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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

#361

Post by mrcarrot »

coldtea wrote: post #314
mrcarrot wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That looks like a 'no', then. The UK not being able to make its own laws (as your original comment implied), seems to me to be a quite different thing to having to adopt EU directives (as you are now talking about), and I feel like it's exactly this kind of confusion (deliberate or otherwise) over the years that has contributed to the atmosphere that lead to Brexit.

> That looks like a 'no', then. I gave you a specific example. From this point on, I consider you a troll, but for the record: The play of words "directives vs laws" doesn't change the fact that UK law is trumped by EU law (sorry, "directives"). The fact that the UK can "make its own laws" is insignificant if those laws have to comply with EU directives (and if new EU directives invalidate UK laws). Nobody doubts tha…

Even the current UK government doesn't try to argue that the UK has lost its sovereignty by virtue of its EU membership. Its own white paper on Brexit acknowledged that the UK was still entirely sovereign.

For the record, I'm really not trolling, but my position on the sovereignty argument is that for me as a UK citizen, it just doesn't matter since I have such a minuscule say in how things are run either way. And I tend to find legislation that comes from the EU (like the abolition of mobile roaming charges, or the working time directive) far less objectionable than the laws that UK politicians draw up by themselves.

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

#362

Post by JPKab »

rbehrends wrote: post #188
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…

It is almost certain that the British economy will not collapse. That said, it is also virtually certain that there will be at least a loss of economic growth, possibly a recession. The worst prediction I've seen by reputable economists (though that was before it became clear that May was going to push for a hard Brexit) was a loss of 9% of GDP growth by 2030. The bigger problem is that Britain is already facing sign…

Is it possible that some of the areas outside of London may benefit by having more competitive trade pacts with individual nations outside of the EU?

One note on productivity in UK:

My observation of UK business culture can be summed up as low-energy and stagnant, and that's compared to US business culture, which I don't like. An example of this is how low developer salaries are in the UK compared to other nations, relative to managers and bosses. I was blown away by how overpaid the managers are in the UK, and how underpaid the "doers" are.

My company's UK office reflects this. They are a notably low-energy group compared to our other offices. There are bright lights who seem to be cowed into submission by a cultural norm of never showing excitement or passion in the workplace. I'm sure there are benefits to removing emotion from interactions to an extent, but wow does that feel suffocating.

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

#363

Post by matt4077 »

coldtea wrote: post #155
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, this is why there have never been empires, kings, large nations or organized groups that have subsumed smaller groups around them, the United States, Great Britain itself, or any organization of peoples greater than just one lone man standing in a field bellowing 'ME!' at the emptiness.

"Independence" it's not about some lone man bellowing "ME". It's about like-minded people sharing a common culture (as developed historically up to some point), over a hodge podge of states being united by sheer power or top-down dictum. Empires and kings ruled thanks to tons of bloodshed and continued vigilance and stomping of revolts. The "Great Britain" itself is a bad example -- it lost colony after colony due to…

There's nothing that says that "top-down dictum" doesn't work for nation building. Indeed, looking at history, it's the only thing that ever did. From a purely bottom-up approach, your feeling of connection to someone else would be a linear function of distance to them. In such a world, it would be impossible to have a border between two people just a mile from each other, with people on each side speaking different languages.

Indeed, the whole concept of the nation-state was a top-down inventions. And possibly not the best, especially when some borders were famously drawn by British people with too much gin in their blood.

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

#364

Post by dingaling »

enraged_camel wrote: post #319
CPLX wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really not. The American states were a loosely organized confederacy at outset as well. India has multiple languages. And of course the long history of empires, like the Ottoman, or Spanish control of Latin America. Yes they rise and fall, but often over the course of centuries and well out of the observational abilities of the human lifespan. There's nothing inevitable about the EU, in either direction.

America, as well as all empires in history, were created and then kept together via military force. In contrast, the EU started out peacefully as a trade organization. Membership in it is purely voluntary. This makes it quite unique.

> Membership in it is purely voluntary. This makes it quite unique.

NATO arose from the ashes of conflict but membership is entirely voluntary, and unlike leaving the EU there is no talk of 'punishing' those who no longer wish to remain.

For example France left the NATO integrated military structure in 1996 and rejoined in 2009 without penalty.

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

#366

Post by hrehhf »

ck425 wrote: post #116
JamesMcMinn wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You haven't been affected by the changes because nothing has happened yet. This is the start of the negotiations to decide what those changes will be. And when I say nothing has happened yet, I mean apart from the massive drop in the value of sterling and inflation massively outstripping wage increases. I assume you're based in London, which means you're fairly isolated from the social changes that have happened acro…

Not to mention the majority of people reading HN are in favorable economic situations, so will be among the least effected if/when shit hits the fan. That said there is a large opportunity for change post EU if we go after it. Unfortunately that would require strong unified leadership from the left / non-tories.

Where did you get data on the economic situation of HN readers?

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

#367

Post by hellrich »

rayiner wrote: post #308
folli wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely see the advantages of having common standards, tariff agreements etc. to make trade across borders easier (i.e. something akin to the European Economic Area). I'm however also a proponent of federalism, because I believe that for a democracy to truly work it is necessary that the people still feel responsible for their votes and their decisions. This is something which I'm missing in centralised and unit…

What's at stake here is more fundamental than federalism: it's self determination. Throughout history, discrete groups have waged wars of independence to ensure that they can have a government that reflects their shared history, culture, and values. My family is from Bangladesh, which fought a war to separate from Pakistan over cultural/linguistic differences. In another example, Israel is engaged in an existential b…

The alternative of competing nation states lead to two world wars. Even a less than perfect EU seems far preferable to a third one.

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

#368

Post by davedx »

folli wrote: post #154
ealexhudson wrote: post #3

I'm a big believer in not having assumptions and testing things with actual experiments. This is one experiment I'd rather not be participating in, though. It's difficult to see very much positive about this move; certainly there will be some benefits, but I expect greatly outweighed by the negatives (which will include higher prices, lower employment and probably lower standards for UK workers - the EU has consisten…

I absolutely see the advantages of having common standards, tariff agreements etc. to make trade across borders easier (i.e. something akin to the European Economic Area). I'm however also a proponent of federalism, because I believe that for a democracy to truly work it is necessary that the people still feel responsible for their votes and their decisions. This is something which I'm missing in centralised and unit…

> it is certainly shifting away democratic power from a more regional democratic system to a centralised government.

The Treaty of Lisbon indicates otherwise: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Lisbon

How is the EU centralising further?

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

#369

Post by djmobley »

Chaebixi wrote: post #280
Svip wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the EU does have a directly elected parliament? So where's the lack of democracy in the EU?

> But the EU does have a directly elected parliament? So where's the lack of democracy in the EU? I'm not a European, but could it be that the bloc has gotten so large that an individual's vote is so diluted that it feels like it's not a democracy? Especially considering the number of different nationalities and language-groups of various sizes that are supposed to be represented by that one body. I think federalism…

Also note that EU bureaucracy is utterly bewildering to anyone who does not spend their whole life following it.

The average British person has no idea how the EU works. They don't know what the different bodies are. They don't know who their representative(s) are. They don't know how to make their voices heard. Maybe a third of people vote in the elections, and they don't really know what they're voting for.

What kind of democracy is that?

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

#370

Post by pluma »

martinald wrote: post #281
pluma wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The often cited claim that the EU is undemocratic stems from a difference of opinion what "democratic" actually means. First of all: there is barely any nation that is truly democratic in the historic sense of the word. Most democracies are actually representational systems: citizens don't vote on every single issue, they elect someone to represent them and vote in their name. Who each representative actually represe…

You make good points, but the problem is in most countries knowledge of MEPs is close to nil. Turnout for European Parliament elections is also abysmal, in the UK 35%, NL 37% and even France and Germany are in the low 40s. It would be even lower if other elections weren't tagged along with the EU ones (eg usually the UK has local elections at the same time). There is an enormous amount of voter apathy towards the EU…

As I understand it you're saying "the EU is undemocratic because we don't want to participate in its most direct democratic process".

Do I need to point out why that argument is flawed?

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