That sinking feeling | Hacker News Reader

That sinking feeling

antipope.org

161 pointsttepasse172 comments

Entertaining, but realistically the UK will just get a "bad deal". Life will go on, political parties are blamed, then we get to repeat it all again because the next party to be elected does it on a platform of "renegotiating".

There is a non-zero chance that May is replaced by a hard brexiter and they insist, by will of the referendum, that a hard brexit must occur. You can see UKIP bubbling back up in frustration.

When you consider what a soft brexit is, it's genuinely nothing of what leave wanted. The UK still doesn't have a solid border between itself and the EU because of the Good Friday Agreement, the UK still had to pay the EU and follow it's regulations and for all that it gets zero say in the EU legislature.

So there is a real chance of a hard brexit and it's going to be very messy.

And the most likely candidate is Jacob Rees-Mogg "Honourable Member for the 19th Century":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Rees-Mogg

<sob>

18th Century according to the article linked -- which I'd say is more accurate.

Probably made that mistake because I went to a state school!

That assumes someone, at some point, takes a path other than the one of least resistance and faces down the Rees-Moggs. Given the concessions to the whitepaper produced last month, and the track-record of the government since 2015 or before, that doesn't seem at all likely. If that doesn't happen then we'll be leaving the EU automatically next March.

Life will of course go on. The sun will still shine. But the idea that things will stay more or less the same in that case are mistaken.

Even if the UK just get a bad deal, it might have some real hard consequences. UK will adapt, whatever happen, but adaptation takes time. In this time of adaptation, the short term consequences of the "bad deal" might still yield some really bad results.

I mainly think of layoff in company that highly rely on the trade agreement with the EU to sustain their business. An augmentation of unemployment combined with a possible devaluation of the money and an increasing inflation due to new importation taxes on basic needs items (food medicine, ...) could have some disastrous consequences on the lower and middle classes.

It could convince Scottland, which already struggle with poverty and voted against the Brexit (62%), to separate from the UK and try to join the EU (the last referendum was "only" 55% against leaving the UK). This might create even more trouble.

It is likely that a bad deal might yield enough difficult short term consequences to spiral out of control. A strong political leadership will be needed to handle them before they do. And currently, it is not unrealistic to say that no parties are ready to handle them.

Any kind of deal is practically impossible. Anything that might be acceptable to the current government is not acceptable to the EU, and vice versa. So the only remaining options are:

a) Nothing changes, and in March 2019 the UK crashes out of the EU with no deal ("hard brexit").

b) Article 50 somehow gets revoked, and the UK remains in the EU, with a lot of distrust in the years to come.

Personally, I'm hoping for the latter but expecting the former.

Realistically the UK is shaping up for no deal. Highly appealing to Rees Mogg and his tax haven based hedge fund, not so good for everyone else.

No deal will mean life goes on with tariffs on many goods in either direction. As we have seen over the last two years the Foreign Office has seemingly lost everyone who has diplomatic ability. Funny, they used to be famously good at it. This is not promising for the chances of equitable trade agreements with anyone after Brexit. Life will go on but it appears it'll be a damn sight more expensive.

If the next govt wants to renegotiate re-entry to the EU the terms will be much less appealing than first time around.

It's not so much the tariffs as the customs clearance per se. Everyone seems to have forgotten that transporting goods across a border has VAT implications, and if you don't check and aren't part of the same VAT area there's a huge opportunity for "carousel fraud".

And the UK is absolutely not set up to cope with customs checks on every vehicle crossing the Channel. See "operation stack".

Oh, and all our international air travel agreements are part of EU membership. Unless something is agreed planes will be grounded.

>It's not so much the tariffs as the customs clearance per se. Everyone seems to have forgotten that transporting goods across a border has VAT implications, and if you don't check and aren't part of the same VAT area there's a huge opportunity for "carousel fraud".

That would give the EU reason to block imports from the UK. It doesn't give much of a reason for the UK to block imports from the EU. So there's no reason to expect that the UK will starve or Amazon will shut down. The only way for that to happen is for the UK to shoot themselves in the foot (again).

Exports, of course, are a whole different story and that's where the risk lies. General economic damage from increased friction in exporting to the EU.

They have to get through customs and multi-mile stacks on the M20 even when empty returning from a delivery. If half a EU company's drivers are stuck in the UK for a day or week longer than intended the chaos will quickly spread far beyond just affecting UK exports only.

Given modern approaches to warehousing and logistics (see how quickly KFC completely fell apart when changing chicken supplier recently) there will be shortages and probably issues with fresh produce. If there are some shortages, any shortages, panic buying and last minute stockpiling will commence. Then there will soon be real shortages.

Even if the UK decides to accept fraud and have a customs-free border, shipping is bi-directional; once the tailbacks start, lorries start parking up on the M20. Drivers are going to be reluctant to cross the channel if they can't get back again in a timely fashion.

(Are EU truck licenses valid in the UK after Brexit? And vice versa? Who knows?)

The issues you mentioned are relatively minor. Drivers will still cross if they are paid enough. The UK can easily recognize EU truck licenses on their own. Undoubtably Brexit will cause some disruption to UK/EU trade, but it's pretty far fetched that it will completely break down.

The article lays out a great many potential outcomes from a bad deal, though. Even if it's not as bad as 'no deal' there are a lot of issues enumerated that would (almost) all need to be mitigated to avoid significant negative impact on the populace and the economy - and tanking the economy and harming the populace is a good way to destabilize a government.

This is from an outsider to UK politics but it seems weird to me that we didn't see the Lib Dems or some other smallish party position themselves as the party of "We won't Brexit" and pick up a lot of the Remain votes?

Both the Lib Dems and the SNP are pretty clear about not wanting Brexit (possibly some other parties as well) - but this means nothing in the context of UK politics.

Given that the current Labour leadership are quietly pro-Brexit and that there is unlikely to be an election anytime soon I don't think there is any chance of an electoral solution to this problem.

https://www.libdems.org.uk/exit-brexit

https://www.snp.org/what_is_the_snp_plan_for_brexit

Hypothetically, what's to stop one of the opposition parties from allying with the Conservatives over a watered-down Brexit? (And ignoring DUP)

Or once a governing coalition is formed is it "locked in" until new elections?

They did. People didn't read it.

People probably didn't trust it.

Nick Clegg rather infamously signed a very public pledge to vote against increases in tuition fees[0]. Then voted for tuition fees in coalition.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/nov/12/lib-dems-tu...

The UK has first-past-the-post elections in each constituency. Unless the LibDems can show that they have a credible chance of winning in each district, voting for them means wasting your vote just like voting for a third party candidate in America.

Also the media does not cover what the LibDems are saying much at all. They don't even report on Labour much, just the various factions of the Conservative party. I can't even blame the media. The smallest change in the internal alliances of the Tories can have a huge impact on the country right now. What Labour or the LibDems say has exactly zero effect until the next election, unless they can somehow get together with some Conservatives.

That's the Lib Dem position exactly, but they are currently too small to matter.

The Lib Dems went into a coalition with the Conservatives in 2010 and still aren't forgiven for failing to deliver any of their campaign promises.

While the article may seem alarmist, considering how little the government has achieved in the 762 days since the referendum, I too have little hope of any meaningful progress being made. We have 240 days left, little idea what the government even wants, and Theresa May is in the headlines for snatching milk from children. Not that the opposition is in much better shape.

I do not know what Brexit the UK will get, but it will be a lazy, half-arsed Brexit. My prediction is either the UK will crash out entirely leaving the country in the chaos described in the article, give in to essentially all of the EU's demands in the last few days or weeks to save face, or give up entirely and call the whole thing off. When was the last time any UK government pulled of something this big this quickly?

I am probably going to stockpile medicines, food, and essentials late Winter.

Power might be interesting too. Atm the UK is connected to the EU power grid through undersea cables. France exports a lot of energy into the UK, about 5% of total demand.

What will happen on that day? Will France and Netherlands cut the connection?

I wonder if it will be livestreamed when the workers in overalls appear with hacksaws and cut the copper.

For purposes of energy generation, I recommend stocking up on car generators (very good source for 12-14V energy) and Car-Inverters to get grid voltage (and maybe reading up on how to weld a handcrank to a car generator)

When was the last time any UK government pulled of something this big this quickly?

Operation Corporate, South Atlantic, 1982? Although a small war isn't nearly so big a deal as Brexit.

Well can they pull out? They've invoked article 50, as far as I understood it, they'll be out of the UK one way or another.

And hopefully if they can cancel it and they do, they'll get fucked heavily by the EU as well as punishment for being a dick.

Alarmist is an understatement. Especially last part sounds like delusional to me.

I've already had the experience of "no fresh food in the shops", and it was earlier this year when we had two feet of snow. Supply chain disruption to some extent somewhere for at least a few days looks extremely likely to me.

What I'm worried about is "cascade failure". So far there's been very little street violence, apart from the murder of Jo Cox. I'm worried about what might happen if, say, the Met accidentally kill someone and set off a riot at the same time as all this is happening.

Yes, it is alarmist.

But england did not train ANY new border&custom agent in case of a hard brexit, unlike Ireland and Netherland (and France already have some somehow). The renewment of the Touquet deal still isn't done, and France could very well say "no deal mean no deal" in case of a hard brexit, or ask for even more money to act as England border patrol. Spanish government don't care for Gibraltar, so transfering daily necessity (food and meds) will probably become more expensive (you can't say "no" to american military bases in Europe, but UK ones don't carry the same weight).

Anyway, hard Brexit will be hard on UK, but it will be hard for EU too. But it will be worse politicaly if EU look weak in front of UK, so either UK cave, either we're in for a loose/loose more game.

> When was the last time any UK government pulled of something this big this quickly?

Suez?

And look how that turned out....

Political aspects of Brexit aside, I had no idea Britain's food and fuel situation was so dire in the event of a Hard Brexit. I would have assumed they were more self-sufficient - the near-doomsday predictions coming from civil service is really sobering. It sucks that the US is contributing to this problem right now (in many ways, really).

Can they disentangle themselves from this even if they manage to get the government to move in this direction? Is starting the process of exiting the EU something that can be taken back, given that it seems to not be a realistic option? I've seen differing opinions on this.

Britain is a new food importer but that’s not entirely unusual in Europe. Sweden and Finland are both somewhere around the British level of food self-sufficiency, and even big European countries like Germany are net importers (though not to the same extent as the UK). Some graphs here (a little dated): http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/0...

Britain has been dependent on food imports for a long time, ever since the late 19th century. That’s why the U-boat threat in both World Wars was so dangerous — Germany came within an inch or two of sinking enough ships containing food and other vital import goods to starve the country out.

This is typical of high density population centres - remember that Germany was starved out by the Royal Navy's blockade in 1918.

> Is starting the process of exiting the EU something that can be taken back, given that it seems to not be a realistic option?

Yes, if the UK government was willing to be realistic about it. It would probably have to come with a few concessions, such as an agreement not to Article 50 again for a period of time.

Well, at least well have Tim Shipman to document whatever happens - his previous two books on the Brexit campaigns and May's troubled time as PM are outstanding:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/All-Out-War-Britains-Political/dp/0...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fall-Out-Year-Political-Mayhem/dp/0...

As someone who emigrated from the UK to the EU, I just hope I receive my Irish passport in time...

On the plus side (not that there is really a plus side to this epic stupidity) many many Brits are entitled to an Irish passport.

Is "Tangerine Shitgibbon" a normal British colloquialism?

All this time, and I'm still learning things about the Queen's English...

I am quite sure the author is exaggerating the risks here. But, it scares me that there are people who think you can just close the borders and everything will be fine. Worse, those people might be running the country.

Just an outsider's opinion, but I think that they had a vote. They probably should not have voted "Leave", but they did. So now you have to get on with the business of implementing the will of the people.

It might come out just as the author has outlined, or it might not be that bad, or it might be far worse than even the author has envisioned. The thing is, whatever the consequences and benefits are, they are consequences and benefits for which the people voted. I think as democratic stewards and public servants, the only thing you can do is implement the Brexit to the best of your ability. Even in the face of the many grave personal reservations you may hold as to the wisdom of that Brexit.

Two things. First, the UK is a representative democracy ruled by Parliament and if Parliament decides they don't want to do something they don't have to and the way for the people to indicate their displeasure is to elect new people to Parliament.

Second, the will of the people is a nebulous thing. Brexit won with slightly more than half the vote but that was in 2016. Since then many Brexit voters have died, many new people on the Remain side have come of age, and people have learned new things. It's very likely that if they had another referendum now people would vote to stay in the EU.

It is also very likely that, if a new referendum reversed the result, it would do so with an equally slight margin to the original referendum. And that would solve nothing. We can't have referendums until we get it "right" (or until we get a large enough margin).

As to the change in the public opinion, polls have shown that many people who voted Remain don't actually want a second referendum, they just want to "get on with it" and implement the results of the first one. My intuition is that the vast majority do so out of a misguided belief that a democratically taken decision cannot be overtaken democratically, that not implementing the result of the referendum (even if they disagree with it) is undemocratic and that parliament is obliged to follow the results of the referendum even though it was not binding (i.e. they don't understand the words "non-binding"). In other words, they misguidedly believe that the democratic thing is to go ahead with the Brexit, regardless of any circumstances, changed or not. And they are prepared to fight for democracy with all their might, even if they don't really understand it. Therefore many would probably vote "Leave" in a second referendum, thinking they were doing the right and principled thing. And if the decision was reversed, these same Remainers would descend on the streets and riot, and demand the heads of the Enemies of the People who dared oppose themselves to their will.

In short, having another referendum now would create even more chaos than the first.

For the record, I'm an EU immigrant to the UK and Brexit seriously spoils my ointment. I'm as anti-Brexit as it's possible to be. However, I don't think a new referendum is a solution. I don't think there is any solution- no realistic ones anyway. The country put a pistol to its temple and pulled the trigger. Now we're in the time between the gun having gone off and the bullet hitting.

There is no turning back :(

> It's very likely that if they had another referendum now people would vote to stay in the EU.

AIUI this is, while an article of faith for many on the "remain" side, entirely unsubstantiated.

Unfortunately, representative democracy decided that it wasn’t strong enough to deal with the issue itself and decided to hold a referendum. Right or wrong, it finds itself weakened, compounded by the most ill-judged election call in a long time.

The promises of Parliament and the will of the people regarding Brexit were about as clear as it gets in any democracy. Parliament voted to have the referendum. The referendum was simply and clearly expressed (though not at all detailed), each side had months to state their case, and the results were uncontroversial. Parliament followed the referendum with a vote to trigger Article 50. Subsequent elections resulted in a pro-Brexit government. What more could you possibly want in a democracy? To reverse course now - or to just keep having a referendum or revotes until the "right" result is achieved - would express total contempt and disregard for democracy itself. Such total disregard for the will of the people occurred following referenda on the EU Constitution in France and Ireland. The EU's anti-democratic actions were one of the main arguments of the Brexiteers.

>> To reverse course now - or to just keep having a referendum or revotes until the "right" result is achieved - would express total contempt and disregard for democracy itself.

Ah, yes. There is no democratic way to overturn a democratically taken decision. And it is the peple who are sovereign, not Parliament. That's how the story goes.

Many UK citizens who voted Remain have a poor understanding of the procedures of their own democracy. This is the fault of the political class of course, who have long wished to keep their voters misinformed and apathetic, the better to control them. Inevitably, this is now coming back to bite them. Along with everyone else.

For the record: in the UK, Parliament is sovereign (i.e. they can do whatever they decide) and democratically taken decisions are routinely overturned, e.g. when a new government is elected every 5 ish years.

I certainly wasn't advocating for any sovereignty of the people outside of or above Parliament. The point is that Parliamentary elections and Parliamentary votes have aligned with the pro-Brexit result of the referendum.

Parliament voted to trigger article 50, and subsequent elections (still very recent) resulted in a pro-Brexit government.

The only democratic way now for Parliament to overturn the democratic decision on Brexit would be for a party to run on an anti-Brexit platform and win the next elections, then take a vote to reverse course. But, to repeat, there just were elections, this didn't happen, and nothing fundamentally new has happened since the elections that would lead to any change if elections were held again now.

> each side had months to state their case

With one side directly and openly lying, and breaking funding laws in the process.

> and the results were uncontroversial

Anything BUT controversial.

>> each side had months to state their case

> With one side directly and openly lying, and breaking funding laws in the process.

Both sides lied and, even more so, misled, and the Remain side had the bullhorn of the government and media on their side. Such lying and misleading happens in every vote everywhere. The premise of democracy is that, with a free press and open debate, voters are capable of sorting through competing claims and deciding. The Brexit debate was as free and fair as it has ever gotten anywhere.

>> and the results were uncontroversial

> Anything BUT controversial.

I've heard universal consensus that the referendum votes were collected and counted fairly. The implications are what have been controversial, not the results of the referendum itself.

But let's say the 48% that voted to remain in the EU had grown to say 55% that didn't like the sound of the Brexit deal being hashed out and would prefer the status quo. Would it be reasonable for our politicians to try and use the levers of government to reverse course to represent the new will of the people?

At the end of the day I don't think the public were qualified to answer the question as it was posed. There were too many unknowns and too much false information. We elect people to represent us because we believe they are qualified to do so.

There's a reason we'd never see this in a referendum:

What should the income tax rate be for UK citizens? [ ] 0% [ ] 10% [ ] 20% [ ] 40%

> But let's say the 48% that voted to remain in the EU had grown to say 55% that didn't like the sound of the Brexit deal being hashed out and would prefer the status quo. Would it be reasonable for our politicians to try and use the levers of government to reverse course to represent the new will of the people?

You can't keep asking the people until they give the answer you want and then seize on that. Holding another referendum after say 10 years have passed seems reasonable.

> At the end of the day I don't think the public were qualified to answer the question as it was posed. There were too many unknowns and too much false information. We elect people to represent us because we believe they are qualified to do so.

I agree. But, Cameron having chosen to hold the referendum, his party is duty-bound to implement its results.

> his party is duty-bound to implement its results

And what are the results? To leave with no deal?

In any case it is NOT legally bound. But it acts as it was.

> And what are the results? To leave with no deal?

To leave the European Union one way or another, since that was the question they asked and the answer they got. With whatever deal they believe best for the country and its people, which may or may not end up being no deal.

> In any case it is NOT legally bound. But it acts as it was.

The government's legal obligations come from its duty to the people, not the other way around.

Until the 1973 Northern Ireland referendum they generally were seen as unconstitutional throughout our history. Thatcher famously agreed with Atlee that referenda were a device of dictators and demagogues[0].

There is nothing to prevent any government, or any future government going against a referendum result. Parliamentary sovereignty means no restriction can be placed on any future administration changing the law.

[0] https://www.economist.com/special-report/2015/10/15/herding-...

> The government's legal obligations come from its duty to the people

There is no such obligation in UK law. Partly because we're a constitutional monarchy.

Again, though, the law is a formalisation - an abstraction, a simplification - of people's relationships and behaviours. The Queen signs the laws written by the people's representatives not because she's legally obliged to but because she realises that it's her duty as head of state on a level far more fundamental than the written code of laws (and, ultimately, because if she didn't we'd have a second civil war).

Is that a legal argument or are you saying that repeated votes would be ugly politics?

THERE WAS NO VOTE.

First, the famous referendum was advisory, and in no way obligated the government to do anything. Technically it was just slightly serious than a public opinion poll.

Second, the question was too unclear, and it was not clear what will happen in the case of a "leave" vote.

Third, the result was too inconclusive -- a 4% difference is too small to base such strong decisions on, especially after such a short campaign with so many irregularities as this one. [0]

And finally, even if the result required the government to act on it, there was no provision that it has to happen so soon. For a serious "brexit" there should be more time to negotiate and reach a solid deal.

[0] http://www.venice.coe.int/webforms/documents/default.aspx?pd...

But Parliament did vote to pursue Brexit and trigger Article 50 following the referendum.

You're right that the referendum did not legally compel Parliament to this vote, but many MPs thought that it ethically compelled them to it, and for good reason: The entire premise of the referendum was that Parliament would act on the results. The referendum didn't just pop up like a random opinion poll; it was years in the making, came about as a result of political negotiations, and followed a high-profile months-long campaign.

Elections were just held following the Article 50 vote precisely to give voters a second chance to express their view on Brexit, and this resulted in maintenance of a pro-Brexit Tory government.

By "irregularities", you seem to imply corruption in the conduct of the referendum. Which exactly are you referring to? Your link provides no guidance.

Out of curiosity, can you envision saying the result was too close to call, the campaign was too short, the public was too uninformed, etc., if the result of the referendum was "Remain?"

The rightwing press would absolutely be doing that on your behalf if it was a narrow loss. But - and this is the important thing - we wouldn't now be discussing stockpiling food and medicine.

Why did you say "on your behalf?" I don't identify as right-wing and I am not a citizen of the UK

> implementing the will of the people

> best of your ability.

Leaving aside the plain lack of ability from those running the show, as written this is a mandate for the "Norway option" - EEA and free movement, ECJ etc, but not actually in the EU. This is basically as close to the status quo as possible except we'd give up our ability to vote on EU rules and just have to accept them.

However, when this is suggested, a whole bunch of Brexiteers respond with outrage.

> Leaving aside the plain lack of ability from those running the show, as written this is a mandate for the "Norway option" - EEA and free movement, ECJ etc, but not actually in the EU

I'm pretty sure opposition to free movement was a key underpinning of Brexit support, so I don't think the Brexit vote can be seen as a mandate for the “Norway option”.

Also, not sure that that's an option that would actually be in the table for Britain; from the European side, it makes a lot of sense to support that as an option on the way (deeper) to into the European system, but not on the way out.

> I'm pretty sure opposition to free movement was a key underpinning of Brexit support

Probably, but was it on the ballot paper? No. Was it in the manifesto? (which manifesto of the multiple Leave campaigns, or the Conservative 2017 one?) This is why we're in a mess, for every option people appear saying that it's not what they voted for.

And it's true. For every option, there are people who, when they voted Leave, weren't voting for that.

So you have a slight majority who voted Leave. But they were (in their own minds) voting for different flavors of Leave. You don't have a majority behind any particular kind of Leave.

Therefore there is no possible way to do this that will satisfy the majority of people. That's going to be problematic.

But because the terms of an exit, under the laws of the EU, are not up to the departing nation, voting Leave meant accepting a hard Brexit —which could result no matter what the British government negotiating position was—was, even if not th best result, both acceptable and preferable to the status quo ante. There's no other reasonable interpretation of a vote for Leave.

> There's no other reasonable interpretation of a vote for Leave.

I wonder how many of the people who voted Leave thought that was true.

Now, you can say that it doesn't matter, because they had opportunity to inform themselves before the vote. It's not like the rules around Article 50 have changed since the vote. But still, I wonder how many of the Leave votes really meant "Leave, even if it's a hard Brexit". (I can't prove any of this, of course...)

> but I think that they had a vote.

Norway also had a vote on the EU. I was also close. "No" won.

What Norway didn't implement was a "winner takes all" approach. They're not in the EU. They're not in the Customs union. They are in the EEA. Everybody wins, everybody loses, but nobody feels like their wishes have been completely ignored.

There is no reason the results of the Brexit referendum couldn't have been interpreted like that. It's not like there's only one seat that can be filled by one person and there has to be a loser. It's not an election.

I think for a lot of participants there does have to be a "loser" - it's been turned into a "culture war". That's where things like refusing to accept ECJ jurisdiction seem to be coming from. That's why there's such a nasty edge to the whole thing, and such a refusal to engage in compromises that might move the thing forwards.

I don't think it's a case of "having to be a loser". Rather the nasty edge is coming from a loss of confidence that the (upper-middle-class, college-educated) political class will represent the people - and not without reason, given how our political and social elites (still!) dismiss any concern about immigration as nothing but stupid racists, as seen in this very article.

So what are the non-racist fact-based concerns about EU freedom of movement migration? Why is leave voting highly correlated with not actually having high levels of EU migrants in the area?

To forestall the public services argument, to a large extent the public services are made out of immigrants, especially in health and social care.

I'm no fan of May and this is probably giving her too much credit (and oversimplifying) but is it possible she's nailing this?

Her "Brexit means brexit" and "No deal is better than a bad deal" rhetoric has kept the hardline Brexiteer tories from throwing her overboard. But maybe after a 'long, hard fight' she gives a theatrical sigh and accepts the Norway deal. Everyone gives a resigned shrug and we don't have country-wide riots.

As I said in another post here, since people who voted Leave had different ideas of what they meant by Leave, there is no possible way to do this that will satisfy even the majority of people. A compromise that leaves most people feeling not too dis-satisfied may be the best possible outcome.

Will of the people? European citizens, even with the permanent residence that you can get after 5 years of Uk residence, could not vote. Uk citizens living abroad for more than 2 or 3 years couldn’t vote. Indians and all the other from commonwealth could vote. Indians, without having the slightest idea of what is Europe, voted en masse for leave. Obviously the two other groups would have voted for remain. So there was no “will of the people” expressed, it was just a rigged referendum.

Every other time nations have had disappointing or unplanned referendum results, such as those nations that require referenda on EU treaties, there's been a second vote by way of confirmation. I don't think anyone has ever had a third attempt "to get the right answer". :)

Ireland voted against the Nice treaty in 2001, 54% against. A year later 62% voted in favour of it on a higher turnout.

It is inconceivable that a second EU referendum in the UK would vote leave.

Same with the Scotland referendum, iirc that was also close. After the Brexit vote, fuck yes does Scotland want to separate from the UK.

So, what happened in the year between the referenda?

Yes, the treaty was changed for the Irish. Ireland then voted about the changed treaty, not the original one.

If they'd gone for a second referendum the UK could have negotiated from a position of relative strength ("guys, we have to offer them something, they voted to leave").

The government might have come out the other side looking relatively good, like Mrs Thatcher's after renegotiating the rebate. It certainly wouldn't have been worse than this farce.

The problem is that it wasn't a legitimate vote, free off outside influence. The Russian troll factory was hard at work influencing the outcome of that referendum. So what's the actual will of the people?

By that standard, voting is impossible. There was plenty of outside influence in favor of Remain, too, including the President of the US campaigning in favor of Remain and threatening trade war actions if they did Brexit, and I don't think it would exactly a fair characterization to say that the EU itself quietly stood by and waited for the will of the people of the UK to be revealed. Votes will never be hermetically sealed from the outside world.

The apparent spending violations are probably a stronger case for the vote being tainted.

Outside influence doesn't invalidate a national referendum. If Russians convinced Brits to leave the EU, that still means that Brits wanted to leave the EU.

I'm not saying to let them do as they wish, but on the face of it, you can't call it a perversion of democracy. It's a perversion of communication networks.

You need to prove that. It hasent been.

Proving in court will be hard. But surely you've seen the smoke?

Then there is really no case. Even smoke need a place of origin if you can't even point to that and show how it was done not just by circumstantial evidence but actually shoving the data to support it then it's just guessing, in this case highly biased guessing.

Brexit is no different than what is seen in many other places throughout Europe, a fight against globalization so unless Russia has developed some magical abilities to mind control large parts of Europe and the US which no other nation in this world is able to copy then I would say that the smoke you see is our own.

Don't forget there's considerable interest in the funding and behaviour of the leave campaign, who appear to have broken several laws.

Or that under 18s weren't allowed to vote, even though they're going to be disproportionately affected.

What good is a vote if the choices aren't honestly presented?

What vote in any democracy has not been surrounded by misrepresentations by advocates of different sides? There was no censorship in the Brexit campaign. All sides were free to make their case for months during the campaign. There were plenty of false and misleading claims on both sides, as well as attempted debunking of these claims on the opposing sides. The Brexit debates were far more thorough, fair, and civil than anything you ever see in the US or most other democratic countries. The notion that the electorate shouldn't have been trusted to sort through all of this, and requires a set of true facts cultivated by some elite group, undermines the entire premise of democracy.

You should ask the people the same question again, now that they've had some time to inform themselves of what "leaving the EU" really means.

I wouldn't bet any money on it, but I wouldn't be surprised if the majority would now vote Remain.

Why "should" the Brexit referendum get the special privilege of a "do-over?" I have no idea how the law works over there but surely that would set some sort of terrible precedent?

I have zero skin in that game but the idea that people can espouse the virtues of democracy one minute only to make endless excuses as to why the result of a wholly democratic vote is wrong, invalid, or otherwise "deserves" a do-over the next minute makes zero sense to me as an American.

Either you trust the will of the people or you don't.

I don't think "the people voted wrong, so we'll make them keep voting until they vote right" is the answer to anything. That kind of elitist, we-know-better-than-you attitude is, in my foreign opinion, a part of why Britain voted for Brexit in the first place - because they were sick of Brussels treating them that way.

At the same time, it seems to me that both "hard Brexit" and "soft Brexit" proponents voted Leave, because of the way the question was written on the ballot. We're going to get either a hard Brexit or a soft Brexit, but not both. So if we get a hard Brexit, say, do the people who wanted a soft Brexit want that? Should their Leave vote count as authorization for a Leave that isn't of the form that they wanted?

But if they re-vote once the deal is known, they're going to get accused of "re-vote until they vote right". May is going to have to show more skill than she has so far to keep that from gaining traction.

Nobody should trust the will of the people. That's why we have representative democracies and not direct democracies.

The Brexit referendum shouldn't get a special "do-over". Instead, the result should be ignored because leaving the EU is a bad idea regardless of the people's will.

I'm sure a majority of the people have many other terrible ideas that they agree with, especially when you only need 51% of those who care enough to vote to constitute a "majority".

Trusting the will of the people is the philosophy of a lynch mob, not a government.

I agree completely w.r.t. representative democracy vs. mob rule... yet, "the result should be ignored because leaving the EU is a bad idea regardless of the people's will" makes zero sense to me. I have seen arguments for and against Brexit, so where does this authoritative "Brexit would definitely be bad and any result other than Remain should be ignored" come from?

The authoritative view that Brexit is a bad idea comes from the fact that is was sold almost entirely with lies and xenophobia, and even then barely got a majority.

I would not consider Brexit an authoritatively bad idea if the leave campaign had been more scrupulous and the vote had a larger margin of victory.

"We pay £350 million per week to the EU"

"We will be able to stay in the single market"

"Migrants are overrunning the country"

"We are not a sovereign state as long as we are a member of the EU".

Yes. A referendum on restoring the death penalty in the UK would likely get a strong yes vote. In that case the people's will would be wrong. The most important feature of democracy is that it gives enables people to remove governments without violence. The ability to choose or influence what govts do is secondary.

> Nobody should trust the will of the people.

How then, should the people rule themselves?

My sinking feeling comes from seeing democracy dying, replaced by "right answers" declared from on high.

Suppose the UK held a referendum about whether RSA encryption should be legal. The voters narrowly vote to keep it legal. Suddenly the press, the universities, celebrities and think-tanks start proclaiming the voters were mis-informed. That foreign powers deceived voters to keep RSA encryption legal. That the vote should be re-held because voters have changed their minds. Suddenly, you can't post a tweet in favor of RSA encryption without a brigade shaming you and demanding you be fired. Can't you see how wrong this is?

The chief problem with Brexit is the ambiguity of the referendum question.

"Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?"

The problem with this is that if you interpret it literally, the outcome is to leave the European Union, but remain in the EEA (single market), potentially also the ECJ and a number of other treaties.

This is why so many commentators have argued that no one really knows "what kind of Brexit" the public voted for.

The question was proposed with the expectation of a Remain vote. No one expected the Leave result, and as such, hadn't planned for what that even meant, let alone actually executing on it.

That's a very good point, thanks.

But just in this thread, I see many other arguments to invalidate the vote:

* Arguments that economics make Remain "right" (assuming economic considerations overrule votes; if economists proved the economic thing was to kill one half the population, does that mean that's the "right" choice?)

* Arguments that since the vote, Leavers have died while Remainers have come of age. This kind of reasoning blatantly disenfranchises an entire section of demographics, and no-one sees a problem with that??

* That the margins were too close and this somehow invalidates the vote. This is "complaining about the rules of Monopoly after you've lost the game".

* That the public is not qualified to vote on this question. This is insulting and highlights what I said about democracy dying.

* That the result is invalidated by outside meddling. Others have already pointed out how ridiculous this is.

I haven't combed the entire thread, so I can't speak for everyone, but I'd like to address some of your points more generally.

Before I begin: thanks for the calm and reasoned discourse - I've found it difficult to have open discussions like these with Brexit supporters, mostly because I don't know many.

Firstly, I think many making these arguments aren't suggesting the vote should be ignored, simply that it resulted in a bad choice being made. Criticising the result of a vote isn't an attack on democracy in itself; for example, I disagree with the result of the Alternative Vote referendum, which would have actually made our electoral system more democratic.

"Arguments that since the vote, Leavers have died while Remainers have come of age." - again, I don't think this invalidates the vote; it's just an observation about demographics. It's also worth noting that it's not anti-democratic to suggest holding another vote when either the demographics or the facts/information at-hand has changed.

"That the margins were too close and this somehow invalidates the vote." - curiously, referendums that decide on whether to change something almost always require a 60% majority vote for change in order to succeed. This was the case with the Alternative Vote referendum (where it didn't matter), but strangely not with the Brexit referendum (where it did). The reason for this is to partly account for the large number of people who don't vote; most of these are assumed to be happy with the status quo.

"That the public is not qualified to vote on this question." - it's kind of a given that the public wasn't qualified to vote on this; just as we're not qualified to vote on most matters of parliament. We have a "Parliamentary Democracy", which means we elect representatives to vote on issues on our behalf. The concept being that, since it's their full-time job, they have ample time to research the issues and to better understand them than we can. It's perplexing to many that an issue as complicated as Brexit was put to the public when so many MPs are unable to fully understand it.

Also, the Brexit referendum is not legally binding. The government had the opportunity to ensure that it was, but decided against it. Technically speaking, the government/parliament are free to completely ignore the result. The reason they don't isn't that it'd be illegal, but that it would be political suicide, due to the demographic nature of the Leave vote.

"That the result is invalidated by outside meddling." - there's a fair bit of anger at how corrupt the Leave campaign was: from blatantly misrepresenting the truth to breaking electoral law on spending limits. They did this because they knew they could get away with it: once the vote was over, the organisation would no longer exist, and there would be no-one to punish. Sure, you can level some fines against a few individuals, but most of their behaviour will go unpunished. The only thing anyone can think of that would discourage this behaviour in the future is to re-run the referendum, but even then, it's not a perfect solution. Their deeds cannot be undone.

What exactly are the EU red lines in the brexit negotiations?

Indivisibility of the four freedoms: of movement for goods, services, capital and people.

The UK seems to be determined to end free movement of people, largely out of anti-slavic racism and systematic misinformation about how the system works by the press.

breaking up the four freedoms is very unlikely, mainly because it is a foundation principle of the EU.

Just because of a customs border, one doesn't have to have road blocks and controls. Seems to be an assumption, but I don't agree, one can keep an opening border anyway, even if you have customs.

I think that falls foul of WTO rules.

https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-what-are-t...

I guess the UK could have a referendum on leaving the WTO.

That really would put us in the same collection as a few failed states and minor dictatorships. Being outside the WTO would be _even more_ inconvenient.

Agreed. I'm surprised Rees-Mogg isn't advocating it...

Yes. In the event of a hard brexit, the UK could honour it's Good Friday Agreement open border commitment by imposing no road blocks or control on the NI side of the Irish border. What the RoI govt & EU do on their side is up to them.

You need to have _something_ because otherwise you have a gateway for smuggling.

> You need to have _something_ because otherwise you have a gateway for smuggling.

How would you describe the current situation then? :)

In the current situation, there's no customs border, so what exactly would you want to avoid by "smuggling", and how would your "smuggling" differ from "I legally transport goods from here to there"?

Yes, that was my point. :)

I don't get what your point is then, sorry. That the UK should stay in the customs union?

I've spoken to people who are cheering for these kinds of effects. An actual quote: "I hope Trump does as much damage as possible."

The Trump and Brexit elections were for some people a kind of Luddite revolt -- not against technology per se but against globalization. This was a revolt by the working classes of the developed world against a globalization process that is substantially impoverishing them.

I can't say I blame them much. I don't know about the UK but in the USA nobody cares. The American left looks down on the working class for their religious beliefs and hates them for their social conservatism. The American right pretends to care long enough to win an election and then goes back to pursuing policies that hollow out industry in favor of lucrative labor arbitrage profits for major corporations.

This could have been avoided, but the time to avoid it was perhaps in the early 2000s. Developed nations that don't have these problems are those that have taken steps to protect (through social safety nets) and retrain those whose jobs are threatened. But here in the US and (AFIAK) UK we have made college dramatically more expensive, allowed housing and health care to inflate far beyond wages, and generally twiddled our thumbs and looked the other way. It's almost like some fraction of the US educated and wealthy classes delight in the economic impoverishment of its middle and have pursued policies designed to do exactly that. I say this because as the effects have become apparent we have doubled down on these policies.

What are the victims of these policies going to do? Nobody listens to them. Nobody cares. So in the end all they're left with is political revolts that most of them from what I've read understand are likely impotent, but at least somebody is discussing it. I'm a coastal "tech elite" and I'm writing this post and I wouldn't be if Hillary had won and Brexit hadn't passed. That's democracy I guess.

Edit: one more point:

During the election I watched a show (Colbert I think but I'm not sure) where Trump supporters and "MAGA" were mocked by walking around and asking them when they thought America was great. None of them had a good off the cuff way to answer the question. Well here's the answer if anyone is curious:

http://www.eoionline.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/productivity-...

Draw a line through 1973. Before: America was great. After: America is not great.

Highly skilled and educated Americans don't get the appeal of MAGA because they have been spared to a much greater extent from this divergence. I would argue they've still felt it but more through indirect means like housing hyperinflation on the coasts, but it hasn't been visceral enough to provoke an extreme response.

I'm not and never was a Trump supporter but I totally get the appeal of that slogan and it's not stupid at all. It's very real.

> a globalization process that is substantially impoverishing them

I sadly can't disagree with most of your comment, but I'm skeptical about this.

I see drugs impoverishing people. I see unaffordable health care impoverishing people.

The hollowing out of the traditional factory economy certainly hurt, but I wonder how much of that was artificially inflated by the fact that the rest of the industrialized world was decimated by the two world wars. Would the factories still be there if we had stiffer trade barriers?

I think globalization has become the scapegoat for many things that the American people aren't comfortable with (demographic changes, the transition from a manufacturing to a service economy) while not getting the credit for the vast improvements it has brought.

Growth has slowed dramatically. But that's not impoverishment.

I see what you're saying, but I think you're underestimating the effect of job loss, wage reduction, and general economic hollowing out.

The thing that makes it impoverishment is that our economic system is inflationary. It's designed for a world where everything always (over time) goes up: stocks, wages, prices, etc. Whether or not that's a good idea is a completely separate discussion but it's something we came up with to deal with deflationary problems during the first half of the 20th century and there it stands.

Globalization and automation are extremely deflationary. High technology is extremely deflationary. They place extreme downward pressure on wages. But we still operate our economic system as if everything always goes up.

So... college tuition goes up. Housing goes up. Health care goes up. Energy and food go up. Anything with pricing power goes up. Wages don't, especially unskilled wages in the interior where you have the double whammy of regional labor oversupply and lower skill levels.

The crunch is real and extreme. Many of the other things you mention are effects, not causes. The addiction epidemic in America's interior reminds me a lot of the alcoholism and drug addiction epidemic that followed the collapse of the USSR.

> This could have been avoided, but the time to avoid it was perhaps in the early 2000s.

there were protests, from Seattle '99 until Genova '01, where many different groups merged into a single protest agaist that kind of globalization. but after 9/11 everything almost vanished in the name of worldwide anti-terrorism.

The terrorists won on 9/11 not because they directly did much damage but because they got America to shoot itself in the foot. This was just one of many things our government's response ruined, unfortunately.

If America was great before 1973, it certainly was only great for white men. Ask a black person just how great America was before 1973. Or a woman. Mexicans. Chinese. Native Americans. MAGA is a racist slogan that only appeals to racist whites and idiots who don't know American history.

Think of it this way. Had wages continued to track productivity gains and the black white wage gap closed black workers would be making twice as much.

If the trends hollowing out the middle class continue social justice won't matter. If the plane is going down does it matter if you have an aisle or a window seat?

an upvote was not enough recognition for this comment.

"I hope Trump does as much damage as possible." - I have heard almost this exact quote.

Its difficult to empathize with the sentiment, but it is potent and its real.

Prediction: if Trump doesn't help, actively harms the situation, or gets chased out in scandal (all very likely) then the next Trump will make this Trump look like a moderate.

Whether it's a far-right demagogue or a far-left demagogue probably depends on which side is able to find and bring to the field the most compelling populist firebrand. I really think the left/right divide is overstated here. A lot of these people would join the Bolshevik revolution or the Nazi brown shirts with equal gusto as long as the pitchforks are aimed at Washington, New York, and San Francisco.

I'm agnostic on the Russia thing -- I see evidence for it and also reasons to be skeptical -- but if it is true I honestly think Vladimir Putin underestimates his hand. At this point he could get on YouTube and make a speech and appeal directly to the American people to join with Russia in alliance against Washington. Millions might just take him up on it. All he has to do is promise to bring back good jobs with good wages.

Our ruling classes continue to vastly underestimate just how much rage out there is directed at them. They also continue to blame it on everything but economics: racism, social issues, etc. Of course that's not wholly wrong, but what they miss is that racism and xenophobia always increase during times of scarcity. Those are effects, not causes. I challenge you to find me a single example in all of history where increasing scarcity did not cause increasing feelings of xenophobia.

Who is this "ruling class"?

My experience is that people in democracies get the politicians they deserve.

That's what I've seen in Spain, Argentina, Turkey, Italy, my own country Denmark, Hungary and it's also what I see in the USA.

Living in a democracy is a responsibility. It's hard work. If you stand on the sidelines and complain without ever running yourself, you get to live with a ruling class.

> I've spoken to people who are cheering for these kinds of effects. An actual quote: "I hope Trump does as much damage as possible."

And he will—to the people that voted for him. Not to the rich pushing globalization; they're going to make out quite well from him.

So on one hand, I do understand the desire for boat-rocking—but when the form they chose was a game of Russian Roulette against themselves, my sympathy rapidly disappears. They say they want to fuck things up, but they really just fucked themselves over, again. Which of course will make them angrier, and open them up to even stronger self-destruction in the future.

I think some of them know that.

Would it really be any better if they'd not rioted in the voting booth? If anything the trends that are destroying the American working and middle class are accelerating. They have nothing to lose that wouldn't be lost anyway.

You're totally right that the result will just make them angrier and the cycle will repeat. This is how civilizations fall.

If liberals want to do anything about it they need to start actually giving a damn about America's poor and rapidly shrinking middle class in spite of the fact that they hold "backward and primitive" religious beliefs and are behind the times on social issues.

Here's a suggestion: if you want to go after backward illiberal social and cultural beliefs and policies, punch up. Criticize the rich and powerful advocates of those policies. Don't punch down at poor working class people who regardless of what they believe have no power to actually implement anything anyway.

I've started describing Brexit as "anti-globalisation riots for the over-50s". Instead of throwing a park bench through the window of a Starbucks they're going for something much more disruptive.

Can we use their triple-locked pensions to pay for it then?

> If liberals want to do anything about it they need to start actually giving a damn about America's poor and rapidly shrinking middle class in spite of the fact that they hold "backward and primitive" religious beliefs and are behind the times on social issues.

I'm not sure why you think they don't. Personal bankruptcies dropped by half since the ACA passed, and health care costs were one of the leading causes of personal bankruptcy. Who passed the ACA, despite the enormous cost in political capital? The Democrats. Seriously, they lost tons of seats in Congress over the ACA, despite it being a good law, that has helped millions of people.

So yes, I do have sympathy to the American poor & working class. But when they burn the party that tries to help them, and pushed the party that's trying to hurt them to control over the entire government... Honest question: how can the Democrats help them? What political capital do they have left that those same people you're complaining the Democrats don't help, have shut the Democrats out of power across the entire country?

The ACA helped a bit but it did not affect the root cause: loss of solid well paying jobs with upward mobility.

> The ACA helped a bit but it did not affect the root cause

Given the enormous cost of helping even a bit, I would expect affecting the root cause would have netted the entire party a damnatio memoriae.

If done right fixing the jobs problem should be a net positive for the economy.

I don't think it's malice. I think it's that most political leadership (of both parties) lives in coastal cities that haven't felt the pain to anywhere near the extent of the interior. They also tend to be immersed in aggregate statistics that don't tell the whole story. GDP might be going up but break it down by region, calculate the Gini coefficient, etc. and you see that there are huge problems.

I meant more cost in political capital.

Punishing people who try to help. What is this phenomenon called? Anti-Good Samaritan? No good deed goes unpunished? Resentment?

As an election integrity activist, I've had multiple people scream in my face very threateningly about stolen elections. "That's why I'm here buddy. Why y'all yelling at me?"

Look at the extreme polarization in politics. How has the Democrats described the poor & working class males which is a large voting group for Trump?

Polarization in politics is exceptional harmful because it reduces the impact of good laws. So long the general perception is that the Democrats view poor & working class males as "the other" and "evil" the lower the chance is that any law will impact voting patterns.

Hillary focused so much on the shrinking middle class and the poor during the 2016 election - I can't believe that anyone who has actually read her policy suggestions (or the policy suggestions of most other Democrats) can say that liberals don't give a damn about America's poor and shrinking middle class with a straight face.

Here's a selection of Hillary Clinton's policy positions from the 2016 election that would help the poor or the shrinking middle class. I understand that most of them aren't actual policy - however, if you go to the website where I pulled this from [1] you can find information about specific policy as well. I just went for the quotes here to make my point while keeping the comment brief.

> "Provide tax relief to working families from the rising costs they face"

> "Simplify and cut taxes for small businesses so they can hire and grow."

> "Make debt free college available to all Americans."

> "Hillary Clinton has announced a $275 billion, five-year plan to rebuild our infrastructure—and put Americans to work in the process."

> "Bring down out-of-pocket costs like copays and deductibles"

> "Reduce the cost of prescription drugs."

> "Fight for health insurance for the lowest-income Americans in every state by incentivizing states to expand Medicaid"

> "Expand access to rural Americans, who often have difficulty finding quality, affordable health care"

> "Remove barriers to sustainable homeownership."

> "Help responsible homeowners save for a down payment."

> "Defend the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau"

> "Strengthen American manufacturing with a $10 billion “Make it in America” plan."

> "Restore collective bargaining rights for unions and defend against partisan attacks on workers’ rights."

> "calling for a tax credit for businesses that hire apprentices, providing much needed on-the-job training—especially for young Americans."

[1] https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/

Before diving into into policy details, you need to consider the bigger picture. Hillary was promising, generally speaking, third term of Obama.

He actually endorsed her, and there was little disagreement between the two.

If people were unhappy about two Obama terms (and it seems they were, in large enough numbers), it was a losing proposition from the start, and details about prescription drugs and tax cuts for small businesses just didn't mattered.

> it seems they were, in large enough numbers

He got elected & re-elected by more votes than any other president in history; his popularity at the end of his tenure was very high. Hillary was unpopular, but not because of her similarity to Obama.

Obama's approval rating was above 50% for his last year in office, so I wouldn't say that people were particularly unhappy with him. Honestly, I think he could have won a 3rd term had he been legally allowed to run.

Hillary was unpopular in the voter's eyes for reasons that had little to do with Obama, although their association didn't really help her.

The fact that she was a woman, the fact that she was seen as a member of a political family (despite not coming from a multi-generation political family like the Kennedy or Bush families), the fact that the conservatives of this country had been running propaganda against her for almost 25 years, and the fact that she isn't particularly charismatic all hurt her in the public eye far more than her association with and similarity to Obama.

Which is deeply unfortunate, because none of those things have anything to do with what makes a good President. Perhaps someday we will realize that what makes a good candidate and what makes a good President are not the same.

I have an extremely different impression of her campaign. If you look, not at the words on the platform, but at her campaign, it seemed very clear to me that she didn't care about working class people in flyover country. And I thought that was very strange, because that used to be the Democratic Party's core constituency.

I can't at the moment point you to documentation to back up my impression, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't alone in reaching that conclusion...

> And I thought that was very strange, because that used to be the Democratic Party's core constituency.

Abandoning the working class and going all-in for neoliberal economics while retaining center-left social policies was the defining feature of Bill Clinton’s campaign and Presidency; that faction of the party was dominant from then on, though there have been signs of that dominance weakening over the last several years; it would be poetic if it's dominance (in Presidential terms) within the party began and ended with a Clinton.

> If you look, not at the words on the platform, but at her campaign, it seemed very clear to me that she didn't care about working class people in flyover country

Interesting. What about her campaign gave you that impression?

It may be the media's fault, but it seems like every time I heard her say something, it was about abortion, or LGBTQ issues, or race. It wasn't about the economy or jobs or even unions. So I concluded that the social issues were what she cared about, and the economy and workers were not.

An important point that I made above is that the time to do something about these issues was in the early 2000s. At this point the issue has been ignored for so long that people have lost all trust in the current establishment. They assume any promises from the current establishment are BS to get them to vote and will be forgotten right after the election.

If your house has been on fire forever and is burned down to cinders and the fire department finally shows up you're not going to thank them. You're going to yell at them and tear them a new one. You're probably so mad that you're going to tear the hose out of the hydrant and scream "let it f'ing burn you !#$!#$!#"

The house has been on fire since the mid-1970s. The roof collapsed in 2008.

I think it might aid understanding to look only at the Republican primary. Jeb Bush was the favorite, and Trump destroyed him. Jeb like Hillary was seen as establishment, a relative of two former presidents who also had an opportunity to put out the fire but did nothing.

Hillary Clinton is a part of the establishment. Her husband is a former president who presided over a booming decade when these problems could have been fixed but weren't.

Trump rightly or wrongly was perceived as being an outsider hostile to that establishment. Personally I see him as an opportunistic con man who saw a chance and took it, but it doesn't matter. The chance was there to be taken.

Edit: continuing with the fire metaphor: the roof collapsed in 2008 at the tail end of the Bush II administration. Obama sort of noticed and walked up and peed on it. The pee sizzled and steamed for a second and the flames shot higher.

> An important point that I made above is that the time to do something about these issues was in the early 2000s.

You do say that this. But, you also say that liberals "need to start actually giving a damn" about the poor and working class. I am refuting that point by showing that the liberal agenda is actually aimed at helping the middle class and the poor.

> What are the victims of these policies going to do? Nobody listens to them. Nobody cares. So in the end all they're left with is political revolts that most of them from what I've read understand are likely impotent, but at least somebody is discussing it. I'm a coastal "tech elite" and I'm writing this post and I wouldn't be if Hillary had won and Brexit hadn't passed. That's democracy I guess.

The problem with your assessment is not that the Trump situation could have been avoided by changing policy between the early 2000's and the 2016 election. I agree with that.

You assert that nobody is listening to or caring about these people, though, which is what I am refuting. The Democratic party is in favor of helping the poor and the middle class, and it has been for a long time.

> Obama sort of noticed and walked up and peed on it. The pee sizzled and steamed for a second and the flames shot higher.

Obama could have (and would have) done a lot more than "pee" on the flames, as you put it, had he not had to contend with an obstructionist Congress. There is only so much blame you can put on any President due to the limitations on their powers, and very little blame that can be put on Obama in my opinion.

Any article which devolves to name calling within a few paragraphs (the Nazi stuff) lacks credibility and can safely be dismissed. It won't win anyone over and just looks like someone who is preaching to the choir.

It's called "hyperbole" and it's been a pretty standard rhetorical device for several thousand years.

Yes and when it's used in an argument it's a sign of weakness. It's similar to resorting to shouting in a verbal discussion.

I applaud the concrete predictions, but like all the sky-is-falling things I've read about Trump and the tariffs which haven't (yet?) come to pass, I think Stross's are over the top and business will continue as usual. We'll see, it's good he's stockpiling food and medicine since that's consistent with his worldview, but I wonder if we'll learn anything from the outcome since one of us will be very, very incorrect.

The Northern Ireland bit was interesting to me. Maybe I misunderstood the tone but it seemed to me that Stross wanted a customs border between Northern Ireland and Britain, and no such border between it and Ireland? That seems bizarre to me if you think of the UK as one country, and Ireland as a different one. Or am I misreading it? If it's untenable for the borders to work that way, it seems to me Northern Ireland isn't (not "shouldn't be" but specifically "isn't") a part of the British people's nation already, and borders should be re-drawn to reflect that.

The government is going to pay farmers $12 billion in aid due to the tariffs and then they are going to put crops in piles to rot.

I guess that technically isn't the sky falling, but the food going to waste is the sort of thing reasonable people would have predicted. They wouldn't necessarily have predicted the targeted bailout.

Another thing where the sky isn't falling is that companies that consume steel and aluminum are doing worse. Again, exactly the sort of thing that reasonable people predicted.

> I guess that technically isn't the sky falling

Right that is exactly my point. It's totally plausible that we might waste some food or money. By "sky is falling" I mean things like these wink-wink-nudge-nudge articles that Trump is ready for WW3 [0] and is able to use nukes whenever he wants [1], or that 1,000 economists imply tariffs can lead to another Great Depression [2].

It's that latter tenor that I'm getting from cstross's post. I don't doubt that mildly bad things can happen as a result of Brexit. I just am skeptical it will be more than your usual recession, say.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/book-party/wp/2016/11/22...

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/12/01/...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/03/donald-trump...

The article about nukes is true and doesn't have any connection to tariffs?

I guess a fun game for you to play would be to write down the positive outcomes you expect and the worst case scenarios you expect. Then if you are wrong you can eat your keyboard or something. And if you are right then you are right.

> Maybe I misunderstood the tone but it seemed to me that Stross wanted a customs border between Northern Ireland and Britain, and no such border between it and Ireland?

I don't think he was expressing a preference. Rather he was saying that either option is politically impossible, and that the only other option is a hard brexit.

Hard brexit isn't an alternative to a customs border between NI and ROI either. The only way to avoid putting a customs border somewhere is to stay in the customs union, which both major UK political parties have ruled out.

I think you don't know enough about the EU if you think business will continue as usual...

When the EU says it's preparing for NDB, it's referring to the fact that the Dutch government already hired around 1000 customs officials to deal with it. Business won't continue as usual.

A bit of history - in Northern Ireland, before the Good Friday Agreement, the IRA was killing MPs...

Part of that was because they didn't feel they had a representation. So now they do have a lot more self-government, including a Northern Ireland Assembly and Northern Ireland Executive. They to some extent are a state within a state already, and if they close the border with Ireland, that agreement is broken... I'm sure you already have some of the IRA gearing up.

No government here, lad.

https://howlonghasnorthernirelandnothadagovernment.com/

34 days until the record!

I don't think Charlie is saying he wants a customs border between NI and the rest of the UK - just that its an option that the DUP would never agree to. While NI is an integral part of the UK it does have an unusual status because of the Good Friday Agreement:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Friday_Agreement

Brexit is an entire different category from Trump. I say this as a left-leaning US resident: We're not in nearly the trouble that Britain would be in in the event of the kind of nasty outcome they could get from a bad Brexit agreement. Just northern Ireland alone is a huge risk given how nasty the Troubles were and how fragile that peace is. If you combine shattered peace (and resulting conflict/terrorism spikes) along with difficulty importing food/essentials and the natural spike in xenophobia that tends to come in times of suffering, there's a lot at risk.

I think Stross's goal here is to enumerate all of the things that COULD go wrong, and provide a basic explanation of why each one could happen. It does a decent job of that even if it comes off as aggressively alarmist - the reality is that even in the event of a bad deal, not all of them would come to pass. On the other hand, more than a few of them coming to pass at once would be devastating.

Just food or medicine shortages would be potentially crippling, the economy is going to suffer no matter what (which will lead to jobs losses), etc.

It's not about what cstross wants. It's about what the various stakeholders with effective veto power can accept, and how that makes a deal unlikely.

> Trump and tariffs

Already happening:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-administration-to-announc...

> That seems bizarre to me if you think of the UK as one country, and Ireland as a different one.

Even if you do, what constitutes "Ireland"?

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo6/12-13-14/41 : "Republic of Ireland not a foreign country."

The whole situation is a fudge; the Protestant community refused (with violence) to be part of a Catholic Ireland, and Irish people both sides of the border refuse to accept the arbitrary partitioning of Ireland ("the island of Ireland").

The UK has a peace agreement (Good Friday Agreement) which enumerates the compromises. People born in NI are entitled to citizenship of both countries, for example. It does not actually encode "there shall not be a customs border", but everyone remembers that the IRA used to bomb customs posts.

http://www.wesleyjohnston.com/users/ireland/today/good_frida...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/The_hardest_bord...

>The Electoral Commission has uncovered evidence of electoral spending irregularities in the Leave.UK and Vote Leave campaigns serious enough to justify criminal investigation and possible prosecution

Somehow those kinds of probes only conveniently find "irregularities" from the sides that the political elites are against...

UK is supposedly a democracy (and thus such matters are to be decided by popular vote), but the pro-EU side has brought a strong TINA approach over the whole thing -- as it's not just a choice with pros and cons, that can be debated, and eventually go either way (even if it has a cost), but some kind of historical inevitability for the UK to be in the EU.

And anyone against is a bad person, and/or racist, and/or baseless (if not an agent). This demonising will continue to hurt the Bremain in the UK (and the ruling classes in general) and the Democrats in the US. You cannot rule a people, or have a united country, unless you understand "how the other side lives" and their grievances.

And all of that after a long period where the legitimacy of the EU was in question, the Euro in the crapper, and fiscal policies made to benefit a few big gorilla countries (if not a single one).

(And after 2 decades of power elites getting their way with the Maastricht treaty, the Lisbon treaty and so on, untangling 50+ years of social protections in the process -- and after time after time, the popular vote for the EU constitution, policies and other matters has been against when it was asked for in a referendum (e.g. in France, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Greece, etc).

(This is of course not a popular approach for the upper middle class, mobile, HN crowd).

>On a micro scale: I'm stockpiling enough essential medicines to keep me alive for six months, and will in due course try and stockpile enough food for a couple of weeks.

Rather, on a micro and macro scale: nothing much will change. The "end is coming" survivalist fantasies will be laughed at 2-3 years from now. I'm saving this post, let's check back and see who was right.

UK is supposedly a democracy (and thus such matters are to be decided by popular vote)

I disagree; that's not true at all. The UK generally does not have such matters decided by popular vote. An actual referendum is a very unusual thing in the UK.

Well, there was the Scottish independence referendum.

(Had it gone for independence, we'd still be hearing how the Scots where deluded, how the independent Scotland side had "electoral spending irregularities" and such, how they are racist and backwards, etc. Now that we hear about it again in the face of Brexit -- where Scottish independence would be interpreted as "Scotland in the EU" -- the same people would say the opposite).

But I was speaking of the people voting in general, not a referendum. UK still has elections IIRC.

Sure does. Such matters are meant to be decided by those democratically elected representatives; not by popular vote. Referenda, especially with only two opposing options, make bad democracy, exposing one of its most dangerous failure modes; a tyranny of the majority.

There's definitely a valid point in that a lot of people feel alienated and badly served by the EU. But in order to get out of "TINA" someone has to present a viable alternative.

This is the other lesson of Greece. Arguably they had far more reason to "Grexit". But they didn't, because ultimately it was plain that being outside the EU not only wouldn't solve their problems but cut them off from participating in their solution.

>This is the other lesson of Greece. Arguably they had far more reason to "Grexit". But they didn't, because ultimately it was plain that being outside the EU not only wouldn't solve their problems but cut them off from participating in their solution.

Actually the government didn't, breaking its promises, and working against the will of the Greek people (who voted 62% against the EU deals in their referendum that was widely understood as a anti-EU vote).

>solve their problems but cut them off from participating in their solution.

The majority of said problems are if not created, then perpetuated by the EU-backed solutions.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/hesitation-and-pa...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33845836

https://www.ft.com/content/9b3d38a2-7574-11e8-aa31-31da4279a...

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/06/germany-195...

https://global.handelsblatt.com/finance/germany-profits-from...

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/germany-faces-bi...

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