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Comment by LatteLazy | Hacker News Reader

We should, though I don't think Scotland or NI will be allowed to leave this shitty party, "misery loves company" is the UK motto.

Realistically, we have to wait at least another decade for a generation of crazies to die off. Then we can try and be a country again.

Not many people know, but when we first tried to join the EU (then the European Communities), our application was veto'd twice by France. Having been proven right about us, I am not sure they'd let us in again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_membership_of_t....

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It was in the news yesterday that the amount of people identifying as Catholics has overtaken Protestants for the first time on record in Northern Ireland. I don’t think it will be too long in the overall scheme of things until they rejoin Ireland, especially if Scotland can make a break for it first. If things get worse over the next two years I think Sturgeon’s going to have a really strong mandate for independence, especially if Tories somehow manage to get re-elected. Will be harder for her if Starmer gets in.

I'm not sure the British people would be willing to accept the sorts of concessions EU members are likely to impose on them for re-entry. Given the mess that was Brexit, I could see, at minimum some sort of financial penalty paid directly by the British people (since they would be voting to leave) and a forced adoption of the Euro.

But who knows what the next 20 years holds for the Eurozone.

> I'm not sure the British people would be willing to accept the sorts of concessions EU members are likely to impose on them for re-entry

There won't be any concessions. For there won't be any reentry of the UK into Europe. Its impossible after all the vile ire that was directeda gainst Europe and Europeans by the British media, establishment and the very Brexit Britainers.

That vile attitude is recorded on the Internet forever and it will never go away. And a delirium like 'Don't talk about it anymore' like how the Brexit Britainers seem to push inside the UK these days don't fly in Europe. People don't have the memory of a fish and they certainly won't forget how they were treated.

https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/10/24/inenglish/14773...

The British people basically divide into 2 groups: productive younger (<40) workers who are getting fucked in every imaginable way, and older entitled idiots. Sooner or later the older ones will die out, and the idiots will always be there but won't have a majority anymore.

Only the second group give a shit about nationalism and voted for Brexit (and only because they knew THEY would not pay for it). The other half of us not only don't care, but certainly don't see why we should pay for it.

God I wish I was young enough to emigrate easily.

Ireland is the easiest one and one I’m seriously considering. You can move and work visa free as a UK citizen, and after you’ve lived there for 5 years you can claim Irish citizenship. EU passport back and can go wherever you want. I quite like the Irish craic so I might end up making it home for good.

Handy if you’ve got roots in the UK as well because you’re not far away, especially if you live near Dublin which has flights to most major cities in the UK for £20 to £30. Only problem is they’ve got an even worse housing crisis and cost of living crisis than we do. Significantly more expensive than even Scandinavia.

It does strike me as more than a little ironic that you are advocating to moving to a country with famously low historical corporate tax rates[1], and which has a similar tax rate to the UK without the (just removed) 45% tier[2]. on a thread which is about the British government lowering tax rates.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/07/ireland-poised... [2] https://www.revenue.ie/en/personal-tax-credits-reliefs-and-e...

You're not wrong, but I would not compare UK and Irish corporation tax rates. In the UK, any company that is publicly traded, multinational or larger than a few million in revenue a year pays a different set of taxes at a much lower rate. What we call "corporation tax" is really more like "small company and self employed people using limited liability" tax. It's only called corporation tax for historic reasons.

Just fyi. Most people don't realise this, including most Brits. It's something if an in joke for accountants and people who own LTDs.

It’s not the taxes I’m looking to escape, it’s the nutcase Tory government, the monarchy and the backwards brexit voters who seem to run the country now.

It's an English speaking country. If I were a UK citizen I would look at Australia or USA if Ireland doesn't pan out.

Lot easier said than done. If you‘re self taught and don’t have a degree it’s very, very difficult to get into either. You need to accumulate six years of experience in one of their in demand occupations to even be considered.

I won't go into arguing this point (I'm commenting on this thread in general), but I'd like to make one point.

There is a lot of chat about how horrible and stupid and crazy anyone who voted for Brexit was.

For me this has the effect of shutting down any debate whatsoever, and making HN just another group-think forum destroying the main reason why I come here and read.

You may strongly disagree with the ruling party - that's fine, but the politicians advocating their ideas are by not means stupid (Kwarteng has a PhD in economic history from the University of Cambridge, Truss read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Merton College, Oxford). Rachel Reeves the shadow chancellor for that matter has a MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics.

All of these people know far more about economics than I do and for the most part whether I agree with them or not, I believe that they do have the best interests of Britain at heart; and I would say being "devoid of ideas" might be due to the circumstances in Britain and the world being pretty challenging with there being no easy answers. It doesn't take looking much beyond our borders to see that other countries' leaders are also struggling to deal with difficult circumstances (Olaf Sholz is leading a very divided Germany; Macron is being challenged by both extremes; Italy looks to be electing a pretty far-right leader).

Let's try to keep the name-calling and insulting to a minimum - it really doesn't help anyone, nor is it going to convince anyone of the rightness of your cause.

Careful, I didn't call Kwarteng an idiot. I'm sure the top .1% of the Brexit club are very smart, well educated and highly credentialed. They're also liars and fraudsters.

What I said about the government is that they had no new ideas and no long term thinking. I think that holds true. For all his qualifications, the best the chancellor can manage is minor changes to a few tax rates in the face of an economic emergency. Most of his tax changes just reverse the changes made last year. So his ideas are just back to 2020. Hardly new stuff.

Is any of that an unfair or inaccurate characterisation of the current government or brexiteers?

As for debate with brexiteers, that isn't really possible. You cannot debate someone who won't accept the facts and who lies about (or doesn't know) their reasons for their position. Only 1 brexiteer in the 100s I've met has managed that and he was just a racist (though he was at least honest enough to say so).

At this point "debate" is pointless, the facts are in, one side refuses to accept them and we are where we are. The social and psychological causes might be worth discussing, but you don't need brexiteers for that, anymore than you need to talk to a cancer to understand cancer...

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