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> (...) in order to force the people who live in London to sell their homes, pull their children out of school, learn new languages and move elsewhere. (...)

Please, stop that. I am an EU national that works and lives in the UK. There's 3 million of us. Among my anecdotal data, 2 families have left already - the rest of us have been postponing / stopping for undefined time buying houses, cars and doing any long or even mid term planning.

This is all because the UK citizens, plus the Irish, plus the Commonwealth citizens (that may or may not have right to live and work in the UK) voted and decided we were not worth it. As simple as that. We, of course, didn't have the right to vote.

Don't even dare to use the "poor families" argument on this.

> (...) The people who run the EU are utterly, utterly unconcerned about the lives of the people who work in finance (...)

You can't be fucking serious mate.

Whoever voted Leave in the referendum holds no moral ground to bring in these arguments.

Edit: This comment's score is like a rollercoaster! Whoever is downvoting me, could you please please understand for a second that most of the people working in the financial sector had a vote on Brexit (as most people in the UK had), but 100% of the people that are now in a legal limbo had no vote on Brexit? Ok, thanks.

i also think it's funny he's trying to make us feel bad for people in finance. some of the most morally bankrupt people in the world. especially at hsbc.

His comment and his reply to mine are despicable, distasteful and delusional.

What a shame.

Congrats, you are also proving my point.

You don't even consider that maybe the EU could just ... not do anything. There is no problem with euro-related transactions being handled in London. The vote was not a decision that you weren't "worth it". It was a decision that the EU is a problem and needs to be got rid of.

But in a classic show of why the decision was correct, instead of blaming the EU for imposing trade sanctions on your industry, you blame the UK for voting to leave even though it's entirely the EU's retaliation that is to blame for your predicament. There is nothing that requires them to block Europeans from trading with the UK.

The EU's actions are not inevitable. They are deliberate, spiteful and driven by the fear of a loss of political power. Take your anger to Brussels.

> You don't even consider that maybe the EU could just ... not do anything.

"Not do anything" means the UK is not part of the EU hence the UK has no trade deal with the EU. The defaults are WTO rules, which is TARIFFS and no passporting just to be over-simplistic. The WORST deal for everyone.

> There is no problem with euro-related transactions being handled in London.

There is. The EU would actually need to change the law to allow London to keep operating while not being part of the EU.

It is the UK who's leaving. Why do you try to paint it as retaliation?

> The vote was not a decision that you weren't "worth it".

Yes, it was. EU immigration was a big part of the vote and the other, namely what you wrote --> "It was a decision that the EU is a problem and needs to be got rid of." is the "not worth it" part. For you, it's not worth to keep us around. I respect your opinion, but please also respect my distaste for it.

> But in a classic show of why the decision was correct, instead of blaming the EU for imposing trade sanctions on your industry, you blame the UK for voting to leave even though it's entirely the EU's retaliation that is to blame for your predicament.

It's not trade sanctions, it's the lack of a trade deal. You must have been supermad at Makro when you stopped paying for your membership and lost your right to buy there, right? Those filthy revengeful Makro workers, imposing trading sanctions on YOU nonetheless!

> The EU's actions are not inevitable.

Agreed. The UK just has to reach an agreement that satisfies both parts.

> They are deliberate, spiteful and driven by the fear of a loss of political power.

No, they're not. The UK's decision to eat their cake and have (which you don't seem to be able to grasp - where does this delusion come from?) is the only deliberate and spiteful action here.

> Take your anger to Brussels.

Good luck for the future. You're going to need (and what's even worse - I'll need it because of delusional people like you as I live in the UK too).

> Instead the EU plans to simply pass new laws in order to force the people who live in London to sell their homes, pull their children out of school, learn new languages and move elsewhere.

I think you've got this the wrong way round. The UK voted to leave the EU, and its not like nobody in the run up mentioned that it might lead to companies leaving the UK for EU countries. We made this bed. Time to sleep in it.

You're also proving my point.

There is no actual, fundamental requirement for anyone to move anything anywhere in the wake of Brexit. The reason people have described this as "inevitable" is because the EU can be assured to mandate it, even though they don't have to, even though other regions don't mind having financial services provided by the UK.

You're treating the EU's behaviour as if it's the laws of physics. That's how you know that there are fanatics in the room: people stop treating their behaviour as something that can be reasoned with, and start treating it as if they were some artifact of natural laws.

The EU actually means something, though. It's a shared economic system. The UK is the one who's choosing to leave that system. So of course that means that ... drumroll please ... they're actually going to leave that system, which means that jobs that work inside that system now have to move somewhere else since London won't be in the system anymore. You're twisting yourself into knots to somehow pin this on the Europeans.

British people are Europeans as well. EU <> Europe. Leaving the EU <> leaving Europe (and I am not even British, but it still annoys me when people don't know what they are talking about)

Did you reply to the wrong person? I'm not talking about Europe, I'm explicitly talking about the political entity known as the European Union, which the UK is leaving. I said "EU", not "Europe".

jobs that work inside that system now have to move somewhere else since London won't be in the system anymore

It's a false statement. The EU wants you to believe that. It is entirely false. There is no "have". There is only "want".

Before Brexit the UK was lobbying against the new MiFiD rules which would have enabled providing those services outsides the EU.

If we are playing soccer and you want to join but are refused repeatedly because you want to play handball (Charles de Gaulle vetoed the UK entry twice), then you somehow sneak into the soccer game and then decide to handle the ball, then, to quote the Simpsons: "that's a paddlin'".

I'm exaggerating for effect, but the EU has a clear set of rules. It's not fanaticism, it's called "working together". The UK, not the EU, decided to stop following the rules. It makes no sense for the EU to bend the rules.

While I don't agree with most of your post, I agree with one thing - the EU are, and should (must) make an Example of the UK, or I think the union will fall apart after votes in e.g. Italy.

Whether or not the EU should in fact try with any means to keep the union together is another question of course. But; assuming that's their goal, then I consider it pretty reasonable to a) try to rob London of as much financial business as possible by scaring large corporations into moving to EU cities b) scare other countries into not leaving the union by demonstrating a bad deal for the UK c) set tough positions before the Brexit negotiations start (which may be loosened during the actual negotiations).

As a citizen of another EU country, I completely back what the EU is doing centrally at the moment, that is, I care less about the lives and careers of london financial workers, than I do the future integrity of the union. I completely agree with statements like "They voted out and there has to be consequences". Not because it is axiomatically so, but because I think tough consequences are the right choice

> I think the union will fall apart after votes in e.g. Italy.

What vote exactly?

Future referendums on leaving the EU, in core EU countries. There are more or less advanced plans or propositions in many EU countries although none have yet had a proper referendum (and doing so in a Eurozone country would be more complicated than Brexit)

"There are more or less advanced plans or propositions in many EU countries."

Citation needed.

Marine Le Pen (3rd party leader in France) demands a referendum. A leader of the 3rd party in Germany (Die Linke) demands the same thing. Luckily these countries are among the least likely to leave.

Marine Le Pens demands == advanced plans ?

In her party, yes. If they don't get power it's all nothing of course.

No offense, but you're a bit deluded and confusing wishes with reality.

Also, you didn't answer my question: What vote exactly? You mentioned Italy, so I guess it had something to do with Italy - however you haven't answered.

> What vote exactly?

I'm talking about future referendums. Those can be held in any European country where either a EU-critical party wins power, or a popular demand calls for it (such calls recently failed in Finland, for example, although a referendum had it been held would never have resulted in an exit).

So to be very clear- There are no planned exit referendums, there have been no other such referendums than the Brexit vote, and without petitions or power shifts there are no such votes on the horizon. So by "What votes" I mean e.g a vote under LePen or the next Italian government.

Not sure what you think I "wish", I certainly don't hope for any such referendums around Europe.

> I'm talking about future referendums. Those can be held in any European country where either a EU-critical party wins power, or a popular demand calls for it (such calls recently failed in Finland, for example, although a referendum had it been held would never have resulted in an exit).

No, you are not. You referenced a vote in Italy. There was a referendum in Italy totally unrelated to any of the "what ifs" you're spilling here.

> So to be very clear- There are no planned exit referendums, there have been no other such referendums than the Brexit vote, and without petitions or power shifts there are no such votes on the horizon. So by "What votes" I mean e.g a vote under LePen or the next Italian government.

What next Italian government? Do you think M5S does even stand a chance?

> Not sure what you think I "wish", I certainly don't hope for any such referendums around Europe.

Of course mate.

The grown up thing to do is to try to make things work for both sides.

The grown up thing is to do what's best for your side. If this also happens to be good for the other side that's okay, but not a priority.

The immature thing to do would be to make things worse for the other side, at no gain to your own side. No one is suggesting anything of the sort.

This is not true.

What if the EU realises that even if both walk away as winners no one will easily follow the UK, because frankly no other EU member state is in a similar position to the UK?

There's only 9 member states who didn't adopt the Euro, so basically everyone else already disqualified to leave the EU. When you look at the remaining 9 (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Sweden, and the United Kingdom) there is either no appetite for an exit (Sweden, Denmark) or the country has simply no leverage at all.

So would the EU risk to fall apart when the UK gets a good deal? Nope.

Remember you heard it first here.

If Austria or Italy had referendums that decided to leave the EU they would do so (And leave the Euro at the same time, obviously). Whether or not it's technically o legally possible to leave doesn't really matter.

I don't consider it likely but I also don't consider the current political climate "rational", sadly.

The Eurozone is really what should be dismantled, because it's flawed by design. I'd hate to see the union itself which is originally a peace and trade project disintegrate because of a flawed currency and disagreements on people movement.

The point is not if another country like Austria or Italy would/want to have a referendum. If a country just dislikes the EU and wants to leave then the outcome of the UK/EU deal will not make a difference.

What matters though is if another country thinks they can leave the EU with the outlook of a "better" deal outside the EU. The EU would fall apart if countries would believe that, but what I tried to say is that the EU doesn't really have to fear that, because no other country is even remotely in the same position as the UK, so the chances of a "better" deal outside the EU are almost non-existent, because the fact alone that they don't have their own currency would makes significantly more difficult.

Therefore the EU can actually work out a good deal for the UK and the EU without jeopardizing the EU membership of others. Makes sense?

I think the driving force for a leave vote anywhere, just like in the UK would be immigration mostly (ironically perhaps mostly non EU immigration fear, which is hardly a EU matter) and pure populism in the form of "we don't want to be governed from Brussels". The question is just if the fear of the (economic) consequences outweigh it. I fear that voters of several EU countries would accept severe economic consequences, or at least the risk thereof, because immigration or because Brussels.

Italy won't vote out because of a "better deal outside" (nor do I believe the UK did!). They'll vote out if populists can convince them there will be fewer immigrants without disastrous economic consequences.

In Italy referenda on international treaties are prohibited by the constitution.

The only option is an ad-hoc constitutional law that allows for a specific (non-binding) referendum and requires a large (2/3) majority on the parliament. Interestingly, this was last done in '89, to vote to transition from the (economical) European Community to the (political) European Union.

You see, this sort of thing doesn't make self-proclaimed "European citizens" popular in the UK.

The EU should stand or fall on its own merits. The moment people start to think, we have to make it painful for people to leave, it loses its legitimacy. It is on the way to be a new USSR. And if one day continental Europe slowly turns into a military dictatorship (it is effectively already a soft power dictatorship) I will not have any sympathy for whatever happens to people like you.

> You see, this sort of thing doesn't make self-proclaimed "European citizens" popular in the UK.

I didn't mean that in the sense of being a cosmopolite euro-citizen, I simply meant I'm a resident of an EU country other than the UK.

I have no wishes for consequences as punishment alone, I only want consequences in the sense that benefits such as low trade barriers should be shared among those who create them and share the burdens, e.g who accept strict common envirinmental regulations and allow freedom of people to move.

Of course countries would prefer the benefits of a collaboration/union/pact/ without the responsibilities and costs.

But this is my point - the EU is a project to try and force people to accept ideas they think are bad ideas by artificially tying them to cooperation and trade. Instead of letting each idea be individually tested in the marketplace of debate and experimentation, the EU simply insists that if you want A, you have to do B and C regardless of merits.

EU leaders like to paint people who reject this approach as shirking their "responsibilities", or "cherry picking", or whatever other dubious analogy they came up with today. But it's just psychological manipulation. If citizens of a country are overwhelmingly convinced that freedom of movement makes sense only for similar economies, or only up to a limit, etc, then it's not the EU's place to blindly insist that they obey. It's the EU's place to convince them they're wrong, if necessary, by letting them go their own way so some years later the results can be compared. That is how you build trust and loyalty.

You know, 18 months ago I was vaguely pro EU. Like most people I had not thought about it much, in truth. The UK referendum forced me to do my research, to spend a lot of time pondering the issues, to engage with the eurosceptic arguments. And nowadays I am convinced the EU is doomed. It is a concept so flawed it cannot be fixed. It should be abolished and replaced with numerous multi-lateral treaties between whoever wishes to make them, wherever those countries are located in the world. In other words, how the global system of cooperation already operates. There is no need to artificially tie immigration with financial regulation, or medical approvals with subsidies to farmers. There is no need for a flag, an anthem, an all powerful centralised bureaucracy of people who care more about their pensions than the people they rule.

Europe would be happier, healthier and experiencing deeper cooperation if the EU had never been invented at all.

> the EU is a project to try and force people to accept ideas they think are bad ideas by artificially tying them to cooperation and trade.

That's pretty subjective. But it's at least a way of tying cooperation on difficult areas (migration, environment, aid, other regulation) to positive effects (trade, peace). I'm not saying it's a perfect or necessary setup - but it's a way of arranging things that countries have voted to be part of.

> EU leaders like to paint people who reject this approach as shirking their "responsibilities", or "cherry picking", or whatever other dubious analogy they came up with today.

I think cherry picking is a reasonable description, since with the setup as it currently is (like it or not) member states accept the negative consequences in migration/aid/regulation in order to achieve the benefits. In order to e.g. have all the trade benefits but but accept the environmental benefits or help with migration - you'd be cherry picking. Of course you could argue that these things are independent. They should be tried on their own merit. That it's government overreach to combine. I'm not even going to gave that discussion now (I don't even necessarily disagree) but that's not the situation.

> And nowadays I am convinced the EU is doomed. It is a concept so flawed it cannot be fixed. [...] It should be abolished and replaced with numerous multi-lateral treaties between whoever wishes to make them > Europe would be happier, healthier and experiencing deeper cooperation if the EU had never been invented at all.

Sure. But a whole different discussion. In such a future or alternative reality we wouldn't need to discuss what the EU does when Britain leaves because there is no EU. It might be the case that the EU is doomed. Or that it is dismantled. But it won't be this year, or the next. So the debate about what kind of agreement will be struck between the EU and the UK is still a real one. These negotiations will take place between the actual, flawed, mega-package-deal EU, and the UK. It's those negotiations I'm talking about, not whether the EU is actually a good idea, can survive long term etc. Interesting, but separate topics.

Verhoofstadt today:

   "it is an illusion to suggest that the UK will be permitted to leave the EU but 
    then be free to opt back into the best parts of the European project,
    for instance by asking for zero tariffs from the single market without 
    accepting the obligations that come with it."

but also

   "The EU must use the UK’s departure to reform and move forward."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/18/not-pu...

Europe wants significant financial services provided to European companies and individuals to take place within the EU; just like the US, Russia, etc... Nothing new here, this is exactly why the banks are going along with it. If you want to provide financial services within the EU you need to have an office within the EU and conform to EU regulations; not really that surprising or fanatical.

US, Russia, Asia don't care. London does clearing and derivatives work in dollar, renminbi etc without any of those countries having problems with it.

If you check, you'll find it's only the EU that has a hangup about the physical location in which euro-denominated transactions occur.

On a not so related topic, the European Medecines Agency has its headquarter in London. I am not sure they are planning anything but it would be weird if a regulatory agency was working from outside of the area they are regulating.

The European Police College (CEPOL) left the UK for Hungary in 2014. Perhaps the detectives deduced that UK would leave EU?

https://www.cepol.europa.eu/media/news/european-police-colle...

It seems inevitable that they'll move then. They're probably just delaying for now on the slim hope that Brexit doesn't happen.

It'd make about as much sense as if the EPA were located in London.

There are many places in the EU that would like to be a new home for the EMA. See for example http://www.politico.eu/article/brexit-may-prove-irelands-luc...

In the meantime, some people may decide to look for another job before being transfered god knows where... https://www.ft.com/content/2ca416ba-c8f8-11e6-8f29-9445cac89...

> The people who run the EU are utterly, utterly unconcerned about the lives of the people who work in finance

Not to be crude, but often these people perform work that's against the public interest. Why should the EU be concerned about their personal well-being? Quite a lot (but not all) of their work is parasitical in nature.

The UK voted for Brexit, you just cannot ignore its consequences. Deal with it just as we EU citizens have to deal with UK's bullshit.

You're proving my point. From my post:

You can always tell when there's a true fanatic in the room because the reasonable people start blaming each other for the "inevitable" consequences

From your post:

The UK voted for Brexit, you just cannot ignore its consequences. Deal with it

London handles transactions for nations and currencies around the world. If other countries had the same attitude the EU does, there would be no such thing as a "financial capital" because dollar transactions could only be processed in the USA, Yen could only be traded in Japan, etc. Nowhere would get critical mass and London wouldn't have any real financial services industry. It doesn't work like that.

> we EU citizens have to deal with UK's bullshit

details?

What is your suggestion? Should the EU change all their rules so the UK can leave but keeps all the advantages? Like the Brexit clowns promised before the referendum?

There is no fanatism involved. The no deal scenario is optimal for the EU while not so much for the UK. WTO forbids cherry picked tariffs on other WTO members and the EU export to the UK consists mostly of capital goods and final goods (machinery, cars, foods). The UK exports services which Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam lobby to get a slice of. Cross-border financial services are easier to restrict.

> changing the MiFiD II rules that aren't even implemented yet

Do you have a link to details? My understanding was that the passporting rule just makes licenses for banking valid in the entire EU (instead of only the host country) and that there are provisions to include countries with rules similar rules to MiFiD outside the EU, and the UK is currently still working implementing MiFiD to make this easy (also they will possibly still be a member state when the rules trigger)

(I admittedly don't really follow Brexit-news, since to me it seems 95% of it is utter speculation. If banks really thought there was unavoidable trouble coming, they'd be moving and not just talking?)

Which MiFiD II rules are being changed in order to force the people who live in London to move?

MiFiD II says that any country that has regulatory 'equivalence' effectively gets a financial passport, EU membership not required.

The UK would obviously qualify, as it's currently obeying all the same regulations as other EU countries. The problem is that it's Brussels which decides what 'equivalence' means and it's a black box decision. It can be revoked at a months notice.

You'll notice that zero of the EU's leaders are talking about MiFiD II or equivalence. They're all planning on how to carve up people's lives and jobs instead. It's as if these rules do not exist.

That's not surprising. The EU has a long history of ignoring its own rules when they conflict with political priorities. The best example being that the treaties forbid eurozone bailouts as clearly as it's possible for the treaties to do, but they happened anyway.

But did the EU change the way it decides what 'equivalence' means after Brexit? Or was it always a black box?

It has never been defined. It is a purely political decision, which is why everyone is acting as if it doesn't exist: the EU will never follow the spirit of its own laws if there is perceived political advantage to not doing so.

The UK is leaving the EU in order to be able to opt to not abide by EU rules.

The UK hasn't a stated position on financial regulation beyond statements about grandfathering wordings until the UK government gets around to changing them, pledges rejecting all EU court oversight and some veiled threats to radically liberalise everything if they can't get the negotiation outcome they wish for.

There exists a provision not-yet-implemented in UK or EU law which would give EU bodies some scope to allow some passported functions to be performed by people outside the EU if the country operating outside the EU agreed to abide by all the relevant EU financial rules to their satisfaction.

Surprisingly, some banks don't find this provision for revocable permission contingent on non-binding commitments by the EU and UK quite as reassuring as the regulatory framework the UK has opted to tear up (particularly not for the staff performing functions not covered by MiFiD II)

And somehow this is the EU leaders "planning to carve up people's lives and jobs"

The level of intellectual dishonesty required to make the arguments you are making is really quite staggering.