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Comment by dijit | Hacker News Reader

Given the serious effort CIA puts into destabilising regions (Lets not forget the large amounts of sources who said people were being ferried and paid to go to Kiev when the Ukrainian uprising was occuring) it would not surprise me very much if they were also behind the Britain "exit" from Europe, since that would cause an economic collapse of the EU and would remove a super-power from play.

I feel like a conspiracy theorist when saying it out loud, but given the history...

I mean it's economic suicide for britain to leave the EU, yet someone is plastering it all over the media and it's not the politicians. :\

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It's the workers who have been shafted by declining standards of living, stagnant wages, rising prices, false promises about the benefits of free trade agreements, and increased immigrant labor -- coupled with an increasingly bureaucratic EU organization that pushes more political change than economic/trade change. The citizens of Britain signed up for the EU when they saw it as a trade agreement that would benefit them down the line, instead they are giving up more sovereignty to EU's bureaucracy in exchange for benefits that disproportionately flow up to the elite.

And it's not economic suicide. In the short term it will most likely hurt but in the long term, Britain will survive and the EU will need to bend to accommodate Britain's consumers, even if the UK is not a member state. It is one of, if not the, biggest importers of EU goods and it's the EU, not Britain, who cannot survive without accommodating the other.

Also I don't see why the US would benefit in any way from a collapsed EU or UK. Trade and travel becomes harder when they are not a single unit.

the EU being overly bureaucratic is due to age, the UK system has the same issues.

our sovereignty is not important as long as we have the choice to leave in future, but the benefits awarded the middle/working/lower classes is unquestionable and we may not be awarded such luxury under a malevolent or overly 'for the rich' party. Rights are only rights until they aren't.

Workers rights in the UK are the best they've ever been, and better than those in the US, which is where our model seems to steer towards without EU guidance.

Quality of living (I'm guessing housing?) is bad in spite of the EU rules, not because of it.

We are awarded many luxuries and exceptions by the EU because of our status as one of the "core" members, if we renegotiate we don't have that. In addition trade agreements are not going to be in our favour unless with have something to barter with.

most of our industries are service/management layer, we're the middle people to a lot of things and without being a pivotal hub we may lose this and the foundation of British economy will be rocked, we need to produce something that the world cannot live without before making such threats.

Additional:

Without the EU being a unified block we do not have the clout to stand up to US bullying.

edited to remove condescension and provide only my points

I'm British and back staying in the EU, but I think your post is unnecessarily condescending and incorrectly portrays your opinions as facts.

The immigration argument is about EU citizens which the Danish system can do nothing to stop/slow, and stopping the 'free-flow' of EU citizens is most Brexiters biggest desire from the campaign. The economic studies are definitely in Remain's favour, but economics as a field is very 'woolly', often wrong and more importantly does not resonate with a large populace who have seen living standards broadly stagnate since the last prolonged recession.

There are arguments for and against - the Remain camp don't have a satisfactory answer to people who are genuinely concerned over immigration or (albeit discretely) do not like immigration in their surrounding, and the Leave campaign have the consensus on the economic side due to uncertainty over post-Brexit state and agreements.

Fair enough I could have worded things nicer, I've seen a lot of very bad "facts" circulating about the EU leave/remain debacle and mostly it comes down to peoples feelings about sovereignty.

However, the Danish system does indeed stop and slow EU migrants.

As a British citizen living in Sweden, I can't go live over the bridge in Copenhagen unless I have a residence permit, which requires having a job, or meeting the required points.

Without a residence permit I cannot rent property or pay bills. I had to go through all the pain with my sister-in-law who is Estonian and studies business in Copenhagen. I'm fully versed on the difficulties of getting a residency there and it's certainly not as simple as being an EU citizen.

I've edited my first post to remove the comments about brainwashing as it's not productive to conversation.

I agree with the brexit thing, also look at the eurovision result Ukraine highest number of points followed by Russia it's like rig-off by different agencies to send a message.

I'm British and pro-Brexit - an opinion I formed after reading arguments for both sides.(Essentially, I think leaving the EU will be painful, but staying in will be even more painful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_debt_crisis#Proposed_...).

Implying my opinions are manipulated by shadowy forces is a very low form of trolling.

Strange that you believe the CIA is behind a Brexit push considering the position of the White House and the IMF.

Also leaving the EU is not going to result in 'economic collapse' - the EU doesn't want tariffs on their exports to the UK. I'd expect those trade negotiations to be pretty swift.

It may be for UK main street (what little there is left of it), but it may be a benefit for the City. Especially as Brussels is mulling more stringent banking regulations.

"I mean it's economic suicide for britain to leave the EU, yet someone is plastering it all over the media and it's not the politicians. :\"

It's still their choice, to democratically decide to leave. Even though it potentially has bad/far-reaching consequences, doesn't mean we can discount the "democratic process" because of nefarious interference by clandestine agencies and media-manipulation.

I agree, but there is a very large media campaign that's pushing this, it's definitely somebodies agenda since every person with an economical mind has advised against it, even Cameron who was formerly against the EU before being in power.

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