What do you think the consequences of no-deal is going to be? Is it as bad as everyone thinks?
When I think it about it rationally it seems like it's going to be absolutely chaotic and potentially violent in Northern Ireland.
I don't think there will be quite as much chaos and doom as some people predict, but the ports situation will definitely be bad (if you listen to the transport professionals, hauling companies etc. who actually do cross between the UK and mainland Europe regularly). Certain medicines will be in very short supply. There's an endless list of things from mildly inconvenient to downright terrible (if you depend on one of the medicines to live, for example).
The economy is already tipping into recession. Leaving the UK's biggest trade union will make this worse. If the Tories somehow cling to power, expect more cuts. Maybe the NHS will be privatised to save money. The poor and disabled will be shat on even more than they already are.
The wealthy will as always find a way to do just fine. Tax evasion will continue and probably grow (exemption from new EU tax directives and policies).
More companies than have already left will move to the mainland.
More EU citizens will go back home (whether forcibly due to the draconian rules or out of choice). Priti Patel will smile sweetly as the talent exodus decimates entire sectors.
People will try and get on with their lives, but for many it will definitely get harder.
I hate Brexit.
I expect that millions of people would try to find a link to Scotland for a chance of regaining their EU citizenship.
My hope is to use my wife's Scottish heritage to move there in the not too distant future.
It's a bizarre thought that we may be seeing English illegal migrants being deported from Scotland in the not-too-distant future.
Also, how quickly could Scotland join the EU? I remember that being one of the sticking points of the first independence referendum.
At this stage I think it is safe to say that it is very unlikely we'll get past the first of these.
[0] https://twitter.com/uk_together/status/506899714923843584
An independent Scotland would need to rejoin the EU, it’s by no means clear it would be able to do so for years if not decades. It would need to join the Euro and it would need massive structural changes to meet the budgetary criteria to do so that would make “austerity” look like Sunday School.
Having said that if they vote for it in a referendum, I wish them good luck. The SNP gets an awful lot of mileage out of calling for it but they never talk about what they would do without the Barnett Formula money.
I remember this being a key point of the 2014 referendum - the 'Yes' side seemed to be overly optimistic about the process of joining the EU.
However if Scotland has already been dragged out of the EU against the will of most of its people, it changes the terms of that debate quite a bit. A chance of joining the EU seems better than being part of a country that likely won't rejoin for many years (if ever).
Just because there's a Cornish separatist movement doesn't mean the EU is worried about the implications of an independent Cornwall.
Obviously, the circumstances have changed drastically, and since indyref2 will have far more support post-Brexit I can imagine that the SNP wouldn't necessarily need to sweeten the deal as much.
Thats a nice sentiment but the problem is that a good amount of NI residents do. :|
I'm not so sure. People talking about private provision in the NHS are just looking at the several billions of pounds that the NHS already spends on private provision for NHS services, and at how the Health and Social Care Act works.
We already have large NHS services delivered by private, non-NHS providers. Livewell South West is one example - 2800 staff. Priory Group and Cygnet are two other notable examples. Here's Livewell's page: https://www.livewellsouthwest.co.uk/ Here's a list of Cygnet hospitals: https://www.nhs.uk/Services/Trusts/HospitalsAndClinics/Defau...
Priory Group and Cygnet are involved in some "specialist commissioning" services - low secure and medium secure forensic MH services, in-patient eating disorder services. These are expensive services.
Everything needed for NHS privatisation is already in place after the Lansley reforms. There is nothing stopping large US firms coming over and putting in bids to run NHS services. If they put the right bid in CCGs are compelled by law to accept it, a CCG isn't allowed (by law) to prefer an NHS provider. The reason they haven't already done this is because they can't afford to do it on the money an austerity-funded NHS system is offering.
Of course, this isn't the type of privatisation that parent post is talking about. But if we look at the reduction in provision of drug and alcohol services; of child and adolescent MH services; of adult acute MH services; of community based psychological therapy (unless you want IAPT); well, there are loads of things that people either just do without or they pay for from their own pocket. Some politicians have already said they want to charge people for GP visits or for ambo use.
And all of this is ignoring the group of people who now have to pay for healthcare when they didn't before: the Overseas Visitors Charging Regulations.
Cutting it to save money is backwards; it is an investment that pays dividends in human wealth.
So, with the EU agreements out of force, but not structure to replace it, what's to stop business as usual anyway? OK so now UK has no treaty for importing oranges or whatever. But that doesn't mean they are going to start actively blocking imports and sales. Sure some nation could do that, but those would be stepwise policy changes, not automatic chaos.
Law governs people, but it doesn't control them. People due what they think will work, even if paperwork changes.
if you listen to the transport professionals, hauling companies etc. who actually do cross between the UK and mainland Europe regularly
Which transport professionals are you listening to? The head of Dover port and the head of UK Ports have both said they are all prepared and there either won't be any disruption or it'll be straightforward to manage. The port executives on the French side are saying the same thing.
I've actually read the API specs for the French "InterBrexit" customs IT system. It's not as complex as I thought it'd be.
So it appears the opposite is true - transport professionals are saying they're ready and there's nothing to fear.
I suspect there will be no actual disruption to ports in the case of no deal.
Certain medicines will be in very short supply
This assumption is based on the idea that ports will be disrupted, but see above. Also the NHS has been preparing to use planes instead of ships/trucks from France for medicine. That would appear to work fine - medicine is not especially bulky.
I strongly suspect there will be no disruption to the supply of medicines.
The economy is already tipping into recession. Leaving the UK's biggest trade union will make this worse.
This very much depends on how you define it and what you compare it to.
GDP growth last quarter was -0.2%, but a "technical recession" requires two consecutive quarters of that, so we'll see next quarter.
If you describe the UK as "tipping into recession" because growth was -0.2% last quarter, then you must also agree that Germany has tipped into recession twice in the past year:
https://tradingeconomics.com/germany/gdp-growth
So this is hardly something to trigger negativity about the UK. The UK economy has been doing better than the other best economy in the EU.
If the Tories somehow cling to power, expect more cuts. Maybe the NHS will be privatised to save money.
You mean the party whose leader just gave a speech where he said:
"Because after 70 years of the existence of the NHS - 44 of them under a Conservative government - it is time for us to say loud and clear 'We are the party of the NHS'. And I claim that title because it is our one nation conservatism that has delivered and will deliver the economic growth that makes those investments possible"
Labour have been claiming the NHS is going to be privatised since forever and not only does it never happen but it has never happened despite a supposedly conservative government being in power for most of the NHS's history.
It's just a canard and not related to Brexit, just your own political assumptions, which are based on misunderstandings of your opponents policies.
More EU citizens will go back home (whether forcibly due to the draconian rules or out of choice). Priti Patel will smile sweetly as the talent exodus decimates entire sectors.
More will go home than what? Are you aware that net EU migration has continued to be positive and high ... at no point in the past decade have EU leavers offset EU arrivals.
Moreover, it's not at all clear that Boris will actually reduce immigration after Brexit. He is famously pro-immigration and only talks in his speeches about trade policies, etc. If Boris does pull the UK out, I expect Farage to immediately start campaigning on actually reducing immigration because it's clear that neither Tory nor Labour parties will ever actually do it regardless of what they claim.
People will try and get on with their lives, but for many it will definitely get harder.
That's pure supposition. I think for many it will get easier. For instance, if points-based immigration is brought in, it will get easier for talented people who want to move to the UK but couldn't today because of the pressure caused by unlimited inward immigration of low cost, low skilled labour from the former eastern bloc.
Personally, I believe him. I think a lot of politics is filled with doomsday scenarios and fear mongering, but we're talking about a major, modern economy. Brexit reminds me of Y2K. Lots of talk, lots of worry, but nothing really happened.
A No-deal Brexit is quite different and will surely have real life consequences, not in the least in Northern Ireland.
We don't really know how bad. Maybe "just" a lot of financial systems screwed up with people losing access to their money for weeks or months. Or maybe at least partial failures of the electrical grid and other systems. But almost certainly not good.
There will be long tail of repercussions to using two digit years for most of the rest of the century.
What an ominous analogy. I hope for the sake of those who live there nothing happens - but the y2k bug was more than “lots of talk and worry”. People identified the problem and worked diligently to get it fixed before shit hit the fan - just because nothing happened doesn’t mean nothing was done. I don’t think you should take a laid back attitude and assume someone else will do all the work.
On a related note, I worry this is how climate change will be treated if addressed. Some clueless peoples will simple hand wave the problem away and ignore the years of energy change and research that had to be done because “nothing bad happened”
There were substantial problems, but because of the high level of alert, they were fixed very rapidly.
> People identified the problem and worked diligently to get it fixed before shit hit the fan
This, a thousand times.
What is a "Manufacturing agreements" and how does it replace the single market framework?
Sorry, what agreements are these exactly? Not talking about existing agreements between the EU and these countries, but specifically with the UK? The Japanese in particular have been moving operations out of Britain [1]
Also the leaked Yellowhammer documents [2] - produced by experts in the UK civil service - tell a different story to what your MP friend is saying.
So if you have any links that back this all up please post them here.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-03/japan-wav...
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/27/japan-blunt...
In the short term we'll probably struggle with logistical issues, getting freight through the ports, shutting down motorways around Dover, etc. There will be more pain for people travelling to the EU, especially for those that do business there. Nothing apocalyptic there but definitely stuff we've not had to think about for decades. We'll end up falling in line with their regulation and things anyway I expect so I wouldn't expect to see any major trade deals with the US any time soon.
Politically even if the U.K. somehow stays together the Conservative party is going to end up bearing the blame for this. There is no real pathway to this being successful for those people that are hurting the most, they were lied to and even if they get what they think they want, they are going to pay the cost of that. How that shakes out is anyones guess, I wouldn't be surprised to see the country swing further to the right with the help of the tabloid press. Especially when we have to increase immigration from non-eu countries to bolster the people that leave, just within the NHS this is going to be required. Couple that with stagnant growth and a continuation of austerity there is going to be some real anger within the working class.
Essentially we're probably looking at another lost decade at least, a descent into darker and darker politics and finally when we're back to the original position when we entered the EU as the sick man of Europe we'll probably vote to rejoin.
Borders and ports will cope - only after a period of obviously not having nearly enough customs and other staff for borders and checks. Temporarily difficult then. Particularly as we have a government that doesn't want to spend on any necessary service.
Good Friday agreement is my biggest short term concern. That requires a lack of borders, and Brexit seems to require the impossible in NI. Mid-term I see reunification. Short term could get ugly if there's border posts, and just one incident...
Mid term, it's destroyed UK's international reputation, it's boosted independence thoughts across the nation, and our politicians of all colours are clearly no longer fit for purpose. You tell me where that takes us. I see a further decline of science and business as more goes to the EU than here. Why would a project choose to locate in a post-Brexit UK with no EU agreement?
The Northern Irish 6 counties did not want to unify with Ireland when Ireland was born in 1919. Those 6 were the protestant majority counties, who wished to stay with the UK.
Changing demographics and birth rates over the following century, increasing secularisation in the Republic, and increasing numbers who simply don't care about religion makes that far less of the issue.
Just as those ruling in London no longer see themselves as Norman French, or in my UK county Danish.
But in ireland it is not only about the english living in north ireland, but more about the irish living there. It was more about catholic vs. protestant.
Not so easy to dissolve, but I hope the last blood happened long ago enougj for both sides to forget and move on, even if england messes up the deal amd the border becomes an issue again.
This is debatable. It was very close and the large numbers of English retirees in parts of Wales that made it seem that Wales voted to leave. Brexit is very much an English project.
Citation: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/sep/22/english-peop...
Maybe one solution would be to have a county-by-county referendum, where each county in NI gets to decide whether it wants to stay in NI or instead join Ireland. This would make NI smaller, but would concentrate the UK loyalists in it, and the number of Republicans (the ones who want to rejoin Ireland) would decrease a lot (many would be in the counties that would leave, which are probably mostly right on the border, and some might even move), so maybe re-establishing a hard border would be more palatable then.
The Bosnians would beg to differ on this point [1]. It was not so long ago, and yet it all started on very similar terms as Brexit: the breaking of Yugoslavia into multiple parts who wanted different things (Serbia vs the others) via referendums reminds me a lot on how Brexit started.
I don't think we're at the point where entire factions of people hate each other enough to start, support and sustain an all-out war, but then again with MPs getting daily death threats (some even actually getting murdered [2]) and the political dialog shifting towards low-levels of populism, it's tempting to think that the scales might tip at some point.
1. UK leaves without a deal, leaving an open EU border between Ireland and NI. 2. UK refuses to do anything to enforce this border or stop the movement of goods and people across it. 3. Ireland / the EU needs to protect its borders so they put up fences and vehicle checkpoints. Perhaps even with help from other EU countries' security forces. 4. UK right wing press runs stories full of angry language about the 'invasion'
I fear we'll see this process repeated every time there's a shortage of anything - it will all be the EU's fault, and entering into any transitional agreements with the EU (if they are gracious enough to grant us any) will be 'surrender' or 'capitulation'.
This is a worst case scenario, but I fear we are heading for serious civil unrest and violence
Watch Raab talking about the Good Friday Agreement: https://twitter.com/deirdreheenan/status/1175701674767388672
And here is the actual document that he hasn't read: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-belfast-agree...
Or, renewed conflict in Northern Ireland and huge tensions between the EU and UK leads to the Queen taking control since the UK obviously doesn't know how to govern itself any more. Honestly, this seems like the best outcome; they'd be better off with royal rule than what they've chosen.
The whole point of brexit was to be able to make their own decisions.
Didn't start off that well.
Pardon my kidnapping the thread, but I don't think HN would appreciate splitting the discussion.
It certainly doesn't settle things, we're going to have these issues for years to come, but may take us away from the cliff edge.
- Irish border posts are setup
- Lots of confusion at the border
- Small groups of young men throw rocks at the border guards
- Escalations occur
- People die
- New era of the troubles ushered in
- 10 years later and thousands killed / displaced
Meanwhile in scotland
- Scottish referendum tabled
- Overwhelming support to leave the UK and rejoin the EU
- Referendum passes (just)
- UK dissolves into England, Wales and NI
NHS still underfunded.
EU tried for 30 years to come to agreement with Brits. they dragged their feet and caused lots of friction even when they had great offers. Why would things be better this time?
It is obvious to anyone who has ever negotiated for anything, ever, that no deal is better than a bad deal. Ask yourself why Remainers are so keen to take that option off the table and keep asking for extensions indefinitely.
This was the pamphlet of the official Leave campaign:
http://www.voteleavetakecontrol.org/our_case.html
It said "There is a free trade zone from Iceland to Turkey and the Russian border and we will be part of it", and "Taking back control is a careful change, not a sudden stop - we will negotiate the terms of a new deal before we start any legal process to leave".