What would be worse, losing access to the free market or being around if the banks fail? Or would being outside the market make a difference if Deutsche Bank failed?
If anything because they'll have to rewrite thousands of laws and procedures that came from the EU times, and deal with the caos that that will cause. That only will cost so much money (and pain) that it would justify staying in the EU.
Then, of course there are companies that have left and that will leave, highly-skilled workflow for London that will be harder to get, etc.
They have to negotiate with the EU so that they're not completely cut out of commerce, with nothing to offer in exchange and therefore no negotiating power.
It's old people in the country that have decided this, based on their ignorance on the matter and lies spread before the vote. Funny enough, it's them who mainly benefit from European aid.
Pretty sad, really (I'm Italian, just talking based on what I've read and a handful of friends who live in London).
No, we'll keep most of those laws, because in order to trade with the EU we'd have to comply with them anyway. We just lose any ability to control them.
To the OP, and going back to the article, a major issue is that of services, our major export. The EU does not have a single market in services, and has shown little interest in progressing it. It isn't so much Deutsche Bank as the mittelstand that demonstrates that the EU as a whole favours particular economic systems. Italy is a prime example of a sclerotic services sector that their own government has failed to reform, despite the EU being willing and able to influence the appointment of Mario Monti it isn't willing to impose a free market in service in the same way it has for goods - and stand up to blatant protectionism.
The NHS has plenty of evidence that EU workers (doctors, nurses, allied health professionals -- all skilled staff, all hard to replace from UK recruits) are leaving, and that's despite the clear assurances given by SoS Health that EU NHS staff are guaranteed to be allowed to stay.
EDIT: the guarantee of being allowed to stay was provided rather late, so many people left before it was given, but they're still leaving.
Brexit: One in five EU doctors make plans to leave NHS because of withdrawal - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/brexit-nhs-doctors-...
European nurses and midwives leaving UK in droves since Brexit vote - https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/nov/02/european-nur...
And here's a link to the NHS Digital Workforce statistics:
http://content.digital.nhs.uk/workforce
One example file is here: http://content.digital.nhs.uk/media/23993/Leavers-by-age-and...
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jan/13/nhs-ambulanc...
Like I mentioned, I'm speaking from what I read and a few friends living there. My friends all left because of uncertainty (all of them are programmers).
> Mario Monti it isn't willing to impose a free market in service in the same way it has for goods - and stand up to blatant protectionism
It's not protectionism, it's corruption and/or mafia. The government is ruled by companies (much like that of the US), and the mafia. Only when you realize this the initiatives they take (or don't take) start to make sense.
As far as the "old people did this to us" meme. The 75% of young people who purportedly are so strongly against brexit probably should have bothered to vote if they wanted that outcome.
Additionally, there are other factors than just age that correspond to voting outcome. E.g. degree education, having a passport, income level.
And if we afford those people a bit of empathy rather than casting them all as gullible fools or bad people, we might consider that they actually stand to benefit far less (or have plausible reasons to feel this way) from the EU than someone (such as the average HN reader) who has the privilege to e.g. be choosy about employment opportunities, be able to afford educating themselves, be able to afford to travel at will.
In any case there are many reasons to feel ambivalent about the EU. I do, and I've taken every opportunity that membership has afforded me. I still don't like how (or by whom) it is run or how expansive its powers have become over time.
Thank you for writing your comment, and for this part in general. I voted 'Remain' but I couldn't agree more with what you wrote -- the backlash against those who voted 'Leave' has been appalling. With just a little bit more compassion, willingness to listen, and understanding, the division between both sides could possibly be healed. We seem further than ever from that, and the likelihood diminishes every day.
I'd be pretty pissed off, too.
How
> we might consider that they actually stand to benefit far less (or have plausible reasons to feel this way) from the EU than someone (such as the average HN reader)
Not really. I've seen documentaries where they showed how good Europe was (and still is) to the countryside in many countries where the State didn't allocate any resources and all of a sudden they had money to build libraries in small villages. Those villagers just didn't know where that money came from, but that doesn't change the fact. My girlfriend's sister lives in the Polish country and Europe is giving the area money to take care of the national park around her house that was previously left abandoned and in such bad conditions that you couldn't even walk around with the vegetation left to itself.
> I do, and I've taken every opportunity that membership has afforded me. I still don't like how (or by whom) it is run or how expansive its powers have become over time.
Actually, the EU seems to be pretty efficient, considered the huge amount of stuff they do. Of course, there's always room to complain, but I don't see any better alternative out there. If you're from the UK though, you'll get to see if your government is a better option I guess?
- It's difficult to beat with a whisk than an electrical blender so why bother.
- It's difficult to play field sports with half a team so why bother.
- It's difficult to cut off your nose to spite your face so why bother.
At this time, this is how this argument sounds to me. The EU is an emergent phenomena. The natural course for a collection of neighbour states that wish to have peace and free trade.
The UK still wants to have peace and free trade for sure, but has decided to construct an entirely different artifice through which to pursue these goals, quite apart from the states with whom she wants to continue to have peace and free trade!
Trade wise, there will be bumps, but it is mutually beneficial to both us and the EU to keep trading as much as possible the same as it is now. The only benefactors from making trading more difficult are the EU politicians who want to 'make an example of the UK' (Michel Barnier words).
Also these 'old people' were there when the UK voted to join the EU in 1975. So if they want out, then maybe they are seeing something you are not.
[1] https://services.parliament.uk/bills/2017-19/europeanunionwi...
1) Will cases be decided according to the same principles as currently? (No, the bill specifically strikes out specific principles, including the animal rights one.) 2) What will the status of existing EU case law be? (Unclear.) 3) What will the status of post-exit EU case law be? (Unclear.)
In other words, it'll be similar, but different enough that it's going to cause problems.
You could practically see the Tories salivating when they mulled over the great repeal bill.
There are some positives - bringing the pound down is good for manufacturing output and employment. This is especially good for some of the more neglected areas of the UK. Of course, that will only give Londoners more reason to despise them - it's probably going to be worst for the London economy.
>It's old people in the country that have decided this
Actually that's not really true:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/10/brexit-cry-financial...
Just going to point out here that Brexit appears to be the ultimate in identitarian politics and that identitarian politics is all about divide and conquer and leave it at that.
If anything because they'll have to rewrite thousands of
laws and procedures that came from the EU times, and deal
with the caos that that will cause.
They have to negotiate with the EU so that they're not
completely cut out of commerce, with nothing to offer in
exchange and therefore no negotiating power.
It's old people in the country that have decided this,
based on their ignorance on the matter...
I'm Italian, just talking based on what I've read and a
handful of friends who live in London
Consequently, the rhetoric aimed at the other side comes with more than a little hyperbole.
"in the absence of British law, default to EU legislation" would by no means be any kind of clarity, and I would anticipate such a thing would give years and even decades of discussion and argument in the various legal forums and courts to interpret that in all the various permutations and possibilities.
I've never understood this argument. Surely all you have to do is write a law that says: in the absence of British law, default to EU legislation. That's the essence of the great repeal bill, is it not?
This is also why Theresa May plans to use the 'Henry VIII clauses'[1] which allows the Government to amend laws (in this case, the Great Repeal Bill) without further scrutiny from parliament. This is potentially problematic as those amendments can include pretty much anything.
[1] https://www.parliament.uk/site-information/glossary/henry-vi...
What is this figure? https://fullfact.org/europe/our-eu-membership-fee-55-million... claims a UK net contribution to the EU of UKP 8.6 billion in 2016.
You could argue that that would be a yearly shortfall over a number of years, is that what then comes out to 60 billion? Or are you talking about something else? Also there is the matter of the exit bill, which should offset part of that amount.
In reality, though, I don't see us leaving the trappings of the EU with this current govt: we'll just lose our seat at the table (to coin a phrase). This was never going to be quick, though: the Brexit issue will be at the centre of politics for at least a generation.
I'm actually more interested in how this has shone a light on the issue of the slow erosion of our sovereignty and our traditional British liberal values. On this point I agree with the author that the younger generation seem to be far more ambivalent about freedom of speech, democracy, et al. to the point that they seem to be actively suspicious of it.
The severity of this division has been a bit of a shock, but I'd rather we deal with it now than not at all, especially when Trump shows us that the alternative could have been to vote in a radical populist party instead, which would have had far more power than Trump has.
Oddly enough, I suspect that the younger generation probably think that about the Daily Mail reading older generation.
That is, the benefit is the ability to replace British-made goods with cheaper foreign imports? I'm just saying because normally people make the argument the other way round.
What exactly are changes in the UK's sovereignity?
I don't have time to give this reply the attention it deserves, but consider that it is now illegal to sell your home made jam in your local charity shop, and it was almost made illegal to tinker with your own motor vehicle. Then there's the never ending torrent of health and safety legislation.
These things aren't intended to destroy individual sovereignty, but that's what they end up doing. Perhaps this sort of thing matters more to the British than other nationals. An Englishman's home is his castle, as they saying goes.
What does that actually mean?
> now illegal to sell your home made jam in your local charity shop
I googled for this, and the only reference I could find was Mail and Express articles, so I suspect it's not true. The EU fake British news debunking site has this to say:
http://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/in-a-jam-over-non-existe...
What does that actually mean?
High tariffs on imported food are intended to protect the farming industry. Laws banning DIY are intended to protect the trades. Laws promoting green energy (read: noxious diesel gases) are designed to provide a ready market for German car manufacturers.
If you're British then you'll know about HS2, the high speed rail network nobody wants and many are protesting against. Everyone seems to agree that it will be a waste of money but the govt are determined to go ahead with it anyway.
Presuming this has nothing to do with TEN-R [1], which I doubt, you would think that the British govt might want to spend British tax-payers' money on British workers to build the trains, to help the economy and stuff, right? Well maybe they do, but they are required by law to put the tender out to the whole of the EU, so British companies actually make up the minority of bidders for the contract [2].
I googled for this, and the only reference I could find
was Mail and Express articles, so I suspect it's not true.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-European_high-speed_rail... [2] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/hs2-reveals-bidders-in-ra...
"EU legislation, which is largely corporatist, not individualist"
sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. But UK also wants to leave the jurisdiction of ECHR which is a very corporatist move.
As for the homemade jam, see above.
And given that many times ECHR was the court that sided with individuals against either corporations or states, it's really hard to frame this as supporting individual freedom.
Yes, European courts are able to override British courts and British law, because the UK agreed to that. That's the mysterious element of UK's relation to anything European: the UK agrees to some rules and then complains about the consequences.
As for homemade jam:
- what laws banning DIY? Are they UK laws? Are you sure it's the EU who mandated the precise letter of the law?
- Yes, the British have the HS2 to tender out to the whole EU (which it is still a part of you know), because that is actually a way to save money and decrease local connections between builders and politicians, also known as corruption. These are rules the UK has agreed to. But they don't have to build an inch of HS2 against their will, as the HS2 is not financed by Brussels and therefore they don't have the say.
- laws promoting 'green' energy are a mixed bag, I agree with that. But they are getting better, Euro 6 for example has hit diesel car manufacturers hard. And not everything is about cars.
...but Theresa May has been fighting a long war against
the ECHR
Yes, European courts are able to override British courts
and British law, because the UK agreed to that. That's the
mysterious element of UK's relation to anything European:
the UK agrees to some rules and then complains about the
consequences.
As for homemade jam:
- what laws banning DIY? Are they UK laws? Are you sure
it's the EU who mandated the precise letter of the law?
To bring the discussion back to sovereignty, we've never had a discussion in the UK about the issue with regard to the EU. I don't think you can deny that have ceded at least some sovereignty to the EU, otherwise we wouldn't have the institutions you have already mentioned. The question is: how do we feel about it? Do we think those institutions are better, worse or indifferent?
You can't just take a country into a new political landscape and expect everyone to be just fine with it.
From what I can tell and have read Germany has huge influence on pretty much every country besides Poland and--perhaps--Hungary (I live in Poland, not sure about Hungary actually). Poland definitely thinks about its own citizens _first_, and _then_ at what's good for the EU, which is after all what politicians have been elected to do.
I'm Italian and Italy is a mess in part because of having no balls to stand up for what Italians would need. Totally different story in Poland, from what I can tell from living here.
No, are you?
I'm suggesting what I wrote in my comment.
(Translated into American: imagine if Trump decided to simply fire and replace the Democrat-appointed members of SCOTUS)
Jokes aside, from that to saying that it will become a dictatorship... I just don't see it, sorry.
In general, I'm deeply suspicious of politicians that claim "citizens first, EU second" - that seems counterproductive, unnecessary, and more likely to be empty populism than truth.
As for Poland, I can tell you that the difference with Italy is like night and day.
As Italians, we are often asked to make sacrifices for Europe (and we did, look up "tesoretto"), like if we were in danger of being kicked out of the EU.
It's a complicated matter, but in general Italy is more corrupt and hardly takes any meaningful step to improve its citizen's lives, while Poland (although barely less corrupt if I remember correctly? Not sure) looks after Poland's interests first, and then at what Germany would like Europe to do. The result is that living here is about 100 times easier compared to Italy.
More recently a grab at Department of Justice by executive branch.
As to unemployment in another branch, the underemployment stats are huge and salaries in median quite low.
"This is a tale of three dates. On 13th August 1969 the Irish Taoiseach went on television and called on the United Nations to send a peacekeeping into the United Kingdom to protect Irish people in Derry and Belfast.
On 30th January 1972 the Parachute Regiment massacred 13 people on Bloody Sunday, and an Irish mob burnt the British Embassy in Dublin to the ground — thankfully with no deaths.
In between on 15th February 1971 Ireland decimalised its currency, the same day the British did. It introduced the new 7-sided 50p coin — designed by the British, identical in weight and shape but with the Harp on it, not the Crown.
Britain was a rule-maker for Ireland and Ireland was a rule-taker: and all its bile and hope and hatred and determination and pride and desperation and anger and fear and dreams could do nothing about it.
Its not as if Ireland didn’t have sovereignty and wouldn’t fight for it. Before becoming Taoiseach Jack Lynch served under Éamon De Valera and Seán Lemass, veterans both of 1916, with Dev coming within inches of being executed for his part.
This is where the UK stands now. There are three rule-makers, the US, China and the EU and everyone else takes."
Though we define ourselves as "different" from the English, we are very much "the same" in a great many respects, and there is nobody more like us in this world than the English. In that respect England is kind of like an older brother that periodically gives us a kick but whom we tell jokes about behind their back. But we love them all the same and they us.
However, you also allude to some human rights abuses by the crown in the North, and in some respects this was a continuation of policy that had heretofore gone on in the rest of Ireland.
Do you think this is far fetched? The potato famine for a start. This was very much a political matter, and not merely a matter of a few spuds. Then there was 1916 where by far in excess the majority of fatalities were civilian and inflicted by the British army trying to regain control. Not to mention the subsequent illegal executions.
This was the backdrop against which Ireland sought independence, which seems a bit different from the narrative beneath brexit which appears to read as "something something sovereignty something something take back control".
With all that said, the UK would do well to look at how Ireland fared economically after independence. Not too well for a number of years but our eventual accession into the European Union helped to relieve that.
And the UK can't really become a major tax haven (too many citizens, it would draw way too many resources from every big country... and too much attention).
I don't think the analogy holds.
This is effectively what I wrote, albeit with more detail and supporting arguments.
As someone who lives in a country where loads of Hungarians move to because they don't like their government I'm not sure I can agree. From what I can see here Hungary has a massive brain drain and unless you live in Budapest the state of infrastructure and public services is less than stellar. Hungarians consistently poll as one of the most unhappy countries in the EU with trust to their own government.
I've updated my comment so that it's clearer that I don't know what I'm talking about when mentioning Hungary :-)
Yes, like are most Poles. It makes sense, no..? Not my cup of tea, but what's wrong with that?
> I honestly don't know if what I'm reading is propaganda any more but it seems they were doing lots of ugly things like cracking down on free speech.
It's partly true. You're talking about an incident where they fined a newspaper for their coverage of protests by using a law that prohibited to incite violence. It's sure not cool, but when Italy's Berlusconi was governing 3 out of 6 main TV channels where his, and it was proved in court that he actively censored the other 3 government-controlled ones. Yet, no one is/was talking about Italy becoming a dictatorship.
The truth is that the media is very pro-EU, and therefore any little thing they do is the end of the world.
Having seen how Italy was _absolutely ruined_ by both Germany-fueled mass migrations and not standing up to the EU in general, I can't really blame them for not wanting to repeat other European countries' mistake(s).
Life in Poland is pretty great, honestly. Doing business is easy (or at least 1000 times easier than Italy), very high buying power, etc., and no tanks on the streets in sight so no coup happening anytime soon.
What's the story with unemployment there these days? I read recently it was among the highest in Europe?
Poland's unemployment rate is about 100% better than Ireland, Italy, France, and others and almost 50% better than the EU.
In big cities is perceptively non-existant among young people (my perception and my girlfriend's).
Here is a chart: https://www.statista.com/statistics/268830/unemployment-rate...
That coincided with the post effects of the great recession, when Germany essentially refused to allow more liberal central bank posturing and action to try to follow the more aggressive US Fed lead on how to properly respond to the terrible recession and the financial system consequences. Germany wanted a very restrictive, conservative approach. There was a split at that point between the members that were suffering and Germany which was in mostly solid shape (the peak of the Greek disaster was also near a peak of the anti-German sentiment).
The US recovery took root relatively quickly, after about a year, thanks in part to the Fed taking aggressive action to stabilize the banks and financial system (the US would have seen Citi, Bank of America, etc. all collapse otherwise; those banks are now extremely healthy and printing massive profits again). It was only when the ECB finally copied the Fed's approach that the broad EU and Eurozone economies began to rapidly recover (and for those already in good shape, it has pushed them into something closer to economic boom). You can look at a chart of EU or Eurozone economic growth, you'll see a nasty double recessionary dip around 2011-2012. After that, the ECB finally began to shift its behavior and do what they should have done years prior, which has led to a sustained recovery in most parts of the EU since then (you see it in meaningfully increased growth rates, from Finland finally recovering after a disastrous 8-10 years, to Spain and Portugal finally seeing serious improvement, to German growth picking up, to French unemployment finally declining significantly, etc).
I try to keep up with politics and news and saw none of this (I watch foreign TV but don't read foreign newspapers a lot). So I don't think there has been a lot of painting germany as a bad guy in Swedish media, no. Why that is, I can only speculate. Would be interesting to hear if the same is true in e.g. Denmark, Finland.
> That coincided with the post effects of the great recession, when Germany essentially refused to allow more liberal central bank posturing and action to try to follow the Fed lead on how to properly respond to the terrible recession and the financial system consequences
If the 2008 recession was behind it, Sweden recovered very quickly and wasn't as hard hit (Partly because we weren't as influenced by ECB interest rate politics). Perhaps that is also a reason.
I think you have to consider that would very likely be because Sweden isn't in the Euro. For example there has been widespread blame in Finland, that their protracted economic suffering was from being unable to control their own currency to respond better to their long recessionary environment.
It got extremely heated amongst Eurozone members.
http://www.dw.com/en/germany-painted-as-villain-in-euro-cris...
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/feb/15/eurozone-de...
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/17/business/global/the-rest-o...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/26/german...
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/politics/2012/06/angel...
"Why not blame Germany?"
https://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2011/10/euro-cr...
"Who is responsible for the eurozone crisis? The simple answer: Germany"
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/who-is-responsible-for-t...
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/politics/2012/06/angel...
"Eurozone recession deepened at end of 2012" (Germany was blamed for that, due to their ECB preferences of policy) -
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-21455423
"Two versus 'La Merkel'; Italy and France Team Up against Germany" (2012)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/two-versus-la-mer...
It keeps going for a hundred more stories like those. If you dig into local Greek, Spanish, Italian, French, British media over those couple of years, Germany is largely the villain of the Eurozone economic crisis. You'd even see it represented constantly on media sites like Imgur.
With such a long transition period, I'm guess most UK citizens living/working in Europe have hopefully started work visa application processes, in case the EU parliament decides to not allow a bi-lateral work agreement.
My prediction is that the net result will make everyone a little worse off in 10-20 years from now than if the UK had stayed in the EU, but the effect will not be very noticeable and overall hard to quantify.
Let's not forget that the last crisis started in the "Anglosphere" (Lehman, RBS, Northern Rock, Anglo-Irish etc) and spread elsewhere!