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

A Scenario Where Brexit Does Not Actually Happen

qz.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 108 posts

Re: A Scenario Where Brexit Does Not Actually Happen

#61

Post by threeseed »

chvid wrote: post #23
grey-area wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in London I find your respect for Johnson surprising. Here is is a summary of his achievements, most of which began before he was involved: http://www.londonlovesbusiness.com/business-news/politics/ex... The push for a better and bigger airport on the estuary was a good idea IMO, even if it failed, otherwise it struggle to think of any concrete achievements. I doubt he'll make it to prime minister though, for…

My point is merely that he got elected in London which is not an easy thing for a conservative. UK's decision and how it will be handled will have very big influence over the rest of Europe and will set the agenda for the growing EU opposition here. The media frames this as an (almost isolated) UK problem but it really is not. It is about the EU.

Boris is not a conservative in the typical sense though. He's a populist like Trump.

And for at least the next few years it will all be about the UK. In particular all the internal work of redefining its relationship with the EU e.g. diplomatic, trade as well as figuring out what to do about EU regulations.

I would be surprised if any EU country has the appetite to hold another referendum when they see what it is in store.

Re: A Scenario Where Brexit Does Not Actually Happen

#62

Post by TheCondor »

thomasfoster96 wrote: post #14

Well that pretty much nails it. While on paper it still looks like Boris Johnson is in a great position to the vast majority of the public, the next Prime Minister is going to have to follow through with what they know is a terrible idea, negotiate with the EU with remarkably less leverage than the 'Leave' campaign thought they had, try to deal with Scotland wanting to leave, restless regional pressure groups in Wale…

If this hyper politics game is real, what was the exit plan? There was simply no way it would pass? Or Cameron wants to stay in power so bad that he'd do the dirty work that the people willed and taje the fall for whatever fallout comes?

Re: A Scenario Where Brexit Does Not Actually Happen

#63

Post by threeseed »

wmil wrote: post #40
gpvos wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is still a trade agreement between the UK and the EU, then lots of things in the UK will still be controlled by the EU, as the EU is larger and will make the trade rules. (Also, the EU is quite bureaucratic and thus not so flexible, so it will not be very willing to make a special agreement with the UK. It's EEA, Canada-style, WTO-style, or nothing.) If you don't want the EU controlling any aspect of the UK,…

Right now small businesses in the UK that don't export at all have to comply with all EU rules. If the UK leaves then they won't. So the effective influence will be greatly reduced.

That's assuming that the UK doesn't establish similar rules.

Many of the EU regulations are designed to help consumers e.g. data protection.

Re: A Scenario Where Brexit Does Not Actually Happen

#64

Post by arethuza »

bodyfour wrote: post #57
peteretep wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corbyn has been spectacularly underwhelming. His getting the boot doesn't feel like self-destruction to me.

Absolutely, but he's still highly popular with the membership. If the parliamentary party picked the leader, he never would be within sight of the job. Unfortunately Labour is in the all-to-familiar trap of only wanting purity, feeling that the entire country will surely swing to the far-left any second now. You would think being out of power for 18 years last time would have taught them, but apparently not. Had they…

"he's still highly popular with the membership."

A large proportion of which probably just voted for Brexit - I think Corbyn wasn't that keen on the EU in the first place and knew that a lot of core Labour voters weren't keen on it either.

Re: A Scenario Where Brexit Does Not Actually Happen

#65

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

Here's why BoJo's face, sad or smiley, doesn't matter one bit:

The foreign ministers of the EU’s six founding members, however, demanded Britain start proceedings “as soon as possible” to avoid a long and potentially damaging period of uncertainty.

The Dutch foreign minister, Bert Koenders, told the Volkskrant: “We can’t have the kind of dithering Boris Johnson is suggesting. Everyone wants clarity: people, businesses, financial markets.”

France’s foreign minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, urged Cameron to step down soon, saying: “A new prime minister must be designated – that will take a few days. But there is a certain urgency.” He added: “We have to give a new sense to Europe, otherwise populism will fill the gap.”

The rest of the EU is not going to take this shit lightly when it is bad for business and it's also threatening to overturn the status quo and give a run for power to the Farages of the continent. If Boris, or whoever becomes the next PM, decides to procrastinate, the result will only be even more pain in the disengagement talks.

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/26/eu-founding-...

Re: A Scenario Where Brexit Does Not Actually Happen

#66

Post by arethuza »

TheCondor wrote: post #62
thomasfoster96 wrote: post #14

Well that pretty much nails it. While on paper it still looks like Boris Johnson is in a great position to the vast majority of the public, the next Prime Minister is going to have to follow through with what they know is a terrible idea, negotiate with the EU with remarkably less leverage than the 'Leave' campaign thought they had, try to deal with Scotland wanting to leave, restless regional pressure groups in Wale…

If this hyper politics game is real, what was the exit plan? There was simply no way it would pass? Or Cameron wants to stay in power so bad that he'd do the dirty work that the people willed and taje the fall for whatever fallout comes?

"There was simply no way it would pass?"

Pretty much - even Farage seemed to be positioning himself for a narrow Remain win (in particular his 52%-48% comments about a second referendum).

Re: A Scenario Where Brexit Does Not Actually Happen

#67

Post by thomasfoster96 »

IsaacL wrote: post #58
bodyfour wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arg.. I just spent a half hour writing a long comment on this article, but then Chrome crashed when I hit "submit". I'll try to briefly retype my thoughts here since you've covered some of them. It's quite clear that Boris did not want the referendum to win. While (like all tories) he would occasionally grumble about Brussels nobody considered him anti-EU during his time as mayor. He was, however, obviously after the…

> It's quite clear that Boris did not want the referendum to win. It's not clear to me. I think you are taking it as self-evident that Leave is a bad idea. In the mainstream narrative, the EU is associated with everything nice and international and the only reason to be against it is if you're a crazy old-fashioned nationalist. There's a classical liberal case for Brexit, though, which Gove articulated reasonably wel…

> There's a classical liberal case for Brexit, though, which Gove articulated reasonably well.

I don't know that much about Gove's position, but from what I can tell it has little to do with classical liberalism and a lot more to do with nationalism. The classical liberal case was that the EU is a fundamentally broken organisation and it is beyond reform.

> The media is really playing up this angle. Vote Leave isn't the government and the referendum wasn't a general election where the campaigners campaign on a particular manifesto. There is now more money in the UK budget, where it gets spent is up to the next PM.

But voters treated it as such. It's pretty clear that a sizeable number of voters - probably not enough to change result vote but still perhaps 5% - were registering an anti-government vote. While the next PM might have more money, there will be a major backlash if it doesn't get used to replace EU funding, and the decisions about funding will now be debated in London, not Brussels.

Re: A Scenario Where Brexit Does Not Actually Happen

#69

Post by thomasfoster96 »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #60
thomasfoster96 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can analyse faces all you want, but whoever the next Prime Minister is, they have a tough job that will probably end with them being walloped in a general election or being toppled by their own party. Boris Johnson is just in an even worse position because he was seen as the leader-in-waiting and he actively campaigned for the policy that made everything so complicated.

And, right now, he has 52% of voters behind him. But, that is somehow making him do a sad face?

52% of voters from all parties were behind his side. 52% of people voting for a brexit doesn't translate into 52% of the seats in the House of Commons going to a Johnson-led Conservative party.

Edit: And it certainly doesn't translate into 52% of people wanting him to win in 2020. If he negotiates a poor deal with the EU and/or 'forgets' about a few central 'Leave' arguments, he'll be in all sorts of trouble.

Re: A Scenario Where Brexit Does Not Actually Happen

#70

Post by pi-err »

There's a much better and simpler explanation to the 4-months delay.

As shown in Cameron's [white paper on Brexit from last February](https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...), the critical part of the exit process is to buy more than 2 years to define the new relationship (article 50 has basically only this period as a hard fact).

The paper does bold that a realistic timeline would be ~10 years. Meaning the UK needs to find bullet points to negotiate additional time... with all the free goodies of being still a "passive" member of the EU.

So they're buying 4 months now. They need this to understand their leverages, friends and foes. Many in Europe will be receptive on avoiding a clash. Merkel right now shows signs of resilience.

Make no mistake: part of the City and tech industry sees a strong potential in Brexit - as long as there is no "free fall" period after 2 years.

Everything will be about buying time.

Post reply on HN