UK Formally Abandons Europe’s Unified Patent Court

It's really tempting. The thought of being a hour or so's drive from wilderness is very appealing. My main concern is being stuck up there if things really go to shit. That and the poorer weather!

At this point I am beginning to wonder what is behind the pattern.

Are we witnessing the failure of governments acting in the best national interests because they have finally become fully subverted from within by selfish forces? A common pattern to the madness in the US and the madness in the UK is that an inner circle stand to get very rich from all the goings-on.

The EU has a serious democratic deficit and this will never be resolved.

Got a citation for that? My impression is euroskeptics love America and NATO.

afraid not: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-uk-leaves-the-eu-4057...

> The UK joined Euratom when it joined the EEC in 1973. It is a separate legal entity from the EU, but is tied up with its laws and institutions, and subject to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

you may want to revisit essentially everything you've posted here, because most of it is just flat out wrong

When people imagine a more politically integrated EU, I bet they don't imagine that government run by whoever they consider the kookiest people in the body politic. Imagine that EU integration proceeded apace, and Duda, or Orban, or Johnson became the popularly-elected President of the EU. (The current EU executive structure would never be adequate, of course, in a more politically integrated future.)

The shit about BMW's and Prosecco was just nationalist bollocks, but that doesn't mean that the loss of the UK budget contribution isn't real. Likely end outcome is EU budget struggles a bit for a few years, then UK rejoins as an associate or whatever new category they come up with.

pull the other one, if the UK relented they'd jump at the opportunity

realpolitik always wins

> After Brexit was decided, the UK tried to rejoin EFTA, and they were refused.

this is news to me, and I can't find any evidence of it either

the UK government has never had any interest in remaining in the EEA, which the EFTA requires

> Due to the situation after WWII, the UK was given special treatment. It was allowed to opt-out of most things,

it was never "given" special treatment, the UK accepted the full acquis communautaire at the point it joined

when future treaty modifications occurred the UK did not veto the changes (its right), and permitted the changes, remaining under the rules the members had previously agreed

I'm European and I've been following the news quite closely. Keep in mind that if you're the kind of person active on HN, you're probably in a media bubble.

Regular people, except for the French (maybe, even that is debatable), still like the UK.

The Germans consider the Brits a v useful hedge against French socialism, the French against German hegemony, North Europe against French and German expensive grand designs, South Europe against French and German snootiness, Eastern Europe against French and German Russophilia and so on and so forth. The UK has 800 years of helping keep the balance of power in Europe, and being largely a reasonable neighbour (and certainly compared to the French or Germans).

That's not true.

Hi, I live in that region. I thought I might be able to give a little more insight in the situation here.

> This means the return of violence to that region.

It's kind of funny you guys assumed it stopped... It's reduced, but it's not stopped. When the Good Friday agreement came in, it gave Northern Ireland the option to leave the UK when it wants. It turns out that the general public that live here do not want to leave the UK, which diminished the influence unionists and separatists had over people... Turns out having a democratic option made it hard to convince people to join a fight on either side.

Further, most people are more practical, self interested than ideological currently. For many, the Republic looks like a worse future for NI, with less money to go around than if it stays in the UK. The Republic government of course also views NI to be a horrible drain on their resources, so have repeatedly stated over the years that "now is not the right time".

While this has been happening, both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland have lost significant populations of natives. The Republic has had a massive increase in immigration, so much to the point that the nationalism and that sort of ideology has declined, reducing that want for conflicts even further.

None of the politicians in Northern Ireland have a desire and cannot be compelled to create a physical border between the Republic of Ireland. This of course does not sit well with the EU. The UK parliament does not actually give much of a shit about Northern Ireland outside of how much we spend and leaves NI to its' own autonomy out of fear of violence in the mainland UK.

At this point, I am convinced that if a border is going to be imposed, it will be from the Republic's side. The Republic government doing this of course would put the Republic and EU into a very negative light. So of course, the Republic is very unhappy about this and has voiced this in confidence a few times.

Taking the temperature here, there is a lot of uncertainty, but, I think regardless of what happens, Northern Ireland is probably likely going to benefit more through this. It will be the only UKish territory (ignoring Gibraltar) that shares a border with an EU country that retains easy access to Great Britain, which will make it either a special trading partner, or a special back door. Whether the UK and EU like it or not. I do not think the violence in Northern Ireland will be increasing much more than it is now; they do not seem to have the people or the resources.

The UK parliament of course has made some new acts so that the people of Northern Ireland can control our own fate in face of brexit after a deal is made, democraticing what is happening here.

The UK and EU in my opinion are both trying to use Northern Ireland to get a better trade agreement.

I'm opening myself up to discussion, you are the one dismissing it.

> The EU is how we negotiate with the rest of the world.

Which is great if it worked, but the reality is that a small nation like Iceland can whack out a better trade deal with China and the US than the EU can in less time, it doesn't leave much confidence.

> When we leave, we don't just lose access to the EU, we lose access to 72 other countries with EU trade deals.

The problem you're not perceiving is a bad deal is a bad deal. For example, the UK has had 50 years of common fisheries policy issues (and note there are many others with the AGP, EEP etc.) and the EU won't fix those, they were so bad that Greenland left it shortly after formation. It led to the destruction of some fishing waters through overfishing and destroying fishing towns and industries across the UK. Now, this is not necessarily the worst, because the benefits may outweigh the losses, right?

The way the CFP arrangement was made is that it requires an unanimous agreement from all countries involved, it is not a majority vote. Unfortunately, no agreement is made because there are parties to the deal who distinctly benefit from the particular rules. This is being confused further as the parts that have flexibility involve the budget and maritime fund, which give the illusion that change actually occurs in these arrangements, they do not. As a fisherman forced out of fishing, this impacts me greatly.

Overall, the EU has been responsible for amplifying economic depressions in the EU, the poor monetary policy in Europe as well. It is hard to forget when the ERM was imposed on the UK because it kept the pound, it is hard to forget the terrible mismanagement of Greece, which the EU government knew ahead of time was a problem and ignored procedures. Then, because they couldn't trust the Greeks, put in foreign banks to manage the money that was 'given' to the Greeks. Of course, the money was mismanaged by the banks and then the Greeks were blamed, while the unaccountable Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commision (which overrode parliamentary decisions in the EU when it came to monetary policies and also is the exclusive organisation to propose new legislation in parliament) now works for Goldman Sachs which for some reason, was able to profit immensely from the decisions made on Greece? It made the EU poorer.

Normally when a country’s economy is overvalued, their currency value is decreased through controlled printing of money, this in turn makes the country cheaper on international markets for services and products and leads to more income during a downtime that allows a country to recover. The EU denied Greece this option. The EU was further meant to protect the EU from entities like China gaining economic control, however, guess who bought a port and expanded it to be the largest shipping port in the EU. In doing so, their economic investment is the primary reason why Greece is in a better position now than before. Now Greece is defending Chinese interests in the EU parliament. The most ridiculous thing is that the EU failed in it’s protectionism and its ability to negotiate or manage economic trade.

I don't expect most people of Britain to have even researched this far, they are unhappy because both the EU and the UK government have failed them and that has lead to wide-spread unhappiness, which is what led to the vote.

> And that's without actually examining the Brexiteer position: If we can't accept EU membership rules in exchange for EU market access, why would we be able to accept any other trade-for-sovereignty deal?

The EU prevents the creation of any alternative trade deals with other countries that do not go through it, you do not see that in other trade deals typically. Other trade deals are typically setting the standards of trade between the two entities and not preventing trade with everyone else by removing the abiltiy to create trade deals. That is the difference when it comes to these trade deals. There are exceptions of course.

> When we leave, we don't just lose access to the EU, we lose access to 100 countries with EU trade deals.

Indeed, and it’s unfortunate, but the cost for them is too high. On a positive outlook, we can view this as an opportunity to gain access to the rest of the world. Are you trying to suggest that we would do worse than island nations like Iceland or Greenland? Because, I think they are fine places and I think we could do better.

> More reality won't persuade them. All they have is weird slogans like "What's better, the EU or rest of world?"

I’m honoured you think my idle question was a slogan, I’m still willing to listen and discuss.

> and when you explain why it's nonsense, they stick to it because it sounds good and who needs inconvenient truths?

I have explained some of the issues above and the reality is not so clear cut like you make it out to be.

When people immigrate, we don't judge people by their skills, their criminality in the EU, just their geographic nationality. It's one rule for EU and a different rule for everyone else. We could have the same immigration policy for everyone instead of this racism/bigotry.

> To an extent so extreme most of its people wish we'd go back to more reasonable levels.

The only reason you say that is because the EU's policy is considered to be unsustainable, I'm for equality.

> That's absolutely untrue. The UK could be part of the EFTA and have any kind of bilateral agreement with the rest of the world it wants.

EFTA is European, but not EU, not a half-in option with the EU, and I also agree, it could definately be an option.

> Anyway don't worry, you'll have a deal worse than Ukraine

Are you trying to say that us having an alternative deal, much like when Ukraine moved to change its' existing one would cause a war and partial occupation as happened with the Russo-Ukrainian war due to the EU? If you aren't familar, I'd highly recommend reading: https://www.worldcat.org/title/ukrainian-crisis-the-role-of-...