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UK triggers the official Brexit process in a letter to EU

bbc.com

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

#321

Post by pbhjpbhj »

JamesMcMinn wrote: post #164
mattmanser wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't help the EU is acting like a petulant wronged partner. We didn't even cheat on you! I mean, seriously, £68 billion for stuff we're not going to be able to use? Grow up and rework your budget. No trade negotiations until we leave? It makes them look like utter fools, one dose of actual democracy deciding they've had enough of backdoor federalisation and they're threatening every punishment they can think of…

> No trade negotiations until we leave? No trade negotiations until we official notify the EU that we are leaving, which makes nothing but sense from the EUs perspective.

Agreed, why would they spend money on trade negotiations when we might have an outbreak of common sense and decide to stay.

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

#322

Post by Symbiote »

paulajohnson wrote: post #305
sangnoir wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any that evidence the optimal administrative size for people not to feel "detached from the political process" is at state level? Why not further devolve sovereignty further to the british isles, regions, cities or counties? The absurdity of it all is that the Tories say "It's good to leave the union" when the subject is Brexit, while also saying "It's not good to leave the union" when the subject is Indyref…

The Nordic states are about 5M people each, and they routinely top the score cards for general wellbeing. Some people (who?) have suggested that 5M might be an optimal number.

Yet Sweden, Denmark and Finland are in the EU, and Norway and Iceland are in the EEA.

There's no big group wanting to change this.

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

#323

Post by pbhjpbhj »

cmdkeen wrote: post #129
themihai wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you didn't see a war between Germany and England though... Bosnia, Iraq etc were not part of the EU. The point was to create a closely integrated Europe so that war would become unthinkable just like a war between England and Scotland is unthinkable now. Of course it was nationalism which caused conflicts in Europe. Did democracy prevent Russia to invade Ukraine? UK simply decided the European project is not wo…

I'd argue we didn't see a war between Germany and England, or Britain as we are these days, as we were occupying them in the aftermath until 1949 and maintained a British Army of the Rhine there until 1994. The Allies also established a new Constitution and political consensus that is vehemently anti-war - witness German reluctance to be involved in fighting in recent NATO and other coalition conflicts. There's also…

>or Britain as we are these day //

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the country's designation I gather, at least based on the title of the head of state it is.

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

#324

Post by eyko »

nfbush wrote: post #306
mstade wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the hypocrisy of voting to remain and then championing the effort to leave. UK politics is so broken right now.

The poll was legally binding, they had to leave. Not that politics isn't broken ofc. EDIT I was wrong

The referendum was not legally binding.

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

#325

Post by JamesMcMinn »

ktzar wrote: post #307
JamesMcMinn wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that Spain is still recovering from flooding, cold weather and a bunch of other issues [1] that have made growing vegetables impossible in many areas, that's not really a surprise. [1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38666752

That's an article from almost 2 months ago.

...yes, it is. So what?

Vegetables don't just magically appear in minutes - they take weeks or months to grow, so bad winter has an effect which can last for most of the year.

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

#326

Post by XJOKOLAT »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #23
Two9A wrote: post #5

Are British HN'ers taking any mitigating steps due to this whole situation? I'm currently in the process of incorporating in the Netherlands, and it turns out setting up a Ltd is a lot more expensive over there than in the UK. I just don't feel that the UK will make good use of my tax receipts any more, so I'm almost obligated to take my work elsewhere.

> Are British HN'ers taking any mitigating steps due to this whole situation? Campaigning for the Liberal Democrats.

Hedged sterling.

Looking to move medium term. Bored of this place.

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

#327

Post by dev_head_up »

poooogles wrote: post #186
adnam wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Errr, no there was a clear majority vote for leaving the EU. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_United_Kingdom_...

With 72% turnout. I'm highlighting how stupid the idea that this is the will of the people is in reality.

A higher turnout than the referendum in 1975 (64.62%) to stay in... Does that mean it was never the will of people to be in (then) EC at all?

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

#328

Post by stephen_g »

gizmo wrote: post #167
dustinmoris wrote: post #51

I'm a bit tired of reading doomsday messages by now. I am an European living and working in the UK and even though this affects me I have no reason to believe that things will go downwards now. If there's anything I've learned so far then that every analysis I've read couldn't have been more wrong. It almost seems like the more the UK economy doesn't collapse the more people shout even louder how bad the Brexit is. M…

The UK economy will not collapse because of this, but it will cost them billions in the short term and a few basis points of yearly GDP growth for the next decade, and that really adds up. What's even worse is that the UK leaving the EU can destabilize the Euro, which is already on a knife's edge. If the Euro collapses we'll get a worldwide recession, with a staggering human cost. It's too easy to dismiss concerns as…

The late economist Wynne Godley explained why the Euro couldn't work in the long run and described how it would cause problems like Greece back in 1992 [1]. There is simply no way a supra-national currency could work without a federal budget. It's probably time to accept that the Euro will likely fail no matter what we do. Sadly, the people of Greece have already paid a terrible cost...

1. https://www.lrb.co.uk/v14/n19/wynne-godley/maastricht-and-al...

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

#329

Post by [deleted] »

s_kilk wrote: post #12
dijit wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's rather notable that the UK has the option of aborting this process during the 2 years. (According to an EU official who's name I forget), it's incredibly unlikely that anyone will go back on this though. The uncertainty of having this option available is bad for the UK though. Markets hate uncertainty.

Does it? I thought Article 50 was very much a 'hand grenade', once the pin is out there's no going back. If the two years run out without an agreement being reached, doesn't the UK just get chucked out and revert to WTO rules?

[deleted]

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

#330

Post by pbhjpbhj »

alkonaut wrote: post #292

Since the actual outcome now seems to be that it'sore England leaving the UK, than the UK leaving the EU - doesn't that constitute a huge change in circumstances, enough to warrant at least a parliamentary election before the exit is triggered? I mean, imagine if the Brexit ballot had said "Do you want for the UK to remain intact in the EU, or be broken apart with England and Wales leaving the EU?" Or if it had 3 opt…

>Leave would never had won. //

Depends, I still haven't worked out who ultimately is driving this shi(p|t) but it would have been relatively easy to get a lot of Scottish and Welsh people to vote to leave England based on a millennium of ill-sentiment that "we're being governed by them without a proper say" and to get the English to ditch the rest based on "they get more spent on them per capita" and writing a big number on a bus.

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