501–510 of 1001 posts
It's amazing that such deep constitutional change will be achieved with such a slim majority. 48% of British people will be ejected out of the EU essentially against their will. The UK has always embraced first past the post voting, but it really shows here how it creates very discontinuous inflection points.
As other comments have noted, the point is that the EU will not want to give the UK a good deal on leaving, because the EU does not want to give any encouragement to the other countries which want to leave the EU (some of which want to leave more strongly than the UK do - apparently). Secondly, why would the UK end up with a Norway or Switzerland deal, when the UK is the 5th largest economy in the world? This is unpr…
Of course the EU will continue to threaten the UK to "reconsider" its decision. But the fact remains that countries like Switzerland and Norway are much better off in economic terms by not having joined the EU in the first place. Citizens of the UK have to ask themselves if they are going to allow the EU to threaten them into submission. I am now 100% sure that the EU is done, this is it. Le Pen will win the next ele…
Eh, no. 58% wants to remain, 26% leave (numbers as of two weeks ago). The Dutch realize much more than the Brits how much we depend on tight integration with others (as a small country, as a heavy trader, but also as less inward-looking as the Brits).
A very sad day for everyone in Europe. The EU is not only about trade regulations, but about a continent who had a not very peaceful history finally growing together. The freedom of movement for European citizens was not only "convenient" but in fact an important civil right. When you live or have a business in one state of the US, you are bound to local regulations of course, but being part of the US granted you a l…
The US did not magic itself into existence as a united state. It began in common purpose with a shared, very strong, external enemy. It then assigned itself a shared dream of settling the content. And, crucially, it already had a shared cultural identity, shared language, and shared religion when it began. The EU does not have a common enemy to force it together. It does not have a shared language, or culture, or ide…
Honestly you and the old people voted are small-minded parochial idiots. I'm leaving this dead country as soon as I can
You can't comment like this on HN, and if you do it again we will ban you. Please post civilly and substantively, or not at all.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11967357 and marked it off-topic.
In my opinion the biggest issue in this campaign has been the propaganda. Already Nigel Farage has been on TV admitting one of the campaigns ads was completely wrong and any one I've seen defending a leave vote simply has the response "we couldn't let things stay the same". On both sides, despite months of campaigning, voters are completely uneducated on the consequences of either decision.
A very sad day for everyone in Europe. The EU is not only about trade regulations, but about a continent who had a not very peaceful history finally growing together. The freedom of movement for European citizens was not only "convenient" but in fact an important civil right. When you live or have a business in one state of the US, you are bound to local regulations of course, but being part of the US granted you a l…
The US did not magic itself into existence as a united state. It began in common purpose with a shared, very strong, external enemy. It then assigned itself a shared dream of settling the content. And, crucially, it already had a shared cultural identity, shared language, and shared religion when it began. The EU does not have a common enemy to force it together. It does not have a shared language, or culture, or ide…
And a special thank you from Canada. This vote is going to give Quebec ideas again.
I'll take my UK company home to Germany at the end of the year. No need for a base in a non-EU-country.
Have you considered Estonia?
Yet another example that immigration policy trumps pretty well all other concerns. This has played out several times in Australia. 5% of the population suddenly voted for a nationalist candidate Pauline Hanson who came from nowhere, had no policies, no credibility and no clue just because she was against immigration. Major political parties took note that day, and since then they have in various roundabout ways adopt…
Of course it raises the question of what happens down the road. The problem with advocating extreme anti-immigration policies is you have to take great care to never actually succeed, since if you ever do and things go badly you're left without a nebulous external boogeyman to blame.
A very sad day for everyone in Europe. The EU is not only about trade regulations, but about a continent who had a not very peaceful history finally growing together. The freedom of movement for European citizens was not only "convenient" but in fact an important civil right. When you live or have a business in one state of the US, you are bound to local regulations of course, but being part of the US granted you a l…
> The freedom of movement for European citizens UK was not part of Schengen. As such, it was always more difficult to go to/from the UK. Foreigners having a Schengen visa (work permit) still need an expensive Visa to go to UK. Then there's the pound instead of having the Euro. What was more easy is _permanently_ moving from UK to e.g. Spain (which happens a lot). Finding work in another EU country and being able to l…
UK opting out of Schengen has nothing to do with it, EU citizens are visa-exempted and I as a European have traveled to the UK many times without a visa.