owner that travelling regularly to the EU, it was a disaster. If you were a young person hoping to study in the EU, it's a disaster.

If you're fairly rich/wealthy now, then sure, it's basically fine.

Re: The UK's Brexit dream is dead

#65

Post by beej71 »

rsynnott wrote: post #52
lucozade wrote: post #42

> Sorry Boris, your Euroskeptic vision has failed in so many ways. > Boris Johnson is out of parliament, making millions from speeches and newspaper columns. I'm pretty sure Boris thinks he succeeded just fine. The rest of the country, not so much. > All the key Vote Leave characters have left the stage. I get why you'd want to try to forget about Nigel Farage but the article even has a graph showing how spectacularl…

Well, yeah, they basically say it in the office; Boris got to be famous, and paid millions, which is, one assumes, what he was going for in the first place. The idea that he was doing any of this out of deeply-held principles always seemed... a bit naive.

Speaking as someone in the US, I certainly recognize the theme. Apparently quite effective, historically-speaking.

Re: The UK's Brexit dream is dead

#66

Post by fmajid »

martinald wrote: post #12

I've always thought actually Brexit supported the left much more than the right. I think we see that with two of Labour's key manifesto pledges would be either impossible or very difficult to do with EU/SM membership. Firstly - VAT cannot be levied on private school fees under EU law. Potentially you could argue for some exemption but I think it would be very slow. Secondly - Labour's idea of "nationalising" the UK r…

> Labour's idea of "nationalising" the UK railways

Has already been implemented by the Tories, as all the private rail operators essentially went insolvent, Covid being the coup de grâce. That would be allowed under EU rules.

Re: The UK's Brexit dream is dead

#67

Post by fmajid »

rsynnott wrote: post #52
lucozade wrote: post #42

> Sorry Boris, your Euroskeptic vision has failed in so many ways. > Boris Johnson is out of parliament, making millions from speeches and newspaper columns. I'm pretty sure Boris thinks he succeeded just fine. The rest of the country, not so much. > All the key Vote Leave characters have left the stage. I get why you'd want to try to forget about Nigel Farage but the article even has a graph showing how spectacularl…

Well, yeah, they basically say it in the office; Boris got to be famous, and paid millions, which is, one assumes, what he was going for in the first place. The idea that he was doing any of this out of deeply-held principles always seemed... a bit naive.

Boris picked Brexit as a vehicle to unseat his buddy Cameron, and couldn't care about the consequences for ordinary Brits. It was a hugely cynical choice, but entirely rational. Sunak, on the other hand, was a true believer. Yes, he may be disciplined and hard-working the way Johnson never could be, but there is nothing quite as destructive as a diligent moron.

Re: The UK's Brexit dream is dead

#68

Post by fmajid »

rsynnott wrote: post #53
robertlagrant wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She is correct. I really doubt anyone will care in practice, unless they're conditioned to care.

Thing is, the UK _was_ conditioned to care about this sort of thing, over a period of decades. Remember the bendy bananas? Basically since the UK joined, the UK's media engaged in a sustained campaign to convince people that EU regulations were unreasonable. The EC actually had a website for this at one point: https://web.archive.org/web/20200131192225/https://blogs.ec....

Except much of the media in question are not the UK's media, being owned by a US citizen, Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch had to renounce his Australian citizenship as the US doesn't allow foreigners to own media like Fox there, but the UK doesn't have such basic precautions against foreign influence, and ends up with grotesque situations like Eugene Lebedev (now Lord Lebedev), heir of a KGB agent, owning a major newspaper, The Independent.

Re: The UK's Brexit dream is dead

#69

Post by coldtea »

dave4420 wrote: post #4
coldtea wrote: post #2

> Radical plans to tear EU regulations off Britain’s statute books en masse have already been abandoned. The benefits of buccaneering free trade agreements (FTAs) have proved elusive. Britain's public services, far from receiving a promised boost, have in many cases almost stopped working. The number of people moving to Britain from abroad is higher than ever. It’s not what advocates of Leave had in mind. No, but it'…

Of the three Prime Ministers we’ve had since leaving the EU, two had campaigned for Brexit. (The other was outlasted by a lettuce.) If Conservative Prime Ministers aren’t part of the establishment, who is?

>two had campaigned for Brexit

They used it as a marketing trick and got stuck with it when the vote came in. Didn't plan to implement the changes people wanted it for, and didn't.

Re: The UK's Brexit dream is dead

#70

Post by fmajid »

rsynnott wrote: post #29
jfengel wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly, it's not nearly the disaster I anticipated. It looks like an ordinary weak economy, the kind you get from time to time. It's certainly a disaster compared to "we hold all the cards", said by a fraud and many were convinced by that fraud. I hope they are coming to understand that relative nightmare and turn out the fraudsters for a very long time. At the end of that time I suspect they'll find themselves mostly…

> It looks like an ordinary weak economy, the kind you get from time to time. The real question is, can they get out of it? It's one thing to do it for a few years, but, if nothing else, they can't afford to run current budget deficits forever, and they don't have _that_ much scope for increasing revenue other than growing the economy. And really that deficit is with spending lower than it should be; public services…

The weak economy existed before Brexit. The UK under Thatcher replaced industry with financial services chicanery, and never recovered from the 2008 crisis. Now it's even lost its business in money-laundering to Dubai and has to rebuild from scratch. Labour has sensible policies on curbing the NIMBYs, mainly Tories, who block desperately-needed construction or building the power grid needed to transport renewable energy from Scotland to England, and that alone could provide a significant boost to growth for a decade or two if they can deliver.
Post reply on HN