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Comment by donkeyd | Hacker News Reader

Probably what Brexiteers expected to happen, that everything they don't like disappears and nothing gets worse.

Am currently living in England, can confirm things they don't like didn't disappear and things have, in fact, been getting worse

But hey, happy fishes and being able to flaunt that stylish passport on the massive customs queue

Maybe I should get myself a job in the continent and move there...

UK government is working hard to replace all the worst aspects of the EU with homegrown alternatives.

Examples? And what about replacing all the good things the EU provided with homegrown initiatives?

So one example is pushing the surveillance and anti encryption agenda covered in this article.

What were the good things beside less hassles when travelling and some money thrown at universities? Genuine question.

Erm, free movement of goods and services, labour, capital. Access to the world's largest single market with no restrictions which by itself allows more UK businesses to thrive. Huge benefit to being able to choose from numerous places to live and work.

The UKs trade swagger is demonstrably worse without free access to the single market. Numerous academic studies have shown that long-term the UK will be worse off.

Trade is the big one.

Dare I say worse ones for privacy and public protection.

The real reason Brexit happened is that people were concerned about the immigration of poor Europeans in the UK and the future prospects of having to bear a share of the poor Africans together with the rest of EU.

I was a poor European who moved to the UK and I've seen first hand the problems that immigration of poor people can cause on crime (from drunks to petty theft to stabbing) and how much the locals dislike it.

I've seen the same happening in Italy and the situation nowadays is so bad I would be genuinely scared to live next to the train station in any major city in Italy.

I think a model based on skills is the best approach: if you want to move in you should be able to prove you're skilled and that we need you. Once you pass the checkboxes the process should also be much smoother than what it is right now, the typical bureaucratic nightmare.

What amazes me is how few details were in the referendum. The question asked was "Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?" and the possible responses were "Remain a member of the European Union" and "Leave the European Union".

There are a lot of ways Brexit could have been implemented. One extreme would be to make it so the UK has no special arrangements with the EU. It would be just another non-EU country, like say Mexico or Japan, that trades with the EU. Agreements and treaties would arise eventually to deal with issues as needed.

The opposite way would be to make it more like say Norway. Norway is not a member of the EU but is part of the Schengen area along with many EU countries greatly easing travel. It's part of the European Economic Area, easing trade.

Are politics in the UK stable enough that at the time of the vote one could predict which kind of Brexit would be implemented? I don't think anyone seriously thought that Brexit would be fast, so implementation would be years after the referendum.

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