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Comment by TheOtherHobbes | Hacker News Reader

It's not obvious at this point that the EU will still be around a couple of years from now.

I think if one more country votes to leave between now and then a renegotiation and some core constitutional changes become more likely.

The basic problem is that the Leave side lied about the benefits of leaving, but they were absolutely correct that the core of the EU has become a neoliberal financial dictatorship with rather thin democratic wrapping.

If bigger cracks start appearing in the structure the leadership is going to have a choice between accepting more real democracy, or having the whole thing come crashing down.

Currently there are no bigger cracks visible, but the economic foundations in most of the EU are very shaky - so who knows where we'll be a couple of years from now?

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Couple of years is a bit over the top. It will take a lot longer to really collapse. But sure it can happen; probably a lot depends on how the EU handles this blow.

> It's not obvious at this point that the EU will still be around a couple of years from now.

Two years! Pretty sure it will be around. Now if you'd said, say, 20 years then you might have a point.

Personally I very much hope the EU is around in 20 years, but massively reformed. I think it needs far more transparency and clarity (no more "<insert random city here> Agreement"). Also every policy which doesn't have a good reason to be decided centrally should be delegated down to local level, even to sub-national / city / county level.

And you're right about the shaky financial foundations. I think the Eurozone, assuming it doesn't collapse, should be a separate organization entirely.

What about the UK? Their prime minister has resigned, the lead of the opposition party is battling a motion of no confidence, the British pound crashed 10% against the US-Dollar and Scotland wants to stay in the European Union...

it's more like ~6.8% than 10% but this will stabilise after initial hiccup of course.

> It's not obvious at this point that the EU will still be around a couple of years from now

Why?

Other countries look at the UK precedent, Greece leaves, things disintegrate.

Greece might leave, but I don't know of any other country that would want to go back to the days of restricted travel and trade.

This seems to presume positive results in Britain which make it attractive to emulate. That seems, at best, a premature assumption at this point.

How long has the UK been around vs how long the EU has existed?

How is that even relevant to anything? The relative costs and benefits to the UK (or any nation that might think to follow it out of the EU) of staying in vs. leaving the EU is not measured by how long the UK had been around vs. how long the EU has been around.

> Other countries look at the UK precedent,

If it is positive, thing that it is highly dubious

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