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Comment by antpls | Hacker News Reader

All the nasty/embarrassing stories for UK will be resurfaced to weight in Brexit negotiations. Russia already warned the international community that UK didn't cooperate well about all the accusations of nerve agents (not that Russia cooperates massively either).

Personal opinion : UK gov thinks they are the only people on Earth, they think they can ignore their neighbors, they overestimate themselves and I hope a bad Brexit will give them a good lesson. If UK were a passive country and actually self-sufficient, we wouldn't care much. But they actively try to influence international relations, and they want to do it without EU, which is obviously egoist and short-sighted, since they don't get to chose their geographical neighbors.

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> Russia already warned the international community that UK didn't cooperate well about all the accusations of nerve agents

Why would UK cooperate at all with the principal suspect in this case? How can this be controversial or inform us in any way on how UK cooperate with allied nations?

Remember, this is an open forum for all. Government agents are on here as well. Be mindful that you may just be replying to one of them.

Well, if the competing theory (that UK is behind the nerve agents) is true, they also have good reasons not to cooperate.

Is it really a competing theory? This seems like discussing the competing theory for who shot down MH17 over Ukraine.

The Russian method of dealing the dissenting voices has been pretty consistent for over 100 years now. That doesn’t mean it’s always Russia, but every part of the story fits.

The only people to whom that is a "competing theory" have an exceptionally high probability of being viewers of whatever the local equivalent to Fox News is.

Obviously it was Democrats who secretly deployed Novichok as part of a false flag operation.

You forgot there are people outside US? Outside its media bubble

Every place has its own media bubble. And, in many cases, those bubbles share the same conspiracy theories, especially when outside hostile actors deliberately stoke them. I assume that's why OP wrote "whatever the local equivalent to Fox News is".

You get out of media bubble by reading news from very different sources. Otherwise you're inside it no matter what you read.

I am outside the US. That is why I said "local equivalent to" Fox News (in the UK, the Daily Mail would suffice as a local equivalent).

There's also a competing theory that Elvis did it.

Having lived in the UK for 18 years and recently left because of Brexit I seriously hope that crazy government pulls it together and negotiates a deal with the EU.

A hard Brexit will help no one. Not the UK, not the EU, not international trade partners of the UK, and not any of the tourists from anywhere. And of all of these the UK will for obvious reasons be hardest hit. They have an opportunity to retain relevance (a deal, or pull out of Brexit all together), but they're teetering on the brink of total irellevance (nuclear abilitiy notwithstanding).

I hope people will eventually figure out that a Brexit (deal or no deal) will help no one.

there are two schools of though on how and whether it will help, and I am not in your school.

"Schools of thought" seems generous. Most of the opinion on the subject (aside from reasonable criticism of cack-handed implementation) is shallow and visceral.

That said, most of the evidence that at least has the dressing of empiricism favours Remain. There are two things that reliably help an economy, immigration and lower barriers to trade; Brexit damages them both, in favour of up-sides based largely on ideas relating to jam, so economists have fairly uniformly come down against it.

Again, there are shades of opinion on this. There are many leavers who are all for lowered barriers to trade and recognise the stranglehold the European Economic Area has on standards. I'd be quite happy in the EEA, for instance. Your argument is a little reductive and black/white.

Standards are required for lowered barriers to trade - lack of standards are what cause people to raise barriers in the first place.

For example, take labour standards. Without common agreement on labour standards, it's relatively easy for one country to undercut another by permitting mistreatment of their labour force. The response will either be to lower labour standards as well (meaning the result is no net gain in terms of market share, but a whole lot of labour in a worse position), or put in place tariffs or other trading restrictions to protect the local labour force.

Thus common agreement on some level of labour standards is what permits lowered barriers to trade. It prevents beggar-thy-neighbour situations that make the majority of people worse off.

It's similar for environmental standards, food standards, product quality, intellectual property including trademarks and PDOs and PGIs that simulate them for traditional producers.

The EU single market wouldn't be possible without lots of consensus on standards. Remove the enforced harmonization of standards, and the market doesn't work.

(The EU's growth in centralized power via the single market resembles in many ways the growth in US federal power due to the Commerce Clause. It definitely has dangers when market regulation runs ahead of democratic consent. I personally think there is a European polis which understands our position in the world, but I also don't think that polis is a majority. Issues that drive a wedge between the polis and the rest - most especially antipathy towards immigration - is the biggest strategic weakness the EU has, geopolitically.)

I agree with all of that.

Barriers to trade like "no chlorine-washed chicken", mmmm

I actually meant barriers with our European neighbours. Being a member of EEA would bar that eventuality, I think.

Chlorinated chicken and the reasons some markets don't permit it is rather misunderstood - it's a potential safety issue for the workers who produce it, not the people who eat it.

Many on the leave side would (and did) say that while the EU/EEA has succeeded in lowering some barriers to trade between EEA states, it has at the same time (1) raised new barriers to internal trade within some EEA states and (2) maintained or raised new barriers to trade between EEA states and states outside the EEA.

This is particularly stark when new member states have acceded and as a result new tariff barriers put in place, as was the case when the UK joined the then EEC (this caused significant damage to the UK's relationship with New Zealand, for example).

But it's also true in the way that the EU/EEA views product regulations and standards, which (many would contend) have a protectionist effect. One example commonly cited in this regard is REACH.

Many leave campaigners expressed a desire to deregulate in these areas in order to lower barriers to trade in ways that were not possible within the EU/EEA, as well as to lower tariffs unilaterally post-Brexit. I don't think it's fair therefore to say that Brexit damages "lower barriers to trade" - it really depends on what kind of Brexit there is whether that's true or not.

I have different take on brexit.

It is more on being against fat guys getting fatter in EU and bureaucracy. Where people from national governments are bought by EU guys with high paid jobs in EU parlament. It is not going to be good for a lot of people but it is about principles and those guys in EU parlament doing stupid things that go against local interests.

There should be some balance, I take with my hands as much as I can from unified market because I live ad work in different country than I was born. But I am totally against corrupt politicians doing weird deals. If it will cost me job and life in country I am in so be it, I will go back to my country. But arrangement I have now does not need EU, it could be just countries getting together without additional layer of management without astronomic money going to some politicians.

The principle of the European Union is based on democracy, and you can vote for an European party that would better defend your view at the European level. In my opinion, a country leaving the EU is equivalent of saying that democracy doesn't work and this message is dangerous. For information, less than 50% of Europeans voted at the last European elections in 2014 [1], it only depends on people to build a democratic Europe.

If you disagree with your own country's laws or current government, you are not allowed to say "alright, my house is not from this country anymore, and I wont pay any taxes". In practice, you will still use all the infrastructure everybody else contributed with their taxes, plus the healthcare, and you will still want to trade with other people.

Country's problems won't magically disappear after leaving the European community, the European Union is made to find collaborative solutions between countries, taking into account each countries' interests and capacities.

Now, you can legitimately disagree with recent EU laws about online ads for example, but as another European myself, I welcome this regulation. So we are 2 Europeans with different opinions, and the best way to solve this is democracy, if we still want to trade together in 25ish different countries.

I agree with you about politician salaries and bureaucracy, but I only see it improving in the future, when information will be better communicated and people more interested in Europeans scale issues.

Anyway, we achieve balance by participating and talking, not by closing the doors in front of difficulties.

[1] turnouts for EU 2014 election, by countries : http://www.europarl.europa.eu/elections2014-results/en/turno...

Edit : If you disagree with your current country government, maybe you will have more success at the European level, which in turn will balance your country government. Also, European politician salaries are transparent and follow a strict procedure : http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/faq/13/salaries-and-pe... so maybe still expensive, but it could be possibly less corrupt than some of the individual countries themselves.

I do not disagree with my own country laws or government I migrated because I was getting better pay in other country.

On brexit for me it is more of a statement that politicians are corrupt and you have to make that statement. It is important and sometimes you have to loose some money or comfort to make important statement.

Salaries and pensions being transparent is nothing special. It goes about connections, you are with us then you will get that transparent salary. You are against then we will make sure you are not going to have it. If you are in inner special circle you will get participation in special fund for inner circle people which is not transparent. This way that kind of transparency doe not matter.

Democracy not working, simple to prove, how many politicians that are in it for 10 or 20 years you know. I see plenty, it is not democracy where someone from street can build up party. There is caste system in place and you can choose only from people who are involved in the system. They protect each other as long as they can because if one loses other will held them back.

I understand there always will be 'ruling caste' but problem is they should be not insanely stupid, greedy, and having lives of normal folks as nothing. I have nothing against people being more rich than me, but there are some boundaries.

> There is caste system in place and you can choose only from people who are involved in the system.

I used to think similarly. In reality, not all politicians are the same, and they don't all come from the same social classes (I guess it depends of your country tho). It's a matter of documenting yourself on some of the parties, and find the one you identify the most to.

Politician is an actual job, they provide value by representing a party or ideas for a group of people, and it requires specific set of skills. That's why not everyone can become a politician. They don't have all the same background, some of them could be actually closer to your opinion than you think. You have to find the party that comes close to what you believe is right. For your information, there are some parties which believe a democratic Europe can be built by giving more power to localities, but they are still pro-europeans.

The European Union has its own Judiciary, so they can in theory punish any politicians who would illegally exploit the system, or accepts brides, etc. The system can be improved by itself if it maintains high standards, that's the strength of the democracy with separated powers, but people have to go vote to maintain its fairness.

It’s less complex than that. The purpose of the EU is to deliberately entangle the interests of Europeans to remove the incentive to go to war again. Everything else is gravy.

I think that applies to almost all governments. :p

The UK is just blessed with possibly our most incompetent and arrogant government(s) in a century. A bad Brexit will hurt the people not the tax haven hedge fund running politicians who are no doubt heavily short on Sterling.

Brexit aside, some well-informed people are advocating a large Sterling devaluation in order to boost competitiveness [1]:

"We should directly address our lack of competitiveness by the most obvious and effective means available: by bringing about a substantial devaluation of the currency."

[1] https://fabians.org.uk/publication/productive-purpose/

Hahaha hilarious. That silly UK government. You would never see any other English speaking countries act like that, no siree.

This is whataboutism and doesn't add much to the conversation.

Would you have preferred I phrased it "That attitude is not unique to the UK, given that the US and Australia, among others, have been known to act much the same way"? Same information either way.

I’d prefer we don’t attempt to deflect valid criticism with snarky or otherwise variations “other people do it too”...

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