Leaked Brexit Document Predicts 'Catastrophic Collapse' of U.K. Infrastructure
npr.org
npr.org
All the more reason to be alarmed. The guy seems like a complete loose cannon - more likely to cause additional chaos that help.
Really starting to wonder whether this isn't one big geopolitical campaign to short an entire country.
https://www.amazon.com/Shock-Doctrine-Rise-Disaster-Capitali...
This idea is at least 70 years old and takes adventage of democracy flaws.
And calm your tits everyone, this is such a contentious matter. Both sides don't know what the future will bring, it's probably neither a disaster nor a panacea. At least it hasn't been so far, despite being known as a definite inevitability for 3 years.
They were completely wrong. Not just wrong by magnitude, but wrong in the wrong direction. The economy boomed.
This sort of report was written by civil servants who hate Brexit and want it to die, for ministers who hate Brexit and were looking for reasons to cancel it all together. It has no credibility, simple as that.
Many British people do remember this, and have watched for the last three years as their political leadership mendaciously manipulate things as hard as they can to try and avoid doing what they said they'd do. That's why polls show "no deal" to be significantly more popular than, for example, the opposition party taking over.
Citation needed?
How about this: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2019/03/21/economic-performan...
"Relative to G7 countries, however, the UK has slipped from having the highest growth rate in the G7 before the vote, to the lowest now (OBR 2018)."
"Worryingly, the gap between output per worker in OECD countries and the UK has widened since the referendum"
"On referendum night, the pound fell from a high of $1.50 to $1.33. This is the single biggest drop in the daily exchange rate since the 1970s among the four major currencies of the world. The sterling depreciation was expected by some to spark an export boom, but this has not happened."
"The fallout of higher import costs has to a degree fallen on UK workers in terms of lower earnings now and in the future through fewer skill development opportunities."
"Purchasing power has gone down. On average, real wages have been flat since the referendum. Nominal wages have risen, but below the previous 2% norm (ONS 2018). Consumer prices have risen to reduce real wages. Inflation rose sharply after the referendum and remained high till recently."
"Overall, the real economy shows signs of productivity and real wage stagnation, which has taken the UK much lower than other high-income countries since the Brexit referendum."
Lucky us eh! With our booming economy! Personally, I've found that running a business working almost exclusively with charities and non-profits, that since the vote it has been much harder to get our clients to spend money.
It's all especially tough for economists because the profession was so united in the claims about economic decline after the vote, but they were proven completely wrong.
The economy boomed. I will show you with data.
People in work hit the largest numbers ever seen in British history, unemployment fell to lows not seen for decades. Wages rose. GDP growth stayed about normal for the UK. TradingEconomics has lots of datasets with useful 5 and 10 year views, so you can get a feel for what's normal.
Go look at the 10 year view here:
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gdp-growth-annua...
Essentially flat, see? From 2016-2018 GDP growth wandered around between 1% and 2%. Nobody looking at these numbers would have guessed there was meant to be some massive economic calamity.
Meanwhile, the pound. The pound has been in slow long term decline, as you'd expect given the trade deficit, and many analysts think it's a much needed correction given the pound being "over strong" thanks to the City. Go here and click "MAX" so you can see the long term trends:
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GBPEUR%3DX
The big impact on the GBP/EUR rate was the financial crisis. It eventually got back within its old region around 2015 (pre Brexit) but then went into decline again at the end of 2015 and has been wandering around the same rough level ever since. Again, look at that MAX graph and try to spot this economic calamity that was supposed to slaughter the economy and destroy nearly a million jobs. You can't see it because it never happened.
Meanwhile LSE blog is saying things totally false - there was an exports boom, in fact exports are doing great. See for yourself:
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/exports
Look at the 10 year view. You can see growth between 2009 and 2012, stability between 2012 and 2016, then a sudden jump at the time of the referendum. Since then exports have been climbing rather than stable. It seems the (relatively small) currency drop did cause an immediate and large increase in exports, it's impressive how quickly the economy responded actually. I can't see why the LSE guys are claiming there was no exports boom given that dataset. The magnitude of that mis-statement is vast: what on earth would qualify as an "exports boom" by their standards?
Wage growth is also very high, in fact it's at about the level it was before the financial crisis started.
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/wage-growth
So let's recap.
The world was meant to end on the day of a Leave vote, even before leaving happened. Between 500,000 and 800,000 jobs lost in an instant recession, according to the Treasury, and only a tiny number of economists disagreed (Patrick Minford was one, Krugman disagreed after the vote but before was publishing similar things).
But exports jumped and continue to grow. GDP growth was normal. Unemployment dropped through the floor. Wage growth grew, it's still high and climbing. Foreign investment is also within normal ranges. Inflation is inside normal ranges and currently wage growth is higher than inflation:
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/core-inflation-r...
Remember the central bank tries to target 2%, and that's about where it's sitting. For the LSE to spin this as bad news is implicitly to state that central bank and economic orthodoxy is wrong, but they aren't arguing that.
The LSE blog want you to believe that Brexit is a disaster because that's what academic and government economists predicted, and, sadly, because they desperately want it to be true. But remember to compare what they write against their prior claims and the magnitude of their prior failures. These people have no credibility. That's why they're desperately cherry picking strange stats like "output per worker in OECD countries" and "growth rate amongst the G7 only", which aren't normally prominent in discussions about economic performance. They spin growth as bad news, and in some cases simply seem to mislead you about the data. Don't trust them on anything Brexit related.
I do think it’s funny tho. Lol.
E: Apparently it was his predecessor, but it's nevertheless not drafted by Labour.
>The Financial Times quoted government insiders who rebutted the document, saying it is not a realistic scenario for a no-deal Brexit and pointing out that it was written under the leadership of Johnson's predecessor, Theresa May, and does not reflect the preparations spearheaded by Johnson that are now underway.
>”This document is from when ministers were blocking what needed to be done to get ready to leave and the funds were not available. It has been deliberately leaked by a former minister in an attempt to influence discussions with EU leaders," a source told the paper.
Paint it on the side of a bus, with 350 million other lies.
It’s not Labour. It’s not Remainers. Both governments want a deal with the EU. It’s unclear if the minister who leaked that document voted for the existing Deal (several ministers voted against their own government).
The idea that the UK crumbles (the document has things like cancer patients dying, folks with diabetes dying - its just an incredible list) seems far fetched. The UK operated prior to the EU without all these disasters.
This is true. But what’s discussed is how difficult it is to untangle 40 years of ever tighter integration. Decades ago things weren’t made in british factories using parts delivered just in time to be assembled, from multiple European supplier factories. No one is arguing that it’s impossible for Britain to function outside the EU. But “it worked before” isn’t an argument that leaving won’t be a disaster.
Taking the same argument ad absurdum: Britain used to operate without electricity and cars. Now there is a hundred years of electricity and cars integrated into every corner of British society so if cars and electricity was suddenly removed, it would take a long time for Britain to adapt to the new old system of candles and horses. It would work (it has operated that way before) but it would be a disaster for quite some time. An initial shortage of horses and candles wouldn’t be the only problem.
Back in 1975 things were very different. We didn't have recombinant insulin and diabetics died much more often.
It's not like we can flip a switch and go back to 1975, but keeping everything from 2019 running.
And it will be totally appalling if the EU to prove a point blocks shipments of those drugs.
This is a chance for the US perhaps to get in with some timely shipments using the US military or other govt resources. Could save lots of UK lives while the EU let's their neighbors die.
The EU is not threatening to block shipments of anything nor to "let their neighbors die". It's the UK government that seems intent on imposing economic sanctions unto itself by leaving the single market.
Actually, the closest thing to suggesting to let neighbors die was these outrageous comments by UK Home Secretary Priti Patel a few weeks ago (https://www.joe.ie/news/british-politician-says-uk-threaten-...), suggesting to cause food shortages in Ireland in order to pressure them to drop the backstop. To anyone who knows history between the 2 countries (actual famine in Ireland caused by Britain centuries ago), this is abhorrent.
In this case, it’s an internal document that is proving that the government is not candid about a threat that they are waving.
If (like people who support Boris Johnson) you think that a credible threat of leaving without a Deal helps negotiate against the European Union, that leak can seem political.
If (like people who oppose Boris Johnson) you think that a leaving without a Deal is irresponsible, having official confirmation of that fact is validating.
The civil service has previously published reports like this. They turned out to be totally wrong. There's a serious and important element of cry wolf here, especially because the previous cabinet that the report was written for were working against leaving. Lots of stuff coming out in recent weeks about how ministers were saying they were preparing and ready to leave without a deal but actually blocking attempts to prepare and telling foreign leaders they'd never leave.
In both cases there is a parliament where you vote for someone to represent your area. You cannot vote for anyone outside your area. In the EU your area is a country and in the UK your area is a smaller part of the country. If you live in Scotland, northen Ireland or Wales you are also governed by a different "country" with unelected officials.
Then you have the truly unelected members of government. Advisors and ministry beaurocrats and administrators.
I simply cannot wrap my head around how people can keep regurgitating this crap. All western democracies are full of "unelected" officials. The EU is not some special unelected body. You have your vote and you vote for a representative to represent your constituency. Stop spreading this nonsense.
It's not one I agree with but it certainly seems respectable to me.
The European Commission. Remember, the Commission gets to propose legislation, the Parliament (which you elect) doesn't.
But being an EU member state doesn't give away sovereignty, it's a way of expressing your sovereignty; it's pooling it with others in order to do things you can't do on your own. A leaving member state has a different menu of choices it can make, but because it's position is weaker, the choices are at best narrowed down, or at worst set by other parties.
In the case of the UK, it can choose between favouring a US market over a EU market, but each choice imposes restrictions set entirely by others. The EU will insist on a higher bar of conduct to pass, as part of its level playing field approach. The US will insist on limiting the UK's ability to raise the bar where it sees fit, so that US companies can more readily exploit the UK market, unencumbered by impediments it finds today in the form of things like food safety standards.
And you have to pick one or the other. Today the UK was able to influence the environment that most affected it, because it was a member of the EU. Tomorrow larger parties are shaping what the UK can choose from, with little say in it for British voters. This is a form of sovereignty shrinkage.
The idea that Brexit returns sovereignty is misleading and I suspect a lot of people will be disappointed when they find out in practice what it means.
...despite the fact that no EU rules can go into force in any EU state without that state passing a law to make it happen within its borders.
And despite the rather pointless European Parliament, the real decisions are made by the elected heads of member state governments, when they meet as the European Council.
So after Brexit the new boss will precisely be identical to the old boss.
But sure, why not believe that the 350 mil a week is being stolen by a bunch of offshore bureaucrats.
The reality is the goal of the EU is to replace national governments. That replacement provides an illusion of democracy but without actually being democratic. Just go read the various statements of the people who control the European apparatus, or witness how the people's primary concerns as measured by opinion polls are simply ignored in Brussels (which does the opposite in fact).
now that we actually know
[...] what it will cost
Why on earth would we do this?
Before the referendum, I heard euroskeptics call the EU undemocratic citing the process where the 2005 EU Constitution / 2008 Treaty of Lisbon. They saw the constitution-to-treaty change as bypassing the rejection of the former by French and Dutch referendums; and the second Irish referendum as bypassing the rejection by the first Irish referendum.
They saw this as analogous to an election in a tinpot dictatorship, where the Glorious Leader winning is the only possible outcome. That the EU had no taste for hearing the the average citizen's voice, unless it was supportive.
If you honestly believe the big thing that's wrong with the EU is that votes are only allowed so long as the outcome is pro-EU, earnestly implementing the referendum result come what may is really the only option. Anything that stands in the way of doing that only serves to prove the importance of doing that.
And unfortunately, the Tory party has a lot of euroskeptics.
It's going to be really interesting to see what happens to the UK as it will influence the politics of other EU countries, and the future of the EU, a lot.
You can organize this with one referendum, which is:
1. Would you like to do another referendum on leaving the EU?
A) Yes
B) No
2. Great-Brittain should leave the EU
A) Yes
B) No
If people still want Great-Brittain to leave, then they bought themselves some time and otherwise this whole brexit thing has been resolved.
Sure, but this is true of all issues. It doesn't distinguish brexit in any way.
The usual thought is that that's how things are supposed to be. If you withheld the franchise to people who were qualified to exercise it, almost nobody would be allowed to vote.
It is an amazing constitutional step to rip this up and start holding referendums!
Insofar as the things they vote on are laws and they are disproportionately professionals in law, that's not entirely true.
In the US, the rules that govern the law are set by judges, not by representatives.
But I think it only really works when you have a government saying "we propose to do X, but we'll only do it if the people consent in a referendum".
What doesn't work at all is having a referendum offering a major change that the government proposing the referendum thinks is a bad idea.
Some things should be left to experts.
This is the major criticism of direct democracy.
Thing is, we elect MPs exactly so they can express their views in parliament. They're supposed to be experts, or at least they are given resources to consult experts on matters that affect their constituents. They are resolutely not for representing their constituents' views - that's why they publish a manifesto of what they want to do and we are asked to vote on it every 5 years. Of course, part of an MP's job is to consult their constituents, but they are not bound whatsoever to represent the majority view of their constituents. Apparently 93% of the public apparently don't understand this; the same public that were asked to decide whether to stay in the EU or not...
Economists could perhaps answer some small parts of it - like "will this be net plus for the economy over next 5 years", but even then I'd imagine there would be little consensus.
Questions this huge are really the sort of thing that should be put to the unwashed masses. They know as much as anyone else - not much.
There's an interesting idea for a method of government based on the distinction between values and policy results.
> In "futarchy," we would vote on values, but bet on beliefs
https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/futarchy.html
In my opinion 'should the UK stay in the EU' would very definitely be a question of policy not values. It would actually be pretty difficult to disentangle the brexit question into meaningful values.
You could say it's about 'sovereignty', but the UK parliament is as sovereign as it ever was - as the very fact that it's currently leaving demonstrates. In fact for the pure self-interested, short term version of sovereignty, the right thing to do is to plough your own furrow, taking advantage of the benefits and ignoring what you don't like until you are finally kicked out of the EU, which is something we might well see some other EU countries do. Any more nuanced understanding of sovereignty would realize that sovereignty is how we describe an entity that is able to enter into and keep agreements, and exercise infuence on other actors, not one that is unable to because it might restrict its freedom of action. Just as for humans, the end result of refusing all bonds is not freedom, it's extreme restriction. And that's not even considering the strain that leaving the EU puts on relationships with Scotland and Northern Ireland. It wouldn't surprise me at all if down the road brexit ends in break-up. Sovereignty takes on a bit more nuance when you're simultaneously denying it to your constituent members by leaving.
You could say it's about 'migration', but that's not a proper value either. I suspect that people who complain about migration have values to do with crime, economics, and needing to be around people 'like them'. The only thing about those values, is that for most of them, migration is exactly the wrong thing to be worried about. As 'experts' know, migrants are less likely to commit crime, and more likely to pay taxes than the native born.
I don't think the UK should be leaving the EU for policy reasons. I believe that it's in the interests of the UK, of Europe, of the world to resist the forces trying to disintegrate Europe (I've read enough history to know what happened last time). I think many of the disagreements I have with people who think it should leave are at the level of reality - things that could be established by fact.
Trying to claim that it's motivated by differences of values is part of what is making the issue less clear.
Of course this is all made extra difficult by the fact that the whole thing has been horrendously mishandled. The government has repeatedly and continually believed things for long periods of time about negotiating with Europe that are simply untrue. It was obvious from the start that this was going to be complicated, and pressing the button to start the ticking timebomb you're sat on top of, is not a great way to negotiate either. Whether you want Brexit or not, invoking article 50 before anyone knew what it meant was the height of idiocy.
I don’t really buy the expertise argument. Who gets to choose the experts?
For me it’s about accountability. If you want to get a job done, vote for a party that has that thing in their manifesto, and hold them to delivering on it. The problem with direct democracy is, who is responsible for delivering the policies? How can they be accountable for the outcome, if they didn’t formulate or even agree with the policy?
Choose a government and then let them govern. Scrutinise them, challenge them, hold them to account on the things they committed to. That’s how our (British) democracy should work. The reason we’re in this mess is because parliament is being coerced into implementing a policy most parliamentarians disagree with, and even the interpretation of what the referendum meant is up for grabs.
If we can’t agree anything else, can we at least agree not to do anything this way again?
This is generally not true. We elect representative so they can express our views. We don't care what their views are, except to the extent that their views might impede them from expressing our views.
>'The first duty of a member of Parliament is to do what he thinks in his faithful and disinterested judgement is right and necessary for the honour and safety of Great Britain. His second duty is to his constituents, of whom he is the representative but not the delegate.
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmmo...
On the one hand, you're right, the people are sovereign and should not have their rights trampled by an unelected hegemony.
On the other hand, people are stupid, and often too stupid to be trusted to make decisions related to complex matters on which the general person is not an expert.
Worse, bad actors have figured out how to exploit freedom of speech to weaponize this stupidity. So we're now in a position where a fundamental human right is also the direct cause of significant human misery.
And yet here we all are, living with the results of the professional experts who know everything. If they are all experts in all things they vote on, why is everything such a mess all of the time?
Similarly, people make the individual choices to purchase an apple or invite someone into their home.
EU participation is just this choice at scale, and the British people have every right to vote on it directly.
It should not be.
If they represented the Brexit correctly, and instead asked the real question “Would you like your life to get worse in pretty much every possible way?”, then how many people would have voted yes?
Your rephrasing is not only hyperbolic but also just a theory. Obviously people would answer no. You might assume people are dumber than they are. Perhaps they are weighing factors you are not which lead them to believe that brexit will not have the outcome you think it will.
> Perhaps they are weighing factors you are not which lead them to believe that brexit will not have the outcome you think it will.
I am almost positive this is the case, but I unfortunately doubt that most of those factors are grounded in reality.
I don’t believe there are many experts that believe Brexit is in any way a good thing, and for me those opinions just hold a lot more weight than those of populist politicians.
Because of herd immunity, this is not just a personal choice but a public health matter. It's no more their choice to use vaccines than it is theirs to drunk drive.
I understand the downvotes as this idea seems silly, I did not mean to propose a silly idea or an idea for fun. I simply don't know the fundamental reasons as to why this idea is silly.
It might come as a shock: but I really am this naive. Let that sink in, an HN member, not interested that much in politics, who does not understand why this would not be a remotely feasible way out other than heuristically knowing it's not a good idea.
I daresay I'm not the only one.
If I'd have a vote in GB, then I'd have voted to stay. I am pro Europe and as a European, I was actually showing people this Kurzgesagt video [1] about why voting for or against the EU is important (apparently I have friends and family, some of them highly educated, who are even less interested in politics than I am).
---
I'll read the comments now, I'm sure I'll be better informed after this reading session.
Referenda are great for when you have a specific plan of action, and the question is just "implement this plan: yes or no".
Anything less, and nobody is clear what anybody was actually voting for. There's a reason Parliament votes on legislation after it's written, rather than before.
You say that, (Even if it is a joke) but here in the UK, this is exactly the same as the 'People's Vote' that gives the final say to the people on how the Brexit process should progress, despite the UK already voting leave in 2016. Democracy doesn't care on how 'close' the result was, the people voted to leave and that should be respected.
This vote is an instruction from the electorate for parliament to deliver the referendum result and in anyway reversing it, undermines the democratic process. When the Scottish independence referendum of 2014 happened, they accepted the result to remain and that was that.
If another referendum goes through and it was leave again, how many times do you need to accept the result? 2? 6? or 19? You might as well roll an unfair dice if you want to hold another referendum.
- the referendum was an advisory, non-binding one.
- the electoral commission has found the Vote Leave campaign in breach of electoral law and referred them to the police.
From a moral one :
- Nearly every single argument the Leave side had put forward has been shown to be a lie.
- Foreign interference.
- Every single opinion poll in the past two years has shown that people had changed their mind and would now vote Remain.
Since sovereignty is often put forward as a reason to leave the EU do you not see the irony in that statement?
It was an 'advisory referendum' according to the act of parliament that instituted it. Referendums cannot be binding on parliament in the UK, or parliament would not be sovereign any more!
> When the Scottish independence referendum of 2014 happened, they accepted the result to remain and that was that.
Well no they didn't. 'They', meaning the people of Scotland I presume, elected the Scottish National Party to 56 of the 59 seats available to Scottish MPs in the election 2 years later. The SNP actively campaign to leave the UK. Democracy is not an event, it is a process.
Well, the UK votes on the government at least every 5 years. Do you think that that is undemocratic? Should everyone just say 'we'd be ignoring the will of the people if we just kept voting until we got the right answer'.
And after all, there was a referendum in 1975 on joining the EEC, but now brexiteers seem to want out of it. Are they denying the will of the people?
That seems like the kind of argument only someone who is scared that they no longer hold a majority opinion might make.
It is long standing British democratic tradition that national referendums are unconstitutional.
A binary yes and no is too polar with a large greyscale of real-life opinions and preferences.
In the Brexit vote a few years ago (on the most miserable birthday I ever had) 48% voted for one option, 52% voted for all the other options combined [1].
It already has been resolved. People voted for "Leave", so let's do that now as fast as possible. There's no reason in voting until you like the outcome.
I have written it before: I'm totally against the Brexit but people wanted a vote, got a vote and the result is clear. While this might have negative consequences for quite a few people, this vote can't be ignored.
The UK must leave the EU as soon and hard as possible with all the consequences this brings with it, including border controls and no deals whatsoever with the EU.
This will on the one hand be a positive sign for the people: Votes are not useless and the will of the majority is accepted. The outcome might be bad, but that's a common problem with votes at all.
On the other hand this will be a good sign/valuable lesson for lots of other European countries. Quite a few are struggling with the concept of the EU and might ask themselves why they are a member of the EU and what they might get out of it. Let the UK be an example to them.
You can drive from Dover to almost all of the mainland UK in 8 hours.
The Scottish Highlands will take a bit longer.
It'll be a problem, but I doubt being close to the port will make a difference.
No it's not. Look at a political map of England by geography - everywhere is Conservative, apart from areas associated with major cities, their surrounding areas, and a few small patches.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_United_Kingdom_general_...
The way that Hitler was defeated was that Berlin was pounded into rubble that put paid to the revival of stab-in-the-back theories that followed WW1. Japan was defeated by two nuclear bombs that replaced any hope of resistance with fear of obliteration. Bin Laden killed in his pajamas, and his body was dumped in the ocean: an ignominious end to a man who claimed to take divine inspiration for his acts. The supporters of these ideologies had to experience the shame of total defeat, and see no hope, before they moved on.
A hard Brexit, while causing some pain for the British public, may well be the medicine needed to show its most fanatical supporters the error of their ways. Otherwise their resentment will fester for decades longer.
We should always remember why it was made, coming out of two horrible wars and after hundreds of years of smaller wars - not (only) to make life a little easier, not to redistribute money and not to boost economies, but to make wars impossible as much as can be done by interweaving their economies and citizens.
In regards to this point, project EU has been highly successful. We're now far enough removed from these wars and most witnesses dead that we have to actively work on keeping the memory and reason alive.
Our thoughts and dreams seem to become smaller somehow, lately. I hope it will not take another massive disaster to change that.
Also they did not have to lodge the article 50 letter when they did, they could have spent years preparing and figuring out what it is exactly they want to accomplish.
Finally the EU gave an extension twice now for them to figure out what they want, instead of doing that UK govt doubled down on stupid.
Seeing all that happen, I'm convinced we should abolish voting. Instead of voting for prime minister, etc. they should be chosen at random from the general population the same way we do jury duty. Monte Carlo government. It can't be any worse than the current government and since it's random selection you can't have the process corrupted.
For comedy reasons, Article 50 was actually written for the EU, by Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, a cross bench peer in the UK's House of Lords. This was after the UK insisted the EU adopt something draconian, to dissuade new members from screwing the EU around.
To me it could just as well point towards avoiding leaving such unions. Or towards not doing it without a greater majority / more planning / more time / etc.
Should we have dismissed Watergate because it was based on leaked information?
Still waiting.
The document doesn't "predict" any such thing. It considers a number of worst-case scenarios of things that could happen, but that's a far cry from predicting that every worst-case scenario will actually come to pass.
One of their sources indicates that these aren't just a worst case scenario, though.
>this is the most realistic assessment of what the public face with no deal. These are likely, basic, reasonable scenarios — not the worst case."
At least have the courage to own the consequences of your decisions.
Talk of the EU “punishing” the UK is silly. The EU is not going to renegotiate a huge set of treaties (the leaving agreement) due to the fact that the UK can’t find a way to both have a border and not have a border. They just spent 2 years negotiating with the UK and now the UK has gotten cold feet.
I think the UK has a problem with being an equal and has not got over its loss of empire, just look at how they treat their own constituent countries such as Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales
To be fair: whatever us Germans and the French want, we eventually get - most often by outright nation-scale bribery. It's all backroom dealing - for example, us Germans get no opposition preventing harsher pollution regimes EU-wide (to protect our heavy car-oriented industry), the countries which would oppose get EU funding grants for construction or whatever.
Don't forget England. Brexit is basically just an English nationalist idea. Ironically, if the UK had devolved more powers to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (something the Westminster parliament has generally fought against), England might have found its own thirst for taking back control satiated.
1. Irish border and Good Friday agreement
2. EU Citizens rights in UK
3. Payment of billions to which previous UK governments signed up to as EU member
4. How will you ensure low quality food from US does not enter EU"
Just like Russia could say "no gas for you" if you make too much of a fuss about what happened in Crimea.
Now if the UK's view of its own future diverges from the EU, it's totally normal to see complications appear during negotiations.
Canada had to adjust their immigration policy for several EU countries to get CETA. The UK will be over a barrel and will have to make major concessions.
Whether you're pro EU or not this situation is a total balls-up.
Hard to imagine a good outcome.