Hacker News Reader

Comment by vesinisa | Hacker News Reader

As an EU citizen, I hate to say this but I think Johnson and his bunch did really well for UK in the Brexit negotiations. They basically got everything that they wanted (free trade, state aid, control over immigration) while EU bascially lost on all fronts and is now weaker than ever. Only place where EU managed to get a concession was extending the deadline until the French fishermen have to quit fishing in British waters. The EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier was of course a Frenchman, so good old eurocronyism at work once again.

View on HN

You're very badly misinformed.

How badly the UK did in the negotiations can be seen in the concessions won by the EU with the NI protocol. The actual trade deal covers goods where the UK has a large trade deficit and does not cover services at all.

Also the EU is starting to impose tariffs and checks on goods coming out of the UK, while the UK won't do the same for some time as their border control systems aren't ready and they're missing some 40 000 customs agents. So even as exporters are feeling the pain, the actual mangling of supply chains for british importers is still to come.

While the best case scenario for the EU would've been the UK staying in the customs union, with that option closed this is as good as it gets. There are no winners in Brexit, only relative losers.

What NI concessions are those? AFAICT Britain conceded nothing that it wasn't already required to do by the Good Friday agreement.

BTW, I don't agree about those checks. Skipping those would not be doable for the EU. Dozens of countries have MFN treaties with the EU. If the EU were to offer Britain anything that those countries aren't offered (such as not checking imports/exports) then all of those trade treaties would need to be renegotiated, because those countries would no longer be most favoured.

IIRC some sixty countries' parliaments would have to vote on the resulting treaty changes. That's too much to be doable.

The Northern Ireland situation was simply resolved the only way it could be. If there was some better outcome for the UK that would have not spoiled the entire integrity of the EU, I am sure it would have been allowed. But no matter how good Johnson's team was in extracting concessions from the EU, even they can not move mountains nor islands, or otherwise change hard geographical realities.

I don't think this is true.

Firstly they didn't get free trade - there are tariffs, rules of origin, and a lack of equivalence for SPS & product safety rules. The last one is especially egregious currently, because the UK still has exactly the same agricultural rules it did when it was a member.

Secondly, there is now a customs border in the UK. That's a fairly gigantic offensive ask for the E.U., which they largely succeeded in.

Thirdly, the UK got significantly less freedom on state aid than it wanted (which is of course, not surprising, given that the freedom they wanted was "We do whatever we want").

They got control over immigration. Of course, as a consequence of this, so did we, and if you read the UK press, they're currently finding out that that's a thing that cuts both ways (and they're not massively happy about this).

They only got 20% of what they wanted on free trade, there is nothing on services which make up most of the UK economy. Goods is only 20% and we are a net importer.

I don't understand the issues about state aid, we were already at the bottom of the league table interns of doling out aid to business. We had plenty of room to expand that already if we wanted.

Right now the most likely outcome of the whole thing is the break up of the United Kingdom. The whole thing was a mess from beginning to end (not that it has ended yet).

> the break up of the United Kingdom

Wholly? Or just Scotland?

I can't see anyone else leaving, and I'm not sure the scots will either.

Scotland, and NI. Which are 2/3 of the constituent "kingdoms" that were united to form the "United Kingdom".

Of course, it might not happen, but odds are rather better, in both cases, than they were pre Brexit.

Ninja Edit: This isn't to try and minimise the importance of Wales, just a recognition that at the time of the creation of the UK, the famous Encyclopaedia Britannica entry (For Wales, see England) wouldn't have been controversial in most of the UK. But even in Wales, Plaid have done very well, and become much more radical, as a result of Brexit.

Nope, never. NI might want to leave, but it can't leave because its too dependant on the UK economically.

More so than Ireland was in 1921? And will that continue to be the case, with the NIP imposing barriers between it & GB?

I'm not sure, but given it came off the back of a war of independence (and became a civil war) it seems relative. I think the UK is in the better negotiation position, so I doubt there would be many concessions.

In any case, they'd have to adopt a hefty bill: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Ireland_fiscal_defici...

I think the biggest question mark is whether Westminster will allow an independence referendum. I don't think they will no matter what the results in the coming election are. However if they do, recall that questions over whether we'd be admitted to the EU was one of the big issues that tipped the balance in favour of "No" - the fact that this is now a non-issue could be pretty huge coupled with the fact that many feel deceived over the issue.

I honestly think I will see a united Ireland and an independent Scotland within my lifetime.

As a EU citizen I think UK lost on all fronts - food industry, financial sector, manufacturing, trade, foreign policy, and others. The losses in some of those fields are already visible, in others not yet.

Well they got what Boris/Tory wanted. "Freeish" trade (more like facilitated trade, not free and outside the customs union - which, to be fair, is markedly better than No Deal)

- The City of London risks losing clearance/passporting rights

- The Ireland/Northern Ireland issues are on fire again

- Yes they got control of "immigration" (that they always had) and to the shock of some UK retirees in Spain that is reciprocal

- Anyone that exports/imports from the EU (especially more regulated stuff like food, etc) is having to work around the bureaucracy (which shouldn't have surprised anyone that knows a bit about how exports/imports work) https://www.politico.eu/article/a-brexit-lesson-eus-benefits...

- I've been seeing more job offers from the UK listed as remote (hah so you mean no more EU developers in place without visas? Good luck then)

That may all be true, but the EU has not been beneficial for the middle and working classes. It exists to drive down wages, import cheap labor, facilitate business transactions and drive up the stock market.

So I guess the voters thought it couldn't get any worse. Perhaps people will be able to afford a house again in 20 years.

The Northern Irish issue is largely due to the failure of the police and the NI executive to police this event.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-53275733

Even if that was true, remember that UK had for years been the main cause of fights within EU.

The British approach to making a deal was "this is a disaster, we should have be given at least twice that". After 30 years of that, a divorce was for the best solution for both sides.

So whatever the cost, it was worth it.

UK got nothing for services.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com