Brexit has failed for UK, say clear majority of Britons – poll
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
The goal was never in doubt really, and it was never the 'good of the country', or its people.
Until I told them they were voting for literally preventing their daughter and me the life we've been living. Their grandkids, everything wouldn't have been possible without her being allowed to work there, and me being able to work here...
They hadn't realized that of course, because you know, as far as immigration goes, they were just fine with the lovely polish lady at the shop, and me of course, what they didn't want is 'them' (not entirely clear who that is).
The way he managed to justify the hatred towards a generic "them" while accepting people like me is a simple trick (I don't know if he came to this conclusion all by himself or with the help of the right wing intellectual class that concoct new tricks every day in the newspapers he reads):
He says that these dirty immigrants should go away because there are many criminals. Sure, he says, there are fine people like you, but they are an exception.
I object that there are plenty of Italian criminals, and I even try to find data to debunk his claims that more than half of Italian jails are filled up with immigrants (he claims he got those facts from the aforementioned newspapers).
But then he just drops his "get out of jail card" and says "ok, sure, we also have plenty of criminals, thieves, rapists, etc; but they are OUR criminals, OUR thieves, OUR rapists; we have to keep them, they are OUR people; I don't want those OTHER people coming here and doing those bad things, we already have our own to deal with".
It's all about the absolute certainty that most of the immigrants are here with the explicit intent of doing harm. Normal laws shouldn't apply to them, he says. If you're an immigrant and it looks like you may have done something bad, immediate deportation; the current laws are too lax, he says. they are good for italians, of course, because God forbid his daughter gets arrested just because she superficially looks like somebody who committed a crime, but it's ok for THEM to be treated like that ...
... Because ....
because he doesn't know them. He never met THEM. Every time he met an immigrant that immigrant became a PERSON and once that became a person it no longer became one of THEM.
That's why he's perfectly fine with the Albanian housekeeper, the Croatian son in law, the Turkish mechanic, ....
They all are fine people who are not the dirty criminals the newspapers he reads keep talking about
Typically, an official criminal record is a mandatory part of the application.
So all inefficient criminals, who have been caught at least once, will be excluded from the immigrants :-)
Sure it doesn't prevent it altogether, but it creates many barriers and increases cost and uncertainty.
I went to the UK long before Brexit and currently hold settled status but had all that not been the case I'd probably be in Spain, or the Netherlands, or perhaps Germany.
Going to the UK would simply not be worth the hassle when I have so many other much more accessible options, and in places where I wouldn't feel like I'm being done a favour for being allowed to live there, work there, pay my taxes and do my shopping there, helping British organisations modernise themselves and become more competitive, helping grow the GDP...
Harder yes, but buserror said it was voting for "literally preventing their daughter and me the life we've been living". That statement is "literally" not true, unless buserror could not have met those requirements at any point in the past decades. Having requirements is not the same thing as absolute prevention.
Maybe not legally, but literality includes the practical aspects of life as well.
Did the UK have the legal right to alter trading regulations? For example, could the UK decide to import chlorine washed chicken from US while in the EU?
Did the UK have a legal right to discriminate against labours from the EU who applied for jobs in the UK?
Please feel free to add context to my questions, because I've had enough of these conversations to know you'll have reasons why although we couldn't control our borders, trade and labour in many circumstances that it doesn't matter. I'll probably agree with you in most cases.
But unless the EU literally does nothing and serves no purpose, obviously there are things that we can do now we are out of the EU which we could not do while in the EU. Please decide whether the EU forces us to do things but those things we are forced to do are good, or the EU does nothing at all, but we should still stay in it. You can't have it both ways.
I'll also note, we've massively reduced the number of migrants coming from Eastern Europe, this is something that we literally could not legally do while in the EU.
Yes. As long as they're not a burden on the state*. The "4 freedoms".
> Did the UK have the legal right to alter trading regulations? For example, could the UK decide to import chlorine washed chicken from US while in the EU?
No. Trade is an EU power (competence).
> Did the UK have a legal right to discriminate against labours from the EU who applied for jobs in the UK?
No
> I'll also note, we've massively reduced the number of migrants coming from Eastern Europe, this is something that we literally could not legally do while in the EU.
While massively increasing "legal immigration" from outside the EU by instituting a bunch of incompetent policies. i.e. "point based" but with no caps on numbers.
Basically we reclaimed a bunch of political powers (the non EU immigration not being one of those), and now only have ourselves to blame for how we exercise those powers.
* There are 90 day rules about being present and not able to support oneself. However for political reasons, the UK was never able to use those. We don't have population registers, so can not track where folks are. The prior Labour "ID card" scheme which would have allowed such was scrapped after every other party promised to scrap it in the next GE, and a different party got in.
100% agree. I'm not in favour of reducing migration, but assuming the UK public wanted to reduce migration to say ~100,000 as the Tories promised, we would have struggled to do this while in the EU.
I think a lot of people wrongly thought that our membership in the EU was the reason net migration was so high, in reality is was simply that our politicians wanted it to be high and therefore found other ways to keep it high after we left the EU.
Yes but also had the right to deny that to those who couldn't take care for themselves(can't be burden to the society). So can't stop them from coming but doesn't have to keep the freeloaders. UK choose not to pursue that but could have.
> Did the UK have the legal right to alter trading regulations? For example, could the UK decide to import chlorine washed chicken from US while in the EU?
Yes, just different legislative path. UK was full EU member since the beginning and they created those trade deals within EU and they can change them within EU. Obviously they will need to convince others about the benefits of the chlorinated chicken so they can pass that change but they also need to do the same for the electorate in the UK ehen outside of EU.
> Did the UK have a legal right to discriminate against labours from the EU who applied for jobs in the UK?
No. The idea is that meritocracy prevails, arbitrary discrimination is not OK. EU people apply for jobs freely, employers are free to chose the person who would like to work with and they can chose to work with a Brit or EU citizen if the like to. Why do you want the UK government discriminate against people and force employers to hire those they don't want to? What's wrong with meritocracy?
> EU literally does nothing and serves no purpose
EU's primary purpose is the create peace in Europe by making countries inter-depended and give common access to the resources. If you want to operate a car factory in Berlin, you don't have to conquer Berlin - you can just go there and buy or start one.
Beside this primary purpose, EU has many many more functions. It sucks or excels in some and does OK in others.
The vast majority were not economic burdens though? So no we couldn't have pursed that apart from in the very small minority of cases where that was the case. We'd then need to go through a costly and timely legal process of proving it and deporting them.
> Yes, just different legislative path. UK was full EU member since the beginning and they created those trade deals within EU and they can change them within EU. Obviously they will need to convince others about the benefits of the chlorinated chicken so they can pass that change but they also need to do the same for the electorate in the UK ehen outside of EU.
I don't disagree with this, but it's also not wrong to say the the EU removed the ability from UK law makers to make trade deals independently of the EU. This meant everything the UK wanted to do we had to do with the approval of other EU nation states which often had different economies, cultures and economic goals.
The argument that we would have more control to make our own trade deals outside of the EU is true, although a good argument can be made that those trade deals will not be as favourable if we're acting independently of the worlds largest trading block. Neither black or white is helpful in my opinion.
> No. The idea is that meritocracy prevails, arbitrary discrimination is not OK. EU people apply for jobs freely, employers free chose the person who would like to work with and they can chose to work with a Brit or EU citizen if the like to. Why do you want the UK government discriminate against people?
I don't personally, no. But a lot of people in the UK didn't want UK jobs to be on offer to labourers from low-wage Eastern European countries.
I take the highly controversial view that the UK government should suppress working class wages via mass migration and ensure the UK public are educated enough to not need to compete with foreign low-skill labourers. I want agricultural workers and NHS staff to be under paid if it means cheaper food and health care for natives, but obviously if you're a labourer working in those sectors you might not view this arrangement so favourably. People have also taken moral disagreement with me about whether it's right to engineer a migrant labour underclass at the benefit of natives, but if you don't discriminate against people from low-wage economies then this is almost inevitably the result.
I don't know why you fantasise about discriminating against productive law abading EU citizens. I guess you personally are better of out of EU and EU is better of by not having you. It's very creepy that you are annoyed that you can't arbitrarily discriminate against EU citizens.
Also, there's no such thing as a low-wage Eastern Europeans, they still rent in UK and shop in UK and are employed within the UK labour laws. If you are against low wages you should increase the minimum wage, if you can't compete against Eastern Europeans it's because you don't provide enough value to the employer to choose you. If British are outcompeted in the labour market, maybe British should re-evaluate their education system. British employers don't hire Bulgarian butchers when they need JavaScript developers just because it's cheaper to hire Bulgarian butchers. It simply means that Brits don't have the skills for the money they ask, the Eastern European ones have it and that's why they get the job at free market rate.
Also, nothing sudden happened in 2016 about Eastern Europeans, Poland joined 12 years before that and Bulgaria and Romania 9 years.
Expanding the talent pool is better for consumers of that pool, but worse for providers - that is, a UK worker earning some salary may find that his salary stagnates or reduces because of more workers with similar qualifications arrived from lower-paid Eastern Europe. So it a bit depends on definition. Shutting down schools and banning kids will lead to the same - but over a much longer time period which may be enough to more comfortably adapt; of course these two measures have severe unintended consequences.
Yes, Brexit's 2016 isn't a year when a country from Eastern Europe joined EU - but could be a year when the consequences of such joining, accumulating over time, reached the level which allowed Brexiters to prevail.
Why? Because you are compensated with money but you can’t consume money - you can benefit by exchanging it for a product or service and the more people are working the cheaper these are.
For example, if a Polish person pushed your salary down by immigrating to UK, another Polish person who is a butcher pushes your cost of eating meat down too. Another one pushes down your health costs or transport costs. When it’s a free market, it automatically balances the economy. When you have too much money but too little people who create the product and services, it causes inflation.
What creates prosperity in a society are working people, not numbers in the bank account going up.
It is drastically harder for people from the EU to immigrate to the USA than to the UK, even post Brexit.
The nature of migration is such that the foreign migrants become the national public (at least part of). Both groups are inside your borders now, so how would you make sure that the "low-skill" people does not aquire skill?
IOW, you want one arbitrary part of the people present within the state borders to be educated, and another arbitrary part to be low-skill, and this regimen should be upheld by what means?
(only asking because I fail to see how this could be done IRL without resorting to apartheid style rule)
What did "less Eastern Europeans" (but repalced now with Asian and African migrants) improve for the UK?
At best it is irrelevant (what should we care about people's ethnicity or 'race'), at worst it is a negative, cue social issues all over Europe.
It is actually tragic that voters are the butt of the jokes here when, really this is quite serious.
Of course the government has to want to, which is the point and effectively the scam that has been going on for years.
I have no strong opinion on Brexit, but one of the reasons I was opposed to it was because it allowed us to import cheap labour into the NHS. This is something we are now struggling to do and will likely mean we will need to pay NHS workers more to attract talent from elsewhere in the world.
Are you sure he wasn’t just saying what you wanted to hear in order to end the discussion? Most people don’t want to talk politics at work if they’re the single only person who holds a view, and if everyone’s angry that brexit happened and is badgering him to say why he thinks it was a good idea, perhaps he found that the path of least resistance was to say basically “hmm, guess you’re right”.
(Note, I’m not pro-brexit, this is just my experience when talking politics at work. Those who hold minority views don’t often want to litigate them at length with coworkers, and you the ones who do… you probably don’t want to work with.)
No EU country has control over immigration or trade. EU citizens can move anywhere they want in europe, EU companies can trade anywhere they want in europe. That's the point.
If I were the only person of a certain view, and being told something so absurd by a group of people, in earnest, my face would drop too.
EU countries have lots of control over immigration. Each gets to decide its immigration levels from outside the EU (to be technical, outside the EEA+Switzerland), and which of those immigrants it wants under what terms
The EU only controls intra-EU immigration and some aspects of asylum/refugee policy. Rest-of-world immigration remains a national competency in which the EU has very little say. Same is true for nationality and citizenship
Also, Denmark and Ireland have opt-outs from long-term residence, and the UK did too prior to Brexit, so it does not apply to them.
What happened in 2015 was Sweden’s own decision, not something forced on Sweden by the EU. If Sweden had chosen to take a hardline anti-refugee position - as some other member states did - the EU would have been powerless to prevent it. In fact, I think your response is a classic example of the phenomenon in which people wrongly blame the EU for the free choices of its member state governments. Sweden chose to welcome refugees even when EU law granted it the legal right to expel them instead
The Russian infowar on the US was no less drastic and no less successful, and that’s just the most recent iteration on it, it’s been openly going on for at least 15 years here too (since the 2008 election at least).
er what? david cameron immediately quit and then theresa may immediately went full-hard-brexit without bothering to try to figure out actual goals or compromise or get anyone on board.
1: "Thank you for your interest we will take the result under advisement and form a committee to study the matter" and then shit can it. If "the people" cared enough they'd make it an election issue.
2. "We have come up with three proposals for how to respond. There will be another referendum, this time binding, with ranked choice (or whatever) to decide which specific path to take, with status quo as option 4. At least 60% of at least a 60% turnout is necessary to pick one, otherwise we stick with the status quo." Then run that.
Or many other choices. But make no mistake there were LOTS of options beyond the extreme one picked.
There is precedent for this - Australia uses effectively the same criteria for constitutional amendments (both a majority nationally and a majority in the majority of states). Although, unlike Australia, the UK doesn't have a written constitution, and isn't formally a federation (although devolution has given it quasifederal features), the UK definitely needs something like that given the extreme lopsidedness of its population (one of its four members, England, being roughly 80% of the total
There’s a reason the resolution was non-binding. Maybe an act this big should have required 2/3 majority.
The Tories knew exactly what they were doing, and how they were doing it, and could have backed out at almost any time. Knowing that they were deliberately misleading people, they arguably should have backed out instead of going ahead with their colossally atrocious decision.
In short: referendum and people’s will kind of requires an informed populace and an informed decision, the Brexit vote was neither of those things. Maybe the only upside was demonstrating to everyone else what a godawful decision it is to self-immolate by leaving the EU is.
Good enough for something g as inconsequential as pressing alt-f4, but not for ripping away the birthright and citizenship of tens of millions of people.
If the desire is to do nothing or do something, and the vote is roughly equal, then generally you should just do nothing because of the increased cost of doing something. If 66%+ or 75%+ of people want to do something, then go for it.
Then after being elected large numbers of MPs announced that in fact they weren't going to let the UK leave, and wanted to impose a second "People's Vote". These MPs had done exactly what some people on this thread are asking for: they agreed to a referendum and then decided they didn't like the result so they wouldn't obey it.
What happened next seems to have been largely memory holed: Johnson kicked the rebels out of the Conservative party (Labour did not), sending his party from having a majority to deep minority. Parliament then went entirely rogue and attempted to take over the Brexit process from the government in order to directly kill it. Johnson asked for a new election to take the mess back to the people, and the rogue MPs denied that too. They knew full well they had directly stabbed the electorate in the back and they'd all lose their jobs at the next GE as a result, so they just ... refused to hold a GE.
This was by far the biggest constitutional crisis the UK has had in my lifetime. Representative democracy is built on the basic assumption that if politicians say they believe in X, campaign on X and then get voted in because of X, that they will actually vote for X in Parliament. If large numbers of MPs claim they will support something and are just baldly lying, democracy dies. And that's what happened.
The crisis was ended only by a stroke of luck: the head of the Liberal Democrats became so delusional she began to drink the rebel MPs own kool-aid, and think that the population actually supported their desire for a second People's Vote. After blocking a new election for a long period, she decided to vote with Johnson's remaining loyal MPs to trigger one, at which point all the rebels including her were wiped out. Every single one lost their seats.
So, what you ask for actually happened. It didn't work because the British people voted the same way and for the same things they did in the referendum.
If the MPs actually wanted to be successful in thwarting it, they should have blocked the sending of the Article 50 notification. i.e. either placed conditions on the notification Act, or denied it passing. My view is that they were too craven (or stupid) at the time to show their true convictions.
Anyway, the faffing about was a different Parliament, the withdrawal was sent 29th March 2017, then we had a GE and May lost her majority.
I'd not view any of those "rogue parliament" events as a constitutional crisis, they're representatives, not delegates. As has been pointed out before, we have no legitimate expectations from anything an MP says to be elected. Our only recourse is to subsequently vote them out.
A constitutional crisis would only really have happened if the Scottish MPs (possibly with MSPs) had acted to thwart things - i.e. end the Union; but the then SNP folks were (and still are) too happy in their gravy.
As to an earlier 2019 GE, with the FTPA they were not obliged to do so. Yes their faffing about was annoying, and I take the view that folks were just sick of them dithering, hence the 2019 GE result.
However, one should not really speak of the UK being a democracy.
We (well strictly England, as the Scottish rules are generally ignored) are an absolute monarchy where parliament has wrested away most of the power, and handed it to the cabinet, which really means the PM. (The Scottish monarchy was never absolute.)
As has been observed in the past, the UK is essentially an elected dictatorship, which depends upon those in power being "good guys". Recent events have shown how fragile that is, yet still it has not been (and probably will not be) reformed.
What happened was extraordinary and had not been seen before. Calling it mere "faffing around" suggests you either don't remember those events fully, or perhaps, wished the conspirators had succeeded. Again - all the MPs who engaged in that so-called faffing around were evicted from their seats at the next election and there were IIRC more than 50 of them. The Lib Dems were the ringleaders, and voters reduced them to a rump. In particular their leader was booted from Parliament. The citizens showed exactly what they thought of this "faffing around" and it wasn't pretty for those who did it.
> the UK is essentially an elected dictatorship
That's a contradiction, isn't it?
If you really want to lawyer things, the UK isn't essentially anything at all. There is not really a written constitution, the country just makes it up as it goes along. That means the constitution is whatever people think it should be. And pretty clearly, from the brutal destruction the Lib Dems caught in the last GE, the people think that MPs should meet basic standards like not baldly lying about their intentions, not attempting to overthrow their own government, not switching to parties with polar opposite key policies and not refusing to hold elections.
Any system of government is defined by what people expect to happen, what people actually do, and ultimately what the army does. A democracy lives only as long as whoever wins doesn't immediately take over the secret police and execute all their opponents. If a UK political party were to try and do that, it would be right and proper for people to be outraged and enact extreme severe repercussions on those who were doing it. The fact that technically tradition says Parliament could vote for such thing really just doesn't matter at all, and British history is full of de facto changes to the role and powers of Parliament.
Indeed, EU membership was exactly that. Lawyers will tell you that under the "unwritten constitution" Parliament may not bind itself, i.e. one party can't pass a law that forbids the next party from passing a different law. Yet EU membership did exactly that for decades.
In Scotland, the people are sovereign, can (and have) sacked their monarch.
In England, the monarch was sovereign, now it is "the crown in Parliament" which is sovereign after parliament executed a king, and took the power.
Those two positions can not be accommodated, so they're forgotten about, and the establishment acts as if the constitution is that of England - i.e. Scotland wass annexed.
And while we’re at it, make it illegal for politicians to spread baseless misinformation? If you say something you have to back it up.
Brexit is exactly what the high-class brits wanted. Look at where the campaign funding came from. The people who lost out were working class.
> Weigh brexit vote by tax paid per year, lifetime tax paid, or years having to live with the consequences, by educational attainment, and you get a remain landslide.
EU control over foreign and military policy has clear limitations. Most decisions in that area are done by unanimity (so Germany has no more power to block them than any other member state), and for those done by a qualified majority, while Germany has the largest vote (having the largest population, 19%, it was smaller pre-Brexit), it can be outvoted (65% of population is the threshold). Generally it involves the EU adopting a consensus position on certain issues, but leaving member states free to adopt their own policies in areas for which no consensus position was been adopted, and (very often) to go beyond the consensus in ways compatible with it.
It is pretty difficult to argue that in the case of Ukraine, UK's autonomy has come in very handy indeed and was one of the promised benefits of Brexit. The EU has been consistent in it's messaging, but it's deeds have not always lived up to when and what they've said they'll deliver.
Hungary is blocking aid out of the EU budget. It has zero power to block other EU countries from giving aid out of their own budgets. Big member state national budgets are each several times larger than the EU budget.
> Meanwhile, the UK delivers aid how and whenever they like (including many firsts like western battle tanks, cruise missiles, etc.).
Which it could still do in the EU. Many EU member states provide military and other aid to Ukraine outside of the EU framework, and the EU has done nothing to stop them
> The UK would be under a lot of pressure not to act unilaterally,
Not true. EU member states have been giving independent aid to Ukraine - for example Poland - and the EU has not done anything to stop them. In fact, the biggest obstacle to Polish military aid has not been the EU, it has been Germany and the US - Poland buys military equipment from both, and the contracts said they couldn’t re-export it to a third country without permission, and both Germany and the US were dragging their feet in giving Poland that permission. The EU had no real input into that dispute, since it was outside of its competence - its only real role was to provide another forum in which Poland could exert political and diplomatic pressure on Germany (and more indirectly the US), but it had no power to make any of those countries do anything
This is mostly making my point. Money that the UK would send to the EU would no longer be under their control and unavailable to send to Ukraine -- which is being held up by intransigent member states like Orban/Hungary. All of the UK's funds are presently within the UK's discretion to send to Ukraine. If they were a member of the EU, less funds would be available to even consider sending to Ukraine. It is quite a lot harder fiscally speaking.
> Not true. EU member states have been giving independent aid to Ukraine - for example Poland
With all due respect to Poland and it's people (whom I admire), you can't really compare the political gravity and the pressures of the UK vs. Poland. The UK was one of the leaders in within the western EU and had to act in coordination with the rest of the EU. Also, Poland is in a very different political situation (i.e., Eastern Europe, border state, former Soviet Block, etc.). If London would have spent the same amount of it's GDP as Poland, there would have been a lot of concerns and raised eyebrows in Brussels for sure. If the UK were in the EU, they would be feeling the pressure not to get too far out in front of the slow-footed Germans. Poland doesn't exert the same pressures on Germany as the UK would while in the EU (again nothing but respect to Polish folks).
Re-export agreements are standard in all arms agreements, so that's a different matter (which I agree with you about).
Government budgeting is not a zero-sum game. The UK as an EU member could still have given the exact same amount as they have given outside of it. They could have done that either by cutting spending in other areas, raising taxes or borrowing more. Whether or not they would have is a very hypothetical/speculative counterfactual which nobody can know either way with any great confidence.
> The UK was one of the leaders in within the western EU and had to act in coordination with the rest of the EU
There is no hard requirement to "act in coordination with the rest of the EU". In the area of foreign policy, the EU has no enforcement mechanism. In other policy areas, if a member state disobeys EU rules, the Commission can take them to the European Court of Justice; however, foreign policy has been explicitly excluded from the Court's jurisdiction. So if the UK really wants to do their own thing on foreign policy, there is nothing the EU (or its other members) can do to stop them.
Further down the article you can piece together most people seem to have given “I don’t know” answers given the low numbers for both answers on Boolean questions.
I wouldn’t take this seriously as representative of the population at large.
That said, and more concerningly, you could also find that most Brexiteers might agree with this poll entirely and would still do it all over again “to teach Brussels a lesson” whatever they think that means.
The interpretation of the tables is always a separate thing of course
A good example of that happening recently was with a poll commissioned by the BBC from Savanta via Kings College London. Savanta is a member of the British Polling Council, and the poll supposedly canvassed people about misinformation related topics. The results claimed several things so absurd and implausible that once people noticed, Kings College London attempted to backtrack [1]. The results were very obviously indefensible garbage. Amongst other things, if you assumed the poll was representative you'd be required to believe that:
• 15% of British people get "a great deal" or "a fair amount" of their information from Truth Social.
• A quarter say COVID was a hoax.
• Around 3.7 million people in the UK had attended protests about COVID and central bank digital currencies and "15 minute cities". No protests of any such size have been seen anywhere, needless to say.
• Around 7.4 million people had heard of an obscure hobbyist conspiracy newspaper called The Light, and half of all the people who had heard of it had helped distribute it. In reality The Light has a tiny number of subscribers.
The poll itself is clearly misinformation. Ironically, it was commissioned for the BBC's "Marianna in Conspiracyland" which promoted the poll relentlessly; the BBC has never accepted that the poll's results are nonsensical and simply ignored the problems. The Guardian also jumped all over it [2] without subjecting the results to even basic reality checks.
The actual meaning of these results is that Savanta's panel has become extremely unrepresentative and the company is simply ignoring this problem. This is a problem that has been affecting all panel-polling companies and it's been getting worse with time, albeit Savanta seems to be truly hosed to an extent that maybe YouGov isn't (yet). Panels are deeply unrepresentative, in particular with time they become deeply skewed towards women and people who volunteer for things (for obvious reasons). They attempt to weight the results to make them more realistic, but the models are calibrated only for elections and other moments when they can get ground truth. Ask non-election related questions and you will routinely get absurd results that don't reflect the actual views of the population.
The polling industry is in deep trouble as panels degrade over time (the rewards for taking part are meaningless), but are currently able to ignore it because people generally accept their results as gospel. There's Advanced Math™ involved so it must be correct, right? Still, I think eventually people will get more savvy about this. I certainly wouldn't take any poll promoted by the Guardian at face value given their disinterest in checking the results.
[1] https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/conspiracy-theory-research
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jun/13/quarter-in-u...
Still, that's the Grauniad for you these days, and I sort of appreciate it. Spinning up things that are only barely positive news for progressives into actual celebratory takes, in a similar-but-better way to the behavior of right wing/conservative media for several decades.
Edit: one positive this year was us becoming part of the Horizon programme.
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_23_...
Economies of scale. Post-Brexit, we've copy-and-pasted nearly all EU regulations, because it turns out that a) writing and maintaining regulations is really difficult and expensive and b) there are massive advantages to having the same regulations as your most important trade partners. A lot of people didn't like the idea of EU regulations, but very few people have identified anything in those regulations that they actually want to change.
As a conservative, the whole Brexit project strikes me as antithetical to conservative principles - we abandoned the status quo with no clear idea of what we'd replace it with, nor any clear sense of what the advantages might be. The fallout of Brexit is an incredibly strong vindication of Chesterton's Fence. Shortcomings in EU institutions are a valid justification for leaving only if you're confident that you can replace them with something better; it was only after the referendum that we started seriously discussing what the decision to leave actually meant.
They still apply to us. The only thing the EU rules added were exceptions for undersize bananas which otherwise would not have been allowed.
I'm not very well versed in UK politics but what's the narrative behind this? In what way do Britons believe Brexit has made controlling immigration harder? While the ways it has hurt trade and the economy in general are obvious to me (both on the factual level and what I presume Britons believe) I have a hard time imagining what they could possibly think on this subject.
But what happened post-Brexit is that (legal) immigration numbers are at all time high. There is a high fraction of low skilled immigrants from outside EU, often with questionable English and, well, looking different - which matters to some people. My point isn't to disparage hard working people, but that it's very visible.
So that's a major Brexit pledge gone completely awry. I don't think there is anything Brexit-related that made migration control objectively harder, only that the control failed. Although what also happened, not unrelated, is that high-skilled immigrants from EU largely left, because post-Brexit UK is not very attractive to Europeans. This is very perceptible especially in health care, where shortages of doctors and nurses are now quite scary.
And the immigration is so high in then because UK has always had labour shortages, patched by foreigners. It's only the country of origin that changed.
And immigration, of people of any colour, is at all time high.
The few brexitters I talked with shared the same stance, that it was not acceptable for the EU to dictate immigration to the UK. It was not a matter of the influx itself, but about having that control. sovereignty was a big thing.
The government is using immigration to prop up the (overall) economy while keeping wages down.
Actually, yes. There was a very severe reduction in labour market participation due to the pandemic. The reasons for this are complex, varied and in many ways the fault of the government, but the upshot is that we lost ~700,000 employees from the labour market over the course of 2021/22. Job vacancies have declined sharply since mid-2022, but we still have about 150,000 more vacancies than we did pre-pandemic.
https://obr.uk/box/the-impact-of-the-pandemic-on-labour-mark...
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwor...
This just shows the state of the economy where, on the one hand the government is happy to use weak health reasons not to officially count people as unemployed [1], and thus to claim low unemployment while, on the other hand, importing more people, which only keeps productivity and wages down, and keeps the housing market hot.
This also allows the government to claim that the economy is strong when, in fact GDP per capita is going down.
The UK has a big issue with immigration in that it overly depends on it instead of fixing its domestic issues.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/dec/24/500000-under...
So it went from "we don't like immigrants" to "pretty please immigrate to the UK even if you're not from the EU or we're toast".
This isn't what voters want or were promised at all, but there are currently no established parties in the UK that are willing to actually reduce immigration. They are all committed to allowing in the highest numbers possible.
In theory this behavior should be punished by voters, but if all the parties are the same then there isn't much voters can do except refuse to vote at all. This is what they're telling pollsters they'll do in the next GE. Polls predict a big shift to Labour, but this isn't because Labour is suddenly more popular. It's because the Conservative voters have become so disillusioned with being misled over the immigration issue that they're just refusing to vote at all.
However that didn't constrain EU workers, as the 4 freedoms are distinct from, and predate Schengen.
Post-Brexit, once an asylum seeker in France makes it to the UK, France is no longer under any legal obligation to take them back, so they refuse. There isn't anything in it for them.
It also has rules about spreading the burden, so once a refugee claim is accepted, governments can then forcibly transfer them to a different EU country. Post-Brexit, the UK government can only transfer refugees to EU member states if they agree to receive them, and why should they, what is in it for them?
To send a ship back we'd have to escort it, then the French would forcefully object to our actions.
Basically for us to send ships back, or send people back, without French cooperation amounts to an act of war. We'd have to use our armed forces, with the obvious reaction from the French armed forces.
Not really a practical, nor sensible proposition.
Overly beneficial trade deals are harder to come by for the UK than they thought because outside the EU they’re a minor market with little clout.
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/british-cheese-in-canad...
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-67828648
Funding is still way below european levels though, always has been, the crisp is that the money is being spent on agency staff rather than employed ones, meaning not enough staff and a lot of rich people creaming a lot off the top
Brexit is one key cause of that staff shortage.
UK, as part of the EU, was shielded from that.
- On one hand, every policy was with Europe and not just the UK, so there wasn't any way to pick on the UK.
- On the other hand, the EU was a major economic block, both as a market and as a source of technology. It has massive negotiating leverage.
You can't really research this sort of thing, since China won't go out and say "Century of Humiliation" and "Opium Wars" in trade policy (at least much). India won't reference the "Eat the Meat" scene in the Gandhi movie, but it sets a lot of the national zeitgeist. Kenya probably won't talk about the Mao Mao rebellion. Ireland isn't going to talk about the potato famine or Bloody Sunday. I simply can't imagine those aren't in the back of everyone's minds as they talk to English diplomats. In terms of friends, they have a few, but not many (although a few, like the US, are disproportionately useful as friends).
I think things will only get worse for the UK from here. That kind of broad-based deep-seated resentment is very rare in diplomacy.
They'd be best off rejoining the EU. If they decide to do that, I think the EU will invite them back, but I really don't think they'll get the same kind of sweetheart deal this time around. I don't know if they will want that, or if they do, if they'll accept a less-than-sweetheart deal.
We did what we did, so I understand (to the extent I am able to, not having lived it). All I would say in our defence (and I'm aware it isn't a great defence and certainly doesn't excuse it) is that:
- That wasn't the current us, it was back then and I'd hope we were more enlightened now (despite the dross of our political machine).
- Pretty much every nation at some time in their past has dealt terribly with others. We are in the position of being the most recent old-fashioned empire, whilst having had the technology (Industrial Revolution, coal, guns, ships) to scale our oppression. Most (all?) nations would have done the same thing if they'd got to that point of power first.
I'm not my ancestors. I wouldn't choose the paths they did. But the above points are both true and also excuses, so to the extent that any current citizen is representative of their national history I apologise.
As for the lack of sweetheart deals for re-joining the EU, again I agree but with the added comment that I think that's a good thing. Only by going all in could we ever truly be a part of the EU.
As long as we demanded exclusion from, or preference in, so much we put our national interest first whilst ignoring the wider supranational interest that comes from a united whole. To be part of a union of equals we ought to go in as equals in the first place, thus forcing upon ourselves the incentives to do it properly and build a shared future.
That would carry more weight if, for example, loot stolen from other nations were being returned, rather than sitting in your museums. England also still comes off as profoundly arrogant in its diplomacy and other international dealings. The English accent is sometimes used in American movies as a shortcut for "pretentious" or "smug."
Perhaps this worked okay when there was something to back it up, but there's less and less there.
See also: Post-imperial Spain a few hundred years ago (same problem). Current Russia (same problem). France had a bit of that too, although not nearly as bad as Spain / Russia / UK.
> Most (all?) nations would have done the same thing if they'd got to that point of power first.
This is absolutely not true. There are plenty of non-imperial nations both now and throughout history.
It also absolutely doesn't matter. For my argument, what matters are impressions.
Mao Mao Rebellion in Kenya was 1952-1960. Most of the people who participated are alive today, and it's such a major part of the national identity. Opium Wars are ancient history, but again, it's the narrative that counts.
There are few nations whose name carries as much baggage as the UK. Even Germany -- post Nazi -- made an effort to dump all that baggage by in the form of anti-Nazi laws, apologies, and in some cases, even reparations.
> Only by going all in could we ever truly be a part of the EU.
I agree. I think the key thing, though, is that unless the England does something like this (or something analogous), I think it will eventually be in a pretty bad place.
I'm not optimistic for England coming to the same conclusion.
Good luck!
Arrogant diplomacy? Yes, you're right. I should point out that any nation with a history of importance would be daft not to play it up, though I really wish we were a lot less active on the world stage (except as part of a multinational grouping like the EU or UN). As for backing it up, we're still relatively good militarily. That said, even as the 6th or 7th largest economy (depends where you look) we're obviously going down the rankings and our permanent seat and veto on the Security Council for example is a little ridiculous (as is that of France).
Accent? If others still have that perception I'm afraid that's not my fault. Apart from anything I'm a Northener which means my accent is not classical British anyway but, regardless, that's their perception not mine. And even in the US the movie villain is often British. I'm not denying it happens, but again that's on them.
Most other nations? I've agreed on the other stuff but I'm afraid we're not going to agree on this one. But then, we don't have to and discussion is good.
All about the impressions? Yes. Unfortunately short of stopping global adventuring and subsuming ourselves into a positive-looking EU (or similar) I don't know what we can do about that.
And as for England re-joining the EU? Majority England didn't vote Leave (or Remain to be fair), and to my mind the people who failed to vote in the EU referendum effectively said they were okay with the status quo. Which means I personally think the Leave option, the one seeking change, should have required more than 50% of the electorate and not of the vote - and we'd have stayed in. But it didn't, so we are where we are.
It'll take a generation or so but assuming no environmental collapse we'll re-join the EU or something similar. We'll have to, to retain any influence.
And to be blunt whilst I find very few politicians trustworthy at all, the more I've seen over the last decade the more I realise I prefer the EU over my own government so the sooner the better.
Thanks for the interesting reply :)
> I should point out that any nation with a history of importance would be daft not to play it up
I don't think so. For the most part, this feels more like rubbing salt on recent wounds than helping the UK in any way.
A good way to think about this: How would you feel about Russia playing up Soviet glory? Germany playing up Nazi glory? You want to signal you moved the f- on.
Old glory is sometimes okay, even if violent. There are few wounds remaining from the Roman or Mongolian empire, so Italy and Mongolia can leverage those, if they don't overdo it (for an example of "overdo," see Mussolini).
Good glory:
* Islamic Golden Age? Awesome. That's about scientific and intellectual progress.
* US, 1940-1980? Economic superpower. Center of innovation. A few nasty incidents, but overall, the world's policeman providing rule-of-law and stability.
* Polish Winged Hussars saving Vienna (and Europe, by proxy) from Ottoman invasion? Good. That's coming to help
* China, during the late Tang dynasty? Known for massive progress in governance, poetry, architecture, science/engineering, etc.
The British Empire didn't help (almost) anyone and didn't leave the world a better place. You conquered and looted a lot of land. Many places -- like India -- have still not come close to recovering, having moved from one of the wealthiest to one of the poorest places in the world.
It's striking how much history has been rewritten in England to paper over this stuff, but English history is increasingly presented more honestly in former colonies, and that disconnect in narrative hurts.
> I really wish we were a lot less active on the world stage (except as part of a multinational grouping like the EU or UN).
To be honest, I'm not opposed to how active the UK is. Most recent times I've seen it active, it's had a positive impact. It took a leadership position a few times in military aid to Ukraine, which I really appreciated. It provides a lot of educational and medical interventions in former colonies and Commonwealth countries, which are a win-win (it almost certainly probably provides more economic benefit back to Britain than it costs, and it leads to a lot of goodwill to people who would otherwise hate you).
I just wish it wasn't draped in that English superiority complex. That buys you nothing and costs you a lot.
> our permanent seat and veto on the Security Council for example is a little ridiculous (as is that of France).
For your benefit:
* Permanent members of the UN security council: United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France, China
* First countries with nuclear weapons: United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France, China (India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea came later)
You might notice a 100% overlap. A lot of the justification for not changing it was to avoid a nuclear veto option.
I agree the structure is obsolete, and I'm not sure we want a security council at all. However, I'm in no rush to change it. At some point, if we even have a security council, moving seats to the EU as a whole would make a heck of a lot of sense. The EU has a ways to go before it's organized enough to manage something like that (it seems to be on-track to get there). In the meantime, I'm okay with the UK and France keeping the seat warm.
For all your criticisms of UK politicians -- which I probably agree with -- I think UK is better structured to do a good job on the security council than the EU. A lot of the role involves things like being able to make reasonable decisions quickly, as a situation evolves, and that's something the UK excels at.
Surely there should have been something in place that meant it could only be undone progressively or required supermajority or best of three or something.
Surely there was a better way to trial be separate but default back to being together.
I don't know there must be other ideas. A simple 50% vote and out is way too fragile.
And an off topic comment on democracy:
Everyone should start with 100 votes and you lose one for each year you are alive.
The older you are, the less say you should have in the future.
Do voters feel like they'd be better off back in the EU, or would have been better off never leaving?
Maybe they should ask the survey participants what THEY think the goals of Brexit were, and then whether they think Brexit has achieved them.
I don't really know, as I don't live in the UK and didn't follow Brexit much except for a few headlines. My (low-knowledge) impression was that it was more about control, sovereignty, and chaffing under Brussels.
Farage and friends: The EU is rubbish, we should have a referendum on leaving.
Tory govt: No
Farage: I've set up a rival party, UKIP, to campaign for leave. If we don't have a referendum we'll split the Tory vote and Labour will win
Tories: Ok have your damn referendum - you'll lose anyway
Referendum: Do you want the current EU mediocrity or the sunshine and unicorns of an imaginary unspecified Brexit?
People: voted slightly for the imaginary unicorns
Reality: Everyone agrees the reality is a bit rubbish really.
My personal take is the referendum should have been in a couple of stages. Like when you buy a house it's do you like that one? Yeah. Ok let's do a survey and look at making an offer. Not do you like that one? Yeah. Ok you're committed now for the next few decades, any second thoughts are a betrayal of the saying yeah.
There's two big things for me: 1. The debate on the BBC etc. focused on the economy, sovereignty, and immigration. Nobody even addressed diplomacy - that unity leads to peace and better relationships.
2. A lot of the coverage was on the personalities. Boris Johnson in particular. There was no equal calibre spokesperson for remain. Most people don't remember who was the face of remain. It's because David Cameron (the most natural spokesperson for remain at the time) didn't want the optics of a fractured Tory party.
So it's incredibly unsurprising to me that most people regret Brexit. I think frankly this was true even the day after (remain was the presumed winner and a lot of people regretted not voting).
One last point here: if the referendum was to stay, there would have been more referendums every few years. But it gets 51% or whatever it was and that's the final word on it?
Absolute disaster.
A question for the Britons on HN: have you perceived any discernible benefits to Brexit? My outsider’s (American) perception is that it has been pretty uniformly negative.
So, not exactly small, no.
2000 does seem small enough that it would be hard to ensure no bias creeps in.
- Zero discernible benefits so far.
Negatives:
- Loss of freedom to live, work, study & retire across Europe. Visas now required, often with high income requirements.
- 90/180 day limit on travel. Longer queues at airports, etc when entering the EU to get passports stamped.
- Loss of access to EU/EEA single market, so exporters face significant red tape. This benefits larger companies who can deal with the paper work versus smaller companies in the UK - but still disadvantages all UK companies compared to their European peers.
- Increased mobile roaming fees for UK travellers to Europe.
- Outside Digital Single Market: we can no longer watch TV services like Now TV, Sky while traveling in Europe even with a VPN.
- Loss of EU "passporting" rights for UK financial institutions.
- Irish Sea Border leads to some strange outcomes: creates a customs border within the UK and those born in Northern Ireland have more rights than those born in England, Wales and Scotland since they can retain EU free movement by applying for an Irish passport.
Before Brexit a UK citizen could just jump in a car, train or plane and travel across the EU/EEA almost as if they were in their own country.
So there is a definite path of responsibility. People have to wake up to that, and let the politicians know.
It is likely we'll have a flop to a Labour government at the next GE. Once they also show their incompetence, we may have a chance for improving things. Say starting in around 7-10 years time.
That period should be too soon for any successful rejoin movement, as that is in the gift of the EU, and the MS.
Brexit was (by definition) always a political thing, not an economic thing.
- Destabilising Northern Ireland [1] - Problems harvesting crops [2] - Breaking international law [3] - Irish supply chains have been reconfigured to bypass the UK [4]
Economics Explained recently did a couple of videos on the UK economy and the current problems. Not limited to Brexit but also not made better [5][6]. The FT did a similar video a year ago [7]
[1] https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/the-impact-of-brex...
[2] https://committees.parliament.uk/work/1497/labour-shortages-...
[3] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20220614IP...
[4] https://www.politico.eu/article/ferry-firms-avoid-britain-wi...
[5] https://youtu.be/P0G3lYTOI0Q
Most reasonable non thick people were either against it to start with, or have since realised they've been misled.
> Brexit has failed for UK
Did UK exit, or did Britain? is this the same thing, or did the article headline mess something up?
---
That said, congrats to Britain/UK for leaving, and thanks for showing all of us remaining in the so-called "Union" that there is still hope, and a leave is indeed possible (at least as a last resort if things turn too distasteful). I for one is absolutely certain that it is too soon to analyze consequences at this early stage where there's still too much post-Brexit turbulence - also I feel confident that in ten year's time or so it will prove to have been beneficial for you (as a country) to leave. If you don't re-enter that is. At the very least you will still be a country (boxes-in-boxes, imperial measurements, left-side driving, pints, pubs, pounds, and all.)
England is one country and geographical region within that island. Wales and Scotland are the other countries within that island. Some of the surrounding islands are respectively part of the countries of England, Scotland and Wales.
The UK is the state, the British state. It operates within Great Britain (and its surrounding islands), and part of the island of Ireland - i.e Northern Ireland.
The meaning of Britain varies with context, sometimes it refers to the state (the UK), sometimes the island of Great Britain.
The City is the square mile of London, a quasi city state which in some respects is not even part of the state (see the Norman Conquest of England), but that is usually ignored. The Commonwealth currently refers to parts of what were previously the British Empire.
Officially, the UK exited, as the UK was the member. However, arrangements were made for Northern Ireland such that it sort of stayed within the Single Market (for Goods) and observes EU customs rules.
Hence GB fully exited, NI exited, but has special arrangements such that many aspects of EU law still apply.
The headline is trying to indicate that Brexit had detrimental effects, but only because the UK did succeed in leaving the EU. If it had not managed to leave, there would have been none of the complained of detrimental effects - i.e. the 'failure'.
When the UK left, this became a problem, as a customs border would need to be erected somewhere. Thankfully the UK was forced into putting it in the only reasonable place, in the Irish Sea between NI and the rest of the UK, so limiting the damage to the Good Friday agreement. Effectively NI has been economically annexed by the Republic - formal unification is probably not too many years away.
It would do you well to appreciate some political history before 'feeling confident' about things like Brexit.
From the larger to the smaller:
- The "Commonwealth" is a grouping of nations initially based on countries that were part of the old Empire. This is not an exclusive club, though, and countries are free to leave or join as they wish. Over the years there have also been members who were never part of the Empire. Its mostly a loose trading arrangement with some political and sporting overlap.
- The "British Isles" (a name disputed by many in Ireland as it includes the island of Ireland) is the group of islands containing the UK and the island of Ireland. Basically, the whole mass that sits off the top left of Europe (mainly sea borders with France and Norway).
- The "UK" is the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", and so comprises the top strip of the island of Ireland plus Great Britain, so the British Isles but excluding the Republic of Ireland part in the lower bulk of the island of Ireland. This grouping is what the UK Parliament represents, with elected members from each one and with devolved powers to their local assemblies in many areas.
- It follows from the above, therefore, that "Great Britain" is the UK minus Northern Ireland. So that's the countries of "England", "Scotland", and "Wales". There are theories about the name Great Britain, some claiming to be fact, but I like to think of it as either being "the greater part of the British Isles" or "greater Brittany" (an area of France that has many political/military contacts over the centuries). It isn't about being "great" in terms of wow look at us.
- Then you've got the aforementioned three 'mainland' UK nations of "England", "Scotland", and "Wales". Whilst being in the UK and controlled by London, they have distinct identities and often legal differences (especially Scotland). They also are often represented individually in various sports such as football or rugby.
- England's capitol city, London, contains a small (and ancient) area within it called the "City of London". It is legally distinct from the rest of London and has many of its own institutions and laws.
---
To answer the main question, the word Brexit implies the exiting of Great Britain however it was actually the UK that left, so that's Great Britain (England, Scotland, and Wales) and Northern Ireland.
This incidentally also reveals one of the major issues of it all - by the UK leaving as a whole, it took Northern Ireland with it. That meant a land border between the UK and the EU for the first time (separating Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland).
Given the many decades of rumbling conflict of various degrees of brutality between the factions in Northern Ireland, re-introducing a land border at that point would risk derailing Irish peace. So a large part of the discussions involved a border in the Irish Sea between Britain and Ireland, which gives Northern Ireland a special status within the EU (enhanced compared to the mainland UK).
A large part of why the last leaders of both major parties have been populists, out of keeping with UK history, is because parties let their own private memberships play significant roles in choosing their leader -- this has handed the choice of PM from directly elected MPs to profoundly unelected party members.
The only reason the current PM is sane is because the ruling party decided to ignore the members this time, having seen how basically incompetent their members have become.
The last time the country voted for a new prime minister in an election (and by that I mean they voted for a majority of MPs) was 1997. Before that was 1979 with Thatcher.
Major was appointed in 1990, Brown was appointed in 2007, Cameron came to power with coalition dealing, but at least had a plurality, May, Johnson, Truss and Sunak all appointed by their party membership at most.
Out of 46.5m registered voters, 17.4m voted to leave the EU. That's 37% of voters, and about 26% of the population. Unfortunately, 13.3m people just didn't vote at all in the referendum.
Theresa May got a hung parliament in her election (2017), and was propped up by the DUP. She won 42% of the vote, with about 13.6m votes cast - that's about 30% of eligible votes and 21% of the population.
Johnson won 365 seats in the UK Parliament (a majority of 80 seats) in 2019 with only 43% of the vote - about 14m votes. Still not the majority of Britons.
About 81,000 people voted for Liz Truss. It was only Conservative party members who were eligible to vote.
No member of the public outside of the Tory party has ever voted for Sunak. He ran against Truss in the previous leadership election and got about 60,000 votes. He became PM when Truss resigned and he ran unopposed.
Please explain how it is that Britons "keep voting against their own best interests", when the majority have actively resisted, abstained or not been able to participate in every vote from the Brexit referendum through to the appointment of the last four Prime Ministers.
We need Parliamentary reform - an act like the Great Act of 1832, perhaps - and we need better politicians, but don't dare blame this on "Britons".
Cameron had promised to rescind the rule that prevented 15yr+ expats from voting on Brexit before the vote would be held. He never fulfilled that promise. How many of the 3M+ expats do you think might have voted against Brexit?
But then, maybe not. I remember the week after the vote reading a letter in one of the quality papers (I think The Times, quite likely), from a lady who had voted Leave and was shocked to discover that her plan to retire to the South of France was now going to be much harder to achieve. "I think we should have been told about these sorts of consequences", she complained. It really boggles the mind.
Sigh.
Also: https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipcinfo-website/alerts-archive/issue...
> Between 8 December 2023 and 7 February 2024, the entire population in the Gaza Strip (about 2.2 million people) is classified in IPC Phase 3 or above (Crisis or worse). This is the highest share of people facing high levels of acute food insecurity that the IPC initiative has ever classified for any given area or country.
But sure, let's leave it at "they voted for Hamas" -- when "Hamas is using them as shield, so..." doesn't cut it, that is.
This video explains how the Palestinians voted for Hamas in theory but not in practice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ9PKQbkJv8
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up...
I suspect this will also be true for the UK and Europe.
Maybe after one generation things will change but for some time I think not much will change on this topic.
Come to Australia where everyone is greedy selfish and recalcitrant.
Australias politics is essentially “my money” as priority one two three then other stuff like environment.
The Euro is not a requirement (obviously) of being in the EU. If the sovereign UK or sovereign Ukraine or sovereign Sweden (or Norway, or wherever) want to acquire/retain EU membership but don't want to adopt the Euro, then that's absolutely their right.
The EU is a wonderful (and of course imperfect) organisation because it is democratic, because it's a voluntary association of democratic states. Yes, being a member has some basic requirements (like upholding rule of law), but let's not pretend it has to be all or nothing.
The UK will I suspect one day rejoin the EU, and when it does, it will be two mature political entities coming to a mutually beneficial agreement.
Likewise the EU gets to say "The Euro is a condition of joining, if you don't want to switch currency stop asking to join".
The UK may or may not be able to give the EU a reason to let them in without signing up to join the Euro, but given the current lot I doubt it.
> The UK will I suspect one day rejoin the EU, and when it does, it will be two mature political entities coming to a mutually beneficial agreement.
For it to be only two, that will take a while. Right now it's 27 member states and the EU as a collective entity on one side and the UK as another; this isn't like the USA where nobody negotiates with just Massachusetts on customs, border controls, and which court oversees trade disputes, but instead goes to just DC and they decide for everyone else.
They negotiated an opt-out. That's likely to be much tougher if there's a second go around.
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/summary/united-ki...
> When the Maastricht Treaty was concluded in 1992, the United Kingdom was granted an opt-out clause, meaning that it was not required to participate in the third stage of economic and monetary union (EMU) and consequently introduce the euro.
The customisable membership (and again, certain core principles cannot be customised of course) is a strength of the EU.
UK-EU negotiations now would be a very different power dynamic than they would've been in 1992. Yes, they can, as a sovereign nation, continue to exist outside the EU. If they want to rejoin, though, they're probably going to have to make concessions.
(The parent analogy is, perhaps, apter than you imagined. If you leave home at 18 by saying "fuck you, I hate you, I won't ever live under your rules again!" they may not necessarily let you come back a few years later with the same no-rent policy you previously had.)
Nothing says ‘commitment’ like “Sure let’s get married but I want separate bank accounts”.
From the outside it always looked like British politicians used the EU as a convenient scapegoat much strongly than in most other EU countries which caused much of the population to have strong negative opinions. I think in many of the other EU countries this tactic has died down significantly at least within the major parties.
I’d love the U.K. to join schengen though.
Nobody would land by boat in the U.K. to get into the schengen area (assuming Ireland also joined)
Brexit made me terribly sad the second I heard of even the suggestion, before it won the vote. Then, when even the people who were against it just shrugged and said "politicians just have to go by the non-binding referendum, or they won't get re-elected", I was furious and frustrated. I spent all my resentment right then and there, screaming into the void. Now, I'd love to see this stupid bullshit get corrected, yeah. No hard feelings, no grudges.
> [..] if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less [..]
-- John Donne
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks
and indeed, that bit is not without application to the story in the Guardian.
Eventually a broken clock will be right. Regardless of the truth of this talking point though, its process of dissemination is unambiguously propaganda. Certain elites really want the public to believe this.
Examples:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/12/11/does-britain...
Half a decade ago
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/31/the-gu...
https://www.businessinsider.com/yougov-poll-brexit-regret-re...
Honestly just search Brexit in the News section of google and try to find a mainstream paper that has anything positive to say.
Then EU needs to accept their membership again?
When it should join? If today both EU and UK are cold enough about joining, it shouldn't be forced. However, in the long run it looks rather like inevitability.
EU should and I think will have interest in UK joining them. UK should also have an opportunity to improve EU as part of the joining talks, which both make UK joining easier and EU stronger in the long run. One of the biggest complaints about EU - not even only in UK, but in EU itself - is the bureaucracy in Brussels. It's a complex problem, but UK-EU crisis seems like a great opportunity to improve the situation. Information transparency on all levels - with laws and law applications clearly visible to all the population, law clarification itself, all efforts to bring that "common sense" the lack of which is so disliked by people - all of that could be in the package for UK to join EU on a better terms for everybody.
But more attractive still than the current mess, if you ask me!
“ The movement of people in Europe fair enough. But not from Africa, Syria, Iraq, everywhere else, it's all wrong”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/06/27...
Well then they are pretty fucking stupid.
Weigh brexit vote by tax paid per year, lifetime tax paid, or years having to live with the consequences, by educational attainment, and you get a remain landslide.
The guardian and their types have been saying “brexit failed” from the 1st day of brexit. It’s getting a bit tired. Yes we left the EU , can we move on now ?
I didn't and couldn't believe that the British would be so dumb as to cut themselves off from their main markets, and their main sources of imports.
As events have followed my predictions, I can't help a certain sense of schadenfreude.
[0] For example the end of Theresa May as Prime Minister and Westminster voting against all possible variations on how to do Brexit: https://www.dw.com/en/british-mps-vote-against-all-alternati...
Instead, it seems that the government decided to keep things as they were as much as possible, which is the sure route to failure.
Given the discussions at the time, I think this changed nobody's mind.
disclaimer: i’m not british and so whether brexit succeeds or not isn’t in my interest. but i’d like to read/study better report than an opinion poll as i strongly believe that failure or success here is scientifically determinable.
Leaving the EU customs union was an own-goal when the EU is Britain's largest trading partner. There's too much money to be made in simplifying the customs rules, so that rollback is perhaps inevitable.
The viability of the EU as a political union, though, remains to be seen. It is not clear that European politics will ever transcend nationalism. The last two world wars started in Europe for nationalist reasons. The third one probably will too. The challenges that face all of us cannot be solved by nation-states.
We are already seeing EU nations grumble about supplying weapons to Ukraine to counter Russian aggression. The Ukrainians have shown themselves to be capable warfighters. The Russians have shown themselves to be consummate bullies. European politicians remain focused on narrow national interests in the face of Putin's imperialist plans. "It is not in our national interest to support Ukraine," says Orban. He will say that until Russian tanks are again on the streets of Budapest. Perhaps even after.
The only time Europe was politically a unit was during the Roman empire, and that included large parts of North Africa. I don't see the EU expanding that far. Heck I don't see them admitting Turkey. All because European politics is still based on nationalist interests.
It is here that Britain was perhaps wise to leave the EU. The EU is an insular club of developed nations that are socially liberal but ultimately inward-looking conservatives seeking to preserve a privileged status-quo. If the EU cannot innovate, it seeks to regulate - e.g. GDPR, and AI. Such a project fails to engage with the dynamic world and is doomed to failure.
I went on a couple of marches to ask for a second vote where it was clearer what the deal is but apparently it's only real democracy if you don't know which option you are voting for.
I rather doubt that if people had had the choice between how things were and the current hard brexit with lorry queues for extensive paperwork to export anything to Europe that leave would have won.
As an Australian looking on at UK and USA politics, a month doesn't go by where I don't think "there, but for compulsory voting, go us".
We have in our parliaments the some of same "sell my grandmother for a vote" politicians as everywhere else. But once their true colours become apparent the system corrects immediately. As in, in my local state there was a change in government after a decade, who by rights should have had their 10 years in office. But among many stellar decisions like "lets make bikies in jails wear pink - that'll show them", got thrown out after one term.
It's ironic how it plays out. Most Australian's don't believe many of their fellow citizens are smart enough to vote, and many strenuously object to be forced to vote. And, when everyone votes, the result is very mediocre. Mediocre, as in unimaginative, unsurprising, toward the centre, we don't want no stinkin' idealists thank you very much.
It seems the common man underestimates himself.
Maybe instead of consuming propaganda about "evil Russia", you should figure out the real reasons behind its actions.
These narratives are so detached from reality and cause-effect that I actually expect that propaganda will unironically declare a win for Ukraine once Russia achieves its goals there.
What would be the fun of that? Anyway, it's not like people would even care unless you poke holes in their ideas first.
> What, in your view, are the real reasons behind Russia's actions
Fulfilling its role in Minsk agreements that it is legally bound to, duh. Spiced by assuming no good faith or credibility from its former western partners, who at this point even publicly confessed that they were lying about these agreements in the first place.
> and what is your evidence that those are the real reasons
These kind of questions kind of stagger me, because they are like "what's your evidence that the sky is blue and Earth is round".
I guess largely because it is a simple, yet very concrete and grounded cause-effect that doesn't require inventing an alternate reality or a new prognosis each time a new datapoint presents itself.
It is definitely more realistic than fantasizing about "Russian tanks in Budapest" or explaining every specific bit of reality with vaguest, maximalist and most intangible crap.
The reality is that Russia is a has-been power, riven with oligarch corruption and a GDP the size of Italy. Russia’s biggest threat is itself and always has been.
The clearest manifestation of Russia being its own worst enemy was Prigozhin’s march on Moscow. But in a fit of projection, Putin blames anyone except himself and his cronies for the state of Russia today.
I’m not a Jungian, but this is classic scapegoating. Which is why supporting the Ukrainians is essential.
No one cares that much about something as vague and unspecific. Even a mentally impaired child should recognize the background of NATO-Russia relationships, but this is hardly the core motive and reason behind what is happening right now.
> The reality is that Russia is a has-been power, riven with oligarch corruption and a GDP the size of Italy. Russia’s biggest threat is itself and always has been.
The reality is that you are parroting media, hence the whole "Italy GDP" meme, as if the price tag of Italian cheeses and fashion items has anything to do with anything. Why specifically Italy? Why specifically GDP and not GDP per capita or any other one of an endless list of economic metrics? What does this even have to do with anything? The answer is obviously that these are not even your thoughts and you are just parroting, but I don't understand why would anyone insult their own intelligence like that.
One actually has to admire this zealous doublethink about oligarchs:
- It all started with a typical projection: "we have issue with billionaires, means those guys have it even worse, duh"
- Oligarchs were heavily sanctioned, which amounted for a wet fart, because it turned out that they aren't that powerful in Russia due to the same historic reason why elder Russians love (or at least tolerate) Putin: he brought them under the thumb of the state and made them pay taxes.
- Keep insisting the same thing, while keeping in mind that it doesn't work - doublethink!
This is pretty much the level of insight and idiocy surrounding any internet "expertise" on Russia in the western corner of the net.
> scow. But in a fit of projection, Putin blames anyone except himself and his cronies for the state of Russia today. I’m not a Jungian, but this is classic scapegoating. Which is why supporting the Ukrainians is essential.
Politruk, can you talk like a normal person? Why is it always weird slogans and manifestos?
We could have left the EU and (in theory) re-joined EFTA, then kept the EEA agreement operational. That would have left us with SM membership, and aligning customs tariffs would have removed any point in agreeing to a new CU.
It still would have left VAT deals, etc to be agreed.
However that is all water under the bridge.
You don't need to be a member of the EU to be a member of the EU customs union.
Monaco is not an EU member state, yet it is a member of the EU customs union.
In fact, post-Brexit, the UK remains a member of the EU customs union, but only with respect to Akrotiri and Dhekelia (British exclaves in Cyprus). (Additionally, the UK is negotiating with the EU and Spain for Gibraltar to join the Schengen area, and it is possible Gibraltar may also join the EU customs union as part of that.)
The EU also has (narrower) customs unions with Andorra, San Marino and Turkey.
The UK could have remained in a customs union with the EU at Brexit, if that had been negotiated as part of the Withdrawal Agreement. The EU might have been willing, but the UK made clear they weren't interested. The justification given by the UK, is that staying in (or rejoining) the EU customs union would reduce the UK's ability to make independent trade deals. However, the promised benefits of that ability have thus far failed to eventuate.
Yes you do. Read the ToR.
> Monaco is not an EU member state, yet it is a member of the EU customs union.
That is _a_ customs union with the EU, not _the_ EU customs union. c.f. that with Turkey.
As to being in a customs union with the EU, it would have been pointless given the existence of the SM. Negotiating to be in the SM would have been much more useful. The SM was created because the CU had been stretched as much as it could, and could not really add any more value.
The major changes, and improvements in movements of goods came post '94, once the SM was operational. Being in the SM, together with (unilateral) customs duties alignment would have been sufficient, and rendered moot any additional gain from being in a CU. Having an additional standalone VAT agreement would have removed any remaining barriers.
However, that is all rather moot now.
By “ToR” you mean the original “Treaty of Rome”? Or the current TFEU? Which article are you referring to?
> That is _a_ customs union with the EU, not _the_ EU customs union. c.f. that with Turkey.
No, it is different. Monaco is part of the EU customs territory, Turkey is not.
See article 4 of the Union Customs Code [0] - you will see that Monaco is part of its definition and so is the UK’s territories in Cyprus. Andorra, Turkey, etc, are not listed in article 4 and hence are outside the EU customs territory
[0] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...
Should they? Why? Should the U.S create a union with Mexico?
Do they have to admit Turkey? Hell no. Is it a sign of a good personality? Also no.
Ghosting, good personality, nobody cares. The EU isn't going to commit political suicide because of optics.
National boundaries make it easier to export your capital than to export your skill set.
Yes and they sort of already have.
I get why I've seen this sort of comment for the last 7 years but I dislike the idea that Brexit was a unaminous decision when when Leave got ~52% of the vote share.
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I don't know what else I can really say. I resent the political elite and news sector for turning what ought to have been a serious discussion into an energised hellscape that made us all belligerent arses. A ~4% vote margin felt rather middling for what was championed as a total victory and casus belli for immediately pulling us out of everything EU – and then everything after became omnishambles.
And then despite all of this, no-one had any solid unified idea on what leaving actually meant. Some folks wanted to stay in the customs union, the common market, a good contingent wanted us to leave without any deal with the EU for... Reasons? No-one really sat down and seriously discussed it, which was why it was a surprise when the prospect of leaving Euratom and losing encryped access to the Galileo Satellite System[1] eventually came up.
Now for the voters going for Boris Johnson's Conservatives in 2019? People were absolutely fed up of the years of political deadlock and dither, especially after the EU extended the Article 15 period which was promptly wasted. Johnson's pledge to get it over with was what vast swathes of the coutnry wanted to hear (alongside the opposition leader at the time being unpopular), and unfortunately that was tied to everything else his premiership brought.
... God, I haven't thought about Brexit in years.
The horseshoe phenomenon helps with gathering the numbers necessary to break something but it makes it impossible to build anything.
The Tories, that turned far-right, found out that just because you won the elections and EU is no more it does't mean that you can drop all the laws, regulations, taxes and public services because the country still has leftist and centrists. The next elections the Labour will find out that just because you win the elections and the EU is no more, you can't just nationalise everything and expand the government because a significant portion of the population does want free market economy and low taxes.
As a result, what Brexit did was only to complicate bureaucracy and reduce the talent pool by erecting barriers with their closest neighbours.
No positives, only negatives. Anything positive that happened after Brexit could have been done within EU anyway. Why? For two reasons: either it's allowed within EU or you can change the EU law because you are the EU.
Yep, that't the other tragic fallacy about EU: That EU is some 3rd party organisation that you subscribe and consume. In reality, EU is made of its members and the people in "Brussels" are not some Belgians cranking out laws and regulations but British among others and great deal of EU laws are actually made by the British themselves.
It's simply mathematically impossible for UK to be better off outside the EU. It can be good for some, though.
Possibly the only ones who didn’t see it coming are the people who voted for Brexit. I’m sure the North is just booming after Brexit /s
David Cameron’s legacy is Brexit and that thing with the pig. It’s what he deserves.
All the possible fixes i can think of aren't really palatable: mandatory critical thinking training for voters (not egalitarian), strict long term accountability measures for politicians (chilling effect; can be weaponized by opponents)...
Ugh.
The harder problem is what to do about it? Democracy doesn't guarantee 'good outcomes' it only guarantees 'somewhat supported outcomes'.
It’s hard to convince people that are pissed off about their lot in life that the person telling them they can fix all of their problems if they were only elected may not have their best interests in mind, or that their ‘solutions’ are not at all practical, or that they’re just interested in power and don’t plan to fix anything.
I guess I just don’t understand how anyone gets emotionally invested in a politician.
Being here in Canada I've been through a number of referendums and I've never seen one that wasn't instantly hijacked by insincere interests and the objectives twisted with utterly disingenuous arguments.
In a democracy Referendums should be avoided at all costs.
i.e. we stayed with something close to our entry conditions, accepted some changes from new treaties. So the "opt outs" were really declining to "opt in" to new treaty terms.
Any new entrant to the EU has to accept the whole Acquis as it is at the time. So if the EU would have us again, we'd be in the same position as the most recent entrant, plus all of the changes which have happened since.