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Comment by matroosberg | Hacker News Reader

Labeling the referendum as dumb is IMHO accurate, not because of the outcome, but because of the way it was done. It takes an extremely complex matter and puts it into an simple yes no questions without discussing the consequences. What does it even mean to leave the EU? A lot of leave voters seemed to take it as stopping immigration, which will not happen (since a lot of immigration is coming from outside the EU and freedom of movement with EU states will likely not be removed).

In comparision, the Scotish referendum was more detailed and got a lot more debate. The blog article "Brexit was a con" explains that in the first part: https://medium.com/@kirstymhall/brexit-was-a-con-67532113a7c...

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And how would you do it?

There was plenty of discussion of the consequences, heck, the remain campaign focused more or less ONLY on the consequences of the EU's economic retaliation.

Leaving the EU will absolutely allow immigration to be pushed down, though likely not to the "tens of thousands per year" figure that seems to have been arbitrarily chosen simply because that'd result in too many very useful and in-demand people being excluded. But the type of immigration that has caused so much malcontent in the regions can absolutely be close to eliminated, i.e. poor unskilled workers coming from eastern Europe and undercutting the wages of the locals.

Are you asking how I would do the referendum? Certainly not with a 16 page manifesto and basically asking "Wanna leave the EU?" It should have included considerations what would happen with Northern Ireland, Scotland and Gibraltar.

How will leaving the EU push immigration down? As I pointed out, a good deal of immigration coming from outside the EU. And the EU part will probably not be affected by Brexit either, because free movement is tied to free trade. Or do you think that the UK will give up free trade with the EU?

Free trade and free movement are unrelated, as evidenced by the fact that the EU is trying to sign free trade deals with Canada and the United States. It's only countries geographically in Europe that are told they must accept both or neither.

The EU will either sign a free trade deal with the UK of some sort (possibly not as free as within the single market), or it will simply fuel its own collapse.

Actually, you and the parent are not quite right on the free trade issue v movement of people issue. It is the single market in services that is tied to notions of free movement of people. The free trade and restrictions on movement of people is not controversial.

Thanks for the correction.

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