Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit
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The majority of people voted to leave the EU and to regain independence. There will be a little volatility until some facts about how that divorce happens, emerge.
Long term, we now have control of our future.
In terms of startups though, the EU is there to serve big businesses and powerful establishment. It's there to hinder startups and small businesses. If you're pro-small business, then you should be excited about the opportunities we have now.
And can anyone on here really stand up for the idiotic cookie law? Can you stand up for the "html link tax"? That's just the tip of the iceberg with the meddling from the EU.
The EU is a framework is facilitate that interdependence, and while it has many faults, it was created to prevent another world war and in that it has succeeded.
Great Britain's future is very dependent on the decisions of its neighbors and trade partners, and it has just told those neighbors and trade partners to go to hell. The EU will make the UK pay a price for Brexit, and rightly so, otherwise all member states would leave and still enjoy the free movement of goods and people.
Every power structure is co-optable by large corporations and special interests. The Leave leaders are no different. You have swapped out one regrettable elite for another, much as the former British colonies nations did mid-century. There are many problems "independence" doesn't solve, and dealing with special interests is one of them.
Best of luck.
Now the UK will not contribute 0.3% of its GDP, lose some of its favourable deals that far exceed 0.3% of GDP, and lose the 10% vote in EU affairs, yet will be subjected to those affairs as part of the inevitable effort of negotiating to keep many (though impossibly all) of the benefits the UK now has as a member.
That's not independence, really. That's losing 10% influence in a union which you'll still be trading and working with, and who will still be subjecting you to lots of requirements under this new partnership, which you'll have a reduced say in.
Unless the UK actually wants to be independent in the semantic sense of isolationism, i.e. not deal with the EU at all anymore. Yes, then you'd have independence, and you'd also have a country that'll be completely wrecked, for the same principles that a broad boycott (e.g. Cuba for many decades, North Korea, Iraq during some of its harshest years etc) is so devastating, because interconnectedness is extremely valuable. That interconnectedness will still be sought for by the UK, but now it can't vote and is at the mercy of the largest economy in the world. Obviously the UK's economy and power will play a significant role in negotiations, no doubt, but the UK outside of the EU needs the EU more than vice versa.
So the independence argument I agree, is quite flimsy.
[Expat in the UK who could not vote but followed this all quite closely... All of the numbers I quoted can be found in wikipedia if you want to go digging.]
Why say you're sticking to the facts and then repeat pretty much the facts I stated with a different perspective?
8.5b (I think I had it at 7b, it depends on various valuations but ultimately it doesn't matter much as it's roughly the same) on the British economy (roughly 1.9 trillion pounds) is a fraction of a percent, I stated about 0.3%, you're stating around 0.45%, again, it's not much different, they're all figures in the same ballpark.
This 0.45% I cite because it's British GDP. I'm talking from the perspective of Britain having to give up part of its GDP as a contribution to the EU. That contribution is 0.45% of its economy, in return, you got 10% of the EU vote. That's reality and facts, no?
That's a tiny price to pay. Imagine you could pay 7b a year for 10% of the vote in the US, or in China, or hell imagine China or the US could purchase a 10% vote in the EU for 7b, it's a ridiculously silly small amount of money.
How am I not sticking to reality and facts.
However I do believe you've neglected the other points of the post which were about the value of access to the European market place and that 10% say in how said market is run. Those are costs / benefits which are not so easily counted before the painful divorce is complete.
In reality, most significant European trading partners with UK just want to keep on trading with them mostly as they have been, and will work out deals that allow such trading to mostly continue. There doesn't seem to be much reason to think such trade deals will be radically changed in a way that damages anyone for the long term.
http://openeurope.org.uk/today/blog/how-would-key-export-sec...
Some key UK export sectors - especially finance - have a very low probability of being able to carry on as normal.
The German car industry accounts for around 3% of GDP. Sales to the UK are less than 1% of German GDP.
The UK financial industry accounts for around 10% of GDP. Sales to the EU are around 4% of UK GDP.
As a rough guess estimate, post-Brexit disruption is going to lose 1-2% of that, and could lose more - because there's very little London can do for Europe that can't be done just as easily in Frankfurt.
The UK has a lot more to lose than Germany does.
But the EU traditionally plays hardball with negotiations. Ask Greece.
So there is no chance at all the UK isn't going to have to make significant - expensive - sacrifices to keep trading.
This vote is literally the most staggeringly stupid and self-destructive act I've seen in my lifetime.
Take away the jingoism and the flag-waving and the blatant lies about immigration and sovereignty, and you have a country which relies on a huge captive market voting to - at best - change the terms of access to that market in ways that cannot possibly be more advantageous than they are now.
Some trade will continue, but the overall effect on the UK is going to be very negative indeed.
Do you know what you're talking about? That's a sincere question. My understanding is that the UK's significant trading partners are members of the EU, and that it's the EU, not the individual partners, who will have to decide on any new trade deals with the UK. As others have said, what sort of precedent would the EU be setting if they gave a withdrawing member the same benefits it had as an actual member? The EU does not want more members withdrawing.
As a snarky side remark, what will the UK do in the future instead of continuing to import cars, regardless of terms? Rely on its domestic automotive industry?
London, one of the 3 financial capitals of the globe, will lose its status in favor (probably) of a more diverse mix of European cities.
This will have downstream effects on other trade flows in and out of the UK.
Even if one accepts that existing trade will be accommodated through direct agreements, that only protects existing industries. What does it mean for future industries and how existing industries grow and change? When a new industry develops and wants to export, they are going to find they face trade barriers until such time as the EU and UK get around to negotiating a new (or modified) trade agreement. That's a huge disadvantage and will see a lot of investment, especially in tech companies go to the EU where previously it might have gone to the UK.
Well, they can have the same deal that Norway or Switzerland have with the EU. The problem is that to have that deal they have to agree to be part of Shengen Area
If ten equal partners get together to negotiate on a collective agreement, then the results will probably be fair to all parties.
If nine of those partners negotiate collectively with one partner, then the results will probably heavily favor the collective.
But, I guess it's better to have the freedom to be screwed than to be forced to take a good deal.
That is to say, the EU without the UK has less leverage than before, and the UK without the EU has less leverage than before, so now neither the EU nor the UK has nearly as much bargaining power as they had combined.
Negotiating with the EU is a disaster. Too many special interests to deal with all at once! As the old saying goes: too many chefs spoil the broth.
The second sentence of the parenthetical, if taken to be true, casts significant doubt on the claim in the final sentence.
I don't doubt that the requirement for consensus in the EU makes EU-to-outside trade deals difficult to negotiate. OTOH, that same fact makes successful negotiation of an EU-Britain trade deal (either as part of or subsequent to an exit agreement) uncertain.
The EU has been extremely ineffective at negotiating trade deals between the 28 EU countries, and non EU countries.
We (UK) will be far more effective at negotiating our own trade deals with non EU countries. It's far simpler for a start.
Exactly, which casts strong doubts on the this claim from your earlier post: "We will negotiate a trade deal with the EU as a whole."
Because, you know, that is a trade deal between the 27 remaining EU countries and a non-(or soon to be non-)EU country, the exact thing you say that the EU isn't successful at doing.
Sounds like a nightmare to me. On the other hand, Switzerland seems to be doing well (although they are maybe focussing more on the EU than the Britain that you advocate).
Quite the opposite, and an old Murdoch quote resurfaced[0] covering exactly that:
> I once asked Rupert Murdoch why he was so opposed to the European Union. “That’s easy,” he replied. “When I go into Downing Street they do what I say; when I go to Brussels they take no notice.”
[0] http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/anthony-hilton-sta...
Isn't this exactly the type of attitude that lead to Brexit? I can't believe I'm defending Murdoch, but who are you to determine one's "cultural identity"? What a bizarre comment.
You make the EU sound like an abusive spouse. "Don't leave me or I'll hurt you!"
Do you believe that if the UK leaves the EU, France and Germany will go to war? If not, I don't see how "created to prevent another world war" is relevant.
The UK decided that it could tell the EU to get fucked and get all the benefits of the relationship without any of the drawbacks, it is not in the EU's interest to confirm that and it has very little reason to bend over for the UK. To reuse your ménage analogy, it's more like one spouse deciding to up and go and asking for the house, car, accounts and still being invited to christmas and family dinners.
(By analogy, the citizens of Britain/France/etc are the children, who'd like to continue to play with one another, but perhaps one of their abusive parents will use violence to prevent this.)
No, it really isn't.
> By analogy, the citizens of Britain/France/etc are the children, who'd like to continue to play with one another, but perhaps one of their abusive parents will use violence to prevent this.
So the UK left with one of the children and is telling the others they can't see them anymore.
The EU has no rational reason to be especially sweet on the UK, and looking internally and at the future it can't even be seen as that as it would bolster eurosceptic movements inside the Union.
There's no point of view under which being soft on the UK is rational.
But the UK got extraordinarily preferential treatment in the EU all those decades.
What most people actually advocate is real, tough negotiations, driven by both parties' interests.
And the outcome will --predictably-- not what the Leavers wished for. It will also not be what the EU wished for. That ship has sailed.
Britain will get a deal, based on relative strengths and things the EU and Britain have to offer and the other side wants.
And very much depending on the timeframe the Brits are shooting for. If they want something quick (one to three years) only the Norwegian EFTA model is realistic.
If ten to fifteen years are quick enough all kinds of complicated deals can be negotiated. Can Britain really wait that long?
Directly? No. Trade war between EU and Britain? Might happen.
And if the EU doesn't take fairly drastic action to, it will fray further, essentially destabilizing Europe. No war will come from that, either. Not yet. But if the EU were to crumble, it's a good bet there'll be a division between haves and have-nots. We're still not at war - but the have-nots have crumbling economies now, creating unrest. Meanwhile, the few haves that are left over are likely to envy each other what little they still gain from such a union. Sooner or later, we'll go back to individual states. A few strong European powers, not bound by the EU any more, and many crumbling economies around it.
Meanwhile, the pressure on the smaller states from migrants and refugees increases. (If you think we're done with middle East and African troubles, I suggest you take a look at climate projections). They will start to let them pass through and/or ignore them, because they have to, to survive at all. There's not much political clout left to move the agenda on a global scale any more, so that option is out.
As a result, the stronger countries militarize their borders. Sooner or later, somebody will mount a preemptive mission into some of the smaller countries, simply because it "makes sense" to stop the flood of migrants earlier.
Play the scenario from there.
Sure, nothing guarantees it will happen that way, but there's a good chance something like that will happen. The point of the EU was to prevent that - to make the common bond so valuable that nobody would want to risk it.
Britain's voting public decided that the value was low enough. If the EU wants to have any relevance in the long run, they will need to make it clear to Britain that yes, that bond is pretty valuable, and tough luck for Britain.
That is how it's relevant - in the very long term, as a stabilizing force.
And no, it's not "Don't leave me or I'll hurt you". It's "we had a contract, you broke it, that means I don't need to uphold my end of it either". That's generally how this whole treaty business works.
It's right in the contract that member states have the freedom to leave.
So tl;dr; Britain should stay in the EU because #remain folks want to start a trade war with them to punish them for leaving? And that maybe this will result in an actual hot war? You seem to be doubling down on my abusive spouse metaphor.
I'm a huge free trader and open borders type. (And also a yank in India, so no skin in the game.) But listening to the arguments of #remain folks makes me think the UK is better off on their own. With friends like these, who needs enemies?
I think you're mischaracterizing the situation.
Perspective 1: UK is breaking up with the EU, not vice-versa.
P2: EU gets some adv/dis-advantages by including UK specifically P3: UK had some advantages/disadvantages from being part of EU P4: EU has incentive outside of British sitch to stay unified
My (american) perspective is that Britain should stay in the EU because while their direct adv to leave may outweigh direct disadv to stay, they are subject to P4, which is to make an example of someone who leaves.
Exclude your judgement of right, wrong, and what should be. Look simply at leverage.
When France decided to leave the previous union of European states, the #remain folks definitely inflicted a lot of short term pain. Lots of French beaches still have monuments thanking the British, American and Canadian soldiers who died in support of #leave. Did that short term pain make #leave the wrong choice?
Also, as a Yank, I'd just like to tell any Brits on here that we still love them. Think about joining NAFTA. Our wine is just as good as French wine and London needs more burritos. We'd love to have some curries and all your delicious baked goods.
And your "abusive" quote is way off also. It's not about abuse, it's about, as per any negotiation, either side will try to extract as much value as they possibly can. And if there is a power differential between the participants, the one with the upper hand absolutely will make the other party pay a price, and if accepted, it will be a fair price per the market.
Regardless of judgement, you have to look at leverage. That's what really matters in terms of outcomes.
I believe it's important for individuals to build character based on morals (ie judge leverage for abuse), but that's like suggesting thermodynamics law 2 just isn't very nice.
You're right: it sucks. But wishing it were otherwise is not super relevant.
I really hate this sentiment. This is just about the worst EU can do, it would damage its legitimacy in the eyes of us, EU citizens, even more than the handling of the Greek crisis already did.
I don't see any reason to punish a country for voting to leave the EU, except pure spite and greed for more power. Why can't we all be friends, each on the terms that they want?!
Now, the UK has clearly stated they don't like some things like free movement of people. The point of getting out of the EU is not to do a copy/paste of the current agreements and sign them in a week. The UK (not the EU) has decided to cancel everything and start from scratch because they don't feel like they could get to a comfortable situation inside the EU.
Even with the best of intentions, negotiating this kind of complex inter-state treaties take years. And, understandably, there will be extra care and friction because the UK has already got out once. Meanwhile, all the benefits are not going to be present.
I, sincerely, don't think we should think this in terms of "punishment", but if someone gets out of an agreement and immediately starts to renegotiate (more favourable) terms, it's reasonable to expect the negotiation to be hard...
Non-european people coming in as economic inmigrants, to be more precise.
But it's complex. People were asked by the media which way they would vote and why. Asians were saying they'd been promised more immigration from their country by the Leave campaign, while other people were saying they'd vote Leave because there were too many Africans living in their street. The thought of Turkey joining, and letting in Syrian refugees was also in the mix.
And one of the intellectual leaders of Leave has already stated he's confused why people think voting Leave will reduce immigration.
Unfortunately for Britain, they've shown their hand early and they have no real leverage. I think the EU will demonstrate good will because they understand that those most directly affected by this vote did not agree with it. So I won't be surprised to see visa waivers and the like for expats.
I also think future trade agreements will be "fair." Which is to say, I don't think they will be punitive, but I doubt it will be as favorable to "independent" England as it was to "member" England.
In the end I doubt the UK will get as nice a deal as Swiss or Norway nor at such a fast rate. The main deal of the EU is free movement, that is not on the table due to the UK. Without free movement of people, free movement of goods and money are going to be difficult.
As for free movement of things, I believe it is in the best interest of the EU to allow lenient trade with UK, insofar as it doesn't damage its reputation as a legitimate institution.
However if reputation does take precedence over economic sense, then the UK has plenty of other new opportunities, on a global scale, negotiate trade freely with little EU intervention.
It seems to be rather the opposite. The EU is calling for fast negotiations whereas the UK is taking it easy.
The EU wants a fast official declaration from the UK that they want to leave. They want to start the clock running. If after two years there is no agreement, so what, let's negotiate for however long it takes.
Britain wants fast negotiations, because their economy depends on results, but they don't want to formally start the process. Because if they can't get a deal in two years after article 50 invocation they are in a very, very bad position.
Your ideology has been deprecated. Please install upgrades.
Unlike the mythical Freedom Markets™, actual functional open markets require regulation, begetting bureaucracy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Utopia_of_Rules
https://www.amazon.com/Utopia-Rules-Technology-Stupidity-Bur...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/oliver-burkeman-co...
http://boingboing.net/2015/02/02/david-graebers-the-utopia-o...
"Are you suggesting that without a central leviathan like the EU, free trade and cooperation is untenable?"
Correct.
Frameworks for interdependence and vast bureaucracies aren't mutually exclusive (in fact, they often go together: the US federal government is both of those things, too.)
That's an interesting theory, but I would suggest that most successful such frameworks in human history have included some form of bureaucracy.
What frameworks would you point to as examples of what you're talking about (besides the EU... cause I think it's objectively a bad example haha)?
You couldn't be more wrong here. If anything the creation of the EU makes war much more likely, precisely because of the inevitability of its breakup. The UK is just the first to go, but many more countries will leave too, effectively finishing off the EU project. And with the end of the EU, comes the bitter divorce between European countries, which is fertile grounds for a new world war.
> Europe's longest period of peace correlates with the existence of the EU.
A few years ago, they were asked to contribute a few billions to Greece's economy that also was (and is, I presume) completely wasted. Most Germans complained loudly and politicians like Angela Merkel made it a point not to give them more money than absolutely necessary.
Why did they complain so much in Greece's but not East Germany's case? Think about that for some time then you see why the EU is doomed.
So it was always about power, then? Why shouldn't all states enjoy the free movement of goods & people without giving up their sovereignty?
The EU should have required only as much authority as it absolutely needed; instead it demanded too much.
Free movement between sovereign entities always entails yielding some amount of sovereignty loss, you can't have free movement of goods and people between two cities if there isn't a supra-city structure.
> The EU should have required only as much authority as it absolutely needed; instead it demanded too much.
That's just your opinion, I do not agree with it.
They just want to keep free movement of goods and services.
Last time I checked membership in the EU is voluntary. Why should there be punishment?
If you remove the free market from the EU's mission (as painted by your scenario above of everyone leaving and carrying on trading) what is the function of the state excluding the market? What is the idea there?
I hear all the time that the EU prevented war in Europe, but frankly war in Europe has been prevented by occupation by Britain and the United States. There are currently 21500 British troops in Germany. This is going to end in 2020, it will be fascinating to see what happens at that point.
Not really. Once the dust had settled, it was French-German reconciliation that kept continental Europe stable, not the British or US military. Sure, foreign troops in Germany had their role to play, but since the collapse of the Soviet Union 25 years ago, not so much as far as domestic affairs are concerned.
As if.
It was created as an amalgamation of post-war globalist trade deals. The EU administrative bodies were tacked on later to make it palatable as a governing body.
It's not inherently bad that an organization is founded on trade, but don't shit on my plate and call it pudding.
To deincentivise countries going to war with each other...
Deincentivising some kinds of war might have been a unexpected benefit, but it wasn't the motive.
> 'make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Coal_and_Steel_Commun...
That's complete ahistorical nonsense.
No, free trade did not do that, the seeds of the EU were sown at the Hague Congress for the express purpose of European integration as an antidote to nationalistic extremes. The Economic integration started being added with the Treaty of Rome.
I hope that word doesn't stick. All EU countries are independent, as is the UK. For the sake of all 27 EU countries , please stop using divisive and wrong rhetoric.
> Long term, we now have control of our future.
I would like to hear one concrete way in which the future is going to be, after the negotiations, substantially different than what it is today.
> And can anyone on here really stand up for the idiotic cookie law? Can you stand up for the "html link tax"? That's just the tip of the iceberg with the meddling from the EU.
The cookie law and the lack of a small-business friendly common VAT policy are things to work on (html link tax does not exist), certainly not a reason for such a significant rift. OTOH, i hope you had stayed to enjoy zero data roaming fees within the next year.
> If you're pro-small business, then you should be excited about the opportunities we have now.
Sure. I use ebay.co.uk all the time, because apparently lots of sellers there willing to sell to the EU, and we have no import duties that way. Import duties is going to be a deal breaker for me. Exciting opportunities indeed.
Lesson from the US: You can't have sovereigns with superior sovereigns. Individual US states are on paper sovereign, but in reality have been relegated to being administrative districts of the federal government with little meaningful right to self-determination independent of other states.
There certainly seems to be more substance to it than just "random internet claims" :(
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/21/govern...
http://europa.eu/eu-law/decision-making/legal-acts/index_en....
Otherwise, the UK will compete against other startup place like Berlin where any European can freely go. That's a huge pool of talent that is no longer directly accessible. Then for global talent the UK will still need to compete with place like the US.
It is not strange how it is spun. There are people that are paid to analyse the stuff you are talking about and they unanimous conclusion is that the outlook look bad short term, medium term and long term. My hope right now is that the next PM will be a cunning genius that will negotiate incredible deals for the UK and prove the economists and analysts were wrong. But let's face it, have you seen genius in the winners today: they all looked like like a kid that managed to stole the cookie jar and don't know what to do with it.
As a non-EU or non-UK citizen, I guess that's good? It means competition. Perhaps UK would try to make a better environment to attract startups to compete? I don't think it is too crazy of a thought.
Your scenario could happen. The UK could do too little or too late and let the startup market fizzle. Or the UK could simply not care.
Not really. Your future is just as bound up with the future of Europe as it was before. The only real difference is that instead of negotiating with the EU as a member, you will have to negotiate as an outsider who has considerably less leverage, and who has recently pissed everyone off.
And when you negotiate with non-EU countries, it will be even worse for you. As a member of the EU, you had international clout and represented the world's largest free-trade market. Now all you have to offer is your own domestic market. You overestimate your importance in the world economy if you think you can now get trade deals with non-EU countries that are as good as the deals you could have got as a member of the EU.
It's also been interesting to watch the Leave campaigners rapidly begin backtracking on their promises to reduce immigration. You simply can't afford to reduce immigration at this point -- it would shrink your economy. Immigration is a response to the demand for workers, and if that demand goes unfilled because of restrictive immigration policies, all of you will suffer. So, don't expect the government to impose significant reduction in immigration. Immigration will only decrease when your demand for workers decreases.
As a non-EU country, I suppose you will avoid the "html link tax" and some other bureaucratic EU regulations you don't like, but in the areas that really matter for your future, e.g. the economy, you will be worse off. In the area that energized many leave voters, immigration, you cannot realistically expect much to change, and whatever changes will happen in the future because of decreased demand for workers probably would have happened anyway.
That's a common misconception. Why? In other countries, the civil service aren't the only ones that can propose legislation.
In the EU, the European Parliament can't propose legislation, the European Council can't propose legislation, only the European Commission can propose legislation. You may be electing people to represent you, but how are they meant to represent you when they have no input into what is being discussed? All they can do is say yes or no to what the Commission proposes, it's the Commission that controls the agenda.
Also, it's not a simple "yes/no" ability for the parliament. They certainly can (and do) modify proposed legislation.
Everyone in the EU is ruled by their own elected government. The unelected bureaucrats in Brussels don't rule anybody. Their ability to make decisions for member states is limited by treaties. In any case, the UK was significantly more independent than other EU states in terms of currency and economic issues.
> people in the pocket of big business, who have set out to concentrate power in the hands of a small selected group
Ah, conspiracy theories.
The agenda of the EU is controlled by the EU Commission, as they're the only group that can propose laws. The EU Commissioners are not democratically elected, and only serve the interests of the EU as a single block. The laws they propose do have to get passed elected officials, but the Commission is free to keep passing through similar laws until they get passed, which is similar to how they pushed through the rejected European Constitution as the Lisbon Treaty, despite the contents being similar.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_establishing_a_Consti...
> "Ah, conspiracy theories."
Ah, casual dismissal. If you want to see if there's any substance behind what I say, watch this:
> Ah, casual dismissal. If you want to see if there's any substance behind what I say, watch this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xMuUEd6w54E
When someone thinks you're pushing conspiracy theories you probably need to point them to a better source of information than this: https://tbunews.com/about-tbu-news/
One example of "science": https://tbunews.com/resonance-beings-of-frequency/
Or this, about vaccines: https://tbunews.com/vaccines-cure-or-spread-disease/
That is a global trend for every major nation, and the factors behind a pyramidal society are not obviously being negotiated with in any meaningful way by the UK, Americans, or the Chinese. This is simply the structural propensity of an economic and political game where strength begets strength.
It was literally the same people in all three countries who campaigned against the constitution back then who are now the EU-critics that complain about the EU not being democratic enough.
Large companies in the UK are already announcing their intention to move thousands of jobs to Germany or Ireland.
Hyperbole much? Stop with the fear mongering.
Also, which "large companies" have announced they are moving? Source?
"American banks JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley are able to sell to the rest of Europe from London under special "passporting" arrangements. Even before the negotiations with the EU begin, both have said they may need to move staff to the EU to serve their European customers. JP Morgan alone has warned up to 4,000 jobs could leave the UK.
Airbus employs 15,000 people in the UK and chief executive Tom Enders said. "This is a lose-lose result for both Britain and Europe. We will review our UK investment strategy, like everybody else will."
The UK banking system is not about to collapse.
Santander -20%. Lloyds -21%. Barclays -18%... etc
Nothing to see here, everything is ok...
This will no longer be true. No longer will you have automatic access to the rest of the market, no longer can talent so easily flow, no longer does the UK hold a 10% vote in the EU, no longer will it carry the image of being the capital of the EU by definition of it being outside of the EU. Many of the incentives to incorporate in London will shift to other destinations.
And that'll surely have repercussions, I won't use terms like full on collapse or anything like it, but I expect consequences will be quite substantial.
This industry is going to take a huge hit, and frankly, even if you don't work in finance, you should care because it will impact everyone in the country.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-36617969
"UK banking stocks have plunged after Britain voted to leave the EU. Barclays and RBS were among the hardest hit, with their shares sliding nearly 30% at the start of trading before staging a partial recovery. Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley could relocate up to 2,000 London-based investment banking staff, the BBC understands. This could add to fears about potential job losses in the UK financial industry, which employs 2.2m people. Shares in the FTSE 100's five big banks fell 21% on average as markets digested the results of the referendum, with Barclays suffering the biggest one-day fall in its share price. The price eventually recovered to stand 16% down in late afternoon trading. Shares in Europe's other main banks fell heavily, with Germany's Deutsche Bank down more than 13% and France's Societe Generale more than 20% lower. "The UK and European banking system has been hit particularly hard as there was already fears about their health, and now there are worries about the linkages between European and British banks," said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets."
How can a regional economy be stable if the median worker can't afford housing?
Similarly, I wonder if it's simply been long enough -- when the UK joined the European common market, today's pensioners were too young to have much if any experience of the business/labor world -- that the people of the UK are in a similar situation of not realizing just what a risk they're taking, or how bad the consequences can be, since they have no direct experience.
The problem is that the EU should have remained the Common Market, instead of growing into a largely unaccountable, largely undemocratic, largely technocratic, ungainly nightmare.
I think that a United States of Europe is inevitable, and even a good idea, but it should have been done slowly, gradually and with respect for the differing peoples of Britain and the Continent. Instead, what took about 150 year for America was rammed through in about 30.
It has been done slowly and gradually, and Britain for a long time has been pretty clear that they don't want to go in that direction at all.
> Instead, what took about 150 year for America was rammed through in about 30.
Which 150 year period in US history are you comparing to which 30 year period in EU history? Because the US went from winning the war for independence from England to integration into a single national government with a common military, a prohibition on the members making any international agreements (or agreements between each other) without approval from the central authority in less than 10 years. The progress of the european integration has been substantially slower, not faster.
So you on the islands are special but we monkeys on the continent are all the same? The UK has been half-in/half-out of the EU for the last 40 years, always wanting extra on all the benefits and never taking a downside in return.
I'm glad you've finally made up your mind, as one way or the other this shitshow will finally end.
Sure if you want to sell coal and steel to each other, then the original common market works. If you want to freely trade food, then the lack of product equivalence means it requires far more work and yes burocracy. The next level up is services which requires incredible effort and reams of regulation; ironically the UK has benefited from this more than most EU countries as it is a service oriented economy. The last WTO talks collapsed for a reason - trade deals for stuff that isn't a simple commodity are complex and difficult.
you do realise the treaty of rome was signed 60 years ago right? The current EU has a ton of problems, but it's the continuation of a process that goes on since the end of WW2.
Actually the graph in the mentioned article clearly shows that younger people were in favor of staying in EU. It was the old population which wanted to leave.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Free_Trade_Associatio...
In fact, being part of the EFTA will make UK more abide to the EU duties that it was until now
Why would they?
Its not uncommon to support free markets without free movement of people; outside of the relationships within the EU, its fairly normal for trade agreements.
Corporate interests in both sides benefit from such arrangements compared to their absence, so there might well be powerful interests on both the European and UK sides pushing for that as part of the exit agreement.
(OTOH, some -- though probably not all -- of the "Leave" constituency is probably anti-free-trade, so at least some of that constituency would probably oppose the arrangement. Perhaps not enough to stop it, though.)
There's absolutely no chance of this happening with the UK and the EU. Free movement is even part of the EFTA. And anxiety about the stability of the EU will be much stronger than any neoliberal impulse that would allow the UK to carve out an unprecedented extra special deal for themselves.
My money's on Article 50 never being invoked, and a second referendum on a slightly better deal with the EU probably next year. So the UK will still have to endure an awful limbo state of uncertainty for a while, but they won't actually walk off the cliff.
Such as? Please elaborate.
One thing we can look forwards to is paying VAT to every EU country individually. That's going to be fun.
The Brexit camps idea that they could leave so they could finally pick whatever they like, as they have been trying to do for the last 40 years, is cute but laughably naive. They will not continue to receive the free travel, trade access and EU subsidies to the tune of 200 million euro per week. All of that will be revoked, only if to set an example that you will not get those benefits without buy-in.
In my view, there are currently two equally likely scenarios to unfold: they leave with nothing as farewell gift (as has already been hinted at by the EU), or they will ignore the vote and stay in because they realize how bad of an idea this was - but are now in such a bad position they will likely lose all special privileges they enjoyed over the last 40 years.
This can be clearly seen by how many leave-voters are now in shock that they leave, and want to be able to vote again to remain. This was a powerplay for a better negotiation position. It backfired and now they can eat it.
I'm hoping that in a few weeks, after the international wake up call has finally reached the ears of those who voted with emotion instead of logic, there will actually be a full election in the UK.
I then hope that with the backing of the people's vote getting new officials in to office that they resist the call to invoke Article 50, and instead bring grievances to the EU along with some ways that a more fair union can continue moving forward.
This would show a more mature and world class level of leadership; and help to restore the confidence in the rest of the world that the UK won't cut off it's own legs out of spite.
I'm not optimistic. If mature world class leadership were likely, we wouldn't be here.
Have one conglomerate force everyone to do better. If each country acted independently, each country is incentivised to not think about the bigger picture and act in their own short term interests.
This was my main reason for voting in.
These are not made-up examples.
And it's not just health or industrial standards, the EU forces a bunch of legal and human rights onto countries as well, many EU countries have gotten repeatedly and rightfully dinged over various deficiencies.
If each entity acts in their own self-interest — which nations very regularly do — then you get worse results for every individual.
For instance this quote from the Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing_in_the_Un... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing_in_the_Un... "A majority of the EPA's Scientific Advisory Board advised the EPA to scale back proposed toxity testing of fracking chemicals, and not pursue development of tracer chemicals to be added to frack treatments, because of time limitations. Chesapeake Energy agreed with the recommendation."
Conglomerations of power benefit people with power the most. That can be a positive or a negative depending on what policies those people want to pursue.
Yeah, the spin annoys me too.
Had things gone the other way, there'd be patriotic Englishmen experiencing doom, gloom & unease today. There'd be folks who love the U.K. who could say, 'I'm devastated, I think this is a complete disaster.' There would have been folks stunned and appalled that a microscopic majority had managed to end their nation's thousand-year sovereignty. Who knows? There might even have been tons of folks Googling to see how the Leave faction were handling things now that they'd lost, or what their arguments had been.
But would we have seen those articles today? No, because the people who feel those things and think those thoughts are looked down upon by the article-writing and -reading classes. They literally don't matter.
I'll put it this way: has economic isolationism ever made a country better off in the history of history? I can't think of a time.
Yes because there were deep systemic problems with the government and economy of the USSR at the time and the breakup was an inevitable result of the powers that be doing the wrong thing for so many years while business and some of the most productive citizens fled to Europe and the US. We're seeing the same thing right now in Venezuela, although Venezuela was never the world's second superpower. Also, Russia's biggest gains (and maybe what saved them after the collapse?) was energy in the form of oil and gas. Venezuela too. If alternative, readily available energy sources take off, this makes natural reserves of oil and gas less useful. Again, we're seeing all this play out now.
No because here we are today. The brexit and weakening of the EU will only strengthen Russia. Why support the EU over Russia? The EU, afaik, does not kill reporters and dissenters. That says a lot about a political organization's philosophy right there.
In general, I think it would be great if everyone on the planet lived in some kind of operationally transparent, porous, federated political structure, and Britain's involvement in the EU was a big step in that direction (which still had many steps to go). This is a step backwards. Meanwhile, today's Russia would do a lot better if they tried a carrot instead of a stick. In any case, now is not the time for leaders to get up from the table and walk away, it doesn't lead anywhere good.
No, there isn't. Seriously, where are you getting your information from? Are you from the UK?
There isn't a chance in hell Theresa May would even get shortlisted.
Assuming the EU countries won't give you a hard time, the most likely outcome is that the UK remains a member of the EEA. This means, e.g., granting free movement, paying support, and implementing regulations and standards (kettles and toasters come to mind wink), while only having a minimum of say in it or none at all. You will only have gained control to a minor extent.
Not being part of a trade union that removes tariffs on goods and services would have a detrimental effect on at least the productive sector. You will have to restructure your economy into becoming Switzerland (i.e., not being part of major supply chains) very fast. You will probably join EFTA to be part in at least some kind of trade union.
In the end, you will either be less in control than you thought or in an economical limbo.
Talking about spin: maybe you have been influenced by the negative spin anything EU got in the last years in the UK?
Snarky answer: the right to be forgotten part.
Serious answer: the so-called 'right to be forgotten' is really a 'right to force others to delete true statements,' which is to say, to cause them to lie by omission. It is an infringement upon those others' right to free speech. It's fundamentally stupid: no-one has a right compel government violence in order to muzzle others.
The older generation voted for it, the youth voted against, and it barely passed, so the old people just created a future the younger generation doesn't want; this is a terrible outcome. The Brexit just eliminated the right of free travel and work across all of the EU for the upcoming generation, they aren't happy about that. You've just shot yourselves in the foot as a nation.
Young people have been fed pro-EU propaganda from the earliest ages at nursery, school, and university.
We certainly haven't shot ourselves in the foot. We have taken back our democracy and right to self rule.
One joke from my Scottish friend. If somebody says "I'm Brit", they will ask "What is that? So you are English? I'm Scottish.". Just a joke - I do not want to be disrespectful here.
This will be like Grexit... Money will start talking. Politicians will drag implementing Brexit. Then they slowly forgot about it the UK will be even more dependent on EU.
1. The Swiss model: The UK will try to achieve bilateral agreements with all EU member countries (and ALL other countries that they didn't need to deal with before because they had a deal through the EU).
2. The Norwegian model: The UK will make a single deal allowing full access to the single market and transitive access to other markets through the EU (basically keeping the status quo).
Both options have some things on common: Any kind of deal with the EU or EU member countries will require the UK to still follow all EU regulations (just as any other 3rd country who want to do business in the EU). Many countries that currently have deals with the EU (including the US) already stated that they won't engage in negotiations until EU/UK deals are finalized. That's leaving the UK in a dangerous state of limbo.
Back to option 1: The Swiss have 200+ bilateral agreements with many countries in the world. They worked on these agreements for the past century. UK diplomats stated that even if they work full time on new trade agreements. achieving more than 1-2 deals per year is not realistic. A simple problem of diplomatic manpower. You can't do in 1-2 years what the Swiss have done in 70+ years. For comparison, just think about the amount of time put into negotiation TTIP. There's no respectable political scientist I know of, who would consider the Swiss modal a feasable option for the UK.
That leaves option 2: Norway pays roughly the amount of a (full) European membership fee to get full access to the single market. They pay that only for access to the market. The have to abide by all EU regulations without being able to vote on them or any other kind of influence. It is still a good deal for them. The UK currently pays a reduced fee PLUS they profit from EU subsidies (reducing the net amount of money payed even more). The UK won't be offered a better deal than Norway. That leads to the UK paying A LOT more without receiving any of the benefits or having any say in the regulations they still need to follow. The UK would still need to let EU citizens into their country and allow them to work because that's part of the deal and the UK actually needs immigrants. The UK will take this deal because in the end membership fees don't matter that much. The 125b pounds the market lost in a single day equal 15 years of membership fees. So the "leave" people didn't seem to care about that too much.
Here's a third option that I'd put on the table: Whoever comes after Cameron receives a vote of no confidence leading to new elections. Respectable parties will campaign with "If you vote for us, we'll ignore the referendum." Problem solved.
Unfortunately, the EU hasn't been quite so good for people who don't live in London or Scotland.
As a result, people are mad "at the system", what what we're seeing is political movements redirecting public anger at whatever target they wish. In the US, anger is being redirected at Mexicans, in the UK, apparently, it's Immigrants and Brussels.
But realistically, how is tinkering with trade or immigration policy going to fix the underlying issues that say, a retired Mill worker cares about? He's being told that regaining sovereignty, or stemming the immigrant flow will "make Britain great again", but there's no logical connection between A and B.
What's happening is, we seem to be coming apart at the seams. We are facing an economic transition period perhaps more important than the transition from agriculture to industrial economics, and it may leave vast numbers of people with no recourse, especially as more and more automation happens in the future.
There are policy changes we could make, like figuring out ways to tax automation productivity and supply a basic income for those displaced. We can argue over specific remedies.
But building a "wall", either a real one (Trump), or a virtual one (an isolationist Island), is not going to restore the former economic compact that the 65-and-over crowd grew up with.
I really see whats happening as quite exploitative of people's anger and fears. Our politicians are preying on our worst tribalist instincts peddling non-solutions in order to punish people and institutions who are not at fault.
Overall, the lessons of history teach that geographically large, wealthy, socially advanced empires don't actually survive all that long on average. They are complex systems with lots of moving parts, and various unexpected stressors can break essential components in unexpected ways. Major changes to the labor force, migration and productivity are very frequently the type of stressor that breaks empire systems.
The EU is a form of empire, that had many flaws from it's inception. The British Empire we believed had already fallen and was on the mend after WWII, had maybe found it's place in the EU, but the reality is looking like it still had further left to go to hit rock bottom. (If we look at the map of the vote it resembles Britain circa 1700, before the rise of British colonialism.)
Likewise, in the USA the American empire has hit the peak of it's capacity for expansion and economic dominance and is starting to get a taste of what the cracks in empire look like. This truly massive scale democratic republic is a real achievement but it's unclear what happens in a system like this at this scale. We may have simply exhausted the limits of a republic to project power, expand wealth and still maintain political harmony at home. The population's awakening to these changes, coupled with feeling the stress of labor shifts, is manifesting in political upheaval.
Anyhow I'm no expert in history or government but I don't believe it's out of the question to assume this is what it feels like to be embarking into the darker bits of history. Personally, I'm accepting that Asia will become the dominant economic driver for the remainder of my life and plan on embracing that from here out
The individual is far less connected to the government, the larger and more diverse it gets.
Agreed. This is a very strange time. I think the system went not how people hoped or thought about it. We thought we'd be living in a techno-utopia, with robots giving us massages and driving us to the beach. Instead we got a large wealth concentration at top and people at the bottom wondering what happened to their pensions.
> He's being told that regaining sovereignty, or stemming the immigrant flow will "make Britain great again", but there's no logical connection between A and B
Ok but when he is being told, who tells him and does the one telling him have a plan? That is do the sneaky politician have an ulterior motive, like they need Joe the Used-to-be-factory-worker to vote this way because they hope to $x ? (I don't know what goes there where $x is).
I'm not in UK frankly, but I'm definitely ready to sacrifice part of my income if that would curb mass immigration.
Unfortunately, nobody ever proposed so.
I saw someone below basically saying everyone who opposes immigration is a racist deep down. It seems people are pretty angry at the moment, so they jump straight to the "r" word. Can understand that.
Anyway, I see the point. Yeah I am immigrant as well to US. It was a very hard process and very painful, more than it needs to be. But I understand that national identity, culture, borders, are there now and will stay there. Opposing immigration is something countries can decide and should be able to decide one, so yes, I can see immigration specifically being a reason many would vote based on (well, I don't just see, they clearly did vote already).
(I'm personally a very pro-immigration American, so I'm talking about this to understand the debate not to advance any particular objective.)
What I've noticed is that this issue of different-ness, seems only to surface when money or resources are scarce. The global rich are getting richer and richer, but counter-intuitively, this resource hoarding is not visible to the masses, who see a huge influx of new "different" people. These people will "potentially" take their jobs and their benefits, and then they "potentially" will bomb their buildings and rape their daughters and wives, because they are the boogeyman.
What they don't see is that they are competing with those people not because those people are different, but because the people on top have figured out how to take everything and not share.
People from Ukraine, and fellow Russians coming home, I have no reservations against. They're as good cultural fit as anybody already in the country. I'll make the process smoother if I could.
People from Caucasus, they're often poor cultural fit. They're first to bend laws, they're sometimes violent, they form diasporas faciliating ethnic crime and corruption. Will definitely have at least visa regime introduced with their countries, to only let people in either as tourists or on definite work/enterpreneur visas.
People from Central Asia. Those are poor countries, and less than 25 years ago they participated in ethnic cleansings against any non-title nations in their own newly-born nationalistic republics. Drove millions of Russians, Ukrainians, Germans, Tatars, Koreans etc as refugees out. Why should we turn blind eye on this? Never forget I'd say. But instead policy makers can't even implement visa regime with those countries. Many of them are also islamic, poor cultural fit, not speaking Russian, praising "traditional values". Who would like neighbours like that? What do they have to offset that?
They also avoid paying taxes, and business employing them also avoids paying taxes by never reporting people they employ. They siphon tens of billions dollars from our economy to their countries. What's there to love?
Have to repeat again that I have no obligations whatsoever to let them in. "Default Deny" sounds just right. After all, that's exactly what I'm getting WRT entering US or EU or UK.
Makes easy for them to have unofficial unemployment and avoid paying taxes; makes easy for them to avoid speaking Russian, avoid blending in country's culture, even avoiding punishment for crimes. They "boil in their own pot" - as if they're still a solid fragment of country they're from. In any conflict their back their own on clan basis, you can see how this skewed against native Russians who don't have crowd to back them up.
It's not in Russian culture already. Russians are pretty atomized, families and official organization units (bureaucracy) is our thing.
Unfortunately, we have this flawed law enforcement system and are stuck with it.
It can more or less deal with Russian criminals (atomized and marginal) but immigrants' diasporas poke holes in it.
I'm afraid it's easier to fix immigration than law enforcement. Unfortunately, I have zero effect on either.
First of all, they're (Bashkirs, Tatars) mostly "culturally muslim" - as in, while having preference for mosques and green color, they, en masse, drink wine; have no objections against drawings; equal rights, education and employment for women. Not trying to stone people dead. Good culture fit. People from Central Asia - another kind of muslim. Much less desired if you ask me.
Second, if we have something, doesn't imply we want more of it. I'm quite content with muslim staying minority.
Because even if we have a debate on mass immigration and I lose every argument, I'm still entitled to have my vote weighted. Is it my country or whose it is?
By default I don't owe people of other countries anything. It's our common right to let them in; but it's also our common right to kindly ask them to stay outside.
That's the basic outline, and I'll try and explain my unique reservations in another comment.
UPD to the sibling comment:
It's not that I have any obligations to not be a racist.
Maybe I am. Maybe I am not. Maybe I'm racist on even days and not racist on odd.
I my country I have rights to be whatever pleases me.
On other hand, if you want me to not be a racist, or at least not act as racist, you have to tell me what's in it for me.
I have the feeling that how you see the world is very much characterised by whether you are (what I call) an inclusionist or an exclusionist.
Let me explain what I mean by that. Since we're on HN, I will use an analogy that might be up your alley. In CS, there is something called local search [1] for optimisation problems. The basic idea is: let's say, we have a number of states and we want to find the best one. And let's say, we have a method of determining how "good" a state is. A simple approach would be to start at some state, look around at the neighbour states and pick the better one. Then we move to that state and look around again. And so on, until we're at a state that is surrounded by only less or equally "good" states.
The problem with this method is that we might end up in a local maximum or on a plateau, but we're stuck there forever. To get past that, we can choose a random state now and then. This is what simulated annealing [2] does or the mutation in genetic algorithms [3]. Even though at times we might be distracted from the best state right in front of us by following serendipity, this strategy is overall superior to the myopic, greedy strategy.
This is an interesting insight: by including something into our consideration that is most likely worse than what we already have, we achieve an overall better strategy. This is not very intuitive. Let's keep that in mind.
This concept can be applied to (we're leaving the realm of science here, but being scientific wasn't the point in the first place) our world view in general. Let's call it the inclusionist view, while the opposite would be the exclusionist view.
The exclusionist would prefer everyone to stick to the generally accepted way of life, while the inclusionist sees the need to allow deviation from the norm.
Since the insight from above is not very intuitive, the inclusionist might think that whoever is for making an end to deviation and all for following the one true normative way must be a myopic exclusionist who is too single minded to grasp the bigger picture.
If you're in the inclusionist camp, you will have had a lot of frustrating conversations with exclusionists who will insist that going with the most likely less "good" option is stupid and you're a beady eyed, gullible philanthropist. While you might come to the conclusion that the exclusionist is a myopic, uneducated, neanderthal.
If you have witnessed many political discussions, a certain pattern emerges, and you get the impression that the racists, nazis, fascists, philistines are all the outcome of exclusionism.
Now, let's go back to the original topic. Immigration is one of those topics where the views of inclusionists and exclusionists play a role. Everything is kind of fine as long as the numbers are small and the places of origin for immigrants are not too outlandish. But when someone calls for caps or selective admittance or anything else to quickly deal with "mass immigration", the inclusionist smells an exclusionist. Someone who did not grasp, the inclusionist assumes, the greater ramifications of applying broad selections, etc. The inclusionist will also be wary of not allowing the exclusionist to make too much ground, because he suspects the same shortsightedness that goes with racism.
So, this is basically why you get a negative response if you use certain words or raise topics in a certain way. I have no idea, in which camp you are or if either camp actually exists, but maybe this might provide a glimpse into the slightly elitist mindset of oh so sophisticated people like me.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_search_(optimization) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulated_annealing [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_algorithm
Now, it's enough for me to bring my point across.
> Everything is kind of fine as long as the numbers are small and the places of origin for immigrants are not too outlandish
However, a) the numbers of immigrants are huge, and b) places of origin of said immigrants are worrysome. Therefore it seems that your sentiment does not apply. I was content too when numbers were tolerable. That was long past.
> "caps or selective admittance or anything else to quickly deal with "mass immigration","
Here you can't see why the problem arose. The need to deal with immigration arose long ago, maybe 15 years ago, maybe 10. Nothing were done by policy makers or "inclusionists" or who you call them. They left doors wide open, even after it was obviously leading to social stress. Fast forward 10 years, they've lost all their cred with me. The time for slow and correct measures was 10 years ago and they weren't implemented. So obviously now I'm pro-quick solutions.
And inclusionists can think all they want. They ignored my concerns for too long for me to listen to them now. They rejected dialogue first. They were also calling names like you can't help yourself not to.
UPD: "You can be opposed to whatever you like." - people will also vote on referendums and elections whatever they like, don't come worried then.
The entire point, however, wasn't to discuss finer points of immigration, but give a bigger picture of the mindsets that are at work here and in other topics.
> And inclusionists can think all they want. They ignored my concerns for too long for me to listen to them now. They rejected dialogue first. They were also calling names like you can't help yourself not to.
Well, I tried to provide you with a bigger picture, explaining on what grounds dialogue might have been rejected. You asked a general question and I thought you were genuinely interested in talking about the topic on a higher level. But apparently you're just here to go through the same thoughts again and again.
So it happens that proponents of mass immigration in power were firmly in the first camp. They shoved immigration down our throats and continue it to that day, and they label anybody who object as various "-ists".
That's just not healthy and there will be unavoidable repercussions in the long run.
It's much easier to argue policies with people who you previously did not screw other, and that, "screwed over", is what I feel about this situation.
In all your claims I can sense the deeply ingrained notion that, no matter what I think, voice or oppose, it's me who will have to cave and make peace on your terms. What's if it's no longer so? What's if it's you who are looking forward to several decades of your valid concerns discarded and ignored? What if wheel has turned?
As a practical matter, it will become harder to do business into the EU from Britain. Visiting the EU from Britain may require a visa, and visiting Britain from the EU almost certainly will.
This is really about Keeping Britain White.[2] "White Pride World Wide" used to be a joke from Stormfront. Now it's becoming mainstream policy. (See Trump campaign.)
[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/23/leave-or-remain-e...
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/06/22/...
For most people it's not about racism and it's certainly not about colour (the most recent mass-migration from the EU are white anyway!).
Citing an article which claims all leave voters are racist because of one comment one woman heard in the pub doesn't prove your case.
EDIT: I've actually seen full on racism in Poland in Krakov, a chunk of the population were really proper, full on, out in the open, racists. Spat at our friend, started following us in the street, threatened in nightclubs. Again and again and again. Skinheads on every street.
Proper racism is scary and disgusting and horrifying and frightening.
The UK has nothing like the racism I've seen in other countries, we're very open, far more open than most of the EU.
Why did the UK vote to leave the EU?
We have that in the UK with UKIP - the UK Independence Party.
They've tried to move away from the blatantly racist core who find them attractive. You can't join UKIP as a member if you used to be a member of the National Front[1] or BNP[2].
They think this shows how they're not racists. I think it's telling that they need a rule to stop racists joining their party.
I guess the rise of UKIP is good if it's meant a decline in the BNP.
There are also other groups such as "EDL" (England Defence League) or "Britain First", who are anti-Muslim groups.
These are just the well known groups. Organisations like Combat18 are also on the rise.
[1] violent far-right thugs. Much worse than UKIP.
[2] less violent, but still far-right thugs. Much worse than UKIP.
NI is in a real bad situation though, they mostly want to stay in the EU but I don't think they can survive as an independent country[0], so they're stuck between their Unionist majority / Out minority on one side and the In majority / Nationalist minority on the other. Historical polls put the Union majority as comparable to the In one but United Ireland polling pretty badly[1], it'll be interesting to see whether that evolves.
The latter would also require Ireland to accept them "back in", but I think the Irish constitution would only require a majority Northern vote.
[0] and historically they show almost no interest in doing so anyway
[1] ~15%, same as direct UK rule
AFAICT, Northern Ireland citizens do not have any special eligibility for Republic of Ireland citizenship; however, many of them likely qualify under the normal requirements which permit anyone born, or whose parents or grandparents were born, anywhere on the island of Ireland.
Also all children of immigrants since 2005.
Only time can tell. None of us have much idea how this is going to play out! Even those leading the Leave group.
"In 2015, 21,460 Scottish businesses received a CAP payment from EC funds. Of these, 18,875 businesses received £415 Million for Pillar 1 payments (SFPS 2014 and SBS 2014). £198 Million (EC +National money) was paid out on Pillar 2 (SRDP) schemes. The total amount received by each beneficiary is shown under three headings: Direct Aid schemes (i.e. Single Farm Payment and the Scottish Beef Scheme) and Rural Development (SRDP) schemes. There may also be a small number of payments made to a few businesses under Market (intervention) schemes."[1] Northern Ireland, £433m.[2]
The UK gets out of contributing to EU farm subsidies, but overall, subsidies were income for the UK. The "Leave" proponents claimed that the UK would offer similar subsidies after leaving the UK, but that's up to Parliament and the voters.
[1] http://www.gov.scot/Topics/farmingrural/Agriculture/grants/L... [2] http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-36312042
Fundamentally countries have a right to self determination and that includes the future direction of the countries, culturally, economically, etc. So long as it does not encroach on other countries' sovereignty.
In the US we actually had a racist immigration policy, the Chinese Exclusion Act [0] because it was actually applied to a single race created by actual racists. Do you see the difference?
And yes, the Chinese exclusion act was by definition racist... But no one in any major western country is talking about excluding one race or even nationality of people outright (Trump talks about "pausing" immigration from conflict zones).
People do speak about controlling their legal immigration and deterring illegal/undocumented/etc. immigration (but pretty much all countries do have visa requirements (or inter country-region agreements) --even those who mainly export workers.
But these immigration and cultural issues aren't necessarily racist. The weight behind anti-immigration movements includes other social/cultural/economic opinions, in addition to flat-out racism.
There are aspects of their history which was racist and the treatment of people of Korean descent living in Japan for generations is debatably racist (more ethnicist than racist) but their immigration policy, I don't think is racist just because they are very strict about accepting new immigrants and naturalizing people.
I think it is also clear that it would be foolish to just focus on the "you're a racist!" angle.
Today's globalization and technology -- while bringing many benefits to the world -- also are leaving a lot of people behind, as seen by the growing inequality in much of the world today.
So you look at the Brexit demographics. The single biggest predictor for the Brexit vote appears to be average educational attainment -- the higher educated the area, the more likely the Remain vote. Social class was also a strong predictor -- lower middle class and above leaned Remain, working class and below leaned Leave. (http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2016/jun/24/the-are...)
The core issue to me, is that no one has really come up with a great solution for people "left behind" in today's economy (eg, those with low education or low skills). For them, things really are worse than it used to be. I know in the US, for instance, that real hourly wages for the lower class actually have fallen 5% over the last 25 years (http://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/). I cannot find similar charts at the moment for the UK, but I think I remember reading that it's similar (maybe even worse).
I believe a lot of these people have latched onto immigrants as the problem, as a proxy for issues brought on by other factors. Perhaps because immigrant culture is a very visible sign of global change, and they know things are crappier than they used to be... and, well, they blame what is obviously new and strange to them. This is a phenomenon found in many places, from Donald Trump to the Le Pens.
It's wrongheaded -- I believe this vote will economically hurt the lower classes more than the middle to upper class. The world is not going to un-globalize and technology is not going to un-invent itself. But without solutions to address inequality and wage stagnation, I'd expect more votes in the same direction.
But this seems to be the pattern. A lot of young, technical people here, are upset and one way to show their anger and disappointment is to just say their countrymen who voted the way they did hate darker skin colors.
It is hard to argue against that because if they say "that's not why", the reply is probably "oh, but they'll never admin in public, so they are still racist".
I can understand and see anger and effect it has, but I think it show badly and paints them in a bad light. In other words those that jump up and yell racist! are not looking tollerant or in general don't manage to convince other effectively as to why EU was a better option.
(Economic advantage and breakage of those ties is a much better argument and I can see that one being real).
There is a lot of talk about Camerons failure, but really what has happened is that the Labour party has been too dysfunctional for too long, and populists like Farage took the opportunity to fill the void.
Would you prefer xenophobic?
Oh I wouldn't worry one second about this.
UK allows visit without a visa from a multitude of countries. This is not changing (nor the EU side)
And yeah, pretty much all places that don't require a visa do that
Did anyone criticize and throw stones at Scotland for voting wanted to not be part of UK anymore. Everyone looked at that and said "how cute". If Britain does it, oh they are racist, they hate dark skin colors clearly.
I just don't buy it.
I can see Britain wanting to keep its cultural and national identity. It happens that they want to restrict immigration and most immigrants happen to have darker skin. I bet you if immigrant were Romanians or Albanians, who came in organized crim rings, engaged in ATM card theft and which is rampant. They would have as big of a problem with that. I don't skin color is a huge issue, it is rather used to ridicule the people who voted the way they did and to subtly call them racists as an act of revenge.
Britain has long been home to many non-whites who nonetheless self-identified as culturally and politically British, largely immigrants from their former colonies in India, Africa, Mideast. A telling data point may be, how do long-time non-white British citizens, and other non-white but culturally-identifying British folks, feel about mass immigration? How did that demographic vote on Brexit?
It's already difficult to find talent from the block, and several people come to Europe with a visa
Yeah, I think the UK shot themselves in the foot with this
[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/0/24432750 [2] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/22/curry-restau...
Here's a quick primer:
https://medium.com/@isss111/the-portuguese-startup-scene-201...
The bureaucracy is likely a bit expansive, and not least it's much too centralized and appears remote to us in the remote countries. But a lot of bureaucracy is needed.
In order to trade in a single market you need single market laws, meaning basically a common (sub)set of rules for product safety, environmental regulation, building codes, ... Having free movement of people needs its own set of common laws. It looks expensive and bureaucratic to agree on the exact standards for everything, and the bureaucracy is very visible when it sits in some glass fort in Brussels.
What we must compare with is the massive bureaucracy of negotiating individual bilateral or block agreements between 20-something countries (and non-EU countries -- deals that can now often be negotiated for all EU countries at once). That is a massive apparatus that each country paid for before the single market.
> what globalism truly demands: a de facto European government, complete with dense regulatory and tax rules,
I smell sarcasm :) A de facto government would be required for having a functioning common currency. The failure of the Euro is really a sign that the union wasn't enough of a state (with a government able to extract taxes, do massive emergency transactions of wealth from rich to poor countries, and with a central bank allowed as a lender of last resort). Because this doesn't exist the Euro can't be successful. The Euro itself is a failed idea. Even though the UK are outside the euro, the troubles of the Euro are likely to have been enough to make a difference in this referendum.
Additionally they never specify the recipient of globalization's "unprecedented wealth". Why should it motivate the average UK voter if they don't profit?
Also, it looks like Brexit will kill the LSE-DB merger. With LSE slated to be the lesser partner, I doubt the move would have been in GB's best interest.
We're dealing with the fallout already with some global retail brands based in the EU asking us for exceptional changes.
For shame.
(as the punch line goes.)
The only ones suffering from the brexit are the ones who voted for it.