The default seems to be non eu-membership. So why should Britain stay in the EU? People are commenting on this as though it's really obvious.
I think I read an article earlier today about Blackrock shorting like 50% of their european holdings or something?
Hard to know what will happen here, but I suspect once the UK (or what's left of it) signs a trade deal with the EU, they'll get the same deal as Norway - all the compliance with EU regulations, with none of the say. I suppose people may be happy with that deal, as long as they can get to say they're "free".
I'm hoping this somehow leave the EU in better shape, perhaps more cohesive, perhaps reforming in ways to minimize chances of anyone else leaving. As a Bulgarian (not living in Europe) this makes me somewhat bitter - seems Englishmen can't accept belonging to a club we also belong to.
I can see an Independence Referendum 2.0 being pushed through...
I work in London at a startup with international markets. I believe in the ideal of free movement. I think the EU is a bit of a mess conceptually and mechanically, but in general a step forward for Europe.
This is really the beginning of a very long, tedious and ultimately unsatisfying couple of years of dissatisfaction and instability as we negotiate with the EU and the rest of the world.
Countries have engaged in trade for thousands of years - Brexit won't change that.
The consequences are huge.
British citizens may not be able to world and live throughout the EU any more either. People already abroad may lose their work status on nations without reciprocal fall-back agreements.
This is a pretty big change, but I don't think it's a bad one.
My guess is very little changes, it's more of a sign that people want their country sovereign as opposed to being ruled by a committee in another country.
If that doesn't happen, I would expect the UK to shift from membership of the EU to membership of the European Economic Area (alongside Norway and Iceland) or similar.
I noticed that some "typical headline news" are gathering a lot of votes and getting to the top of front page. This seems to be working against the HN guidelines:
If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
I know political news get some kind of penalties. Would that apply to a more generic headline news like this?
Personally, I upvote stories like this purely because of its significance. And I am not sure if that was the intended use case.
Europe keeps getting destabilized. If i was an enemy of europe and freedom, id be cheering. Instead i'm deeply concerned.
Why are they playing as separate countries yet voting together to leave the EU? I don't get it.
More interestingly, I find this is a telling example of the limitations of democracy as we know it. Democracy, very broadly speaking, ignores population clusters (physical or ideological) to the extent that the "voice of the people" is actually not representative of anyone's in particular. I've tried to educate myself about alternatives or adaptations, but I have to admit I haven't found anything especially convincing thus far.
Saddened by this, but the people's voice shall rule.
What I would like to see is a more Swiss-style democratic involvement in EU. It is not for no reason many Europeans feel detached from what the EU does.
It was sobering to see Brexit campaigners citing Australia's immigration policy as a 'good system'. In reality it is the opposite of courageous and humane government. But clearly, it's what people want...
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 unprecedented. This isn't some one sided negotiation.
The EU needs the UK. If you sift through the garbage press, you'll see that the BDI in Germany - "The Voice of German Industry" - says that trade curbs against the UK would be "foolish". Of course they would be! Do you know how many German cars are sold in the UK each year?
"About a fifth of all cars produced in Germany last year, or around 820,000 vehicles, were exported to the UK, making it the single biggest destination by volume." Source: FT.com
"The UK is the fourth-biggest export market for German engineering companies, with sales of €6.8bn last year." Source: FT.com
The scaremongering goes on even after the vote has been called...
Two words: British Leyland
Congratulations Britain, today you took back control of your own destiny.
The BBC just announced that "Britain has voted to leave the European Union".
Leave only needs 2,105,984 more votes to win. [edit 12:15am EST] 1,715,256 votes now and closing fast. [edit 12:19am EST] 1,196,678 [edit 12:27am EST] 894,189 [edit 12:31am EST] 785,549 [edit 12:37am EST] 741,795 [edit 12:38am EST] 592,337 [edit 12:45am EST] 448,596 [edit 12:46am EST] 373,532 [edit 12:51am EST] 308,519 [edit 12:57am EST] 94,635 [edit 1:00am EST] 37,665 [edit 1:02am EST] 0. The UK has officially voted to leave.
Predicted result: Leave 52%, Remain 48%
Wow. So what happens now?
- Scotland voted 62% Remain. The SNP said it will call a second independence referendum if Leave wins. Many estimate that the independence movement will win this time around. Literally every single Scottish division voted to remain.
- Gibraltar will probably be royally screwed [0] as well as some other areas that are heavily dependent on trade/travel with EU countries
- The pound drops like a rock. Was stable at $1.48 all day, peaked at $1.50 earlier after Remain was doing well (~6pm EST), now at $1.33 (12:13am EST), now at $1.32 (12:21am EST) and the lowest level since 1985. In 1985 it hit $1.08, which was then the lowest value in a very long time.
- The pound is down 17% from the yen by the way.
- Other independence movements in other EU countries gain a bit of legitimacy. The euro drops (currently at $1.09, down four cents or 3%), and the yen gains (currently up 6%) (12:25am EST)
- For those of us fortunate enough to have our savings in dollars, everything denominated in pounds is currently on a 12% off sale.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-3659...
NB On a personal note I am way more upset by this result than any other election or referendum I have voted in - even the first Scottish Independence Referendum.
Even though on the surface EU and UK are alies and trade partners, it is not all black and white. I believe US will benefit because they will be able to play UK against EU and vice-versa to gain somehow. Say if EU doesn't allow import of US chicken they can go and try to persuade UK to not allow some import from EU in exchange for some other favor and so on.
Also, I wouldn't be surprised if this strengthens US's stock market in short to medium term, as everyone will flee to US stocks due to perceived volatility.
However, it's possible a Trump presidency and fractured EU might lead to a perfect storm for some kind of global conflict in a few years. I think still a low chance, but it does almost sound like the beginning chapter of a history book.
I would have said the same thing 4 or 5 years ago, but in the meantime we did in fact have a war in Europe, I'm talking about the war in Eastern Ukraine (which is still part of Europe). But you're sort of right, who can think of something like that spreading to the Western side of the continent?
Until last night I would would have answered: "no sane person", but after I saw the idiot Nigel Farage speak on the BBC (I don't actually follow UK politics, this was my first time hearing him actually speak) I had quite the internal shock. To hear a (what has now become) mainstream politician talk so vividly against immigration and against "multinationals" in 2016 was... don't know how to put it, harrowing. You're probably from the States where you people treat Trump like the idiot that he is and think that even if gets elected things will move on as usual, but us in this part of the world have had the privilege of slaughtering ourselves in the trenches of the Ardennes or in the steppes of Western Russia because of people like Farage in the past.
I mean, don't me wrong, removing trade barriers is probably good. But won't the UK just be able to pretty quickly renegotiate basically similar terms again anyway? Are their trading partners really going to stop trading with them or substantially alter their tariff schedules as a result of this?
Many see the EU as constituted as something concocted by bureaucrats in business and government, for their own ends, a view which I think is correct. So the UK or Greece and the like being fed up with the EU should come as no surprise.
I think the EU as organized is a bad idea. I don't think European integration is a bad idea, but it was done without much consultation of the populace of Europe, and things like this are the result.
In the US, the popular candidates with mass rallies bucking against their party establishments have been Trump and Sanders, although Sanders was pushed aside for the establishment candidate with the help of superdelegates etc. Congressional job ratings for 2016 fluctuated between 13% to 18% approval, 75-84% disapproval. The average American feels alienated from Washington DC because Washington DC is unresponsive to the desires of the average American. The situation is not dissimilar from Europe.
So what is "The New Left"? Left wing politics in the UK is in disarray, Bernie Saunders espouses a vision that most of Europe sees as frankly old hat centrist, and there is no defining political viewpoint that is encompassing the (now dispossessed) young, the march of technology, the lessons learnt over communism and socialism.
Is the answer just to double down on democracy? Turn to your principles in time of trouble? We are losing the argument in open debate though. Just more "trust us, this is business as usual" does not seem to be a rallying cry.
Where is the intellectual core of what will oppose the New Right?
History has rightly judged Neville Chamberlain as an abysmal failure in dealing with German interests. I'm happy that Britain has given Merkel and her cronies the finger.
The sooner the baby boomers are all retired the better.
Well, nice to see that UKIP is wasting no time backtracking from the lies they sold this vote with.
The UK simply didn't buy the EU's story about the Euro, and now they want a fully independent monetary policy. I'm not sure how much they have studied such possibility, but I bet that taking this to a democratic level was a data-driven decision.
The EU is going to want to put some political pressure for sure, but I don't think that they are going to want to do such a huge damage as wanting to establish a trade embargo with the 5th biggest economy of the world.
That being said as a European I couldn't care for the fifth "biggest" economy and I really hope that the EU keeps their 2 year timeline (if no deal can be reached in that timeframe it should be over) and deals on EU terms. They should not give a Switzerland or Norway deal without a hard bargain. My country and region is exposed a lot (jobs at our own country btw, trade,... ) and we where slowly recovering and now we are kicked down again. In the future we need to look for better and reliable business partners.
Also it's sickening to see how this give extreme right wing parties (and not right wing in the American sense, but really racist xenophobic parties) a boost. All old is new again, it is only 70 ago years we saw the same uprising of these kind of parties. I do hope that this doesn't jeopardize peace at the main land, that I fear the most. I can only imagine that a Putin is having the day of his life.
On a political sense I think in the end the EU can be possible better of, they never had a constructive attitude. With all the special statuses it got, it was already an island in Europe.
Btw seeing how the Euro is also falling, the whole idea of a weakened pound which have a positive impact regarding trade is also seriously backfiring. UK goods and services are still as expensive, maybe more after today.
Read into it what you wish, but this really sucks for the younger generation who did not want this yet will be stuck with this decision, likely for their entire lifetime.
This was a major win for isolationism, but it's not clear to me why an island wants to be increasingly isolated. When you're already geographically isolated, wouldn't you want to try to compensate against that by reducing mental isolation rather than actively reinforcing it?
Ultimate independence is when people forget you exist at all.
Its unlikely to have ANY deal between EU and Britain, there are too many conflicting interests. So the end result is that all the EU deals just end and there is no replacement deal for them. Problem is when lots of countries want to leave their own mark on the deal and lot of people in the deal making process has vested interest in making bad deal for britain and Britain really cannot approve such deals.
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 whole point of the European union is to be able to watch rugby with the English, get drunk in Berlin with good beer, being lazy at the seaside for a whole day with the Italians, have sex (or at least try to) with smoking hot French girls. And yes I can use the most stupid stereotypes because we all know that those are just stereotype and we can make fun of each other like only good friends can.
The most infuriating thing is that the oldest part of the English population is taking aways these opportunities from the youngest British.
So how is it about migration? Are UK voters afraid of eastern European EU migrants or is it something else?
If anything, being a part of the EU allows the UK to force migrants to seek asylum in the country where they entered the EU. Outside the EU I don't think they will have that possibility?
We should be talking about the lies.
I'm pleased for the British and think in the long haul this is the correct decision.
Right now though that interests me less than what happened with the media. It was all lies on every level I can think of. Even the Kippers thought they had lost the war.
Is anybody going to talk about the fact that when the polls closed odds showed 95% chance of Leave?
This was all very highly coordinated propaganda. What other reasonable explanation is there? Occam's Razor says: conspiracy is the simplest explanation.
Really if you have a good explanation I'll be waiting to hear it.
It goes from bad to worse. Leaving the EU and now we'll get Boris Johnson as well.
http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/stocks
Obviously if you compound that with the pound losing 10% a FTSE investor is worse off. But my boss has met many investors recently and his feedback was that more investors were concerned for the future of the EU rather than the future of the UK.
And now Cameron resigns - I'm shocked.
He NEVER said that. You're either lying or ignorant.
He simply said that the UK would go to the back of the line for trade deals and given it is simply a smaller market than the EU this is understandably so.
The EU in my eyes should aspire, to what the US has achieved already, being a large region, composed of quite a lot of different states, which are united, so that there are no arbitrary geographic borders limiting the freedom and the rights of the individual. This is not always easy, and it means, that the richer parts have to give to the poorer, but that is just basic humanity.
Especially I am sad for the young generation in the UK. A very large part (about 75%) voted to stay in Europe, and this future is taken from them. I would guess no small part of them will try to move to the remaining EU states.
It's a sad day for the UK's younger generation who voted overwhelmingly to stay, the older generation, who will depend for their bread and butter on the younger ones has just made their life a lot harder.
Everybody that's gleefully celebrating will be in an excellent position to review their take on this in a couple of years when the real impact will be a lot more clear than it is today.
A good thing I can see is that British offshore banking will not be allowed to siphon off European tax payers money. In my country there is things like pharmacies where medicines are payed by the wellfare state that is owned in British tax havens. Right now that is the only positive effect I can see that may end.
In light Norway and Switzerland are also doing ok as countries.
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.
Now we have a two-tier Europe with rich and poorer EU states. Capital and investment leaves the rich states for the poorer ones because of low wages and costs, while population leaves the poor for the richer states for their higher paying jobs and generous social welfare support.
Guess where all the refugees and economic migrants want to live?
It's a reality that cannot be sustained.
Will it still be possible to travel from Ireland to the UK without showing documents?
If not... then will there be a new fence across Ireland (between north and south)?
Hacker news is indulged in politics as we speak. It's a shame really.
But to add my views to the board...
Yes the EU wasn't perfect. I wouldn't call it undemocratic, or despotic, or communist, fascist, etc...
But it was start of something getting people together. Making Europe a whole.
Now the Brexit sparked other right wing parties in member countries to gain popularity. And we all can remember where far right nationalism leads to.
Remember Hitler being on the cover of Time magazine? Because I do.
I wish the liberals take a notice of the problem of immigration, mainly the immigration of from Islamic countries. I am a liberal at the core. But what I have found that when it comes to Islam, many mainstream liberals and liberal politicians follow a double standard. The legitimate criticism of Islam, Quran and its prophet are shunned by many mainstream liberals by labeling it as racist attacks, Islamophobia, far-right and what not. I call such people phoney liberals.
The phoney liberals take a stance that the Britons/Europeans should bend over backwards to accommodate Muslims along with their medieval, backward Islamic way of life in order for the integration. They never tell Muslims in clear words that "Look, we have a policy of separation of church and state, in your case it means separation of mosque and state. You should accept, if you want to live here, that we value freedom of speech and that includes freedom to offend you too by criticizing Islam or by making fun of your religion, your prophet, your scriptures and your religious practices." But what did the phoney liberals do after Charlie Hebdo episode? They criticized the tabloid for being offending to Muslims.
A liberal thinker Bill Maher has put this in a very good manner [1],[2],[3],[4]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntv3a80RGiw
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL8rZTuGfZo
The one that used to be called the Roman Empire, then Christendom, and is now called Western Civilisation. It is also arguably the greatest achievement of the human species.
No longer will those with "wrong opinions" be shut out of debate and policy because they are conditioned with a pavlovian response of fear from being called bad names
The people in Europe see, how many regulations just come from Brussels to be just acknowledged by their own parliaments and the democratic process is just circumvented. They see, how much is just for the benefit of big corporations and not for their benefit.
In Germany, we see, how the European idea is misused by our own politicians to bring up laws that they would not dare to let be voted on in their own parliaments. They just go to Brussels, let the law be decided there without much democratic intervention and than the law comes back into our country to be just acknowledged without discussions.
The European idea is (was) a good one. A really united Europe would be a good thing and also a strong one. But that is just an idea and not the reality. We saw it with Greece. We are not united. In the end, every nation is just looking on their own benefits and money. We Germans really acted shamefully in this situation and we already have a big trench between northern and southern Europe. Old sentiments and even hatred is growing again in the EU.
The idea was, to have a Europe, where never again will be war. We are now steering in a direction, where wars are getting more likely again, this time because of the EU and the Euro.
Is it good, that UK leaves the EU? No, it is not.
The only thing, I hope is, that the politicians might learn a lesson from it or the whole EU will break.
A long and protracted disengagement period will only worsen volatility in the market, because of uncertainty around trade deals, as well as the political uncertainty of the UK itself.
Not to sound like I'm wearing a tinfoil hat, but it's not surprising that Soros decided to go long on gold when he did.
Might be an opportunity for some (am hopeful that the Web Summit moving to Lisbon will boost things here), but I'm not sure there will be any substantial upside for this anywhere...
- They had the unique privilege of a strong, international financial sector within the EU, while simultaneously having their own monetary policy. This attracted foreign capital, and this capital will feel less safe now.
- They profit massively from the import of EU workers, not just the low-paying ones. Lots and lots of academics were welcomed to the huge academic sector. These workers don't have familial ties to the UK, they can move to another european country easily.
- They profit from having hundreds of thousands EU students in UK universities. They used this arm to export their ideas and technology. This means their influence in the continent will be severely limited now.
The resignation of David Cameron is a testament to what a big failure this is. I am still of the opinion that the referendum was more of a way to blow off steam for various issues , and the EU is used as a scapegoat here. Unfortunately, whatever the motives, in democracies decisions are respected. On the other hand, this presents plenty of opportunity for european countries, which stand to benefit from an inevitable shift of commercial activity.
PS. What is funny is that british english will no longer be a EU language, even though it is the most widely used language in europe. I guess we 'll start using the maltese or irish accents more often .
There are many reasons why people voted to leave but the journalism covering this seemed to only be able to cover the sensationalist parts of the debate in the most childish fashion. This needed a serious discussion amongst adults, with a lot of thought and we didn't get it.
So if it wasn't some racist backlash to immigration, then what was it? While I can't speak for all, here is a piece that explains many of the issues that people actually have with Europe, delivered in the serious manner that I wish more of the debate had been.
http://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2016/02/david-davis...
-Want to stay in the EU?
-Enjoy low corporate tax rate of 12.5%? Pro-business government?
-Enjoy friendly, well educated, English speaking, Pro-American people, good beer, decent music, nice quality of life, low crime and safe green natural environment?
Invest in Ireland -> http://www.idaireland.com
This has been a public service announcement from the country next door. #irelandlovesyou :)
Whilst it doesn't seem to cover every nuance of the situation, it adresses some of the points brought up for discussion in this thread, such as punitive tariffs (ruled out based on WTO non-discrimination rule), and seems like a fairly unbiased primer. It's fairly short too, 32 pages, written for a MP level of reading comprehension.
[0]researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06730/SN06730.pdf
We underestimate the power of idiots in large numbers.
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_withdrawal_from...
Pacifists are nuts.
I'm not saying that racism or xenophobia did not play a part, but when you brush everyone with concerns with that brush you push them towards extremism.
This is a sad day for the EU and for the UK. This is a bad outcome for each side. I'm not sure where we go from here.
Ah, just saying: the amount of refugees / people requesting asylum to UK is way less than in Germany/Hungary/Sweden just to mention some. This was just a populist move/slogan.
But that's the only kind of shamelessly self-interested sort of kind of silver lining I can think of. This is pretty bad IMHO.
What I find surprising is that it is the British who first decide to act about them instead of the southerns.
- Learn german
- Invest in german language schools
* The British were not an external enemy. That would have been the French. For the most part, even the people leading the revolution were proud of being British subjects and would have liked to remain so, but could no longer tolerate the conditions being attached to that status. Our enemy was recognized to be our own cousins, not some external force.
* The shared dream of settling the continent was real but - given that said continent was already occupied and settling it meant exterminating the current residents - it's not something I'd want to put forward as key to our identity.
* Shared culture, language, religion? Language, mostly. The Puritans in New England didn't really have much to say to the Quakers in Philadelphia, and both had even less in common with the not-particularly-religious folks down in Virginia. Yes, I guess they all were (or at least professed to be) Christians, but that's not too different than Europe today.
So, basically, the difference between the US and the EU, according to the criteria you've mentioned, is that the US united to commit genocide and the EU united to avoid it. Congratulations on making the point that the two cases are different.
The supranational oligarchy is mostly concentrated in a few key places in the world, Wall Street, City of London, Vatican City, DC, Switzerland, etc. The supranational oligarchy the most in control though according to my estimations is City of London. I analyze from an American perspective and Wall Street and DC seem to have rolled over for them on most occasions.
That being said, the true goal of the oligarchy is a collectivist global government model. The problem is the collectivist model hurts the countries that join it while propping up their oligarchy.
I predicted months ago UK would leave because they are the ones who pushed the EU onto the Europeans in the first place, (keeping the pound was a dead giveaway), and now I simply think they are aiming to maintain local order and prosperity at a higher level than Europe so as to keep their people placated somewhat.
Next up, massive restrictions on Immigration in the UK.
Recommended reader for background, anything by Carroll Quigley.
I purposely did not go into reasons why the said regions are unstable. At the end of the day the wars and governance issues need to be sorted out to stem the flow of immigrants. I don't think anyone has the answer. The solution is certainly not for the whole world to migrate to the "developed" countries.
Of small comfort then, is the fact that the English have abolished slavery in 1833.
To put it poetically, with one hand I embrace you, with another I stick my blade into your throat, while my boot tramples on your broken body, that's the portrayal one might construct from history and contemporary actions and thinking of the English.
And "the commonwealth", oh my! Australia was a penal colony, of, you guessed it, the English. Not the Scottish, not the Welsh, not the Irish (Irish were busy being downtrodden, Scottish were busy massively emigrating because they were poor, while London threw galant parties, and the Welsh were trying to muster every bit of strength and intellect they could, so as not to be assimilated), and New Zealand... oh yes, in "the commonwealth", but not before the English killed a good number of Maori, isn't it?
And then, we didn't even touch upon the mess that the English caused in India, or in Africa (Zulus really "got theirs" from the English, didn't they?), or the mess on the Bosphorus, or the "Arabian question of Palestine", the consequences of which the world is still suffering from today, with all the strife going on in Palestine... ah yes, our English, everybody else in Europe drives on the right, except in Anglo-Saxon lands, where it's of course the opposite... everybody else is on the metric system because it's practical, except for the English, who still scoff at that non-Imperial nonsense from Bruxelles, our "special Petunias", with their "traditions", who view the rest of EU citizens as immigrants... with such friends, who needs enemies?
As sad as I am that the English have decided to ruin it once again for everybody, I say: if the English think the standards shouldn't apply to them, if they think that they are special, well good riddance, and stay out of EU.
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*TD7RywMw4YnWGpfjR...
https://medium.com/@WhiteWednesday/poll-reveals-eea-option-h...
The EU may be flawed in many ways, but the free movement of people, goods, and services ain't one. Unfortunately, that flies squarely in the face of the leave campaign's "controlling the borders" message.
Sad day today.
So, economically UK is doomed to be new Japan.
The British issue seems to be largely with immigration (foreigners working for cheap and bringing down wages for everybody else) and economics (Brits were promised the EU would bring them prosperity, and prosperity isn't in the room right now, so they want to leave). But it's the same sense of the British people feel they're suffering by rules were imposed by an external entity (the EU says they have to accept these immigrants and these economic policies even though they don't really want them).
The liberal opinion machine has done their best to paint pro-Brexit folks as racists, fascists, equating Brexit with Trump and Trump with Hitler. I think this is dishonest and not only slanders the conservative side, but reflects poorly on the liberal side as well (if calling the other side names is the best means of persuasion you have available, it says nothing flattering about the strength of your arguments.)
But the fact is that plenty of people don't have a clue how the EU works. On the streets of Britain, public services have been run down by underinvestment, house prices are out of control due a reluctance to reign in property speculation and good blue collar jobs with decent pensions are being lost to globalisation, automation and 'Uberisation' of the labour market. So a bunch of older poorer people in villages and small towns across England and Wales (not Scotland), read in the right wing tabloids that immigrants are to blame, they take this at face value and fall for it hook line and sinker and will ironically end up with an even more right wing government that no-one has voted for under Boris Johnson. What's more, it was clear that the vote was entirely down to fear of immigration not actual experience of immigration as the brexit vote was strongest in areas with the least immigrants. Places where people have never met a brown person voted most strongly for out based purely on fear stoked by tabloids peddling a racist agenda. Indeed some of UKIP's campaign posters were almost facsimiles of 1930's NAZI imagery.
There is a real democratic deficit in our system though. This referendum was proposed by the prime minister as part of a tactical gamble to control the right wing of his political party. This is a government which was only voted for by 1/3 of the electorate, and scraped through with a tiny majority of 6 MPs. The real wasteful bureaucracy with a strong dose of unelected elites is the UK parliament with the unelected House of Lords and the inefficient Houses of Parliament which is effectively a 'bistable' two party system due to the first past the post voting system. They waste unbelievable amounts of money changing things the previous government set up just in time for it all to be undone when they are voted out 10 years later. Political discourse amongst the populace seems like it is mostly dead in small town England and Wales, but it is striking to note however that political discourse is definitely not dead in Scotland and you can see the results as all of Scotland voted to remain. As an Englishman living in Scotland, and I speak for a lot of other English people I know up here too, I will definitely be voting to leave the UK and stay in the EU if the chance arises. There is plenty that is wrong with the EU, I think the council of ministers should be replaced, but it is at least as democratic as the UK parliament is now and more importantly it is a forward looking institution which is much more likely to evolve into something better than the UK parliament, especially after a vote like this.
THAT WAS THE CLAIM.
Ask any English-born tradesperson trying to find work in England that pays anything.
The reality is the EU morphed into a Leftist prank to have open borders and CENTRAL GOVERNMENT (in Brussels, Belgium).
The Left says "let anyone into the country who wants to come."
Yet me and my software engineer peers are constantly undermined by the very same thing -- elitists attempts to undermine our wages by flooding the tech worker ranks with as many foreign workers as our worthless U.S. Congress will allow.
No freaking thank you.
When my friends bring up 'the U.S. must eliminate our national borders' and I bring up the fact that our jobs have been undercut, our salaries marginalized, by that very same thing -- over-supply of labor -- it makes them stop and think of this 'no more borders' differently.
I also noticed some Irish people mentioning they would have to sell their house and leave - please for your sake, look up the official information on Irish/UK rules, you will find that they have freedom of movement regardless of the EU and in fact it goes much, much further than the EU rules.
Specifically: "Unlike other EU citizens, UK citizens may retire to Ireland without having to establish that they have sufficient resources or that they have private health insurance." http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/moving_country/moving_t...
"Irish citizens automatically have a right to reside in the UK as part of the common travel area. If you were habitually resident in Ireland or any of the other places in the common travel area before you came to the UK, you will automatically satisfy the conditions of the HRT." https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/coming-from-abroa...
I think everybody needs to try and calm down. Even though a great many of us would have preferred not to leave, this can be OK.
The UK can easily end up in the EEA which has freedom of movement etc anyway.
This is not the time for panicked reactions!
As things stand, California is currently the eighth largest economy in the world on their own. 17 of the top 30 U.S. tech companies are in California, which should come as no surprise. Tourism, entertainment, biotech, and agriculture are multibillion dollar industries already. Aerospace and defense contracts still rake in around $25bn a year. And many state business leaders are increasingly showing a real commitment to renewable energy.
Overall, while I believe there is definitely more potential for a social democratic style of government if California were its own country, the changes would not be that drastic. Barring a major collapse, California would, like Canada, still remain in the U.S.'s economic and cultural shadow. And who knows? Secession might be the best thing to happen to other states like Texas, New York, and Massachusetts. Who else would be capable of filling the void left in the energy, media, and technology industries? There is certainly upside in such a move but also a great deal of risk.
Why? Do you think only EU citizens are allowed to live and work in the EU? Do you think British people are now banned from entry into the EU?
Most people - young or old - do not even want to live and work in another European country.
> I think it's pretty disgraceful that they've torpedoed our future based on their hazy rose-coloured memories of some supposedly-better past.
I think it's pretty disgraceful that people like you demonstrate such incredible arrogance that your minority opinion is somehow innately superior; constructing ridiculous fantasies of why people voted to leave, based on absurd generalisations and a childish, rose-tinted view of the EU.
There's nothing to stop you living in an EU country, if you think by virtue of those two letters it's such a utopia compared to the UK or any other non-EU country (aka almost every country on the planet).
Seems like a blow to that theory from where I'm standing.
I try to make up my mind, which Union will be more affected by the Brexit: The European Union or the British?
Both institutions deserve some "house-cleaning" but after the Leave-Win it is sort of "either-or": A vote for "Union A" becomes a vote against "Union B" and vice-versa.
As the enormity of the situation sets in, Britain must reflect on her status. Yet as currency and foreign investment alike tick into the ether, we cannot afford leisurely introspection. Commentators alight to social media, fast food opinions winding through the networks to be forwarded, appraised, accosted, and forgotten.
A stunned middle rouse from their silence, incredulity reigning. Someone must be blamed, and there are no shortage of targets. The deceitful far right must surely be deposed, their 350 million untruths a week publicly unravelled at the teeth of the media. Tautological slogans, much as we must surely want to “Make Britain British again” wear thin, amid claims of xenophobia being noncommittally dismissed, and swiftly, lest anyone ponder too long at their origin.
The leave campaign celebrate an ethereal success, yet no definition of success appears. Nor was one provided - a marginal result in a referendum which declined to assert a majority, or to be legislatively bound to parliamentary action, leaves dangerous room for interpretation, yet as a consequence manages to leave none at all.
The glaring omission makes one thing clear - there is no plan - for who can plan for what cannot be defined? The stage show props of austerity budgets are shuffled back under coats amid sheepish mutterings of “ah, well, before the vote, you see…”. The idea of success of this referendum was to do not with the outcome, but with its existence. A scrap, thrown far to the right in exchange for a grubby four years, has swiftly been devoured, and the leader finds his four years have, overnight, been devalued to two.
Exposed to his short sell on the exchange rate of democracy to political capital, he has built an unflattering legacy. The leader who failed to lead, and the alumnus who handed the keys to the counterfeit every-men riding a wave of anti-intellectualism, has gambled one time too many and must bear the greatest loss of his era. Not only has the sea between Britain and the world become rougher than ever, but the political dice are cast, and as they tumble to a halt, the shape of the United Kingdom itself now rests on how they lie.
The old England introduced to the world of kings & dictators, the Habeas Corpus and Magna Carta.
Now, the UK of 2016 had shown that the voters -- can take the decision power back.
The so called 'representative democracy' is no longer representative, it is, instead -- a 'Placebo' democracy. Where the voters are mislead to think that their opinion matters.
And it is the 'leavers' people of UK, the voters who are described on this forum as the 'old and un-educated' -- are the first in Europe, to recognize that they were sold a Placebo-democracy.
The vote to leave is the first chapter in the modern's world Magna Carta.
And I congratulate the people of UK.
Anytime a sovereign group of individuals declares independence from a larger group, which inevitably has different interests, it's a good thing.
I don't know why there's so much despair over this.
Yes, surely there are short-term negative effects, whether in the loss of EU privileges, or the temporary losses in currency values, but in the long-term, there's more independence and self-sufficiency.
A larger body of government isn't smarter; in fact, it is more detached from local concerns, and less able to react to them in a timely fashion.
We should celebrate the Brexit, just as we should celebrate any and all declarations of independence from larger bodies of governance.
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