Why Britain may never rejoin the EU | Hacker News Reader

Why Britain may never rejoin the EU

thomasprosser.substack.com

Uninformed person from the middle of North America, here. I read this article and I get the sense the author was delicately writing around certain issues. The part about UK becoming more illiberal (but not as illiberal as Turkey) strikes me as one such place, but like I say, middle of North America....

Exactly how illiberal? I suspected the whole Brexit thing was to increase power and prestige of hereditary aristocrats. Would an illiberal UK become less democratic and more medieval aristocratic?

There's not much fundamentalist religion, as there is in Turkey, so going full crusader seems unlikely.

Would the UK try to restore it's old empire, like Turkey did with the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus?

Simplest way to explain it in americanese: Brexit happened because British MAGA’s voted for it. An older generation and less-informed younger folks believed in British exceptionalism/history of empire without taking into consideration the fact that the empire was long gone and founded on the brutal exploitation of indigenous peoples across the world.

They blamed european (polish) and African immigrants, and regulators in Brussels for their problems. They were sold a false bill of goods by charismatic politicians who couldn’t back it up. Now they’re paying the price and they will for a generation or more.

‘Bregret is widespread, much analysis assuming that public opinion is significant. But Britain is locked out of the EU and public opinion will change, potentially favouring the new status quo.

Path dependence is a crucial concept in institutional theory, predicting that constituencies stabilize politico-economic systems. These constituencies may be the SMEs who benefit from post-Brexit deregulation, the fishermen who have better access to British waters and/or the low-skilled workers who enjoy reduced competition with immigrants.

Whilst poor economic performance may characterize this equilibrium, initial reports associating Brexit with lower growth, this might not be as destabilizing as some predict. Given Britain has no plausible medium-term route back into the EU, the country will have to adjust.

There are few obvious comparisons with Britain, yet Turkey is relevant, the blocking of accession in the 2000s frustrating Turkish liberals. Britain may not become as illiberal as Turkey, yet, like Turkey, may be further from EU membership in 20 years.’

You basically said absolutely nothing in 5000 words.

Some would call it a skill ;-)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com