Comment by Brakenshire | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Brakenshire | Hacker News Reader

People are critical of the flagrant dishonesty of the Leave campaign, the way that all concerns were dismissed with the 'Project Fear' or 'the British public has had enough of experts' thought terminating cliches, and now the refusal to admit that the public have been lied to, and the new tendency to blame Remain voters and the EU for 'talking down the economy', or for requiring now what everyone knew would be the case beforehand in our trading/diplomatic/legal relationship post Brexit. And also the naked self-absorption of Leave campaigners like Boris Johnson, who made a series of completely unworkable promises and now doesn't even bother to turn up to parliament to discuss them.

Britain paid £270m a week, and received back £100m. Johnson invented a £350m figure, the entirety of which he promised to the health service, and then promised the £100m spending commitments would be met. So his new spending requirements are £450m a week, and the money saved £270m. In other words, he has pretended to magic £180m a week out of thin air.

He has also effectively promised major restrictions of immigration alongside access to the single market, which everyone knew was impossible, and promised there won't be a recession, which is unlikely. He gambled the country's stability for his personal advancement, and his duplicity and incompetence will probably lead to a far right party becoming a major force in British politics.

It is not surprising that people are angry.

You responded to a thoughtful, reflective comment with an angry partisan one. That's the wrong direction in which to take an HN discussion. Please re-read lordnacho's comment and learn from it—I don't mean about UK politics, of course, but about how discourse is supposed to work on this site.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11992985 and marked it off-topic.

While you're probably right that the 'Leave' campaign is probably winning on the dishonesty front, there was a fairly sizeable departure from reality on both sides.

Yes, I think that's reasonable, the whole campaign was of a poor standard. Very negative, and with little explanation of the actual mechanisms of trade or governance underlying the question.

Having said that, there's plenty more you could bring up against the Leave side. The central claim of the imminent accession of Turkey in particular was an outright lie. And the general stoking up of xenophobia in order to get their way (followed by duplicity in trying to redefine their campaign the day after the vote had been taken).

>People are critical of the flagrant dishonesty of the Leave campaign

It's not like the remain campaign was much more honest, and the level of scaremongering was absurd.

Beyond the pale is the number of complaints that the sky has, in fact, fallen in because the FTSE has plunged and the pound has dropped.

As if people from Sunderland or rural Wales were concerned about the cost of holidaying the Riviera or taking a hit on their non-existent stock portfolios.

>He has also effectively promised major restrictions of immigration alongside access to the single market, which everyone knew was impossible

Case in point. We'll continue to trade with Europe even without unrestricted immigration - it just won't be tarriff free trade. Nonetheless, the tarriff level will be throttled by WTO rules anyhow. Average tarriffs with the US is I think something like 2%. Not a sky falling figure that.

  Case in point. We'll continue to trade with Europe even without unrestricted immigration

I think the city, as in the financial industry, which is a very important part of the British economy begs to differ.

> As if people from Sunderland or rural Wales were concerned about the cost of holidaying the Riviera or taking a hit on their non-existent stock portfolios.

Economic downturns and recessions disproportionately affect the poor[0] and disadvantaged[1].

[0] http://www.russellsage.org/research/special-initiatives/grea...

[1] https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/disc...

A) The parts of England that voted to exit were already in recession and nobody noticed.

B) Actually they'll stand to do better because:

* There will be less competition for jobs, meaning a rise in wages.

* Westminster is more likely to direct funding their way in order to avoid another repeat of Thursday.

* The low pound will be good for export industries.

They'll still get hit hardest. Weak pound means more expensive imports. UK imports ~40% of it's food [1]. That food will now cost more to import raising prices at the supermarkets. Poorer people spend a larger %'age of their income on essentials like food.

The weak pound means importing oil (priced in USD) will be more expensive. This will affect Petrol prices (we're already seeing a 2-3p rise at the pumps). Poorer people spend a larger %'age of their income on essentials like fuel.

There are a number of knock-on effects from the weak pound. Yes it's good for exports but overall it's going to be a rough couple of years for the already disadvantaged.

Speaking to your point on competition as well - if the UK wishes to join the EU free market they will most likely need to accept freedom of movement. No treaty has ever been agreed with any country without this caveat (that covers the Swiss, Norway etc). It's possible that the UK may be an exception but it's unlikely.

[1] http://www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/issue/uk.html

>They'll still get hit hardest. Weak pound means more expensive imports. UK imports ~40% of it's food

I can think of one rule which will get revoked in that case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set-aside

Much like Russia (which suffered a much worse currency slump and also imports a lot of food), the UK will likely roll with it and engage in import substitution.

>Speaking to your point on competition as well - if the UK wishes to join the EU free market they will most likely need to accept freedom of movement.

That's clearly the deal the remainers wanted to take but if I recall correctly they lost.

At the low end I'm pretty sure the wage rises coming from fewer Poles, etc. will at least match - and possibly outstrip inflation caused by newly instituted 2-4% tariffs.

Have you read the linked article? The leave campaigners are now furiously back-pedalling on their claims about reduced immigration. I'm intrigued as to why you think there'll be "fewer Poles etc.".

Where are these extra jobs going to come from with a rock bottom pound and markets in freefall? Do you believe this was a vote about repatriation or something?

I didn't read it that way. Boris trying to characterize the campaign as being pro-control rather than anti-immigration seems to be an attempt to extend an olive branch to the remainers rather than an attempt to do a 180 on immigration.

He is about to enter a leadership contest and is hoping for votes from tory members of the remain campaign.

He might do a 180 on immigration but I wouldn't say this is evidence of it, and he likely knows he'll pay a heavy price come next elections if he does (assuming he wins leadership).

The other guy who actually is backpedaling is just an MEP whom I'm pretty sure nobody gives a fuck about.

Boris was only in it to become PM. In the metro yesterday Boris was quoted as to saying "the 'only change' the public would see post-brexit was greater control of uk laws".

Even farage has his doubts - https://youtu.be/WrAHJ9fDHUU?t=384

WTO rules would be completely disastrous. WTO only deals with goods, and the UK is overwhelmingly a service economy, and even in goods you have significant tariffs (10% on cars for instance, which is a major UK industry). Projections I read in the FT for a return to WTO trading are for a 3-7% fall in GDP, which is not far off the scale of the 2008 recession. Thank god it won't be nearly as bad as that. I'd actually say comparing to WTO was an element of the genuine scaremongering of the remain campaign, because almost certainly there will be some bilateral deals done regardless, to protect existing supply chains integrated into European companies.

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