How to Brexit? – Explore the (im)possibilities of the different Brexit scenarios | Hacker News Reader

How to Brexit? – Explore the (im)possibilities of the different Brexit scenarios

howtobrexit.eu

67 pointsanne_veling132 comments

Brexit has definitely changed my mind on one thing - majority vote in a referendum is bad. Or rather, the percentage vote required should be proportional to the gravity of the question. Referendums are rare, so most votes should require well over 50%.

I did not used to think this. In 2007 British Columbia had a referendum on switching to proportional representation from FPTP. The result was like 52% in favour, but the government had set a minimum of 55%,so it did not pass. I thought it was a a terrible idea at the time (the people had spoken! Democracy!), but I don't think so anymore. Another example is the 1995 Quebec independence referendum, which "stay" narrowly won, but afterwards the federal government passed an act making it much harder to pass a referendum.

Basically, the bigger the question, the longer and larger implications it has, the more it has to be thought through, the more consensus there should be. The US constitution has features like this when it requires large majorities to pass amendments etc.

As an engineering metaphor, having a fast-response system without any dampening can lead to out of control oscillations, which ultimately destroy your system.

California is a good example of what happens when pretty much any policy can be set by simple majority vote. The result is, to be kind about it, a lot of room for improvement.

It feels like the people here don't know that the state issuing "bonds" means it's taking on debt.

I lived in San Francisco for a while, and I don't remember the numbers and I know you can look this up, but it felt like I was voting No on up to dozen different bond proposals every two years. Doesn't matter, they always pass. (To clarify, I also don't remember if these were always up to a majority vote, but they almost always pass unless it's for something Californians don't like for whatever reason.)

> It feels like the people here don't know that the state issuing "bonds" means it's taking on debt.

It more than feels like it; most people don't know that.

As with other things, we can blame the total lack of financial education in our education system.

It isn't.

Since Proposition 13 passed in 1978 (by a simple majority), California has required 2/3 majority votes in the legislature to increase taxes, and 2/3 majority votes for local elections to increase taxes.

If memory serves, there are still vast areas of policy that can be voted on by a simple majority.

Scotland had a develution referendum in 1979 that failed even though a majority voted for devolution - for some reason it was decided that 40% of the registered electorate had to vote Yes and as turnout was 64% a 51.6% Yes vote wasn't enough:

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

Yeah, Brexit is pretty much a case study on why there’s a code of good practice on referendums and what happens if you don’t follow it.

"...a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs, but a two-thirds majority in case of more major..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8bqQ-C1PSE In case anyone missed the reference

I love Palin's delivery of this:

"Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony. You can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you. If I went round saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away" :D

The problem with Brexit is that "leave the European Union" is not a policy, it's an outcome. All of the thinking about how to do it should have taken place before the vote, and then we could have voted on that (this is actually the way legislation is typically developed in the UK, and the job of our sometime venerated civil service). Compare it to the recent Irish referendum on abortion, where there was a clear plan for what would actually happen following a vote for change.

Cameron did the 'either / or' thing three times, once on House of Lords reform, once on Scots independence and latterly on Brexit. Won the first two, came a-cropper on the third.

Personally, I'm against referendums of any kind.

It was for Alternative Vote, not House of Lords reform.

Thanks, memory fails... a condition of the coalition was having the vote of course.

I think you're kind of splitting hairs, all policies can be viewed as outcomes. "Bring back grammar schools" is both a policy and an outcome. "Improve education" is only an outcome because it doesn't discuss how to achieve it. "Leave the EU" is 100% achievable and has an obvious way to achieve it, it's policy just not detailed policy.

Realistically they should have planned more, but planning is limited when you're going into negotiations with an unpredictable third party. If other countries had voted to leave the EU, or the German or French elections had been different then the negotiation would be very different. Even the UK election after the vote could have wildly changed our brexit policy.

The trouble is that of the two obvious options, one is pointless ("Norway") and the other ("Canada") breaches the peace treaty in Northern Ireland.

Fortunately we're something like (top of my head) ten times as important to the EU as either of those, and so even the most hardened remainer would privately admit that we should have more leverage in negotiations.

Presumably Norway isn't in the ECHR, which would be significant. Neither is it obligated to join the Eurozone. It's more complicated than you're painting it.

Norway is part of the ECHR. In fact, just like the UK it was a founding member of the Council of Europe which agreed to create the ECHR at the Congress of Europe at which Winston Churchill was a delegate from the UK.

The ECHR is a separate institution to the EU anyway so I'm not sure why it would be relevant. Leaving the EU does not leave the ECHR, and there has been no referendum to suggest that the UK should do that.

You're right on Norway being a member of the ECHR, I wasn't sure as I stated in my post, but you're vastly oversimplifying by implying there's no connection https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-3614979...

There is no direct connection. But a respect for human rights is required to belong to the EU. Leaving the ECHR would cast the UKs commitment to human rights into question (at the very least it would be an indication that the UK has a different conception of human rights to the rest of the EU) and would mean that the EU would have to scrutinise whatever legislation took its place to ensure that the UK did still intend to retain a conception of human rights close enough to the other member states.

None of this means that the recent referendum gave any mandate for leaving the ECHR.

Russia is in the EHCR, so I think it’s very reasonable to say it’s a separate institution.

Oh, probably, but leverage for what? Nobody can agree on things to ask for which the EU haven't already explicitly ruled out.

Agreed. This is also the reason why just because a group of rebels can retain enough cohesion to overthrow a government doesn't mean they can govern effectively.

When a vote is for 'status quo' or 'not status quo' then there'll be a lot of people voting for 'not status quo' that want radically different and incompatible things.

The same 51% will just vote for a populist candidate to push their agenda. You can’t escape it by playing games with required thresholds. Brexit happened because people wanted it to happen.

That's not enough. You can vote for a populist, your 51% can get the populist elected, but they have to work through the regular system to get anything done, and the regular system has (very deliberate) checks and balances to keep one office holder from doing too much damage.

At that point you’re intentionally going against the will of the people and calling it a virtue.

Yes, I am, following the explicitly stated intent of the authors of the United States Constitution. They deliberately did not want direct democracy, fearing mob rule.

Then you must be in favor of institutions such as the electorate college.

First, I deplore the rhetorical trick you just used. You put words in someone else's mouth that are tangentially related to what they have said. It's a cheap and dishonest way of arguing.

What I said was that I was not in favor of direct democracy. In context, what that means is "rule by referendum". I'm against it, and so were the authors of the Constitution. And they had good historical reasons - they saw what happened to democracy in ancient Greece. That position is not directly related to the electoral [not electorate] college. I could be against the electoral college without that invalidating my position on referendums.

As it happens, I am in favor of the electoral college, but on different grounds - limiting the ability of the large states to run over the small ones. It's the same reason we have a Senate, not just a House of Representatives.

I didn’t mean to be snarky and I apologize for the comment out of hand. I actually agree with you that a representational government is much better than submitting to the whims and passions of the mob.

However in the case of things like brexit vote, it really does seem like it’s the elites versus the common folk battling out what their vision for what the country should look like.

I don't know enough about UK politics to say much intelligent here. Does it seem to you that the elites wanted to remain and the common folk wanted to leave?

I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case, but information from someone who knows more would be nice...

The thing about the Electoral College is that it's not really used these days to go against the will of the people in any real sense, but merely to distort the popular vote a little based on how the electoral votes are apportioned. As such, you get all of the downsides, i.e. going against the voters in close elections, effective disenfranchisement of voters in "non-swing" states, etc., without the purported benefit of saving the masses from themselves.

The Brexiteers who keep complaining about having a second (third?) referendum doesn't stop because people will just keep having referendums until they get the answer they want fail to see that's the point of referendums.

A referendum should be held on major political stuff (like leaving the EU or Scotland leaving the UK) if national polls have pinged the opinion at least 60%, and then it should also require a higher majority (like 60%) to change. This ensures a big major change happens if it's really wanted, but for very divisive issues it will take time.

So yes we should keep having a Brexit referendum if the national polls start getting 60% support, until then it's not worth it. And it should require more than 60% otherwise if you go 50% like now, you have half the country hating the other half. If we kept the status quo, then the brexit people would have had to keep up and slowly change peoples opinion so the majority of the country agree.

I disagree with your conclusion because you are not considering external factors. The issue isn't majority vote. The problem is many of the voters were not properly informed about the consequences of their decision. More importantly, many voters were misinformed by an external disinfo campaign.[1] [2]

A better informed electorate would have prevented Brexit. We don't allow foreign countries to air political ads. It's time social media policies caught up.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20...

[2] https://www.euronews.com/2018/02/12/new-report-concludes-rus...

It's not either/or, it's both/and.

Yes, foreign interference was a problem, and we need to do better to prevent it. And simple majority rule on referendums leads to hotheaded spur-of-the-moment decisions, even without foreign interference.

Perhaps oddly, despite being on the losing side of this referendum, I have not change my mind about the value and importance of even simple majority referendums (referenda?) like the one I just lost.

Rather, I think it is absolutely important to inform the electorate and to make sure that propaganda is effectively prevented. I have literally no idea how to do any of that.

If “the people” cannot be convinced of your arguments, then the arguments suck — and one thing I’ve been amazed at since the referendum is how severely all of the talking heads in the UK, Remain and Leave both, have persistently failed to connect with any issue of importance to the other side.

It's not just Leave vs. Remain, and it's not just the UK. In the US, the two sides can't talk to each other at all either. Something broke in our ability to have a national conversation.

Personally, I think the problem is that social media means that too much of the conversation is in echo chambers, and echo chambers are terrible at fairly considering the other side's view.

I think you may be confusing BC and another jurisdiction (Ontario?)

BC held a referendum in 2005 which was on Single Transferrable Vote. 57% voted in favour, but the threshold was set at 60%, with a majority needed in at least 60% of the electoral districts.

BC held a second referendum in 2009, and the vote swung in the other direction. Only 39% voted in favour of STV.

That would have created a legitimacy problem for the EU. Brussels is hard set on pushing for "an ever closer union" and London has had a policy of ratifying new EU treaties without a referendum.

So a majority vote for Brexit that fell short of a prescribed threshold would create huge problems for future EU treaties.

I am not trying to insinuate anything, but could you please introspect for me if your mind only changed because the vote did not match what you wanted both times, but this time you feel its more important, so your reasoning flipped to justify?

Again, not attacking, genuinely curious.

> Brexit has definitely changed my mind on one thing - majority vote in a referendum is bad. Or rather, the percentage vote required should be proportional to the gravity of the question. Referendums are rare, so most votes should require well over 50%.

For this kind of referendum it also might be worth considering changing the "one person, one vote" rule.

By "this kind" I mean referendums that (1) have a much bigger long term impact on some large groups than they do on other large groups, and (2) there is good reason to believe that within some reasonable time frame that those groups who are the most impacted will be able to win a referendum to try to reverse this referendum, and (3) it will be very difficult and take a long time implement such a reversal.

It just doesn't seem fair that, say, someone who is 95 years old and who has a very good chance of being dead before Brexit can be implemented and a 25 year old whose entire life has been built around a world where Britain is part of the EU have an equal say in this.

BC Native, here. We're now staring down our 3rd referendum on switching to Proportional Representation.

2005 Referendum was 57.7% Yes, 61% turnout, required 60% to pass.

2009 Referendum was 39% Yes, 55% turnout, required 60% to pass.

This year, we get to vote on both Yes/No, as well as rank three possible systems - current polls are 32% no, 33% yes, 33% undecided, and MMP with 49% support. To pass, we require only 50% Yes votes, but there's a clause that will have us do a followup in 8 years (2 election cycles) as to whether to keep the PR system or go back to FPTP.

I'm very happy with the "50% but built-in allowance for takebacks" setup this time around.

This is actually terrible, for one thing the bridges don't move independently, you click one and another moves, making it FEEL deceptive and not allowing you to easily work out the whole problem space or why. They should move independently and if the configuration doesn't make sense, tell you. For another thing, it conflates economic disalignment with having a hard border, the whole argument of the UK government is that you don't have to do that.

It therefore makes no comment on the Checquers plan which even if you don't like it, is just deceptive. Checquers plan would be equivalent to a different kind of checkbetween NI and Ireland, not a hard border but the idea being (I think) that we check good on the way in for whether they're intended for consumption or export to the EU, if they're passing through to the EU we apply our own tariffs. On the EU side I think we don't put tariffs, then we don't have to do any checks on the way in or out on that border because the EU tariffs have been applied on the way in.

Whether you think that's feasible, mixing up hard borders with economic alignment and completely ignoring the nuance of hard border vs tech border and the government's current proposal is gross.

> For another thing, it conflates economic disalignment with having a hard border, the whole argument of the UK government is that you don't have to do that.

This pretty much the case in the entire rest of the world. Political or economic misalignment == hard border, so people and goods can be checked and charged for. It's not so much a conflation as just becoming any other country outside the EU.

The solution to this, a soft border managed by technology just doesn't exist, it's science fiction. Even if you believe it is possible, you've got 6 months to 1. Negotiate this between the UK and EU, 2. Get the UK political system to agree to it, 3. Create and test the system and 4. Deploy it. That's a tight timescale for any project of this size, let alone one that has so much required work that needs to be done beforehand.

A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.

>The only winning move is not to play...

That's a losing move too.

The Leave voters would all label you 'undemocratic'. That sentiment imposes a definite cost on you as well.

Unfortunately, at this point there really are no "winning" moves. Probably just a few moves that might be less bad than other moves.

>The Leave voters will all call you undemocratic. That sentiment imposes a definite cost on you as well.

This is the same country that has the queen give "consent" for all legislation, correct?

What exactly is the point of the monarchy if they won't step in during this serious issue to act as the "adult in the room"?

That's been symbolic for a long time. It would be a constitutional crisis if Her Majesty started getting involved.

I'm surprised you use the term "constitutional crisis" here. Isn't the UK one of those rare countries without a constitution?

Fair. I'm from Canada and am borrowing what I know about our system and what I know about theirs.

We would call it that. Hmm. What do you call it in the UK? A crisis caused by the challenge of technically legal but completely unfounded government/monarchy actions.

Right, this doesn't detract from your original point at all. I was just wondering if there was some technicality I was missing.

Constitutional crisis is an appropriate term for the UK, it has happened twice before:

https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofp...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_crisis#United_K...

The UK does have a constitution.

It's just not all written down (lots of things work on 'convention'), and the bits that are written down aren't all written down in one document.

Ah ok, that's definitely an important distinction.

Practical question: how does one determine whether an action is unconstitutional? How does one refer to "case history" (or whatever) if it's not written down?

It is all written down (in innumerable textbooks, court judgments, etc. etc.), just not in a single official document titled "The Constitution of the United Kingdom".

Of course, if we did have an official written constitution, that would make it immediately clear what was and wasn't constitutional. That is why, for example, there is never any disagreement over such matters in the US :)

>Of course, if we did have an official written constitution, that would make it immediately clear what was and wasn't constitutional. That is why, for example, there is never any disagreement over such matters in the US :)

I appreciate the joke (really!), but that's not what's perplexing, here. Even if there are disagreements in (e.g.) US constitutional matters, the reference documents and their order of succession is well-known.

Are there ever cases in the UK where two different canonical documents disagree?

I've been living here for a year now... I really ought to know this stuff :/

>I've been living here for a year now... I really ought to know this stuff :/

Don't worry, people who have lived here all their lives often get this stuff wrong!

>Are there ever cases in the UK where two different canonical documents disagree?

IANAL, but as far as I know it generally doesn't happen.

Parliament is sovereign, so what it says (when it creates Acts of Parliament) goes. And newer Acts trump older Acts.

There are exceptions, though. For example:

- Common law, which is entirely created by case law. However statute does override this where it exists

- 'Constitutional Acts', which are certain Acts of Parliament that are held to be more foundational. For example the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949, the Human Rights Act 1998 and the European Communities Act 1972. These are exceptions to the "newer Act trumps older Act" doctrine and can only ever be explicitly repealed, modified or ignored.

That's a part of the "crisis". In Canada there's also many unwritten conventions. Its just been so that nobody's forced the testing of these, for lack of a better term, "gentleman's agreements".

For example, in Canada the dissolution of Parliament (aka. triggering an election) occurs because the Prime Minister asks the Governor General (who is basically a proxy for the Queen of Canada) to issue a proclamation stating as much.

So does that mean the Prime Minister could simply never do that, causing their party to form the official government indefinitely?

Well... Maybe. Nothing says they can't do that. It's just that no PM has ever thought of trying it.

It must sound loosey goosey and kind of dangerous, but it seems to work fine.

Some rules aren't written unless some jerk makes us write them down.

I guess I'm not familiar enough with the monarchical aspect of their government to know how (if?) that would go down?

But you make a good point. Why can't their queen or whatever just say no we're not leaving? I'm not sure? I'm from the US. We don't have the whole monarchy thing going on.

Because the position (and power) is symbolic and the centuries old understanding is that the ruling monarch will never exercise it. Should they do so, especially in opposition to a full referendum of all things, it would spell the end of the monarchy.

The last time royal assent was refused in the UK was in 1708:

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

What if the king or queen was a crazy bastard hell bent or just too stupid to do anything but destroy your normal democratic behaviors and support authoritarian practices? I think you've been lucky up to now, at least for the recent 100 years.

She doesn't have to force them not to leave.

Merely giving a televised speech that she respects the will of the people, but hopes they will take into consideration here years of experience and view it will be dreadfully harmful would have probably nudged a no. I know she normally does not comment on politics, but I also thought it's not out of the realm of possibility she'd pull a Silent Bob and speak up briefly when it is deeply needed.

Again I ask: what is the point of the monarchy, if they do not step in as some sort of check on the legislative branch when things go off the rails?

Because it would be the last official act they would do.

It would cause a huge problem, as they have to sign off every law, and every large cheque. It would require an actual real constitution, which would be impossible give the current damp paper bags we have in parliament.

Why is the democratic decision to leave not an "adult" decision?

To conduct the referendum and then not abide by the result would absolutely be undemocratic. The UK is already dragging it's heels on taking action WRT Brexit IMO. I think that they will drag it out so long that they say the mandate of the referendum has expired, and then re-rerun the referendum. They will rinse and repeat until they get the result they want.

As an example Ireland voted not to join the EU the first time they did a referendum, they simply had more referendums until they got a yes.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/dec/13/eu-ire...

That article concerns the Lisbon Treaty. Ireland was already an EU member.

And indeed, Ireland’s concerns were addressed between the two referenda.

One of these was the now defunct concern around abortion.

Well that's what you're meant to do with referendums. You have them to judge the peoples intent. And people's intents change over time and so you keep having them. Not to keep having them until you have the answer you want. You're making it a winner vs loser but it's not.

All the brixteers saying to not have another referendum and that's it's not democratic is a cognitive dissonance. It's saying it's not the will of the people to ask the people if they want.

Ireland as you said kept voting until they joined the referendum. So initially they didn't want to join, but then over time they did. Nothing is stopping them from having another referendum to leave the EU (like the UK did). And if the sentiment of the people show they do they, they will.

If you go on about the will of the people, then having another referendum makes more sense. 2 years ago was a long time, and peoples opinion changes. That referendum 2 years ago was given as a NON-BINDING referendum, to see what people thought about and if they should actually look at is a valid option. People said yes. So now we've looked at it, we've seen what deals we can get and we know a bit more of what is involved (and the people managing it). So now would be a good idea to have a binding referendum on which deal, or even to remain. This would be the will of the people.

It's like buying house, you make an offer first and then you get a survey. If the survey says something is bad that you missed, would you still buy the house at the same price?

If we have another referendum and people think the deals suck we would rather remain, that is literally the will of the people. If really feels like the argument to not have another vote is that you're afraid it might go the other way (since it was so close anyway). But you shouldn't be. If we have another vote and we remain, the brexit people can continue the discussion and convince us that it would be better over time. Then when we have enough national support, have another referendum. You're meant to keep having referendum to judge peoples intent. For something as major as leaving the EU we shouldn't be rushing it and jumping the gun with no plan in place. We can stay, make our plans, present these plans to the people, get them to see it's the right move. Not jump in and saying 50% of people want to leave so we must leave, that creates a big wedge down the country of leave vs remain and no one gets along.

A big change should come around slowly. This isn't a revolution.

The Queen (or let's say monarchy) is a check on parliamentary powers. They are like the USA president. It's not better or worse, it's just a different way of keeping powers in check. She has the power to dissolve the government and not pass those laws but the people would be up in arms. But if the politicians get locked she/they can fix it. Very rarely happens but it does (see Australia in the 1970s). The commonwealth countries are similar but instead of the Queen they have a governor general which is her representative.

If she went and dissolved parliament now, during the Brexit negotiations everyone would rightly say she is interfering with democratic process.

Unlike the US which painstakingly separated powers into different branches of government, the UK habit of governance is to fuse powers together.

This gives rise to the concept of the King or Queen in Parliament. That is to say absolute authority resides with the Monarch but is delegated to his/her parliament. Parliament then generates legislation to which the Sovereign assents. The Royal Assent has not happened in person since 1854.

My own position is that as the vote was about EU membership and nothing else, the UK should stay in the Single Market and the Customs Union, i.e. Norway+Turkey (Norway isn't in the Customs Union). This is the least damaging option, the Irish border problem evaporates, and it would be immediately accepted by the EU without any further negotiations. It would also have won had the referendum been conducted properly: with Remain, various Leave options, to be ranked in order of preference. We'd lose our MEPs but otherwise it would be business as usual.

If it doesn't satisfy most Leave voters, I'd just tell them that we can have another referendum in a generation's time to decide whether to stay where we are, leave the SM&CU, or rejoin the EU, if there's any demand for one then.

How about a nice game of chess?

Scotland and NI quit UK to form their own republic and rejoin EU together. Everyone happy. Maybe even republic of Scotland-Ireland.

The Gaelic/Celtic Union is an idea that has been batted around for a while now. It might be political fantasy, but the populaces seem to be general amenable (not including, ironically, the various "unionists").

Honestly, the Brexit that would probably keep the most people happy is if England and Wales minus London left the UK, and the remainder of the UK plus London stayed in the EU. Scotland would have to become a special economic zone though.

I wouldn't. Mainly because being the latter half of a country name would be a slap in the face and a general embarrassment of the nation. All for just over half the population that for some reason didn't want money from the EU because most people here are that poor. Amazing really.

That aligns with a lot of pro-Brexit rhetoric, that is London does what's best for London and the rest of England can go pound sand.

Haven't you got that backwards? It would be the rest of England leaving, against London's wishes, while there's nothing but inaction on London's part. How have you got that turned around so that it's London forcing their will on the rest of England?

It becomes even more ironic when you recall that the (largely Unionist) Ulster Scots in NI are well... Scots...

> Everyone happy

You don't know anything about Northern Ireland I see.

Rejoining EU would not be automatic. They will have to to again all the accession iter.

EU countries that have issues with independence movements (e.g. Spain w.r.t Catalonia) will not let automatic re-join, because the "You will be out of EU if you secede" is one of the arguments used for saying that secession is a bad move.

Yes they would have to join, but if Brexit happened they are no longer in the EU and so need to leave the UK and then apply for the EU. Wonder if they would need to go through a period of not being in either?

Imagine a hard border on Scotland.

Don't think the monarchy would approve of that much.

I'm not sure they would be the last holdout in the face of obvious EU condemnation, and it's always possible that the ECJ would rule that they had never left the EU.

Meanwhile, everyone has forgotten the UK's land border with Spain at Gibraltar...

The United Kingdom of Great Ireland and Northern Britain?

Amusing, but facetious. The border problem as stated is indeed impossible to solve, but both Brexiter and EU strategy hinges up the idea that the other side will blink first, the EU betting that the Tories will fudge up a sea border, and the Brexiters that the EU will plump for any deal to avoid a no deal (as that would definitely have a hard border).

yeah there is definitely some last-minute negotiation tactics going on right now... Do think that some of the suggestions by the UK have internal inconsistencies that seem to get ignored somehow

Problem with the Tories not blinking is that they don't have a majority in parliament. They're currently being propped up (they have a confidence and supply arrangement) by the DUP who are very much against a sea border and would likely vote against a deal that had a sea border and doing so could bring down the government.

Indeed! It is quite the game of chicken...

Ultimately there is no majority in parliament for any of the options, we are headed for either another election or a re-run of the referendum.

Or indeed in the country: the “smartest” (sleaziest) thing the leave campaign did was to refuse to actually lay out any specific kind of brexit - knowing there was no unity on the brexit side.

The current situation is so depressing. The combined ongoing destruction in the uk and the us of many years of relative safety and peace while claiming it's all to protect us from change or something like that reminds me that the many poor leaders and failures of ancient countries making terrible decisions that lead to the end of their countries can happen now. What a run on sentence. At the same time, I'm extremely fortunate to have a great job and be part of the "programmer class". So many people in both countries have lost their economic confidence and a job that pays for a decent lifestyle.

This idea of "alignment" is absurd, countries have non-transitive border arrangements all the time. It might bring the always-questionable idea that the EU ever had a "single market" under scrutiny, but that's weird ideological posturing not a serious obstruction to Irish access to the UK market and vice versa.

Alignment is a mechanism to prevent beggar-thy-neighbour policies that lead to a race to the bottom, with everybody worse off. If you have a porous border without alignment, you get smuggling.

The EU single market is a definitional concept, it exists by definition. Not all goods and services are in the single market, but the scope gradually increases over time. Necessarily, as the scope increases, the need for harmonization increases, and that's what often leads to accusations of loss of sovereignty.

IIUC, the EU does not allow that (no separate trade treaties fur individual EU members).

This presentation is biased. It doesn't take into account that the Northern Ireland is really a problem of the EU. There are soft borders in the EU for example Poland - Russia, where people can roam freely. EU is just not being flexible to make a "political point", which is pathetic. They shouldn't include a provision to leave the Union in the first place.

> It doesn't take into account that the Northern Ireland is really a problem of the EU.

As somoene who grew up in the UK with the IRA blowing up bits of the country, some rather close to me, I disagree. It's likely that the communities that would be split by a new border in Ireland would disagree too.

The EU is negotiating in it's best interests, as is the UK. There aren't going to be any favours traded on either side.

If the UK doesn't put up a border then it is the EU that is causing a problem. There doesn't have to be a hard border, but EU insists that there should be.

> If the UK doesn't put up a border then it is the EU that is causing a problem.

The UK is leaving the EU, borders are implicit in that, and bi-directional. You don't get to leave the EU and not leave the EU.

Can you cite the Poland/Russia thing? I searched but couldn't find anything. edit You referenced https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poland%E2%80%93Russia_border in another post.

> Because Kaliningrad Oblast is small, homogeneous and an exclave within the European Union

That's not the same as the NI situation.

Regardless, the EU is negotiating in it's best interests, as anyone could predict it would. If I were French or German or whatever I'd want to get the best deal possible in the negotiations. No-one is going to give us any favours here, everything we want we've got to make happen ourselves. If the EU is using the Irish border as a bargaining position then that's what they should be doing, in the best interests of the citizens remaining in the EU.

I'd love to see that result, purely for the hilarity of watching the people I share a house with, who voted for Brexit, explode at the idea of the UK government not policing an external border.

The only reason they voted for Brexit was because they think it means they can get rid of all the migrants, they tell me this quite regularly.

One of them moved here from Bahrain, though apparently this means their family were ex-pats, not migrants. The other is from a long line of Christian overseas missionaries.

If they thought for a second that Brexit would mean leaving the border with Northern Ireland wide open, they would be screaming blue murder.

> It's likely that the communities that would be split by a new border in Ireland would disagree too.

It wouldn't really be a 'new' border though; NI and Eire had border controls from 1922 to 1998, so well into the EEC-EU era. I often had to show my passport on the coach from Belfast to Dublin. My grandparents remembered having to declare NI bacon on the train crossing at Carlingford.

With over 200 border crossing points it wasn't 100% enforced, though.

> It wouldn't really be a 'new' border though

No, I meant "new" as in, "it wasn't there last year" :) I'm old enough to remember the border, and "the troubles" too.

I also believe the removal of the border was a large factor in the cessation of hostilities, and the reason it's such a hot topic now.

> With over 200 border crossing points it wasn't 100% enforced, though.

My uncle used to have a house (he described it as such, to call it a shack would have been generous) in the south of France close to the Spanish border. Before freedom of movement they used to just walk into Spain as and when they pleased.

I'd like to hear more about this Polish–Russian soft border.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poland%E2%80%93Russia_border

Check the "Border area" section. I see no reason why something similar couldn't be implemented for Northern Ireland.

> Because Kaliningrad Oblast is small, homogeneous and an exclave within the European Union

That's not the same situation as NI.

In such situations, people suddenly lose the ability to draw similarities... it is funny actually when someone makes up their mind and becomes immune to ideas that could break their fortress.

> Because Kaliningrad Oblast is small, homogeneous and an exclave within the European Union, in 2011 the whole Oblast was granted the status of border area eligible to local border traffic rules.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poland%E2%80%93Russia_border

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclave_and_exclave

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_border_traffic

NI is not an exclave. There may at some point be a "local traffic" agreement with between NI and The Republic of Ireland, but that is something that needs to be negotiated.

That this negotiation hasn't finished yet is because the relationship that the UK will have with the EU is still rather up in the air. The EU wants a border so it can maintain import duties with external countries, exclude dangerous items and people, and maintain compliance with things like food standards (think lowering of food standards to make a US trade deal possible). The UK wants a border so we (well, not me, the people who voted for this ill-conceived shitshow) can keep immigrants out, and also to collect customs tariffs, block etc. etc. etc.

The requirements that each negotiating position has, as well as the general desire to not trigger a recurrence of "the troubles" are really hard to solve. There are literal opposing requirements that somehow need to work together.

If you take that, and the fact that the UK needs the EU way more than the EU needs the UK (the "UK holds all the cards" blithering of the tea with vicar dancing round the maypole cricket on the green little englanders aside), then you realise that the EU doesn't really need to do anything. It's not going to "throw us a bone" on this, it's going to use it as a negotiating position, and the UK will eventually either give some ground on another issue (freedom of movement perhaps), or we won't and there will be a border.

You have to remember that this is what people voted for. If they didn't vote for this then perhaps they should have listened to "experts" more, and maybe people should be questioning the ability of politicians to so clearly lie through their teeth to get the thing that they want (eg. Boris Johnson: a conservative party leadership bid, "350 million per week" etc.)

The really really simple solution is for the UK to have full regulatory compliance with the EU, something like the Norway model, but all of the "models" have significant disadvantages, such as "pay with no say" as the Norway model is sometimes described. We could of course stay in the EU, that's actually been offered. We wouldn't have a border in NI, we would have access to relationships with other countries via the over 750 treaties that the EU has, but that it seems isn't something we want enough apparently.

edit

Just out of interest, what are your ideas as to how this should work?

Gimme Scotland / Wales borders to play with too, that'd make for some funny pictures.

Great idea! Then you would want to play with the scenario of Scotland (also) remaining aligned with the EU e.g.?

Well, the ability to make only Northern Ireland leave the EU was chuckle-inducing, so I'd probably play with things that way :P

haha excellent

Worth noting that Scotland was aligned with France in the "Auld Alliance" for rather a long time:

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

There should be more options, like Republic of Ireland joining the United Kingdom.

Or Scotland making a bid to join the EU.

Good one. Yeah so many more options as I was programming it... Like the EU giving up on their "colony" Northern Ireland. Or France or the NL exiting the EU too...

Keep adding the options, this is great!

Have you seen this?

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-pick-your-own-brexit...

Ooh like it, did not see that one yet :)

Northern Ireland is a colony of the UK if it is anything at all.

Are you suggesting independence for NI? That would be interesting...

Can't have independence if you don't have a government!

United Ireland on the other hand has gone from impossible to maybe.

There were a few ideas like "Scotdon" leaving the UK and staying in the EU:

https://www.change.org/p/the-48-of-people-with-brains-who-vo...

Or a "Greater Scotland":

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/01/scotla...

> Republic of Ireland joining the United Kingdom

Sure, but this is somewhere in probability behind "UK destroyed by asteroid impact".

> Scotland making a bid to join the EU

There are persistent rumours that people on the UK side are trying to avoid having any kind of double-no-border situation that would work for NI be also applicable for Scotland. Because during the referendum all sorts of claims about the need for a hard border were made, often by the same people who claim there doesn't now need to be a hard border in Ireland.

>> Republic of Ireland joining the United Kingdom

> Sure, but this is somewhere in probability behind "UK destroyed by asteroid impact".

Maybe, but Ireland also leaving the EU would be a good and not entirely unpopular solution.

That would take a minimum of two years, so it still wouldn’t work at this point, even if it were not for the fact that recent opinion polls say 92% of RoI wants to stay in the EU: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euroscepticism_in_the_Republ...

There was a little appetite for this after the financial crisis, but after this fiasco there is none at all. Especially not to make it easy for the Brits.

>a good and not entirely unpopular solution

Where and for whom?

They'd have to join the Euro as well. I think that's pre-condition for joining the EU.

Countries are required to meet the convergence criteria before joining the Euro. It can't be automatic on joining the EU.

The EU is brilliant at fudging decisions like that, I'm not expecting Poland to join the Euro zone any time soon.

like Republic of Ireland joining the United Kingdom.

Or Arthur rising and reinstating Camelot in England's hour of need.

Or Nessie being discovered, then rampaging south to destroy London in a Gozilla inspired attack, wiping out the entirety of the Square Mile.

Or the entire human population suddenly realising that the borders were only in their heads all along and finally living together in peace and harmony.

Looking forward to the pro-brexit commenters posting their realistic workable plans for leaving the EU that addresses these issues.

I mean someone must have plan. You've been complaining about the EU for (checks notes) decades. Didn't you use any of that time to come up a plan?

Want to call me a remoaner or other insults? That's fine, but maybe post your plan first and then call me a remoaner?

hacker news is a communism

absolutely. dont you enjoy these painfully long and out of breath explanations on why this inconvenient majority of voters must be further disenfranchised ?

and all of the appeals to the authority of the EU's rules and regulations and why that makes it "impossible" ?

what hogwash. we all played by the same rules which were agreed upon beforehand and now the economically well off (and isolated) minority seek to invalidate the vote.

I think if the 'vote' is taken away from those who voted for Brexit then they'll do you one better and choose to ignore more fundamental aspects of our "social agreement", namely ones involving physical safety.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com