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Comment by beninvalencia | Hacker News Reader

As other comments have noted, the point is that the EU will not want to give the UK a good deal on leaving, because the EU does not want to give any encouragement to the other countries which want to leave the EU (some of which want to leave more strongly than the UK do - apparently).

Secondly, why would the UK end up with a Norway or Switzerland deal, when the UK is the 5th largest economy in the world? This is unprecedented. This isn't some one sided negotiation.

The EU needs the UK. If you sift through the garbage press, you'll see that the BDI in Germany - "The Voice of German Industry" - says that trade curbs against the UK would be "foolish". Of course they would be! Do you know how many German cars are sold in the UK each year?

"About a fifth of all cars produced in Germany last year, or around 820,000 vehicles, were exported to the UK, making it the single biggest destination by volume." Source: FT.com

"The UK is the fourth-biggest export market for German engineering companies, with sales of €6.8bn last year." Source: FT.com

The scaremongering goes on even after the vote has been called...

View on HN

"The EU needs the UK"

Not true. It is the reverse because the UK runs a gigantic trade deficit: in 2014 they exported 472 billion USD, but imported 663 billion USD¹. In fact the UK is the second country in the world with the largest trade deficit (behind the US). A huge portions of UK's export go to Europe, therefore the EU has definitely more say when it comes to negotiating trade deals with the UK. I would be very worried for my economic future if I were a UK citizen...

¹ http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/gbr/

That cuts both ways. Germany has used the EU to run a giant trade surplus, and if that arrangement blows up, so does their economy.

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/germany/balance-of-trade

Germany would have a large trade surplus even without EU. They just make a lot of stuff other countries want

True, but... other countries around the world are producing the very same things, even cheaper, but they are taxed in the EU. China has no major deal with the EU for this reason. UK leaving would open to that possibility that Switzerland decided to open in 2010, balancing what comes in and what goes out and both countries got a major boost in respective goods. Swiss got access to the manufacturing in China for Swiss high tech companies and China got access to the major luxury good produced here, plus bank services, med techs and collaborations with universities like ETHZ.

Specifically the Euro (rather than the EU) stops the German currency from appreciating massively and making their exports more expensive. That has been a massive boost to the German economy over the years.

They could devalue their currency if they wanted to, if they had their own currency instead of the Euro

Which is what Greece, Italy etc would be doing if they weren't in the Euro. Germany wouldn't devalue as that involves increasing money supply which would drive inflation, the German post war banking system is built to have a massive fear of inflation.

Not only has it been a massive boost to the German economy, it has been at the explicit expense of the economies of Greece, Italy, Spain, etc. And how people can see that and be ok with it, I don't understand.

The EU under the Euro is the Fourth Reich. Nothing more, nothing less.

But they benefit massively from being in the Euro currency. Imagine how high the Deutschmark would be. The German exporting machine wouldn't be half as effective.

Not really. Germany has a large surplus because of the Euro. The common currency means Germany's currency is weaker than it would be otherwise thus it's exports more attractive. And countries like Greece and Spain have strong currencies than they otherwise would have. Thus their industries and workers compete at a disadvantage.

I agree that the eurozone economies are very different, and I can't see how that will be resolved without dismantling the Euro or kicking some of the weaker economies out

The US has a real central bank, automatic stabilizers, and large federal transfer payments to compensate economically weaker states for having to trade in dollars.

This is partly true but it is also a question of price. German does not pay her engineers and can just undercut competitors. Also, what do they get in exchange? Lehman certificates and Greek government bonds.

Germany has always exported a lot but also imported a lot. The crazy export started just in the 90ies. It has been very unhealthy.

UK importing tons of good from EU means that the uk is generating a lot of jobs for EU countries.

However, the UK economy is relatively small compared to other EU export markets. Specifically, this means that as a percentage of the total, it's not going to move the needle nearly as much as it will in the UK.

It's definitely going to hurt, but it's nothing like the pressure that will be on the UK.

I don't understand. If they don't want job losses, they have to trade with us.

I'm expecting most EU countries wanting avoid as many job losses as possible.

Doesn't really matter who's got the most leverage. The optimum strategy for both is low/no tarrifs

the OP's proposition implied that it is the EU's dominant strategy to cut the U.K. a punitive deal that trades off short-term pain for the long-term pain of dissolving by attrition due to other nations leaving.

The optimum strategy would be to create a regional organization with standardized trade rules, tariffs and other co-ordination structures.

Since it is clear that the optimal economic outcome is not being selected, the optimal Political outcome will win.

EDIT: to elaborate on what I mean. I think that this event has more to do with political points being earned, and poor leadership than it has to do with actual good economic sense.

In such an arena, most of what the HN crowd tends to be focused is less applicable.

What I expect to happen is that life will continue as normal. Any premium which was built into the Pound due to reduced transaction costs with the EU will be priced in very quickly.

What matters is what penalties the EU decides to apply on the UK, in order to set a precedent. I expect the precedent to be onerous - sufficient for the UK to pay with its larger economy, but much harder to cover for any smaller state planning to leave.

Unfortunately this is the worst kind of conjecture - guesswork by someone not currently in the market.

That's what the EU was meant to be. But it isn't

That’s a lie. The EU was never intended to be solely a free trade area, it was conceived as an ‘ever closer union’ and a lot of work has been put into it becoming one since 1952.

De Gaulle certainly was right in vetoing the UK application repeatedly, given how much harm they have done to the common European project and long-time peace and prosperity on the continent.

Tarrifs are not the problem. Even without tarrifs there are additional costs involved, mainly because both sides can't trust the other sides' regulations.

I would still expect every single EU regulation to be in place tbh.

I've heard that all EU laws will remain in place unless explicitly removed

EU regulation has to be signed into law by national parliaments. These laws won't go away.

It's a bit more complicated though.

Existing laws were already signed in. It's only new laws/changes that'd have to be implemented.

In fact, nothing stops the UK following the EU laws that it wants to afterwards as well.

Tariffs aren't the only factor in the assumed business losses, and they're probably not the biggest.

It's the loss of things like financial services companies based in London being able to readily "passport" their services into other EU countries without relying on local branch offices somewhere in the EU that will really hurt.

When it comes to passporting rights, it's very much in the interests of the EU to tell the UK to bugger off, and let the London HQs relocate a whole bunch of jobs to Frankfurt or Paris or Tallinn if they want to carry on doing business with EU nationals. This is likely bad if you work in some London-based back office role for a big European bank; really bad if you're a London-based fintech startup aiming to serve most European markets.

So the net "winner" for financial services might be Germany? If I were looking for a new financial head office, I would be inclined to locate it in the EU's largest and most stable economy, right?

Especially given how cheap real estate in Berlin is compared to London.

Berlin will gain the least.

The city may lose up to 30% (google Euro clearing and ECB. I was always a big issue). It will move to Luxembourg, Frankfurt, Paris and Dublin. Possibly Scotland if Scotland decides to secede - a vague possibility.

London is only the financial powerhouse it is because of its dubious status as the least regulated economy with access to the EU market. If they lose said access, that role naturally goes to Luxembourg, the next-least-regulated economy, and that's where these services will move to.

just as an aside, Luxembourg is not really an unregulated economy. it's very popular for fin companies because in addition to access to EU, the regulators (so I hear from my peers in legal) are very proactive speaking to companies to make it easier to set up there, and are quite prompt and more flexible than other countries in assisting companies on ambiguity in interpretation of regulations.

Of course it's not unregulated, and neither is the uk, it's just that the regulations are more relaxed compared to the rest of the eu.

Who is talking about ceasing all trade with the UK? The biggest changes will not come for net trade volume but more through a shift in supply chains. Politicians on either side will now have to make very bold promises so that businesses don't feel things are too much in limbo and pull the plug on their investments into the UK (factories, headquarters, ...).

Let's do some math. UK exports to the EU amount to approximately 300 billion USD. Assuming 1 worker produces 200 000 USD worth of goods, then the UK-EU trade is linked to 1.5 million jobs in the EU, or 0.3% of the EU population.

For comparison the UK-EU trade is linked to over 3.3 million jobs in the UK,¹ or 5.1% of the UK population.

0.3% vs 5.1% → the UK needs EU more than the EU needs the UK.

¹ https://fullfact.org/europe/uk-jobs-and-eu/

Doesn't matter who needs more who.

The best deal for both is low tarrifs. There's no conflicting interest here.

Tarrifs = more jobs losses for both No tarrifs = fewer job losses

I do agree with you but is not that obvious...

Apparently it looks like the English dont grasp this idea...

> Apparently it looks like the English dont grasp this idea...

Would you care to elaborate?

You should look into the reasons why people wanted to leave. I for one accept there will be a period of economic uncertainty, but consider it worth it in order to remove ourselves from an undemocratic institution that has power to set the laws of its members. I'd be for a democratic union, but I'll not be losing sleep over leaving an undemocratic one, even if it's a messy divorce.

Completely undemocratic, with representatives chosen in democratic ways, membership proportional to population (with UK getting the break there), laws voted in a democratic way.

AND UK having veto power.

Look into the role of the European Commission.

Not over everything. And the system is democratic, but it does decide against the UK vote more frequently than most other countries. In that sense you can claim that the EU does not represent the UK very well.

Well, one could make an argument that the house of lords represents exactly no one, and yet it is a part of the policy making process.

And the Queen

I'd be up for House of Lords reform as well, but let's let the dust settle on Brexit first.

HoL can't stop legislation, only delay it, and by convention they never delay manifesto pledges.

If the HoL stopped being anything more than a handbrake on laws it'd be abolished too. And as for the monarchy, well, nobody cares whilst the Queen is so disciplined about staying out of politics. If she dies and is replaced by Charles, and he doesn't change his ways, expect a constitutional change soon after.

The European Parliament isn't the central body of power in the EU. Only the European Commission can propose new laws.

To give you a quick introduction to the EU's legislative process... There are three main groups involved in putting together new EU legislation: the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Council. In terms of democratic debate, the European Parliament is where the bulk of elected representatives sit, with the Council being the 'upper house' (equivalent to the House of Lords in the UK). However, neither the Parliament nor the Council have the power to propose new laws, they can only discuss proposed laws put forward by the Commission. Therefore, it is the Commission that controls the agenda for the EU.

EU Commissioners are not elected democratically. Furthermore, they are required to take an oath to put the interests of the EU first, and not take any instructions from the countries they are from.

In addition to all that, the Commission has very close ties to big business. There are reasons why TTIP and CETA are being pushed forward even with resistance from MEPs. I'd recommend checking out the documentary The Brussels Business for a look into the ways the Commission and big business work together.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xMuUEd6w54E

> EU Commissioners are not elected democratically.

Well, they are suggested by the democratically elected governments of the member states and either accepted or rejected by the democratically elected European Parliament.

> Furthermore, they are required to take an oath to put the interests of the EU first, and not take any instructions from the countries they are from.

As they should, they are to work in the interests of the EU, not a single member state. German ministers are also required to serve the whole federal republic appealing to individual states is not looked upon very favorably.

> In addition to all that, the Commission has very close ties to big business.

Hopefully we can solve at least some of the issues with corruption and lobbying when the most corrupt country in the world[1], which has worked against workers’ rights and increased regulation to ensure public health and safety in the EU for the last four decades, leaves.

[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/when-a-mafia-expert-tell...

> "Well, they are suggested by the democratically elected governments of the member states and either accepted or rejected by the democratically elected European Parliament."

We're not talking about some inconsequential civil servants, we're talking about the leaders of the EU. If you want to call the EU a democratic entity, you should at least be able to vote for who runs it.

> "As they should, they are to work in the interests of the EU, not a single member state. German ministers are also required to serve the whole federal republic appealing to individual states is not looked upon very favorably."

The point I was making is that they aren't placed to represent the will of the people that put them in power. They represent whatever pushes the agenda of the EU forward, regardless of whether that serves the member states or not.

> "Hopefully we can solve at least some of the issues with corruption and lobbying when the most corrupt country in the world[1], which has worked against workers’ rights and increased regulation to ensure public health and safety in the EU for the last four decades, leaves."

Best of luck with that, with the lobbying machinery that exists in the EU you're going to need it. There are over 30,000 lobbyists in Brussels, in terms of volume it's second only to Washington DC.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/08/lobbyists-euro...

> We're not talking about some inconsequential civil servants, we're talking about the leaders of the EU. If you want to call the EU a democratic entity, you should at least be able to vote for who runs it.

The UK and German cabinet (including prime minister/chancellor) are also not elected. Should we not call these democratic entities either?

> "The UK and German cabinet (including prime minister/chancellor) are also not elected. Should we not call these democratic entities either?"

I'm not aware of the situation in Germany, but I can tell you that in the UK they are elected.

First of all, the leader of each party is elected. There's due to be a Conservative leadership election soon due to the resignation of David Cameron, so you can follow the build up to this election if you're interested in how it works.

Secondly, whilst the positions in a cabinet are selected by the leader of the party, the available pool of people that can be part of that cabinet are all voted for democratically. Therefore, if they do a poor job, they can be voted out at the next election.

In contrast, you have no power to vote out Commissioners who do a poor job, and without that you basically have no power over the decisions they make.

On the other hand, the President of the European Commission is elected not by a popular vote, but by the popularly elected European Parliament. The members of the cabinet (the commissioners) are proposed by the democratic governments of the member states, and the cabinet as a whole is approved or disapproved by the popularly elected parliament. The same parliament can remove the commission.

In short, the Commission is not directly elected, but selected and approved or vetoed by elected officials, and can be removed if it loses the confidence of the democratically elected legislature.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11974449

You may be interested to know that it is in fact a democratic union. The treaty of Maastricht outlines this in detail.

See my reply to AstralStorm.

And still it's unable to e.g. abolish the travesty of European Parliament's monthly travel to Strasbourg. Is that according to democratic will of European people? Hardly not.

It's not a hugely significant thing - maybe costs just a hundred million € per year, or a bit more, not a lot in EU context - but its symbolic nature about the essence of European Union is telling.

All democratic polities have weird little quirks which are unpopular but never remotely likely to become an election defining issue I mean, the UK has a House of Lords...

True, though to me it seems the House of Lords actually serves a useful purpose.

> but consider it worth it in order to remove ourselves from an undemocratic institution that has power to set the laws of its members.

I wasn't aware you'd disestablished the House of Lords. It will indeed be delightful not to have the Anglican Church dictating social legislation!

All in good time. The push for elected peers in the House of Lords is not off the cards. To me the next big push for greater democracy is to go for proportional representation in the House of Commons.

Not in this particular case. Like others have pointed out, it is not in the best interest of EU to give UK a sweet deal and it is not that hard to understand why. UK has had a sweet deal with the EU full of exceptional treatments. It can veto anything it wants and frequently exercises its right to do so but does not contribute much to the common piggy bank. But now UK wants to leave altogether, will not contribute financially at all but will have an even better trade deal? What message does it send to those who are loyal members of EU? That they will be financially penalized for their loyalty? There is no way Britain gets a decent deal at all.

I read that about 5% of EU's trade is with UK. It's not insignificant but it's not the end of the world if it goes down to 0.5%. We will fuck UK over, good riddance, we will be stronger without UK, now we will finally pursue tighter integration without fear UK will sabotage such attempts.

So Germany will risk 1\5 of German car workers because it wants to send a message?

There are no circumstances whatsoever that the EU will give the UK a trade deal like Norway / Switzerland / Iceland / etc. without the UK paying for the EU budget and allowing free movement of people, for example. All the things that the UK population voted against are exactly what prevents them from getting a trade deal. Something will have to give.

If you want to go with the rationalist perspective you seem to be advocating, then the UK government will have to be anti-democratic and strike a deal explicitly against their citizen's declared interests.

(This vote is particularly vexing for me since I'm Irish (voted stay) and now will have to sell my house in order to leave. Quite upsetting, overall.)

Northern Ireland might decide to become part of Ireland though, which would keep you in the EU. I wouldn't sell your house yet.

People in the North are UK citizens already (and free to also get Irish citizenship). I believe they mean they're an Irish citizen living in the UK (maybe England itself) and they're worried that they might not be able to stay living there.

Irish citizens living in the UK have a right to vote in all UK elections. I think the GP was one of those, rather than a NI resident.

They can sell cars to other countries. And UK will still buy them, just fewer.

Germany is only one of 27 countries making this decison.

Making the assumption that all 27 are equal and cannot possibly lean on others.

Definitely not the case.

Germany has a lot of might and will lean on the others but it remains to be seen how much effect that has, I have my doubts.

Riiiiiight. And in NATO, all NATO members are "equal" too, right? The US is just as important as Bulgaria, they're just "members"? Germany, where the ECB is, which is the most powerful economy in Europe, which basically controls the single European currency, is "just another country" in the EU, with an opinion that matters just as much as that of Portugal?

You honestly believe that?

I believe they will act in their own interest.

> So Germany will risk 1\5 of German car workers because it wants to send a message?

Let's be clear: it's the UK that felt obliged to send a message.

The rest of Europe's countries does not have delusions of grandeur and feel disenfranchised by foreign workers making minimum wage.

> The rest of Europe's countries does not have delusions of grandeur and feel disenfranchised by foreign workers making minimum wage.

There are many reasons to leave the EU, other than "delusions of grandeur" (the US seems to do pretty well..) and xenophoia. Perhaps the UK wanted to make choices without being slandered like this.

> Perhaps the UK wanted to make choices

What choice? You can wish that the refugee crisis would not exist, but the choice has been made when deciding whether or not to be the 6th largest weapon exporter.

Acting like an overrun victim now is a bit schizophrenic and it's sad to see 52 percent small minded bigots pulling down a country in this way.

52% bigots?

What an astute grasp of politics..

Sanctions against Russia hurt the German economy, and the workers, just to send a message.

Accepting lots of troublesome unskilled illegal immigrants hurt the German economy, and the workers, but sent a message.

I think I can see a pattern here...

> Accepting lots of troublesome unskilled illegal immigrants hurt the German economy

It's the other way around: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/may/09/germany-imf...

This is pure bullshit. Lot of the illegals cannot even read and write. They don't know the language. Most of them are also not refugees. They will be liabilities. The skilled labour from the Eastern-European countries is an asset on the other hand.

Actually robots will take away lots of jobs. Why do we need more unskilled people in our lands, when soon even the skilled labour will be automatized, and unemployment will grow further?

> Lots of the illegals cannot even read and write.

Except they can. Many Syrian refugees are proficient in English, and many even speak German. There was strong collaboration between German and Syrian universities historically.

(I'm not saying that everyone can read and write, but then again, Western societies have a surprising number of total and functional analphabets.)

And re the automation argument: Automation only takes away medium-skilled jobs. Jobs are for unskilled people because they don't require training, and that's also why they are a poor fit for robots. (Robots don't like irregular situations and need programming for new tasks, whereas you can easily explain a new task to a human worker in a few sentences.)

I always laugh at how people equate more people in a country with growing unemployment rates. If this really worried you, you would move to outlaw procreation, since procreation produces new workers to compete with you about 18 years from now.

> If this really worried you, you would move to outlaw procreation, since procreation produces new workers to compete with you about 18 years from now.

Only if the birth rate is above replacement which it isn't in any developed western country.

Why should 1/5 of car exports lead to exactly the same propostion of lost jobs? That argument even prima facie wrong.

And it's not about Germany. It's about 27 countries, some of which don't even like Germany too much right now.

Yes. I am German and pro-European and I would happily take a deal that our GDP will be cut 20% if UK's GP is cut even 10% in return. Not to punish the UK, but to firmly establish the principle that leaving the EU is painful. While this might not be the optimum from an economics point of view, it serves to keep the European Union alive - which is much more important in the long run (no more war etc...).

I suspect you will find that your enjoyment of self harm is not shared by most Germans.

Not to punish the UK, but to firmly establish the principle that leaving the EU is painful

Do you realise how crazy you people sound? "There's no punishment for leaving the Mafia, you just have to understand the principle that it will be as painful as possible".

The EU has warped into an ideological disease that sees European people's turned against one another by an absolutist religion that sees diversity as a flaw to be fixed and believes its own hype about stopping wars.

The EU does nothing to stop war. If turning Europe into a single country could stop war, there'd be no civil wars, but today the only wars are civil wars.

It does not matter much if it is shared by most Germans - what matters is if it is shared by a small elite of German, French, and EU Commission/Parliament leaders. Do you really think the German population will rise up if you tell them "Hold up, discriminating against the UK in derivatives clearing rules will cost you 0.0x% of your GDP!" And to most people (outside of the UK), it is quite obvious anyway that contracts negotiated between friends cannot be transposed 1:1 into a relationship between entities who are not friends.

You realize that that is Great Depression level shit... last time that happened, you guys went a little nuts.

> now we will finally pursue tighter integration without fear UK will sabotage such attempts

Or other debtor countries in the EU will see this as a chance to possibly get out of the union and "start over" as it were.

> now we will finally pursue tighter integration without fear UK will sabotage such attempts.

Hitler and Stalin will be proud of their heritage.

It's 5% for Europe on average, but for Germany and the Netherlands it's much higher (15% for the Netherlands). No politician in his right mind is going to risk that to spite the British.

Leaders of EU countries are generally not in their right mind though. Merkel has flat out said that the EU for them is an emotional issue not a logical one.

This vote will set in motion a chain of events that can reshape politics across the continent. The EU leaders who have little to lose will use their votes to force the UK's main trading partners (Germany, Netherlands, Sweden etc) to start a trade war with the UK, at the same time as the UK is wanting to sign trade deals. This will piss off the populations in those countries. Referendums may well follow there too.

"We will fuck UK over" "Now we will finally pursue tighter integration"

I have to say, with this kind of attitude, I am even more glad that the UK has left the EU. Who would want to be partners with this kind of spite and hatred?

Why did you want to leave?

Regain sovereignty.

Be able to set immigration to points based - like the US, Canada, Australia. Why should we discriminate against Indians, Chinese, Bangladeshis, Africans for the EU? I like immigrants and I think they help our economy, but I want this to be run better.

I don't agree with how the EU subsidizes e.g. French farmers at the expense of e.g. African farmers.

To not be a part of what seems to be a failing system and having to answer to the un-elected European Commission, and to therefore avoid being swept along in integration which isn't so good.

It might sound odd, but I didn't vote for leave. But I can see that now that this is what we have, maybe there are some reasons to be positive.

> Be able to set immigration to points based - like the US, Canada, Australia. Why should we discriminate against Indians,

Because EU people are not immigrants. That's the whole point. They are citizens, which happen to be born 1000 km to the east and in a different historic region - but they are citizens. There is no discrimination here because you're comparing apples and oranges.

One day, if globalization advances far enough, we will have the exact same conditions for all (or most) of the world, in some form or another. But brexit is a step back from this, not forward.

> I don't agree with how the EU subsidizes e.g. French farmers at the expense of e.g. African farmers.

Don't you think not having enough local food production to feed the population is a liability of any sovereign nation? Personally, I think there are "strategically important" industries (like food, steel, weapons) that countries need to protect to remain sovereign, by subsidies or other means.

EU state aid laws make it illegal to prop up industries, though. The only reason it works for farmers is because..well...who knows? The UK would really, really like to give some state aid to a few steel companies right now but it blocked from doing so by the EU.

The protection of badly run farms is a shocker. They are hopelessly ineffective. New Zealander here - NZ dairy facing tariffs because of European inefficiencies annoys me.

Fewer subsidies will force increased efficiencies in the agricultural sector. More productivity for less inputs.

I can actually understand, to some degree, the fear of refugees, of Muslims, etc. But your fear of other European citizens boggles my effing mind, it really does. You're so worried about Polish people somehow destroying your "Britishness", but Bangladeshis and Africans - totes ok? No problem there for you?

Why are you scared of refugees and Muslims? Doesn't writing it down show you the insanity of that statement? They are fleeing horror and have a different narrow minded book to that which the locals subscribe. It seems to me that looking different is the key problem.

I'm not scared of refugees and Muslims. The people that vote UKIP are. But they're scared of Europeans it seems. Sorry, I'm liberal and all that as well, but in all honesty, somebody from Poland is less likely to be a strain on your social safety net, is more likely to be educated and be able to hold a job than an illiterate goat-farmer from Timbuktu. Just thinking about it logically, right?

So why are UK's xenophobes more afraid of the Polish Plumber than the Bangladeshi Goat Farmer??? That's what makes no sense to me. If you're going to be scared that your "Britishness" is disappearing, fine - but at least be logical about it. Who's more a danger to your way of life? Someone from 400 kilometers away or someone from 10,000?

> "We will fuck UK over"

Has the EU actually said this or is this just what people on the internet are assuming?

"the EU" can speak only in treaties, and so has not spoken yet.

But yes, multiple people connected with the EU government have been making statements to this effect: out means out. It is not in the EU's interest to give the UK a more favourable deal than it had before, because that signals to other member countries that leaving has financial benefits.

A more favourable deal than the UK already had is indeed unlikely, because the UK already had an unreasonably sweet deal. But I really do hope the EU will give the UK a fair deal in the coming negotiations. There's no point in needless hostility. Unless they want to make good on that World War 3 scare.

This is just a ridiculous brinkmanship issue all the way around the table. The current situation with the exit vote wouldn't have been necessary if the concerns of the Leave side had been taken seriously by EU leadership (more local governance, for instance).

Now we're in a sorry situation where each party's incentive is the opposite of what is required for a healthy economy, and the important decisions require referendums and take a very long time. The fact that the vote to leave was mostly supported by older voters is a tragedy for the future generation, who do not have a straightforward way of having their concerns heard in the coming decades.

no, now incentives in EU are to have healthy EU economy, without caring about UK one. this means rest of states will stay together for example. which could mean punishing UK financially for this silliness. you express UK-centric view, this is EU-centric one that goes beyond individual state/industry. UK goods become more expensive? well then some intern EU ones might become more interesting.

By "the concerns of the Leave side" you must mean the main point of the Leave camping, abolishing freedom of movement in the EU?

Goodbye Britain, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

We are tired of your exceptionalism. You had a great (unfair for the rest) deal, and you were still complaining. We do not care one bit about the “concerns of the leave side“. Just go.

I'm not even a British citizen, I've been to Briain once. I am a European though, and worried about the economic situation in Europe.

This is the reason why I think losing the UK may not be all that bad for the EU. The UK got a very sweet deal, and was very obstructionist in return. Leaving and getting a reasonable deal outside the EU may be better for the EU, and maybe the UK will be happier there.

I think vindictive sanctions or refusing new trade deals with the UK would be stupid, childish and harmful for the EU. I hope they work together on a reasonable and fair deal. And then maybe the EU can move forward towards a closer union, and maybe also address some of the problems with the EU, because it's hardly perfect.

No vindictive sanctions, just a deal on EU terms. The UK can take it or leave it.

That's not a "deal"... and not how things work in real life.

There'll be negotiation and both the EU and the UK will get less than they want. There'll be free trade for sure, ironically there'll most likely free movement too.

More importantly, the UK will get less than they currently have. There's no possible way a new deal is going to be better than the already very sweet deal they currently have. A fair and reasonable deal will probably be something like that Norway and Switzerland have, which is very similar to what the UK currently has, but loses them their vote in the EU, and doesn't give them most of the things the Leave camp promised. A deal that gets them everything the Leave camp promised is impossible.

It is possible that the UK gets a slightly better deal than what Switzerland and Norway have, because the UK is bigger, but it's still not going to be a lot better. Certainly not in the current climate.

Purely out of curiosity - why do you clearly loathe the UK so much? Is it personal?

- they have taken everything from the EU, and given little in return.

- they have dragged their feet for 40 years, preventing EU progress

- they have forced on the EU expansion to the East (which I welcome), and then complained that too many poles are migrating to the UK

- they have prevented political integration and shoved down our throats a neo-liberal EU

- they have been treated excepcionally well by the rest of the EU, with excemptions and rebates. How have they thanked us? By continuing to blame all their problems on the EU.

And now they leave.

But I do not loathe them (my personal experience with british people is excellent). I think that you, as a country, have been extremely unfair with your EU partners, and basically betrayed the European project, and the trust that we have deposited in you.

So, the only thing left now is just to accept things as they are: you have chosen to leave, so please do it immediately. Do not burden us with your petty politics. We are not interested in knowing if the next prime minister is going to have the majority to invoke article 50 or not, or if you will have a new referendum, or if Scotland will split from the UK. We do not want to wait for 6 motnhs, or 2 years, or 10 years until you get your house in order. We do not want this uncertainty anymore. We have respectfully waited the last two years (?) for your referendum to be held, but now we have had enough. David Cameron has organized this mess, and he should bear responsibility for making it legally binding.

> - they have forced on the EU expansion to the East (which I welcome), and then complained that too many poles are migrating to the UK

Reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lScVfwe-Rp0

The strange thing about this for me, is that you had an excellent experience with the British people but now you are effectively calling for them to be crushed by this, at least, the 48.1% who voted remain, plus all the young people who couldn't vote but would have voted for remain.

I do not want to crush anybody. I want to salvage what is left of the EU. We can not allow for uncertainty, since now we'll get 20 more referenda all around the EU.

YOU have decided, and must take responsibility. We can not wait for years while your jonsons, farages and whoever sort their internal politics.

Cameron called the referendum and assured in case of defeat he would activate article 50 immediately. He must deliver. You have two years time to negotiate anyway.

I am sorry for the UK, I really am. I think you were an important partner, even though a bit unfair. But we must respect your decission: we can not pretend this is business as usual. The british people have voted, and we must respect that.

Specially sorry for the remainers, but this is something you need to sort out internally.

You are a sovereign nation.

As in your other comment, it's true also that despite 'paying more into the EU than receiving' directly, the benefits have been large. In fact the whole argument that the UK will be better off financially leaving is missing the point. The UK received big benefits from being in the EU and trying to calculate some in/out net contribution is again, missing the point entirely.

However, and I know this will grate horribly, but the EU might have to wait, whether it likes it or not. If article 50 is not invoked, no one can force the UK out. What's more, there are gathering suspicions that the UK could consider a second vote in some months' time. Only by waiting could this happen.

For context: I am British and do not want to leave the EU, despite my best efforts to find the positives in my other comments. I think that the UK had a good deal before and was able to influence policy from within. Now we will be punished by the EU and break up internally.

But beyond all of this, I don't want to live in a country where people have voted so stupidly, and so nastily. One of the leave campaign's biggest claims has been proven to be false. Actually proven to be false. And people voted on that. This in my view is almost grounds for a voiding of the entire process. I feel ashamed of my country and I'm a "true" Brit by their standards. I consider myself lucky in that I can leave and live somewhere else, and this is what I intend to do. I no longer feel a part of the country of my family and of my life so far. And I didn't see such a strong feeling coming until it hit me with the leave vote.

I see your point of view, and I'll try to explain mine:

This has been a big blow and, unless we act united and fast, the EU is going to crumble. You say that, due to how the referendum has played out, it would be better to repeat it in some months time. What happens in those months? Nobody knows, but probably very big damage for the EU and for European countries, while financial havoc paralizes the economy.

And afterwards? You vote again? Leave again? Why wait more then? Remain? Can the EU really deal with such unstability, a partner which does not accept a role alongside the rest of EU members, constantly complaining, penny pinching and accusing the EU of all imaginable problems? We have frankly had enough. I understand this is not your personal stance, but that is the UK's attitude.

I think that “what is done can not be undone“. Lets try to craft a deal which suits both parties. It could be that lots of EU agreements can be salvaged for EU-UK cooperation.

If we were talking about this last week, I would support you, but reality has kicked in, and you wanted leave. This is not a game you get to play again and again. This was a one-man bet, and the whole country played along. What a disaster!

Yeah, the damage to the EU is also a huge issue. It's terrible it's come to this.

There is precedent for a second referendum - Ireland did so in 2009 on accepting the 28th Amendment. I admit, this is a lot bigger.

I think the context here which may help this to make more sense to those outside: a lot of British people voted for leave on false claims. Ok, lots of elections have false claims. But these were enormously misleading and widely spread. It seems like there are a lot who regret their decision, though I'm not sure what % they represent. If there is a general election called early with a party that explicitly backs EU membership winning, then there's no way we can leave without another referendum. And if we vote to stay, I think there would be grounds for the EU to get us to accept a lot of things which we might not have before.

But yes, it's a totally miserable situation for everyone.. you know what, I'd even say it's miserable for the politicians who 'won'.

Indeed. I am not even sure that Boris Johnson expected, or even wanted to win. Is he awol?

Crazy isn't it.. again, I'm just ashamed my country can come to this point. The leave side didn't even have a plan as to what to do. Johnson doesn't look like he wants to go through with it. He looks like he just woke up and found that he got some girl pregnant that he doesn't even like.

The leave campaign did just that, campaigned. It is up to the people in charge to have a plan on what to do in the event of a leave or remain.

But did they campaign on facts? Did they have a plan? Are they going to use this plan for brexit? Where is the plan?

I understand that the plan is maybe not detailed, but I assume they have some kind of detailed roadmap on how to proceed? The Scotland independence referendum had a very detailed plan, hundreds of pages long.

The other issue is the British government: that Cameron did in fact not prepare for losing is his biggest blunder, and history will judge him for that.

IIRC, they've paid more into the EU than they get paid back to them in various programs.

It's disingenuous to say they "took everything and gave nothing."

Thats because (overall)you are richer: the EU works at the region level. Besides, the EU is not only money, there are also intangibles.

Besides, you are counting only EU related expenditures. Are you counting indirect benefits? How much money makes london operating EUR finantial center? And lots of other indirect benefits.

Nevertheless, it's wrong and disingenuous to state that the UK has taken "everything" and given "nothing."

To be completely fair, I did not say "nothing":

> they have taken everything from the EU, and given little in return

(not edited, that's my original statement)

Note that "deal" will have to replace the existing decades' worth of detailed regulation argued over by many government workers ad infinitum, on a thousand topics. And the treaty says that such a deal is only accepted by a unanymous vote of all EU members.

If the UK leaves this decade, it will be without any deal in place.

Here's how you write such a deal:

"As of date X, all existing EU regulations remain in force. Changes to UK law that overlap with existing areas of EU regulation will result in a notification to the Commission".

Done. There is no need to 'replace' detailed regulation on a thousand topics when, as you observe, it is already implemented in UK law.

Tarrifs, sure, but tariffs are the boring part. What about freedom of movement? What – most importantly – about unified regulation?

Differing regulations create trade barriers and much of the work the EU did was unifying exactly those myriad different and sometimes contradictory regulations. That way someone making something in Germany only has to adhere to one set of regulations (and not, in the worst case, maybe even open different production lines for different countries) if they want to sell something anywhere in the EU.

How does the UK plan to be involved there? Realistically they can't if they are outside. So it's adhere or be out of the common market … this is the UK losing some of their power because they are unwilling to cooperate. Not even ill will involved

This is not the EU trying to do something harmful. If you don't cooperate and participate in something complex like unifying regulation you obviously lose power. It couldn't even be any other way!

I mean, what do you even expect the EU to do here?! Roll over and say that the whole EU will adhere to all UK regulation from now on? Accepting that the UK unilaterally gets to dictate regulation? That’s obviously not fair. The EU cannot give that kind of power to the UK. That would be monumentally unfair to all members of the EU.

It's already fucking hard to unify regulation and it's hard to find a way to somehow respect everyone's interests. How should the EU even react to the UK saying that they don't want to play ball anymore? There is no way except to give the UK an unfair amount of power or less power than they have inside the EU.

And the second solution is the only plausible one to me.

But would they risk 1.5 Million Jobs just because the want to prove an example? Never, money runs the world.

If you look at the continued sanctions against Russia, it's definitely possible. Never underestimate political demonstrations of power regardless of money involved, just remember the Berlin Air Lift...

That's the whole point. Politicians send messages of their power rather than of their economy.

Well, the people have sent their message.

The North of England has seen their manufacturing base migrate to the cheaper countries of the EU while the SE reaps the rewards of the service economy.

The seeds have bloomed, enjoy the fruits.

Agree, I didn't consider this.

An EU exit of more states would cost more.

But is inevitable. It's not even 9am the morning of the vote and there are already calls for referendums all over Europe.

yes, we already have the far right in france and the netherlands calling for their own referendum, the EU can't risk losing these countries and others as well, so they are willing to go to great lengths to not give these countries more reasons to leave

Yeah, so what? UK will keep importing after brexit even if trade agreements change... UK will import at higher prices maybe. Else, where will they get the merchendise from?

On the other hand, EU could import less from UK, since (probable) taxes will increase the price => EU will consume more from it's own production and have less imports from UK. So to me, if it's about jobs, UK jobs are at risk, not EU.

From Japan, china,America, domestic, any common wealth country?

Europe will not disadvantage themselves with tarrifs and risk job losses

Transportation and smaller market will keep import prices from these oversease sources pretty high. EU only has to sell a little under (but more than what it's selling now, with the internal trade agreements) to keep it's upper hand. Of course, EU would be ratarded to have some silly new agreements to throw the trade prices over the roof. But this is a situation which can be exploited in EU advantage and in no way in UK advantage.

Japan already sell their cars pretty cheap over here.

Adding tarrifs essentially means Honda will get more customers at the expense of BMW.

Germany won't want that

Japan has trade deals with the EU making this possible. The UK will have to renegotiate all those deals themselves (or just copy and paste the old ones? what was the point of independence then?). What happens in the mean time? Is the UK going to remain part of the EU until all those deals with China, Japan, the US - to name a few - are made? It's a huge endeavor and a lot of question marks. I do not envy your position.

Yes, we will probably remain with the EU for long time coming. It will be a slow gradual process.

Hopefully, since that would have the least negative fallout. The untangling of connections across the Channel will take some time.

OTOH, looking at other possible referendums across Europe, I would like it to be clear what an exit from the EU entails as soon as possible. I don't think leave voters will get what they had hoped for, vide https://amp.twimg.com/v/6ca5195b-a8a5-4b20-b209-92440b9a25d6

The European Union does not have a trade deal with Japan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_free_trade_agre...).

There is no free trade agreement yet. There are, however, a number of agreements that cover bureaucracy regarding import and export, as well as other relationships. Maybe most of the UK's non-EU import regulations are negotiated partner for partner by the UK government. In that case, nothing would change. But I doubt that ongoing relationships between global partners and the EU do not have any effect on the UK. See http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/countries-and-regions/count... for an overview.

Maybe it's possible for the UK to get custom tailored agreements that are more beneficial. But I'm afraid that until all of that is settled, a lot of time will have passed. Negotiation about the FTA between EU and Japan has been going on for about four years now. Other fora of exchange have been established decades ago. Until the UK can benefit from their own negotiation efforts, the EU might look more attractive to Japanese investments and trade.

International trade is complicated and takes time but the Leave campaign made it look like everything's going to be fine in just a few years.

Honda threatened before to move it's Swindon plant to the continent. They also buy many assambley parts from EU countries. Let's see what happens next. It is convenint for them to have a plant in UK while UK is part of EU (because they sell UK made cars to EU countries with the current trade agreement) but if agreements change and imported goods from UK to EU get higher price:

- Will Honda keep UK plant to sell higher priced cars to UK (due to higher priced of imported parts from EU)?

- Will Honda move the plant to an EU country to have better prices to a larget market?

How how does this work in the UK advantage, again?

Freight costs (especially Asia to Europe) are at an all time low.

http://www.reuters.com/article/maersk-containerfreightrates-...

"Shipping freight rates for transporting containers from ports in Asia to Northern Europe fell 17.8 percent to $540 per 20-foot container (TEU) in the week ended on Friday, a source with access to data from the Shanghai Containerized Freight Index told Reuters."

You generally have 40 foot containers, not 20. But then double above freight. With how much you can fit in there, it is nothing. You can fit 3 cars in a 40-foot container (though normally you'd use special vessels for cars).

Tariffs are not the whole problem.

The idea is that the EU is a lot less sensitive to losses in the trade volume.

But why risk losses at all if you can avoid it?

Because there is the other risk of losing more member states when they see that there aren't serious consequences to leaving.

The act of leaving will already produce big consequences when the EU subsidies go away. Even with free trade the UK will be worse off.

Overall we did give more. Then receive in subsidises.

Source? Also poorer areas of the country(like Wales, which inexplicably voted to leave) received majority of their help from EU,not British government - and now can they expect the British government will match those contributions? How and with which money?

It's widely known we're a net contributor to the EU, it's not disputed at all. Money doesn't magically appear in the EU coffers, as the UK is one of the strongest economies in the EU, of course it's a net contributor.

The exact figure is disputed, leave were saying £450 million per week, remain were saying it's £150million per week.

https://fullfact.org/europe/our-eu-membership-fee-55-million...

You gave more*

*not including cheaper labor into account.

As others mentioned in the thread, to curb nationalistic anti-EU movements from the other countries.

To avoid larger losses later on. Tarrif prevent relocation if industry to cheaper working environments. Why would the EU want cheaper business in the UK ti compete with an advantage?

But the EU can't avoid losses. That's the point.

But it can avoid as much as possible

You can't avoid losses because you can't let goods cross borders without oversight.

The EU has vital interests in controlling the consumer goods available in its market. If we don't have a say in, for example, how they control their food production, we can't just take their word on it.

If you now think, let's just assume the British government does its job correctly in that regard, and we'll be fine, you're wrong. Companies often know which of their products are going to end up in exports, so they know where they don't need to follow the rules.

EU as a whole perhaps. But not individual countries. For individual countries (e.g. Netherlands) political games will just increase the amount of people wanting to leave.

44% of UK exports go to other EU countries. How many jobs are other EU countries generating in the UK?

That's not the point. The point is there isn't any conflict.

Low tarrifs = good for both. it would be politically difficult to go against that.

Not breaking up the EU = good for the EU. Making it unpleasant to leave the EU achieves that goal.

That's not true. It's only true if both sides can compete on equal terms. The EU guarantees that. Without Britain in the EU, there will be situations where tariffs are beneficial for one side.

No. Generally no tarrifs benefit both. Comparative advantage and all that.

"Generally" strongly assumes equal or even perfect competition.

For example say Country A and B trade coal and agree to no tariffs. Country A now cuts back on worker protection and wages, such that their coal is cheaper. Country B's only other chance than doing the same would be to raise a tariff to keep its own coal competitive. That's why Country B wants a say in Country A's labor laws.

And this is exactly the reason for a supra-national body that comes in with annoying regulations and red tape that stops you from competing with Johnny Foreigner in the full-blooded way you want to.

Let the race to the bottom commence!

There certainly is conflict.

The same economic theories that lead to the conclusion that low tariffs are good place the same importance on the free exchange of goods as the free exchange of labour. The treaty of Rome is the governing treaty in the EU in this respect and it has provisions on both. Since it is precisely the free exchange of labour that the UK wants to eliminate, they will need to violate the treaty and lose the free exchange of goods. How this will affect the application in the UK of existing trade agreements between external countries and the EU is another question. Since the bureaucratic process of bringing goods to the UK will be different than bringing it to the EU, foreign countries will likely take the stance that those trade agreements no longer apply to the UK.

> The point is there isn't any conflict.

You're confusing economic theory with reality. There were already plenty of conflicts in many sectors (eg fishing) and now each EU country that think they can gain something in any sensitive sector by having tariffs on UK products will push in that direction.

We exported the jobs and then import the goods!

It goes both ways. New trade barriers will be bad for the UK and for the EU. Worse for the UK of course, because it's smaller. It's a larger percentage of UK trade than it is for the EU.

I'm not sure this is a strong counterargument.

When talking about trade deficits, I always like to remember what one of my econ professors said about treating them as scorecards, which is usually misleading.

Exports are things we sell, imports are things we get to keep.

For real. Any time I hear popular macroeconomic metrics, I become deeply skeptical of whether there's gonna be anything worth listening to.

It's like taking your temperature. Sure, it could mean you're going to die. Could also mean you've got a healthy immune system fighting off a disease. Could mean it's time to stop wanking in the sauna.

"imports are things we get to keep."

This is not true at all. Food is eaten. Energy gets used up. Electronics depreciate (very) quickly. Most physical goods wear out. Etc.

The only imports you get to "keep" long term are a few things like gold, cement, etc.

I thought the sentiment was that export =/= loss, less the idea that you can keep imports forever.

Another way to view it is as the difference between a country's production and consumption. A trade deficit implies that the country consumes more than it produces, while a trade surplus is the other way round.

I don't know how you come to that conclusion. The UK has a trade deficit with the EU, which means we buy more from the EU than we sell to it. From the EU perspective, the UK is a good customer. Like it or not that counts for something.

Where are they going to get their stuff then? And with what currency? Apparently the pound just fell to a century-wide low...

> "Where are they going to get their stuff then?"

Wherever the UK citizens choose to, just like it's up to EU citizens whether they want to buy from the UK. We have a global market, (for the most part) anyone can buy anything from anyone else. The UK is likely to experience price rises for EU goods, and the EU is likely to experience price rises for UK goods, but if customers still want a particular product and can afford it even with the price rise then they'll continue to buy it.

> "Apparently the pound just fell to a century-wide low..."

That's just the markets reacting to uncertainty. The future is indeed more uncertain, so it's to be expected, but uncertainty does not necessarily mean a downturn in the long run.

I find the whole argument X needs Y foolish. It is so much similar to Donald Trump's China hatred.

Members of EU benefit every-time they export something to a large market such as UK (e.g. Cars). Members of EU benefit each time they willingly import something from UK (e.g. Tea). Either ways if EU wants to protect interests of its members it makes sense to trade with UK just the way it did in past. Any "revenge" is likely to hurt EU members whether or not it hurts UK.

UK survived before EU and will continue to survive beyond EU too. In fact I think with better immigration policies and freedom from red tape of EU, UK will be better off economically. The very presence of EU in my opinion is against principles of democracy. People of England basically accepted restrictions coming from Brussels who were not voted for by them.

>In exchange for access to the common market, Britain had to accept an external tariff and, over time, a deluge of regulations from power-hungry Brussels. The former makes imports more expensive in Britain, while the latter makes British exports less competitive globally.

> Jean-Claude Juncker, the current president of the EU Commission, summed up the decision-making behind the introduction of the single currency thusly: "We decide on something, leave it lying around and wait and see what happens. If no one kicks up a fuss, because most people don't understand what has been decided, we continue step by step until there is no turning back." [1]

[1] http://humanprogress.org/blog/britains-democracy-is-a-sham

How is that in my way different to how laws are drawn up in any other country? If I, as a Londoner, voted for a labour mp but am then forced to accept laws imposed by a majority Tory government, then what's the difference?

Why do most Brits still assume the UK is a large market compared to the rest of the EU? The UK is no longer the empire it used to be, it is weak on it's own. The UK GDP is about ~$2.5 trillion, the EU GDP (sans UK) is ~$12 trillion. The UK economy is puny compared to the mainland Europe. I very much agree that a good trade deal would be beneficial for both sides, at this point the EU is under strong pressure to make an example out of the UK secessionist tendencies and the power is squarely on the European side.

> at this point the EU is under strong pressure to make an example out of the UK secessionist tendencies and the power is squarely on the European side.

If that is indeed true then I think every other country should leave EU with the urgency of a man whose hair are set on fire. It clearly shows that EU is not something that protects the interest of its members but a bureaucratic agency who is interested in expanding authority.

Um, the pressure on the EU is from the other members.

If UK wants to trade with EU, UK still has to follow all EU regulations. If UK wants to trade with EU, UK still has to follow EU immigration policies. If they want to avoid those things, they don't get access to the single market, there's no way around that.

If you're so sure the UK will be better off economically, you should put your money where your mouth is and trade against the overwhelming deluge of financial analysts who say the exact opposite. Last I checked the UK banks were down ~30-35% today, sounds like a cheap deal for you.

> If UK wants to trade with EU, UK still has to follow EU immigration policies.

Only if they want to be part of the single market / EEA. China trades with the EU and doesn't follow EU policies.

And also faces tariffs.

China still has to implement European safety standards.

I am quite certain the exports will still go there, but to say its not true ignores the true financial impact which is other countries will consider leaving. That is the big bugaboo and cannot be under estimated.

The ideals of the union certainly haven't been held up with what has actually occurred. The fear factor being put out about doom and gloom for UK people's is mostly engineered by those who profit off the union and don't see the same margins with a separate UK or worse other drop outs. With a union marginal countries can be propped up to great profit for the financial groups but without one, who knows.

You just confirmed what the person you replied to was saying. Having a trade deficit is why the EU needs them. They buy all of the EUs goods.

> The scaremongering goes on even after the vote has been called...

The terms are simple: You can't have free movement of goods without the equally free movement of people. As long as people in the UK are ok with the free movement of people (even though the fight against it was a big part of the "Leave" campaign) then I would see no reason why us, the rest of the EU people, should impede the UK products' access to the European market. You can't have your lunch and eat it too, meaning you can't be against free movement of people (against "immigration") and then expect us to accept your economic products. It's not "scaremongering", this are the true, hard facts.

But most of the immigrants are coming from outside the EU. There's the rub.

From what I recall of the most recent stats, which were unfortunately released just a short while ago and may have pushed some votes to Leave, there has been more net migration into the UK over the past few years from EU nationals than from those coming from outside the EU.

Roughly just over a half is immigration from within the EU

Does any of the three of you above care to share your sources? That would help

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36382199

'Most' but not by much margin. Which means, if you are looking to curb immigration, that there are two parallel but independent issues to resolve. The UK has in recent years tightened restrictions on many visas for non-EU nationals including those for foreign spouses (minimum income rules, capacity to speak english), post-study work and shortage occupation work (many occupations taken off the list as they were being filled by EU nationals).

China ships tons of products to the US, however the freedom of movement between the two nations are comparatively low compared to the EU.

And on the other hand countries outside the EU but inside the EEA still have very low barriers to trade - Norway, Switzerland or Iceland are not exactly going down the drain. The rest of Europe still buys crude oil, high-tech cuckoo clocks and fish fingers.

Don't know about Iceland, but Norway and Switzerland have had to actually adopt the EU norms without having any say in how those norms get adopted or decided. That's the reason they didn't go "down the drain", I think you forgot to mention that.

Trade norms are not a bad thing, even if some in Britain wanted to continue to sell bananas by the lb. Most everyone is happy with having trade norms, and in particular, having the same norms everywhere (not just in EU but world-wide, starting with things like the metric system).

Unfortunately, even within EU the influence of small countries on trade norms is rather negligible. We also get lost of proposals for regulation of things we don't want and could avoid outside the EU.

Note that I'm actually for the continued EU membership of my country. I just find it abysmal that the pro-EU camp is often in denial about things and too enthusiastic for deeper integration towards USE.

Oh, there are barriers to trade with Norway and Switzerland.

I faintly remember a butter shortage in Norway because they are trying to protect their extremely uncompetitive dairy industry.

Of course. Also there are trade barriers inside the existing EU. Disbanding them is extremely controversial (just imagine what would happen if Bulgarian Uber drivers using Romanian-registered vehicles started to offer rides in Paris.)

> (just imagine what would happen if Bulgarian Uber drivers using Romanian-registered vehicles started to offer rides in Paris.)

That's what already happens now, in a way. My brother (I'm from Romania) used to be a farmer his whole life until his early 30s, when our accession and integration into the EU made it very hard for him to live from working his land. That's when he switched jobs and became an international truck driver, because his cows' milk could not compete with the rest of the milk coming from the other EU countries. Right now he's on his way to France, from where he'd probably carry some stuff to the Czech Republic. That's how a single market should work: a Romanian driver working for a Romanian company carrying stuff from France to the Czech, the same as it happens in the States.

What's happening with Uber in Paris and the other big French cities is an economic anachronism.

> just imagine what would happen if Bulgarian Uber drivers using Romanian-registered vehicles started to offer rides in Paris.

That would totally work. It wouldn't make much sense to register the car in Romania though since the registration fees are probably the least of your costs and the hassle outweighs the gain. That's why you're not seeing it. But I regularly get drivers of foreign origin in the cabs I'm taking in Berlin.

Yes, for customers it would work. That is why the taxi local drivers would react violently.

My point is that this situation is already reality and the taxi drivers don't react violently - at least not because the new driver is Bulgarian or Romanian. You are confounding two issues: Free movement of people and labor and the Uber-mess. French taxi drivers react violently against Uber, no matter where the car or driver is from.

What they want to attack is someone who breaks the trade barrier - this was my point.

There's no trade barrier involved in the uber-mess. Rendering a local service is subject to local regulations that Uber tries to skirt. Uber is flat out illegal in large parts of Europe, for example all of Germany. So your point here is moot.

The EEA countries are still required to offer freedom of movement between their countries and the EU. Unlike the UK, Norway's even part of the Schengen Area which abolished boarder control between them and most of Europe, though that's optional.

And in fact there is freedom of movement between EU and EFTA (some exceptions apply to Liechtenstein).

China and the US are not the EU. Freedom of movement is part of the same deal as the common market. It would be like California deciding they don't want to let people from other US states in.

>You can't have free movement of goods without the equally free movement of people.

Why not? Other countries have free trade without the free movement of people.

I think they are confusing free trade with the single market. Free movement is a condition of membership of the single market. Single market means not just lack of tariffs but also harmonisation of regulations.

I feel like you have to be a lot more explicit about the connection between your statements. You word things as though one implies the other but they seem independent to my eye, and the independence belies your point

>The terms are simple: You can't have free movement of goods without the equally free movement of people.

Why not? No movement is absolutely "free" of course, but we get lots of goods from (e.g.) China, while it is not that easy to immigrate into China. There are many big trading nations that are not at all that free about moving into them (for instance, Singapore).

The people in UK seems to think that their island is rather full. Those of us in the remaining EU need to reassess the idea to push deeper and deeper political integration towards a federal wannabe-superpower.

> while it is not that easy to immigrate into China.

Care to mention why? In my quite limited circle of acquaintances I have 3 people who now work in China, and they seem to have had no problems with getting work permits in there. One of them is even a guy in his late 20s who's now working with kids under 7, which would have been an issue in other, more "liberal" countries, but I digress. I'm from Eastern Europe, if it matters.

> Why not?

Because if you make superior products to out internal, home-made ones, and then flood our market with those products then that means our domestic producers go out of business and we lose our jobs (while we happily buy your better products). We want to have the chance to share in your country's superior economic power (which, let's not forget, also depends on our cash, it depends in our buying your products) by working for your country's companies, if need be in your country. It's as simple as that, any other outcome is economic colonialism.

>I have 3 people who now work in China, and they seem to have had no problems with getting work permits in there.

I have myself worked in China thus I know the process (well, the process 16 years ago). Yes, it is easy for a professional who goes there to be a well-paid expat. Income differences are huge in China. But the forms really look like the Chinese are concerned about immigration of people who come there to exploit the welfare state (even if it is actually rather non-existent).

>>Chinese are concerned about immigration of people who come there to exploit the welfare state (even if it is actually rather non-existent).

That's literally the same concern everywhere. Polish people are concerned about immigrants coming there to claim their benefits, even though the immigration is literally non-existent, and Polish welfare pays something like $60/week if you are unemployed so it's not exactly something people would come here for. It's just people being fearful of issues that don't exist.

Some concerns are more justified than others. Looking at Calais jungle, the concern about continued and increasing immigration to UK is fearful of issues that actually do exist.

Immigrants hiding in trucks in Calais to get to Dover are not going to care if the land on the other side of the channel is flying the EU flag or not. They are doing it illegally so they will continue doing it anyway.

You likely are highly qualified. This is different than e.g. the large number of people who came to germany last year where many (I suppose) don't have a good compatible education. Also you have a job, this is different than when you get a permit to e.g. enter China without being able to support yourself. - What do you mean with the remark about the guy working with kids? What issues?

> What do you mean with the remark about the guy working with kids? What issues?

He's a teacher at a kinder-garden teaching English. My reply was a little far-fetched, I agree, but that job is usually not given to men in other parts of the world because reasons. The guy has no convictions or anything like that.

1. It is super hard to get a green card

2. It is impossible to get a passport

3. Chinese have a race based idea who can be Chinese. The idea is that sooner or later all foreigner may leave and should leave. If there is a huge economic downturn, China may even throw most of them out.

Do you know what you get if you marry a Chinese? A tourist visa!

Would the UK want the same trade deal that China has? The EU meant nearly unlimited free trade.

> Why not?

Because it's part of the same deal. You can't take one part of the deal and refuse the other part. The EU is really not going to make a special exception on this for the UK. In fact, I think the time of special exceptions for the UK is over. The UK will have to learn to accept fair deals.

Err, there isn't free movement between UK and the Schengen area. Yet it apparently doesn't impede trade.

Yes there is - it does not mean that you can on holiday without a passport. It means that you had the right to live and work there.

You're shifting goal posts. The statement was free movement of people. You cannot freely move to UK, it is outside of Schengen. Stating that free movement is not free movement is illogical.

As the original poster, my intention was to talk about the free movement of people which implied the freedom of employment. Sorry for the misunderstanding, as I'm not a native English speaker.

Me neither (Dutch), I do not think it makes sense to apologize for not being native speaker. You meant something else, ok, let's move on.

You only meant freedom of employment? I'm annoyed that UK asks questions while in loads of non-EU countries you just wave an EU passport and it is like an open border (no questions, nothing).

"...without a passport".

There, I fixed it for you. You don't need a VISA, you don't need a permit. I know plenty of Europeans that moved from the UK to mainland Europe and vice versa. (That's right - we are all Europeans...)

No, you're misunderstanding. Intentionally or not. Freedom of movement, in EU terms, is not the same thing as Schengen. It's part of the common market. It's a common market for goods and labour. So people have to be able to live and work wherever they want.

It's one of those rules that makes the EU more than just a pro-corporate alliance. It actively tries to increase the freedom of its citizens. Member states can't just pick and choose which of those freedoms they want and which they want to deny. It's a package deal.

Freedom of movement doesn't mean without a passport, it means as a UK employer I can employ any EU citizen just as easily as I could a UK citizen. Completely separate from Schengen.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement_for_worker...

The scaremongering has just begun. A successful UK exit is going to be powerful ammunition for any nationalist politician in any EU country.

This is also a very astute comment I think. The EU and those with interests that are similar will need to increase scaremongering even more to try and prevent other countries from leaving the EU. I wonder what will happen at Greece's next bailout/imposed conditions breaking point...

This is precisely the case. The integrity of the entire block is now in question as any trade with the U.K. Will now jeopardize some interests internal to the eu. Nationalism is inevitable. Let's hope this does not culminate in war.

War? Steady on there fella, NATO isn't under threat. People seem to forget that it's NATO that represents our military alliance, not the EU.

pre-WWI / WWII had its fair share of military alliances. None of those alliances were threatened and we know how that turned out.

Imho I think the threat of greater force does not prevent nations from taking drastic actions when pushed against a wall.

Civil unrest is caused by large unemployment especially of the young, which in turn leads to nationalistic and isolationist policies breeding bigotry and violence that are seized upon by demagogues. These are warning signs of something to come. The weird thing is they seem to be popping up all over both in eastern and western europe over the course of the last decade.

The US election in turn I think will definitely tilt the balance. From what i have seen it is not looking good on this side of the pond either.

I agree with you that high unemployment leads to civil unrest, and you can only hope that trustworthy individuals can fill the power vacuum that leads to. It's not a completely hopeless situation, you've got groups like Podemos in Spain pushing forward, and I think the likes of Corbyn in the UK and Sanders in the US represent the interests of the working class and middle class of their respective countries (even if Sanders doesn't get elected, he seems to be inspiring more people to get involved in the political process to push for the things that benefit the majority).

As for isolationism leading to war, I think this I think has been blown out of proportion. Of course in extreme examples it can happen, but I'd suggest at most we'd be looking at Australian-style economic protectionism rather than North Korean-style isolationism.

I do not want to seem like the guy holding the doomsday banner. I totally agree with you that there are still ways of righting the ship and isolationism is not a contract for war, I am simply pointing out that the similarity to what we have seen in history before is uncanny and we must heed those warnings.

To avoid sounding cliche, I hope we remember history...

Increased scaremongering to try and force countries to stay seriously risks having the opposite effect. Look at it like employee retention. Are you going to call everyone into a meeting and yell at them and tell them will be unemployable if they leave, or maybe a better strategy would be to offer some flex time and a couple extra vacation days.

Anecdotally, the things that have made me most likely to stay at a job is seeing a few high-profile people leave, only to come back with horror stories about their other jobs.

I honestly believe I work for an amazing company so the metaphor may not be perfect, but if you want to increase confidence temporarily you could certainly try to manufacture these circumstances. In my case I think they're genuine, which does actually give me significant pause any time I think about how much of a raise I might get, or where else I might go.

The public opinion that will be the most hostile to the next Greek bailout is the German opinion (French and Italians support it because they think sooner or later it will be their turn). I don't think the Germans are hostile to the EU yet. But if that happens it is the end of the EU.

The scaremongering is exactly the thing that has to stop. It's undermining the EU. A European Union of Fear doesn't work.

The EU simply has to ensure its rules are sensible and fair, and offer the UK a fair deal. The UK will still be better off than non-EU countries, but not as good as EU members. Members who want the full benefits will stay.

Which is why the establishment in other EU countries want to ensure it's not successful...

This is what you would call an unprofessional/childish behaviour helping nobody and inspire fear (maybe just a bit themself though).

And such d* moves will certainly not help them get back anyone where in the near foreseeable future because of bridge-burning.

This isn't a game.

It will do exactly that because it will show how bad of an idea it is to quit from the EU even for the richest country in Europe.

The comments on this thread are ridiculously naive, I expected better from HN.

Fat chance of a "successful exit" ... so no worries!

This is exactly the kind of lose-win or lose-lose discussion that everyone (well 49 % of people) wanted to avoid. Asking who will profit from this or who will be on top is not relevant probably, because each side will lose now (at least in the short term) the question is just how big the losses will be. Also, bear in mind that the UK will not only have to rearrange its terms with the EU, but with more than 50 non-EU countries as well.

Leaving the economic impact aside, the societal and demographic implications are just as important (for me) and a very hard to predict. Great Britain might very well fall apart over this, as Scottish politicians already announced that they will push for a leave if the UK leaves the EU.

For me, this thing is just the biggest and most catastrophically failed political gamble of the century. Times are strange indeed.

My biggest fear is another Scottish referendum... the last one was bitter and polarizing.

I have just spent the last 20 minutes drafting letters to my MP and MSP basically telling them I do not want another referendum.

Considering that the english just voted Scotland out of EU, it makes perfect sense for the Scottish to reclaim their own future.

Yep 60% of Scotland and 75% of Glasgow from reports voted to Remain.

Northern Ireland is also going to be one to watch.

Scotland maybe, though if people have any sense they'll make sure the business is all done first and tell them to cool their heels.

Northern Ireland has absolutely no chance of seceding, they can't go it alone as a separate country, and there's absolutely no appetite for unification from either side.

There is appetite now for closer ties within Ireland.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-norther...

The EU train is leaving and governments need to make a decision whether they want to get on or stay off.

there's absolutely no appetite for unification from either side

Which sides? Sinn Féin politicians have already called for a unification vote...

I'm fairly concerned that Northern Ireland has high potential to become a bloody battleground. IRA activity will certainly increase.

Scotland is less messy and would separate fairly easily imo (but you never know British nationalism is on the rise so letting them leave could be seen as something to prevent at all costs)

>> "I'm fairly concerned that Northern Ireland has high potential to become a bloody battleground."

This would be the first time that those who want Irish unity could actually sway a significant number of unionist voters. Violence would ruin that opportunity so I doubt it would happen. This vote has increased the possibility of their goals being achieved politically. If anything I would expect violence to rise on the unionist side if it did look like a border poll was going to take place and not go their way.

>> "there's absolutely no appetite for unification from either side."

There is now. Leaving the EU actually brings the Ireland debate away from typically nationalist/unionist politics to actual real issues. If the Republic has to secure it's border with the North (as I believe countries on the border of Europe are required to do so) consider the impact on people who live in border towns. A lot of people living just within the north side of the border work in the south and vice versa - they would have to go through border control every morning and evening. And what happens to the large number of ROI citizens living and working in NI (and vice versa). This actually opens the debate on unity up and brings it past the typical dividing line politics. It will also likely fuel nationalist support as the democratic will of people in NI (and Scotland) is essentially ignored thanks to people in England. It's a very strange situation. I think it's still highly unlikely but if Irish unification is ever going to happen this will be the catalyst.

>A lot of people living just within the north side of the border work in the south and vice versa - they would have to go through border control every morning and evening.

It's just not that there would be border control, there's also question would they need visas to get through the border control?

A visa agreement is very easy. I don't think that's going to be a big problem. But the border checkpoints, they will definitely have to come if NI doesn't reunite with Ireland.

Get real. Stopping at a checkpoint is not going to drive an bid for reunification. You're also forgetting about the majority of people in the republic who simply do not care, or have become completely jaded with, the north or border areas. The further south you go, the less people care.

>> "Get real. Stopping at a checkpoint is not going to drive an bid for reunification."

No need to be condescending. Border controls are one issue. I didn't say they were the only one. Today's decision is going to cause many issues for Northern Ireland and if a persons daily life starts to get affected by the decision they might eventually be willing to put to the side their built-in unionist/nationalist mentality and figure out what's actually best for the people. I don't know what that is but ruling out unification or independence would be silly.

The people in N. Ireland have been resistant to a referendum because it's just asking for too much trouble. Few people here want this region to destabilize. However there are two outcomes that I believe would convince residents to risk the trouble of a referendum. 1. If Scotland leaves, or 2. If border/trade restrictions with Ireland become unbearable.

A big part of the reason I wanted to remain was to avoid another independence referendum. It looks like it's probably unavoidable now. And it's going to be another horrible round of extremely divisive, poisonous political activity that will leave a lot of people unhappy no matter what happens.

But this time I might actually vote for independence because I'm not sure a Britain outside the EU is one I want to live in.

I think the next Scottish referendum will be a much harder decision for each voter personally. The previous one obvious wasn't a throw-away decision either but Scotland and England being separate EU member states would have meant little difference in daily live for most people.

Now the next referendum will be a lot more significant since it'll effectively be a UK vs EU decision. Either you follow the English into isolation or you suddenly have a very real border between England and Scotland with customs&immigrations checkpoints and similar things.

Why would you think Scotland get to join the EU automatically? There's plenty of speculation Spain won't want it and will veto because it might fuel Catalan independence.

Isn't Scotland kind of part of EU right now? They would only choose to remain so.

> Isn't Scotland kind of part of EU right now?

Scotland is part of an existing member state of the EU, but it is not a member state of the EU. Were it to become independent, it would likely have to join the EU as a new member state.

There's perhaps an argument to be made that if the UK broke up, each successor would have a claim to be a successor to the UKs treaty obligations and benefits in general, which might carry some weight (though would be extremely complicated for a treaty arrangement like the EU) if it happened before the UK formally started the process of withdrawing from the EU (if it happened after that, even viewing Scotland as a successor to the breaking-up-UK would leave it a short-term member of the EU in the process of exiting under the Article 50 process, inheriting the exit date that the UK has, and needing to negotiate its own exit agreement if it wanted anything but the default exit terms.)

I don't want another independence referendum: I have a visceral distrust/dislike for politicians anyway and I definitely didn't want a Scottish Parliament in the first place!

That being said, I reckon they will have another indy referendum regardless but I also see three potential scenarios that might stop it going ahead:

1. Britain prospers like crazy now we are out of the EU 2. The EU collapses (I think this is likely. Maybe not in the next 2 years but likely!) 3. A bunch of other countries decide to flee the EU as well. This would bring about 2 I reckon.

Imagine if Germany decided to leave! That would kill the EU stone dead I reckon.

You distrust Scottish politicians to run a Scottish Parliament, but you trust English politicians to run Scotland?

I might be wrong but wasn't one of the arguments made to Scotland to stay in the UK that they need it for the upcoming referendum on decision whether the UK is going to enter the EU or exit the EU. Scotland for sometime voiced their desire for the UK to stay in the EU.

The UK had a good deal. They had what Norway has, plus actual influence as a full member, plus many opt-outs. They've rejected it. What kind of good deal would they even be looking for?

With regards to trade tariffs, nobody expects the deal to be as good as the ones the UK had in the EU. However, in order for EU members to protect their own economies, you would expect some form of trade deal between the EU and the UK to be hammered out. The Eurozone isn't exactly in great health right now, even before Brexit, you'd expect politicians to want to perform some form of deal, even if it's only for the sake of damage limitation. The EU may want to make an example of the UK and drag these talks out, but I expect economics will win over political maneuvering in the end.

An example of a good deal would be: UK companies get access to the entire EU market if they follow EU regulations and UK citizens get freedom to move in the EU, and in return the UK also implements those regulations and gives EU companies free access, and gives EU citizens freedom to move in the UK.

That's worse than what the UK had, because they wouldn't be part of the EU decision making process anymore and they'd still have as much immigration as now, and that's supposed to be the sore point. So I presume they wouldn't go for such a deal, but it's also hard to see the EU going for a deal this good.

I doubt the UK would go for that deal either, so it's debatable whether it's a 'good' deal if neither group (on the whole) is likely to be interested in it.

I'd suggest the deals made will be based on trade tariffs and product standards. Deals that required dealing with EU regulation or free movement of labour aren't likely to be popular in the UK.

If the EU drags its heels, the UK will probably use it's position as a member of the British Commonwealth to push for increased trade between Commonwealth countries whilst it waits for EU trade deals to get ironed out.

Of course the UK must negotiate with all the other countries it wants to trade with as well, not just the EU. But look at TTIP, that kind of thing takes decades.

Well, the EU can't make such a deal without freedom of movement. All those countries the UK doesn't want EU immigrants out of? They aren't going to sign off on any deal without that.

And good luck running your NHS without EU doctors...

Does the EU have any trade deals with countries outside the EU?

Yes. And I can tell you, as someone living in such a country, they're extremely hostile to the non-EU countries. And typically involve respecting EU naming rules (can't call it champagne!), food products held to much higher standards than EU manufacturers, and quotas.

> "they're extremely hostile to the non-EU countries"

Can you give me one example?

As for Champagne, its a product from the Champagne region of France (similar to how Prosecco is from Italy), I don't see why it's a problem to call similar products from elsewhere sparkling white wine.

The problem is a much lower price or much lower sales ;-)

If you're referring to Champagne, then the answer is to build up your own brand. If I was in the drinks industry and produced cola, I don't have the right to sell it as Coca Cola. It's the same thing with Champagne.

No it's not. But anyway, the point is that the third-party country has to follow EU rules without having a say in them.

It will probably also have to allow in EU exports which could threaten parts of their economy.

> "It will probably also have to allow in EU exports which could threaten parts of their economy."

Of course they'll have to let in EU exports, just like the EU will have to let in UK exports. Why? They're all members of the World Trade Organisation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Organization

The EU is set up to allow the member countries to cooperate more closely, through lower trade barriers and suchlike. The idea that leaving the EU means zero trade is absurd.

Held to higher standards than EU manufacturers? That would be odd. The point is that in order to sell on the EU market, you have to meet the standards of the market.

Except in the US. We can totally call it champagne, and the angry French wine makers can't do shit.

This! In the last years my country, Portugal, has been seing a mass exodus of highly qualified young people (many nurses and medical doctors) mostly to England. If there are many restrictions to move to UK, I don't know if they will start moving to central europe (as outside france, we do not have any cultural proximity to other countries).. Either way, it's a lose-lose situation for both countries.

The Leave campaign is fooling themselves over their negotiation leverage.

The EU has some interest in cushioning the drop in trade, but it is a lot less sensitive to it, than the UK economy. There is no free trade without certain agreements, and these will at a very minimum include full freedom of movement for EU workers and enforcement of the full set of EU trade regulations.

You've forgot to look at the other side of the coin. Due to the EU trade tariffs with Asian and US countries, many non-EU manufacturers took advantage of the "final fabrication" loop-hole and the huge EU subsidies aimed at helping poor economic areas of the UK gain jobs, and set up fabrication plants in the UK.

Asian car manufacturing were and are heavy investors in the UK, in order to produce vehicles for the UK and EU markets [1].

Those perks have just evaporated, along with the jobs. The blue collar workers that heavily backed a Brexit, have shot themselves in the foot. It makes financial sense for Toyota who sell 90% of their UK produced vehicles to move away from the UK and back into the EU zone. They have just lost their EU trade tariff benefits and been hit by the GBP/EUR drop, making their cars 8.5% more expensive to 90% of their customers.

  Those firms would be hit hard by a Brexit, losing preferential tariff and 
  customs treatment in Europe. Toyota, for example, exports 90% of its U.K.-
  built cars.

If you haven't got a job, you can't buy German cars anyway. The argument is mute. This vote is going to have a huge impact on jobs, since being part of the Eurozone was more than just British imports.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/asian-company-shares-reeling-aft...

> This isn't some one sided negotiation.

This is pretty reckless risk management on Britain's part: to place so much weight on a question of just how a future, unclear negotiation, subject to who knows what bureaucracy and other countries' own interests, will turn out. It's very vague to just say "well we're trading a lot, so surely we're very important" without any supporting evidence or precedent: it makes all sorts of unjustified assumptions.

Keep in mind, if Scotland leaves the UK in favour of the EU, England is in deep shit regarding natural resources. REmember why those English mine towns were closed? Not much money to be made there.

"Do you know how many German cars are sold in the UK each year?"

So what you are saying is that brits will stop buying German/EU cars? Where are they going to buy their cars from? It's not like UK has some meaningfull car making industry, they moved all factories away. Not everyone can buy an Aston Martin.

I think that as long as the price for an EU car will be just below the price for importing an equivalent car from US or Asia, brits will have no other choice but to buy from Germans, even with new taxes added.

BMW will become a slightly more premium option if there are higher taxes. Meanwhile asian-made cars (like mine) will likely occupy the same market position they did before. Depends on the strength of Sterling as well of course.

That's unlikely. The current trade deal with countries like Japan, is direct with the EU powerhouse, not one single country like the UK. The size of the EU has a much stronger bargaining power than the UK can ever hope to achieve.

More importantly, your UK purchased Japanese car is most likely fabricated in a UK or EU factory. The UK factories exist simply because Japanese manufacturers then have direct access the the EU market without tariffs, and take advantage of the EU subsidies in order to set up and operate.

Those subsidies and tariff benefits just evaporated. The EU market for their vehicles is much larger than the UK. It now makes sense for them to move their final manufacturing inside the EU zone and out of the UK. Bye bye jobs. The only benefit is that the GBP devaluation buys more Euros, so if you still have a job in the UK after this, you can buy your Japanese European made car cheaper as an import from the EU.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/asian-company-shares-reeling-aft...

I mostly agree but I think you have it backwards when you say a devalued GBP buys more euros. A weak pound makes it more expensive for me to buy an imported car.

The UK makes about 1.6 million cars a year and exports about 1.2 million of them.

The UK makes a lot of cars for the BMW corporation (Mini, Rolls Royce). Easy to see how at least the Mini production would move to other BMW plants, if any tax barriers get into their way. And I wonder where Tata, which owns another large chunk of the British car production would continue to manufacture in Britain.

> Secondly, why would the UK end up with a Norway or Switzerland deal, when the UK is the 5th largest economy in the world?

As of now, France is the 5th largest economy of the world. The Pound collapsing has already bumped the UK down.

Yes, eventually there will be a relatively free trade agreement in place. But still the UK will have to abide to any European regulation, if they want to trade. Just that they do no longer get a vote on those regulations.

For just the exports to the EU. I've seen this view several times in the thread, but never acknowledging that it's a small part of the economy that will have to do that.

Even the biggest economy of the world, the USA, is currently trying to negotiate a free trade agreement with the EU. Because they think everyone gains long term from such an agreement. It would be peculiar if England could do easily without one.

“The EU” is not the same as the people of the EU. The French and Dutch people voted against the Maastricht Treaty when given the chance.

...through stupid yes/no referenda. No voters included people opposed to the whole idea, people disagreeing with some small part and also people who thought it didn't go far enough, but mainly people who wanted to protest the national government at the time, as usual.

The Netherlands has unfortunately become much more Eurosceptic since, but let's not conclude too much from those referenda.

Maybe we don't need referenda but polls. Figure out WHAT is bothering people about the EU.

If it's based on fiction, start up the PR machine. And repeat this AT LEAST every decade.

If it's based on fact, fix the EU, or start up the PR machine explaining this cannot be fixed for the EU to work. (depending on the fact)

It's based on fiction, but the problem is that the fiction is created by politicians (who want to get credit for good news and blame the EU for bad news) and by the media (to get views, you need simple concepts and play on emotions). They are the PR machine.

Education is the only thing that can work against it, pray that your people value it over other things.

With PR machine, I mean the EU itself organizing ways to teach the people. Simple suggestion: iirc a lot of people think the EU costs a lot of money. Well you could post an add in each country with a pie diagram of the countries spendings.

"your people"? You mean that from the perspective of the politicians ? Or from my perspective ?

This is a huge part of the problem. National politicians love using the EU as the scapegoat for their own unpopular proposals. Your favourite law rejected by parliament? Lobby for it in the EU, and blame the EU for it. The EU really does need something that stops that kind of abuse.

Polls is already what we have.

I wrote a lengthy article on this when James Dyson made the same arguments.

In short, I'm very unconvinced. In negotiation, the person who cares less wins. Individual EU countries - who would have to vote on any deal - care a lot less about their exports to the UK, because they're a small percentage of their economy, than the UK cares about its exports to the EU, which are just under half of all our exports.

https://medium.com/im-trying-to-fact-check-brexit/fact-check...

I find the '5th largest economy' argument vacuous. When the UK joined the EU in 1973 it was the world's 5th largest economy and represented a much larger portion of European GDP. In spite of that they were forced to accept the terms of the EEC and the terms of the French President Pompidou. Why would being the '5th largest economy' have a bearing this time?

> Secondly, why would the UK end up with a Norway or Switzerland deal, when the UK is the 5th largest economy in the world?

Well, 6th now. Sorry about that. France said "bonjour" as you passed.

According to April 2016 data, France is behind both the UK and California: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_between_U.S._states...

Edit: presumably you're referring to reports based on today's Pound Sterling crash, but those are incorrect as well: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/eu-referendu...

> because the EU does not want to give any encouragement to the other countries which want to leave the EU

That's not the only reason. UK is taking advantage of its position as a global financial hub in the EU. It's in the EUs interest to make the UK less attractive for foreign investment.

"UK is taking advantage of its position as a global financial hub in the EU."

I imagine EU courting Switzerland for assuming this role from now on.

No, because Switzerland is not part of the EU - What would be the point of that?

The new economic hub will be Frankfurt.

It's not completely one-sided, it's rarely black and white. But you can't seriously say that they are on equal footing when trying to do trade agreements. The GBP has taken a nosedive already...

The largest importer of champange in the world? UK. Not per capita either... just the largest, in front of the US. The UK has a ton of money for luxuries and all kinds of things that the healthier economies of the EU desperately want access to.

Well, we now already have a lot less, given how far the pound has tumbled.

That may be so, but - at the risk of sounding like a 'Brexiter' - at least the UK has its own currency! It can be devalued. The UK has that control and can be competitive. What would happen to one of the EU countries if it voted leave but had the Euro?

From what I gathered they'd just issue a new currency (that would be instantly devalued everywhere though).

Sweden also has it's own currency. Sweden is in a similar situation as Britain, and their closest neighbor (Norway) has never been in the EU. I'm not saying "Swexit" is imminent, but of the northern/western EU countries it is perhaps the most likely.

They would start printing their own currency. Impossible to keep having the same currency at the same exchange rate if you leave. It's going to end up like Argentina when they wanted to keep a fixed rate with the USD. To be seen who's going to be Argentina and who the USA in that case.

By the way, this is the very problem with the Euro. If you want to have the same currency of (let's say) Germany, you should perform like Germany, or better. If you are less efficient, in any way, you're going the way of Argentina, even if not as quickly. This is why the EU should have one real central government, maybe USA style, and local governments should be like the governments of the US states.

> This is why the EU should have one real central government, maybe USA style, and local governments should be like the governments of the US states.

OK, where's the central government going to sit? In Belgium? No, I don't the Germans or the French would tolerate that if they have to give up their power to act as nations and have their PMs demoted to the role of state governors. None of the member countries would either.

And who among them thinks anything like a Jefferson or a Hamilton? And which portion of the citizenry would even buy into such a debate?

And then there are all the language and cultural differences - actually still a problem for the EU.

Next thing you know, we'd have yet another war in Europe.

Agreed. We shoUld but we won't for a long while. We're not a nation even if it would be safer if we were. But see how young people vastly voted against Brexit. This referendum wouldn't have won in 2026 and there is hope for becoming one nation. 100 years?

Underlying a lot of this is the fact that not everyone can perform like Germany, because, by definition, not everyone can be a net exporter. Germany has benefitted greatly from the Euro to get to its position as a net exporter.

"USA style" not without actual democracy, or you are going to see A LOT more EU-exits ! For example if TTIP imports ridiculous patent rules, I'm voting leave too. Right now the EU is sane, but I draw the line at stupidity.

> It can be devalued

I've lived in a country with high double-digit inflation through the 1990s (in one year it even surpassed 100%), I'd say be careful what you wish for. People seem to forget that paper money is just that, paper, and is based mostly on trust. Once trust evaporates (even if temporarily) shit's gonna definitely go wrong. But, hey, at least the decision is yours! You've got freedom!

Compare to: Greece.

Greece could have had it way, way worse. Ask the Argentinians, ask the Bulgarians who lived through the 1990s (I remember some of them passing the border to us (I'm from Romania) in order to sell whatever they had around the house just to have that extra cash that would pay the bills), ask us, Romanians, ask the Russians who lived through the inflation of the early '90s. You'd get only one answer: If you think things can't get worse than a certain point then you're wrong.

No matter how bad Greece is now, can you say with certainty that it would be better if it wasn't in the EU or Euro?

I personally doubt it. It is still much better than its neighbors.

I think EU membership is very good for Greece, euro membership not.

Why? Why stable currency is bad for Greece?

Because they would desperately need to float its value down to regain competitiveness. Now they can only do it by lowering wages through massive unemployment, civil unrest and layoffs in public sector.

This is not limited to Greece, of course.

Countries have used foreign issued currency before; while it's likely that the same impulse that led a country to leave would also lead it to adopt is own currency, there's no fundamental reason that would have to be the case, they could afford one (or more) existing major ) or even minor, though that's less likely) currencies. That obviously leaves them at the mercy of monetary policy focused on others needs, but it may also reduce uncertainty due to lack of established trust in the new government translating into volatility of the new currency.

How much of that is just money markets running scared and doing stupid things. The value in 2-3 months time will be much more instructive than the night of the vote.

But keep in mind the bad news has just started. I'm sure there will an initial bounce back, but then we're facing two years of uncertainty.

But keep in mind that for the last 2 years the GBP has been on a general downwards trend [0], and in the lead up to the vote (the preceding 10 days) there was a rally that boosted the value by at least half of what was lost.

The raw value of the figures seems scary (lowest value in 30 years, value of the pound dropped by 13%), but the reality is that after dipping very briefly to "the lowest level in 30 years" the GBP is currently about the same as it was in Feb this year and the value is down 4% from 2 weeks ago (not great, but nothing like a 13% downwards plunge).

Edit: Also worth noting, the FTSE is up from the start of the month, and roughly equal to what it was at the start of the week. Aside from a big dip and a bounce, it's literally like nothing happened [1].

0: http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=GBP&to=USD&view=2Y

1: https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=^FTSE#symbol=^FTSE;ra...

If the market is doing stupid things, go make a killing. Until you've done so, you're really in no place to criticize the market.

Unfortunately the market can stay irrational longer than I can stay solvent.

That doesn't mean I'm not in a place to comment on what the market is doing - especially when it's a pattern that is repeated again and when major events occur.

2-3 months after the event will give a better idea of how the market values the decision to leave, rather than 1 day after.

A good 1/2 of the "tumble" was only added in the 10 days leading up to the decision [0].

I might not be making a killing, but someone is.

0: http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=GBP&to=USD&view=1M

You're explicitly claiming that it won't stay "irrational" in the 2-3 month time range. If you actually knew that with any degree of certainty, you would be able to profit from it. If a pattern actually does happen again and again, you can profit from it, it's really that simple. If you haven't done so, you're just a pundit.

No I'm saying in 2-3 months time there will be a clearer trend of how the market values the decision compared to 24 hours after the event.

I don't know which way that trend will go, just that it will be clearer.

Edit: Also, keep in mind that all of this is in the context of the post of was replying to, trying to point out that the pound hasn't "tumbled".

You can't take the highest point from just before the result was known, and the lowest point from the few hours afterwards as a representative point of how the pound is doing in response to the news. If you put it in the context of a few weeks, or a few months, things are much more sane.

Despite all the sensationalism that the pound reached it's lowest point in 30 years, the pound is currently at the around the same price it was a few months back (currently only trading at a couple of cents lower than what it was back at the end of Feb - $1.37 vs $1.39).

I agree that people summarize things in a sensationalist manner, and that cherry-picking endpoints is unreasonable. I disagree that the pound hasn't tumbled: it did in fact drop substantially in a very short period of time. I also don't really agree that you get a clearer understanding of the market response in the long term. In the short term, it's very clear that the market is reacting to a single event. In the long term, you have to try to separate the effects of this event from all the others, which is dramatically more difficult.

Also, even if you don't know which way it'll go, you are making some claim about how the market will behave. It sounds like you're predicting a decrease in volatility? Ok, you can bet on that. If not that, then what? If you aren't predicting something that can be bet on, you aren't predicting anything at all.

This is a non sequitur. There is a myriad of reasons why one might not profit even if they're completely right about the market. For example: just can't be bothered.

Yes, just can't be bothered to make an arbitrary amount of profit. That's definitely a justifiable reason. ಠ_ಠ

How much champagne will England be buying when the City decamps to Frankfurt?

As an Irishman, I think Dublin is well placed to take a slice of that pie.

Too much rain, and Temple Bar isn't what it used to be ... /s joking, I love Eire, going to work their very soon.

> The UK has a ton of money

In case you didn't notice, the pound just went down the toilet. A ton of GBP is not worth all that much suddenly.

And as you say - the English need the foreign booze, so low tariffs are in their interest. The French don't want or need IPA or scrumpy, so they don't mind tariff barriers so much.

I came to HN for a reasoned and sensible discussion of Brexit, and all I got was this lousy tee-shirt.

You are saying that France can easily impose import tariffs against the UK with no repercussions because the UK wants wine but doesn't need cider in return. This is the worst game of Civ ever played.

France has 3 big car manufacturers, Citroen, Renault and Peugeot. They sell lots of these small cars in the UK. Many Britons holiday in France (and own property there). The French economy doesn't want to take a hit on manufacturing, exports and property prices as well as tourist francs (remember those?).

Imposing tariffs on the UK would be a disaster for the French economy. It isn't going to happen. European manufacturing tariffs would be akin to routing a percentage of all trade out of Europe and into Asia.

Well, is a little more complicated than this. The group PSA (owner of peugeot and citroen) is not exclusively French anymore. After the low sales in the austericide years was rescued by Chinese investors (Dongfeng motor corporation). The Peugeot family has lost the full control of their companies by first time in 200 years.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-02-19/china-s-do...

Renault on the other hand allied with Nissan.

And if someone wonder why EU didn't just try to do something to help those european companies that employ thousands of european people... Because Germany motor companies pushed hard against.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-10-23/lower-saxo...

I wonder why France didn't just try to do something to help Peugeot.

The current French leadership is extremely unpopular and extremely pro EU.

They may well want to impose big tariffs. The question is to what extent the French themselves want that.

In case you didn't notice, the pound just went down the toilet. A ton of GBP is not worth all that much suddenly.

If by "down the toilet" you mean back to February 2016 or early 2009 levels. It's hardly way off recent historical lows. If we see £/$ parity, then we might have an issue.

Are you trying to imply things won't change? Then why have EU membership at all?

It will, of course, be a compromise, but one that likely results in the UK being much worse off.

You're talking cars.

The EU is talking survival. The UK will get indeed a bad deal. And the rest of the EU will stick together even closer. I hear "fiscal harmonization", e.g. common taxation is the new big thing.

Common taxation will be a good argument for countries of communistic block to leave. Good luck with that.

That's an irony. If done properly they should be the main beneficiaries, as they're poor. One of the big fuckups with the Eurozone is that there's no redistribution between states, something that helps the USA work as a currency union of states.

The EU will not want to (give the UK a good deal) but for each trade area there will be a member state suffering if they won't.

The negotiations themselves may prove a good catalyst for further disarray.

But that's because all european politicians at that time completely discounted the fact that the vote could go that way. If only they had looked at polls then they would have realised this was a very serious risk.

What could european politicians have done differently at that point? Also polls in the UK are notoriously unreliable.

Polls are generally unreliable, they are only recognised as such in the UK.

They would have given him a better a deal on immigration, which they thought was an absolute non starter, and was the main grief against the EU. I think it would have made a difference.

They still could, there is no reason we couldn't have another referendum.

Primarily, they could have called off the project for political union and concentration of political power in Brussels (including the ridiculous monthly ride to Strasbourg). Concentrate on enabling free trade, not building a federal superstate. Also, quit bashing "unpleasant" euro-sceptic elected politicians (by unelected EU officials).

(As an example of the EU gravy train, the former prime minister in my own country, Jyrki Katainen, first screwed up things home and then landed on a nice job in Brussels - because he kept saying nice things about the European project. This is one more little thing that has turned me suspicious of the whole project, a project I didn't vote for when I voted for EU membership 22 years ago.)

Simply: admit out loud that they got it wrong and they have to change direction.

But that would have meant a loss of face.

It really sounds like there is a need for more integration but of the democratic kind. A prime minister who screws things up at home should have no shot at being "elected" to a position in Brussels. This doesn't mean that the EU project is bankrupt though.

That's how most of the Brussels bureaucrat got there, it's common in my country too. And it does mean the project is bankrupt — the people in power, the ones actually making decisitions (i.e. the Comission and to a lesser extentent, EP), are out of touch with the people (or, frankly, reality). National parliaments have very limited ability to affect things, most of the law is pushed down on them as EC directives. That's the very definition of a dysfunctional political system.

Yes, EU needs to be more democratic, very much so, but "more integration" would only accomplish the opposite. More power to "local" parliaments would be more democratic, or making the European Parliament matter (i.e. be the sole legislative body, which it isn't now) and make it visible locally so that voters care.

I'm pretty sure they didn't actually discount it, they just didn't acknowledge it in public. That's a very common strategy if you have a preference. Don't talk about the other option in public, but prepare for it behind closed doors.

The politicians themselves I agree with you. But an unlikely Brexit is the view I mostly heard from political commentators at that time and I think Cameron's move was perceived as an empty threat.

You think the "scaremongering" is "going on"? I don't think it has even fully started yet ...

Reality will be a lot scarier.

>Reality will be a lot scarier.

Reality is boring most of the time. It will be fine in the end. The UK isn't going to sink into the sea or become the North Korea of Europe. The EU won't fall apart, it might need a little adjustment, and one or two additional countries will consider leaving, depending on the kind of deals that the UK can get.

I don't expect anything fantastically interesting to happen. The rest of 2016 will be a little bumping as everyone adjusts and then that's it.

So the pound falling to the lowest point in decades is just unfounded panic?

There is a whole lot of uncertainty going around, and the Leave campaign was full of optimistic assumptions about the EUs good will.

> So the pound falling to the lowest point in decades is just unfounded panic?

At this point yes, no one has any real idea of the out come. Investors are just dumping pounds and British investments because they have no clue as to what is going to happen. But, just in case it's bad, money is moved to investments that is perceived to be safer. The UK isn't even out of the EU yet, and it won't be for years.

I'm not saying it's not going to be bumpy, or that the British aren't going to become a little poorer. It's just not going to be the end of British economy. It won't devolve into a third world economy, and certainly not over night.

The unnecessary scaremongering goes on even after the vote has been called...

The EU doesnt need to punish the UK.. The markets are doing that already.

$4 trillion a day changes hands on the foreign exchange market, and half of that is in London. England is going to be OK, people. Project Fear has been voted down, after all.

This happens primarily because the city of London has a lot of exceptions provided to it by the EU and becomes an attractive place for the Americans, Chinese and Japanese institutions to funnel money into EU markets. It is really in a role similar Hong Kong vis a vis China. With Brexit, EU every reason to promote places like Luxembourg and other financial centers as the financial hub and end exceptions that make City of London competitive. Banks being banks will simply close offices and move business across the water.

There's no evidence the banking business will offshore whatsoever, though. You're just speculating.

Well so is the parent comment which is arguing essentially that things are fine today and so they will continue be fine in the future.

I'm simply suggesting that may not be the case since EU is now likely incentivized to disrupt the current status if only to set an example. Rather than disrupt physical trade that is linked to export oriented mainland jobs, financial sector may be a riper target as barriers to moving these jobs are low (essentially no capital investment), disrupting it can be used to create jobs on the mainland and can create a punitive effect on UK.

Multiple banking houses have at least indicated that they're willing to migrate. Even more important, a lot of financial products in the banking/insurance sector rely on passporting, that is if they're accepted in one EU country, they can be sold anywhere in the EU. That country used to be England up to now. Given that nobody knows if/when the real separation will happen, I fully expect banks and insurances to hedge their bets and start moving that to other countries.

Threats from banks do not constitute evidence that they will offshore, however.

No, it's not evidence since evidence can only be gathered post-fact. Just don't be surprised if they follow through, because well, they told you before which consequences the change would have.

He's not the only one who seems to think so: https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/4pkt3k/bbc_forec...

London is very expensive. Banks already have significant motivation to move operations somewhere cheaper, and have been doing so when they can.

That said, whilst it may seem tempting to run to the EU, other countries have been wanting to kill off the city and take its profits for their own for a long time. In the event of a remain vote, they may simply have been emboldened to outvote the UK and do it anyway, hence the focus in Cameron's negotiations on protecting the City. He knows it is vulnerable.

The banks now face a choice. Which is more risky/expensive. Needing to go through separate EU regulatory processes and get an EU "passport" via a subsidiary. Or relocate to e.g. Paris, and have all their activity be regulated by an EU now dominated by socialist governments rather than just some of it.

Ah yes, many banks are already talking about moving their business elsewhere. Good luck with that marketplace...

Fearmongering, nothing more to see here. Like I said, there is no current evidence that this will happen. BTW, threats from banks do not constitute evidence that they will do something perceived by a losing political faction as negative.

All the banks operating out of London have contingency plans that, at the very least, will move their primary legal entities to continental Europe.

If this had happened 10 years ago they would probably have moved them to Ireland but that won't happen now.

This isn't scaremongering. It's just the way the banks have to do business. It doesn't directly mean that all finance jobs will move to the continent. They won't. But there will be a slow migration over the next few years.

It is also highly likely that, over the next few years, the EU will implement the finance reforms that the UK has been blocking e.g. the transaction tax. It is almost unthinkable that they won't implement that for UK banks.

It is also wholly in the EU's interest to delay a trade deal on services and financial services in particular as the UK has a significant surplus wrt the rest of the EU. It's more questionable over manufacturing as we run a deficit. How quickly we can negotiate a deal will be a toss up between industry that will want one and politicians who are likely to cause a fair degree of pain pour encourager les autres.

Out of interest why do you suggest that if the banks move they wouldn't move to Dublin?

To me it looks like Dublin has lots of things in it's favour, not least the likelihood of an open border with the UK and native English speakers.

> Out of interest why do you suggest that if the banks move they wouldn't move to Dublin?

Because some have been there and it almost took out the Irish economy. They, the Irish, won't allow that to happen again any time soon. The fact is that the Irish economy is quite small and banks' balance sheets are quite big.

Realistically, only Germany, France and maybe Italy would be big enough to take a significant chunk of the UK banking sector.

Of course the EU will continue to threaten the UK to "reconsider" its decision. But the fact remains that countries like Switzerland and Norway are much better off in economic terms by not having joined the EU in the first place.

Citizens of the UK have to ask themselves if they are going to allow the EU to threaten them into submission.

I am now 100% sure that the EU is done, this is it. Le Pen will win the next elections in France and then they'll leave too. Same goes for the Dutch.

Switzerland and Norway are better off by agreeing to terms which the Leave campaign explicitly does not want.

They also have significant strategic advantages which the UK is just lacking, and their economies are rather small. The UK can't get a better deal even if the EU wanted to give it to them. Which they don't by the way!

"Same goes for the Dutch."

Eh, no. 58% wants to remain, 26% leave (numbers as of two weeks ago). The Dutch realize much more than the Brits how much we depend on tight integration with others (as a small country, as a heavy trader, but also as less inward-looking as the Brits).

Those are very close to the polling figures at the start of the UK referendum process. Voting intentions changed significantly during the campaigns.

[citation needed]

I can't find those numbers, in fact the numbers that I did find are literally all over the place (for both Leave/Remain).

When I first started paying attention to this issue back around November time last year, I think the polls that I saw were about 30% to leave.

> Le Pen will win the next elections in France

Yeah... not a chance really.

>Le Pen will win the next elections in France and then they'll leave too.

They have no intentions to actually leave, their economic program doesn't even make sense.

Switzerland and Norway have joined the EU in all but name (and voting rights) economically; all the trade-related EU directives apply and their borders are actually more open and let in more EU migrants per capita.

Of course the UK has the option of going for the same deal, but if they do, a lot of the Leave voters are going to feel very, very betrayed.

> The scaremongering goes on even after the vote has been called...

The markets are already reacting. And they aren't confident./

I wonder if it's possible for example the Netherlands or Germany to make a seperate trade agreement with England.

But i think that in the long run some company's will act as proxy's to deliver goods and workers, so nothing will change, just some other way's of looking at it..

"Trade curbs" are not within the discussion. But without EU regulations applying to Britain, you can't simply continue international trade without additional costs. Even without additional taxes, there is a lot of added cost in bureaucracy and handling.

UK to EU exports 45% of all exports. EU to UK 6%. EU will be just fine. It's not as if import/exports will cease to be either. UK will be hurt, EU not so very much.

what is stopping them from doing trade after uk leaves eu? seems most comments around is expecting each side to loose their market on the other side.

I wonder, how many of these cars are assembled in Britain? And how much of the supply chain is inside Britain? Will it still be economical to import parts from the EU and assemble in Britain? Maybe the supply chain will be built inside Britain, maybe assembly will shift away from Britain. This is relevant for German as well as Japanese cars. And it's not only cars.

Whatever bilateral deals will be made post brexit, there will be a lot of shifting going on.

Britain has very little manufacturing left. The financial industry on the other hand will be hard hit as power and influence moves to Frankfurt/Berlin.

> Britain has very little manufacturing left.

44% of UK exports are manufacturing.

http://www.themanufacturer.com/uk-manufacturing-statistics/

10% of GDP

> I wonder, how many of these cars are assembled in Britain?

Over 450,000 Nissans are built every year in Sunderland; when it opened the plant was considered the great hope of the area, which had been devastated by the decline of British manufacturing in the 80s, and Thatcherism in the 80s.

80% of those cars are exported within the EU.

An overwhelming majority of Sunderland voted to leave.

Let's hope Nissan is not going to pull out in the coming years (supply lines, export issues).

But should that that happen, what would those people who voted for leave in Sunderland make of it? Would cognitive dissonance kick in and the blame again be placed on the EU or are they going to call for the head of Boris Johnson and Farage?

The UK will also still carry a lot of influence over Europe through NATO.

The UK itself may fracture - Scotland and/or Northern Ireland may peel off for the EU - putting NATO at risk.

The Scottish nationalists currently want to remain in NATO: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_debate_in_the_Scottish_Na...

The SNP also want to close down the UK's nuclear submarine base at Faslane.

Looks like we might up with a "United Ireland" referendum and a Scots "Indy Ref 2" - both NI and Scotland voted pretty strongly to stay in.

Also the many countries that get shitty deals like production quota or migrant restriction under Diblin III will hope for renegotiation.

NATO's time has come and gone. Europe needs to defend itself against Russia. It's not like they lack the resources; the only thing they lack is the will. No one wants a strong German military because that has always led to catastrophe in the past, but maybe it's time for them to re-arm. I mean, what are the odds that they'll produce another megalomaniac?

Pretty good I would say. At the moment a lot of Germans are pissed off at Merkel for "letting so many immigrants in", so I wouldn't be surprised if they elect someone who is very much right-wing next time and supports deportations or even worse. I'm pretty sure that in years after WW1 people were saying that odds of having another war in just 2 decades are extremely slim. And yet.

"I'm pretty sure that in years after WW1 people were saying that odds of having another war in just 2 decades are extremely slim. "

Well -- there was the whole "politicians lost the war" thing and general bitterness about the Rhineland.

Megalomanic ? Sure. The US chose Trump as the Republican nominee.

But another Hitler or similar dictator. Not possible.

this is the kind of thinking responsible for history being allowed to repeat itself.

> NATO's time has come and gone

Europe is defenseless without NATO. All EU countries, with the exception of UK (yes), Greece (historically strong army because of Turkish threat) and Poland (rich experience with Russia) fail to meet NATO requirements on army spending. EU armies are disfunctional and barely able to provide symbolic support for the US Army in operations (remember Libya? EU couldn't sustain a few days of air-only operations).

It may very well be that NATO is done. But if it is, it's because of EU members that lack any will to defend themselves. So how do you expect EU's own defense to be any better than NATO backed by USA's might (politically ambiguous as it may be these days)? Again with the exception of Poland, whose EU-hated government is serious about defending the country, but that's too little, too late.

This wil become an argument in favor of a euroarmy.

Poland (mentioned above your comment) is against to euroarmy.

I think the departure of the UK (highest military spending) is making everyone feel less safe.

How? The UK didn't leave NATO. It didn't go back on any ideas of collective defense.

Meanwhile France is one of the most military interventionist countries on the planet, with forces on the ground in a dozen countries or so.

Europe were "barely able" to provide support for the US because there's huge political opposition to get dragged into US interventions.

These operations are tiny, much like the Uk's.

Estonia also meets and always has met NATO spending requirements [1], because of a long history of war with Russia. It's a national priority and was the #1 issue discussed even in the 2015 elections.

[1] http://www.defenseone.com/politics/2015/06/nato-members-defe...

Finland doesn't meet the 2% GDP requirement (neither does Greece, though) and isn't NATO member, but we are the one the very few EU countries that maintain a relatively large conscription based defence forces with relatively modern equipment.

Europe can't even bomb Libya without US help. I don't want to hear how NATO is obsolete when we're deploying a couple brigades to the Baltics and Eastern Europe because Europe is militarily a nullity.

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