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Comment by airesQ | Hacker News Reader

It is very hard for a country to leave the EU.

Britain is yet to leave the EU, and we will probably end up with a leave in name only.

Why is it difficult? Think about a US state secession.

What if North Carolina decided to leave the US, imposed border controls, restricted the entry of US citizens, started drawing up its own regulations (totally different from the regulation from other states). The US would them impose tariffs.

Hard to see how NC's economy would thrive. (Not due to US malice, but just due to the various barriers that have been introduced.)

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The UK is not as entangled with the EU as other countries and it is possible, "Supremacy of the Parliament" + "Lisbon Treaty Article 50", the latter of which is not detailed, but certainly provides for the possibility of exit.

Leaving a political union like the EU compared to a state of the USA leaving the USA, apples and oranges! A state in the USA does not have a central bank, its own currency, such an independent (meaning the variety of businesses and services[1]) economy, its own military, its own intelligence agency, I could go on and on and on... you really can't compare that. The UK is a permanent member of the UN security council(!), among many other things.

[1] The UK has agriculture, technology companies, a well developed banking sector, car industry, steel industry, all kinds of services, its own telephone and broadband companies, and and and...

Edit: Your comparison is closer to possible Scottish Independence, though even here the circumstances are different in some crucial areas, for example the EU could be willing to have Scotland as a member state, Scotland could adopt the Euro, Scotland was part of the EU (so it's not like starting from scratch, Scotland basically follows some crucial EU regulations already), what would be the equivalent of such a path for a state in the USA that wants to leave the country? There is none.

Your analogy is completely inappropriate. Was NC ever independent?

The UK was completely independent 50 years ago -- that is, some people still working got their first job out of school when that was still the case. And it's not like it integrated with Europe overnight - or going to leave it overnight.

European's complete freedom of movement as we know it today is about 20 years old, not 50. I still had to go through border checkpoints in Europe less than 30 years ago. It was more of a formality even then, but the checkpoints were still there and operated. Half of today's Germany (the east) was, for most economical purposes, nonexistent at the time.

Only about 50% of the UK's export and import is with the rest of Europe. How much of NC's export/import balances are with the rest of the US?

(Bonus: Texas was, in fact, independent for a short while two centuries ago -- but otherwise you'll find NC is as (in)dependent as Texas on the rest of the US, in the ways that UK is not dependent on the EU.

I don't want to say you are wrong, I just want to clarify further:

Not only was the UK "completely independent 50 years ago", the UK (for the moment let's not care if the UK is a country or a political union) is a completely separate and independent(!)[1] country already and always has been. Parliament can do and undo any(!) law (the principle of "Supremacy of Parliament"), including all the laws that made UK a member of the EU to begin with and all further laws that tangled up the UK closer with the EU. The difficulty is in negotiating a viable exit strategy (because of economic and political consequences), but there is no dispute in the slightest, that the UK is (easily) able and has a full right to simply leave.

The UK always during the last 50 years was sovereign, with every new EU regulation that was "imposed upon them" (they were and are represented in EU parliament, it's not like they had not a say, democracy means compromise) they could choose. Of course having advantages means also accepting decisions of other states in some cases, but they always weighed pro and contra and never ever were obliged to stay. I am not exactly sure how the legal framework in the USA is (I understand it's a heavily federal system), but I doubt it's anyway near the situation of UK sovereignty.

The referendum was not needed, it's not even legally binding. Members of Parliament could have simply made the decision to leave at any given point in time.

[1] It's only not independent in the sense that it of course depends on surrounding countries regarding economic stability, so if one says the UK wasn't independent, then the same is true for any country that has any import/export to other countries and some trade agreements. And in that sense of course UK never was nor will be independent.

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