Live data from Hacker News

UK votes to leave EU

bbc.co.uk

581–590 of 1001 posts

Re: UK votes to leave EU

#581
post #468

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…

Well that was unexpected but I guess not that unexpected since only British citizens were asked.

If all the people living in the UK regardless of citizenship were asked the result would have been different.

I wasn't allowed to vote even though I've been living in the UK over 5 years since I'm not a British citizen for example.

Edit: if you're going to down-vote at least explain your reasoning.

Re: UK votes to leave EU

#582

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…

Switzerland and Norway have joined the EU in all but name (and voting rights) economically; all the trade-related EU directives apply and their borders are actually more open and let in more EU migrants per capita.

Of course the UK has the option of going for the same deal, but if they do, a lot of the Leave voters are going to feel very, very betrayed.

Re: UK votes to leave EU

#583
post #561
post #468

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…

* EU has got to deliver * It needs to show that it can provide solutions for the euro financial crisis and the refugee crisis. Solutions that are sound, long term and have popular backing. It has shown that it cannot. And thus we europeans are better of with a smaller, simpler european cooperation of independent nation states. At least this should be the very real threat the EU politicians should operate under. We ne…

These are difficult problems without a good answer. Will the smaller independent nations be able to provide a better answer to these problems? I seriously doubt they will.

Re: UK votes to leave EU

#584
post #468

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…

What is weird is that english is the de facto language throughout the EU. There is so much integration that the new regulation will have to effectively re-establish the rights lost by brexit. UK will have to essentially become switzerland. I cannot see it being differently without people from both sides literally rioting.

Switzerland had to agree to freedom of movement of persons in order to get a free trade deal with the EU. The UK, on the other hand, is flat out opposed to freedom of movement, so it seems unlikely they'll manage to get the same conditions as the Swiss with regards to trade.

Re: UK votes to leave EU

#585
post #468

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…

> A very large part (about 75%) voted to stay in Europe

Can you share the source of this data? I'd be interested in investigating.

I agree with everything that you said. Taking a glimpse at the history of the EU starting from the 2nd WW, Bretton Woods, Nixon Shock brought us 2008 is very well documented in Varoufakis latest book[1].

I travelled lately from Greece to Bulgaria and to Turkey. Having border controls really feels like 1980 and I believe it adds NOTHING to security. It's just a sign of hostility towards the neighbour country. Ideally borders should be like the ones the Swiss have with Austria or Austrians with Czechs.

But unlike technology, society progresses in cycles... My hope is that brussels will get re-shaped in a more democratic way, stop abiding to stupid rules and start looking after the prosperity of the remaining members of the Eurozone. But doesn't look good :-(

[1] "And the week suffer what they must?", goodreads URL: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24886497-and-the-weak-su...

Re: UK votes to leave EU

#586
post #95

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.

That's what a democracy is all about, isn't it? Isn't it insane how close the race between G.W. Bush and Al Gore was in 2000? Consider the consequences of that decision for a moment. And the voter turnout was only 51.2% in that election, not ~70%. Saying that in the end a small amount of voters make all the difference, that's true in so many cases... At least regarding the Brexit-vote no one can complain that there w…

> And the voter turnout was only 51.2% in that election, not ~70%. Saying that in the end a small amount of voters make all the difference, that's true in so many cases...

And the voter turnout in the US only matters for the 18 or so contested states - so it's misleading to talk about really..

Re: UK votes to leave EU

#587
post #426

We are all talking about economics but the whole deal is way more noble than mere money. No European ever has never think "woow this shinny $consumer_object is been produced inside the EU so I don't get to pay the import tax" but every single European younger than 50 at least once in its life has open up the Ryanair website and thought "for 30€ I guess this weekend I will be in London/Paris/Berlin/Madrid/Rome". The w…

IMHO, the opportunity was taken away by Merkel, not the older English population.

Merkel welcomed migrants/refugees into Germany which ultimately meant EU due to no border control. This opened the flood gate and increased the fear factor in older English people.

I'm not talking about if it was wrong/right. Just stating an event.

Re: UK votes to leave EU

#588
This vote achieves two objectives. The first is to clarify the position of UK in Europe that has always been ambiguous. The second is to weaken the leadership of Germany showing clearly that they are leading in the wrong direction.In the end I believe that the long term conseguences will be beneficial for the rest of Europe.But UK has to pay the conseguences of their choices. I was already strongly skeptical, after the LIBOR scandal, about having London as the main stock exchange in Europe. After this vote I am completely against it: I want the main European stock exchange to BE IN EUROPE. Frankfurt or Paris are the most natural candidates.

Re: UK votes to leave EU

#589
post #585
post #468

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…

> A very large part (about 75%) voted to stay in Europe Can you share the source of this data? I'd be interested in investigating. I agree with everything that you said. Taking a glimpse at the history of the EU starting from the 2nd WW, Bretton Woods, Nixon Shock brought us 2008 is very well documented in Varoufakis latest book[1]. I travelled lately from Greece to Bulgaria and to Turkey. Having border controls real…

> I travelled lately from Greece to Bulgaria and to Turkey. Having border controls really feels like 1980 and I believe it adds NOTHING to security. It's just a sign of hostility towards the neighbour country. Ideally borders should be like the ones the Swiss have with Austria or Austrians with Czechs.

UK border controls, though, probably aren't going to change much. They never had open borders, although they did - and will probably continue to - have mutual agreements on somewhat less strict border formalities with most Schengen countries (eg. a national ID is enough to enter, no passport required, but you still have to go through passport control).

Post reply on HN