Brexit Could Be Reversed - Here's How | Hacker News Reader

Brexit Could Be Reversed - Here's How

ft.com

33 pointsyonibot126 comments

I’ve only read half the article and stopped because it seems the author is hopelessly ignorant about some basic facts:

- The EU won’t start the process to admit the UK until joining is politically settled

- Until the Tory party is also onboard with rejoining, it can’t be politically settled

- The Tory party will only get onboard when it’s no longer possible to win power without wanting to rejoin

- Despite there being over 30m voters in the UK, our system ensures only a few hundred thousand swing voters decide the government

- Those voters are still in favour of Brexit

- Finally, ALL polls showing a majority rejoin exclude “Don’t knows,” meaning there’s no actual majority for rejoin

The above facts explain why the Labour Party is not campaigning to rejoin. Until a number of those are changed, the UK simply will not rejoin the EU.

Sources for the last 2 claims?

Labour are doing what any good politicians do and are avoiding a divisive issue to try to appeal to both sides.

The “source” is the fact Labour are not talking about rejoining. We don’t have access to their internal polling, for obvious reasons, but they clearly believe in this strategy and the 20pt lead in the polls suggests they’re right to.

EDIT: I missed the source for the polls. This YouGov poll shows a big “Don’t know” block which is completely missing from the news reports.

Poll: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2023/0...

Sample report: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jun/23/britons-who...

According to those numbers, rejoin is 55% and Leave + Don't Know is 44%.

It always helps to read the sources you cite...

I did and that’s not how polls work.

- Those numbers are much closer than 60/40, for a start

- People change their mind because of a campaign

- The poll doesn’t show how different constituencies will vote

- To get elected, you win constituencies, not the popular vote

- YouGov polling puts “leaving the EU” down at 17% in importance https://yougov.co.uk/topics/education/trackers/the-most-impo...

- Meaning the public don’t want to talk about it

- Labour are focus-grouping EVERY MESSAGE; if they decided rejoin is bad for them, it’s because it’s not what key voters want

> I did and that’s not how polls work.

Since that is exactly how polls work, not sure how you could have read it.

> Those numbers are much closer than 60/40, for a start

Only because I lumped all of the "Don't Knows" into "Leave". Which is unrealistic, but a lower bound for the vote for remain that is above what you claim. So your claim isn't just not right, it isn't even wrong.

If instead I lump the "Don't Knows" in with "Remain", it turns into 68/31. The truth is probably somewhere between 55/44, which is still a 10% spread, and 68/31, which is 37% spread. And 60/40 is not splitting the difference in the middle, it is giving more of the undecideds to leave.

> To get elected, you win constituencies, not the popular vote

To leave the EU, you win the popular vote in a referendum, not individual constituencies. To rejoin would most likely be the same.

And it turns out that the result is even more lopsided in thinking Brexit was mistake when you look at constituencies. In effect the entire country is now Remain.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-regret...

etc.

There’s a number of things missing:

- This poll doesn’t do constituency breakdown

- How many of those people would actually vote?

- Do they know what rejoining entails?

- There is no campaign on rejoin

- In such a campaign, the Brexit media will absolutely spell out how hard rejoining actually is

- Only 17% of people actually think this is important

- The EU still wouldn’t re-admit the UK because nearly half the fucking country still wants to be out!

Speaking of referendums:

> To rejoin would most likely be the same.

No, to rejoin, first you elect a party that either campaigns on rejoin or to hold a referendum. Both are guaranteed vote-losers because of what I posted above: 83% of the country doesn’t want to reopen the Brexit discussion. In addition, with the UK’s voting system, you can have 55% support your position and hand an 80-seat majority to the 45% who oppose.

> And it turns out that the result is even more lopsided in thinking Brexit was mistake

This is simply a garbage poll and doesn’t back up your claim at all. “Do you regret” is not the same as “should we rejoin.”

Let’s go back to the core issue: in the best case, half the country wants to stay out the EU. That is NOT “politically settled” in any sense of the term. Until that changes, with all major parties supporting rejoin, actually rejoining is total fantasy politics.

I've already addressed all your points previously.

No, you just said "but polls!" and ignored everything else.

"ALL polls showing a majority rejoin exclude “Don’t knows”

That'll be like the referendum then.

Except in the referendum, many of those “Don’t knows” turned into “Leave.”

My point is that you can’t just read a poll and confidently declare there’s popular support for rejoining the EU.

I see the EU referendum as being like the question: do you want to cheat on your wife?

And any future referendum as being: do you wish you hadn’t cheated on your wife?

So basically it was 51% leave and it will be 55% regret.

The proverbial has hit the fan in the UK since Brexit. It is all very real now for people and not just some silly wet dream

That doesn’t answer any of my points and doesn’t answer the core reason Brexit won’t be reversed any time soon: rejoining is not politically settled.

remember: the FT have managed to mis-predict every single major UK political event relating to brexit:

  - they'll vote remain
  - they'll ignore the referendum result
  - they won't invoke article 50
  - the article 50 court case will prevent it being triggered
  - we won't exit
  - we'll stay in the single market

they simply have no understanding of how the electorate think

(though I suppose it's possible they may eventually get one right)

Magical thinking generally is alive and well in certain strata of British life. UK politics generally seems to be a game of make believe, with a broad failure to grasp that decline is now baked in.

"perception is reality" is not a trait that is particularly limited to the UK.

To be fair, they're a business paper and from an economic perspective Brexit made absolutely no sense, so it's not that surprising.

maybe it's unrealistic that political journalists should have some insight of the subject matter beyond that of a politics student

(similarly: their recently retired stock-picking columnist revealed he'd never traded a stock)

Did you expect any of those things? Like I followed the process religiously and I kept being surprised by the sheer insanity of all the UK government decisions.

yes, I successfully predicted all of the above

from June 24th 2016: a hard exit with a fudge on the NI border was the only path that kept the tory party in one piece

and the tory party has always prioritised that over everything else

remember: it's the only reason they called a referendum in the first place

the only way it would have gone differently would have been if Labour had a leader other than Corbyn

having him as the opposition guaranteed it would happen

(because Middle England hated the idea of Corbyn in power more than they hated brexit)

I mean no disrespect, but that seems very unlikely.

Like, the Tory party didn't remain in one piece, they expelled a bunch of people and are almost unrecognisable from the people in power in 2016.

Any chance you have comments here or elsewhere supporting your predictions?

They didn’t split. By that metric, they’re still in one piece and that’s the only metric those in the party care about right now.

I was a remainer (ie anti-Brexit).

This article shows what seems to be becoming a general growing consensus that "some people (prominent campaigners and politicians) lied to us for their own benefit" - and there is a more subtle second consensus of "and then forced a hard brexit for their own career gains".

This is a nice consensus because it has evil people to blame, and removes the blame from 50% of the voting public

I am not sure that's a good idea.

We have more or less proof that 50 % of the country cannot work out basics of social democracy, of trade agreements and referendums. Even things like self interest or which of the bastards is lying to you.

It was a massive act of self harm and it was an act of democracy.

Brexit shows there are viable mental models of the world and there are mental models the equivalent of crayon drawings of the sun and ann apple tree.

How do we get sensible disagreement on the viable ones and laugh the crayon drawings out?

I am always reminded of the woman who told John McCain "I am scared of Obama, he is an Arab". McCains reply was inspiring but the look on his face seemed to me to say "how can I fix this one voter at a time? It will take forever".

> How do we get sensible disagreement on the viable ones and laugh the crayon drawings out?

This is the biggest problem. It's an even bigger problem in the US.

The issue is lack of education. There's a reason repub voters are generally not college educated.

The answer is also education, with the caveat you can't educate people who don't want to be educated because they are already too far down a rabbit hole.

Lets not forget what swayed the working class (former Labour stronholds) to vote Brexit in the first place: IMMIGRATION! [aka "free-movement"]

Tony Blair was the only leader to allow Immigration ["free-movement"] from Eastern Europe the from moment they joined the EU. Coupled with English being most peoples second language the UK was flooded with people that helped to keep the wages down (by design of course). And who benefited from that? Not the working class.

And Boris was savvy enough to know that if he campaigned on "get Brexit done" he could topple the "red wall" and score a huge victory.

Keir Starmer thinks Corbyn's "socialism" is what cost them the election (2019). No, it was Brexit and possibly Corbyn's "open borders" policy which killed Labour at the polls.

Next election, no-one will be voting FOR Labour, they will be voting AGAINST the Tories.

> Tony Blair was the only leader to allow Immigration ["free-movement"] from Eastern Europe the from moment they joined the EU.

That's not true. Bulgaria and Romania were limited for the full seven year period.

> Next election, no-one will be voting FOR Labour, they will be voting AGAINST the Tories.

That's true of most elections where power changes hands. If the party in power is doing an average job, the electorate tends not to replace them with an unknown. They have to be doing badly to get kicked out.

A start would be ditching FPTP elections.

People vote with their emotions, regardless of education. But I will concede education helps. However, look at all the educated but gullible fools who still think the Democrat Party is "for the people" compared to the Republican Party. Both parties are for the Ruling Elite. Its just different Rhetoric but same actions and outcomes.

IMO you do root cause analysis on pretty much any major problem the UK is facing and there, right at the bottom, is FPTP.

I am thinking about alternative form of government too, however we should not forget the famous quote that democracy is the worst form of government.

Pieter Hintjens the ZeroMQ founder wrote the book "The Psychopath Code". I learnt that some bad people are enough to make a community capsize. I am not sure whether this applies to democracies as well. It is a completely different scale from Open Source projects. However I think, this book is very valuable in learning why democracies have enormous difficulties.

I am afraid, however, that the alternatives are even worse.

“Half of the people are below average”

These days the only people against rejoining are hardcode Brexiters and those that start their comments with "I voted Remain but..."

They are everywhere, and Labour is sadly doing anything to court these self-flagellant types, so we'll keep ignoring this shadow over our heads for the next 30 years at least.

Edit: to the above. I am being overly negative - like "half the population are fools !". It's not that. Democracy works well (ish) with political parties that are more or less well intentioned - they may have their favourite in groups and be more or less corrupt but as long as one party is not trying to sink the ship, then "the people" do not have to pay much close attention.

The difference in policies between most major parties in any country is small and the difference across counties is much smaller than you would think.

So if you vote on "traditional party lines" you more or less get forward progess.

But if one party actually wants to harm the democracy / state then you get Hitler elected (ok very special case he already had a 3 million person country wide organisational apparatus) but you get my point - if politicians are actually intent on sinking the boat they can slip through if we are not careful.

That seems to have been the 2016 case - europe, Brexit, Trump. Wolves appeared in sheep's clothing and people just picked between sheep.

it's not clear how to fix the problem other than to accept that sometimes we will self harm, and we will need to pay the price, not of electing someone who will promise to fix it for us, but to do the hard work as citizens and become educated, informed, engaged.

I think something like citizenship tests for not immigrants but natives might be an interesting start. USA has an odd head start in you learn to swear allegiance to a flag and a reply bloc every day as kids. That makes some kind of diffeeebce.

Please don't.

Things have been so much smoother in the EU since UK left. Their politicians had this idea that Europe was out to screw them in every deal and that made it a very annoying 30 years of "collaboration".

Things are smooth indeed. Without real opposition, Germany can further drag the continent down the stagnation and economic strangulation through austerity only it benefits from paths as it pleases.

Totally agree. I think also the Scandinavian countries were sad to see the UK go, as someone else has mentioned in another comment, it was a counterweight to German/French hegemony.

I have heard the opposite: that the United Kingdom was, as a rule, an important ally for the economic policies favoured by Germany and others. E.g., “So far the following EU countries have announced that they oppose Eurobonds: Germany, United Kingdom, Finland and the Netherlands.” on p. 186 in Schäfer 2012 = vol. 9.2 in EJCE = https://www.researchgate.net/publication/255726169_The_Sover...

Further more, the UK was an important net contributor.

So I think, on the whole, Brexit was bad for Germany.

Germany has pushed Britain out of the EU by allowing more than one million people in, at a time when the UK had a sensitive debate around the very issue that Germany created along with Russia. Russia pushed, Germany pulled. After that Germany has threatened countries with sanctions if they didnt agree to taking in the very people it welcomed against the wishes of member states. It knew exactly what it did, and it did it to push Britain out of the Union because it found it to its advantage.

EU is growing at interplanetary speeds since 2016.

I'm a remainer, how do you think your portrayal comes across? Even the mere financial contributions alone (net contributor) should be acknowledged and recognized as a force for good for the project during our tenure. Some countries also appreciated our counterweight to the French/German hegemony.

A Scandinavian politician one said, no matter what UK representatives achieved they would go back home to Sunday Mail news headlines about how they had failed, sold UK short and so one.

As a result, if EU offered X, UK representatives would argue that they must get at least X + 25%. During the 30 years this continued, it led to an atmosphere of distrust and aggressive behaviour that honestly the rest of EU was very tired of.

I know that I did. FWIW, if you're from any of the post 2004 members then the UK is the reason that the enlargement happened.

Additionally given that we'll all need security cooperation for the foreseeable it would be easier if that took place under the EU aegis.

But the irony of the 2004 enlargement is that is what primarily led to the UK voting for Brexit.

Yup, and it was predominantly driven by the UK trying to slow down integration.

But, because they pushed for enlargement, they then felt obliged to open their markets to the countries immediately, and that was definitely one of the drivers of the Brexit vote.

If the UK proves itself to be a partner that doesn't want special treatment like before, it sure can be welcomed back by the EU, and if anything it coming back will only strengthen the union by showing that leaving it was considered a mistake in the end.

But I still feel skeptical regarding Brits and British politicians actually being ready to accept the fact they're not special and that they will not have special treatment. I am pretty sure they'll want to pull a sneaky and try to sneak something in to calm down the Tories.

Well only even the most pious remainers would accept the Euro as a currency and removing fiscal sovereignty, so it's a total non-starter.

The special treatment for the old guard (German automotive, French farming industries) also needs to be expunged.

I don't think Germany and France are getting any special treatment. There might be something for the agriculture or automotive sectors, but it will apply to all countries.

So I guess the EU should just let everyone use pounds as currency.

That's precisely why the UK got a rebate, because the subsidies were not applicable to the UK economy, which had a disproportionately low input from farming, thus for our financial input we weren't fairly rewarded.

The UK has had a declining car manufacturing industry also, so the same applies to German industry.

The redistribution of contributions may very well appear fair on paper, but countries cannot simply magic up a pivot to farming and automotive industries as a way to receive funds...

> would accept the Euro as a currency

I don't know why this keeps coming up-- joining the EU does not require adopting the Euro.

Because domestic UK politics wouldn't allow this to pass on technicalities, I mean haven't you learned anything from the build up to Brexit? It would have to be explicit to be palatable, not some technicality that we effectively want to play ball on the Euro, but never really do... Hell, even from the EU side I'd want a honest decision, not political illusion.

I'm not sure what you're even saying. 5/27 states sit outside of ERM2 and are allowed to not progress towards adopting the Euro.

I'm saying a pinky promise (to join the Euro, never to do so) would not be sufficient to reassure the British establishment or electorate of losing fiscal sovereignty. I don't understand why the EU would want this either. It would have to be an explicit "The UK has full fiscal sovereignty".

> I don't know why this keeps coming up-- joining the EU does not require adopting the Euro.

The EU website disagrees:

> All EU Member States, except Denmark, are required to adopt the euro and join the euro area. To do this they must meet certain conditions known as 'convergence criteria'.

https://economy-finance.ec.europa.eu/euro/enlargement-euro-a...

5/27 states are not attempting to meet convergence criteria (ERM2); there is no mechanism to force states to join ERM2.

"60 per cent of Britons now think Brexit was the wrong decision and would vote to rejoin the EU at a second referendum"

Do you think these 60% are unaware that there would be no special deals? And it's 79% of young voters, so even just the demographics will only shift this further, in addition to the ever more obvious data showing just how disastrous Brexit has been, that all the claims were lies.

And what special treatment does the German automative industry get?

It's called the Euro ;)

I'm sortof not really joking but the German export driven economy would have been much harder to maintain with the DM.

LOL.

The Euro was a concession by Germany in order to get France to agree to unification.

Sure, but it ended up benefiting Germany more than anyone else.

One of life's little ironies I suppose.

https://archive.is/FoJ22

There's no way it will happen, the damage has been done and besides, the politicians don't want it.

The referendum should've been nullified when the scale of political interference via social media in 2016 came to light. Also, 52% to 48% is not a resounding "yes" and should not have been considered as one.

More to the point 2/4 countries in the UK voted remain and got dragged out of the EU anyway.

I suppose they could dissolve the United Kingdom.

the UK is unitary state, not a federation or confederation

the previous sovereign states that were dissolved to form it are called "countries" for historical reasons

the referendum was 1 person 1 vote

populations:

  - Scotland and NI (voted Remain): 7.5 million
  - England and Wales (vote Leave): 60 million

allowing 7.5 million to override 60 million, simply because they physically live in an area that was formerly a different state several hundred years ago would be disenfranchisement on a vast scale

not to mention completely undemocratic

> allowing 7.5 million to override 60 million, simply because they physically live in an area that was formerly a different state several hundred years ago would be disenfranchisement on a vast scale

Like how in the Electoral College here in the US, one vote in Wyoming can have almost two orders of magnitude more impact than a vote in California when it comes to electing senators, as each state gets two regardless of population [0]. Similarly, when one looks at the extent of gerrymandering, it’s clear that the winners, and especially one party in particular, love to redraw the lines to cherry-pick the voters that will elect them while excluding others that might challenge them [1]. For presidential elections, the difference between a Wyoming voter’s say and the average say of a voter from any other state is around 3.18:1. Worst-case is of course California, where it’s about 3.6:1 when compared to Wyoming, or said another way, a vote here is worth 27.7% of a Wyoming vote. [2][3]

    0. https://wallethub.com/edu/how-much-is-your-vote-worth/7932

    1. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2021/nov/12/gerrymander-redistricting-map-republicans-democrats-visual


    2. https://fairvote.org/archives/the_electoral_college-population_vs_electoral_votes/


    3. https://www.thestreet.com/personal-finance/how-much-voting-power-do-you-really-have-in-your-state

Or a second referendum held once the terms of the actual withdrawal deal were known, and fell far short of the Leave campaign's promises of, in effect, retaining all the benefits of membership. The EU was still declaring at that point that were the UK Parliament to vote to end the Article 50 process and retain membership, they'd be willing to forget the whole thing.

>Or a second referendum held once the terms of the actual withdrawal deal were known

Exactly, nobody voting for Brexit even knew what they were voting for! Many just had some nebulous, fantastical idea of independence from some "evil" organisation in Brussels.

Actually a lot of politicians and media were talking about something like the EFTA (Norway, etc) arrangement with the EU--and this is what a lot of voters wanted. So they ended up with something vastly different from what they wanted [and would have voted Remain if they had known what the final result was going to be.]

To be fair, this made absolutely no sense. It would have been less harmful yes, but a large financial power like the UK would never have accepted being a rule taker.

I mean that happened anyway, but at least they don't need to keep all of the laws.

Honestly, I never understood why EFTA made any sense for the UK (although as an Irish person I'd have been very happy if they went that way).

Coulda woulda shoulda

They fucked around and now they are in the finding out phase. There is no way the EU will allow them to continue with their jackasseries. If you want back in apply like a new state and accept the shit conditions new members have to accept. You're not special. You're a shadow of a former great empire and your economy is collapsing. Immigrants? Those fools are actually keeping you afloat while you pretend they're the root of all your problems.

Interesting. Why are the conditions to join the eu shit? What’s the purpose? And how does it correlate to a steady stream of convenient immigrants from within the eu towards other states within the union? And why is it always the same states that attract? During the brexit campaign no one asked why people are leaving. What causes such massive displacement of people within the eu?

It's quite naive that you don't think the EU is harmed significantly by Britain leaving. The EU would take Britain back in a heartbeat.

You seem to be making the same flawed assumption that the vast majority of british population does. The EU is not, and has never been, a project primarily driven by economic interests. It is a socio-political union, predicated on the fundamental principle of co-operation between different cultures, who regard each other as equals. But this will always be at odds with the unique superiority complex inherent in the culture of (mainly) white english people. This why UK never actually belonged in the EU and ended up causing endless friction; De Gaulle anticipated this and even blocked UK's membership several times. The reality is the EU was more relieved, than harmed by brexit.

France will never agree to the special rules the UK negotiated when they were part of the EU.

We also do not particularly keep the UK (politically speaking) close to our hearts. The Calais situation, pour contact for submarines passed to the UK (and US), etc.

Pour gouvernement is seen as weak when it comes to conflicts with the UK so politicians will need to take that into account as well.

The UK chipped in a big chunk of their budget, second to Germany. They'd probably like the money even if we are annoying.

There are many uninformed comments in this thread saying that the UK would have to join the Eurozone if it returned to the EU.

No. You only have to adopt the euro if you meet the convergence criteria. One of the criteria is joining ERM II. There's no mechanism that can force a country to join ERM II. This is why Sweden, although theoretically obliged to join the eurozone, still has its own currency.

I think the problem with this is that it's a technicality; the optics of selling it like that wouldn't wash - I suspect the UK would need specific reassurance for the "Euro" topic.

No, why do pro-EU people lie about this so frequently?

The rules say that to join you must adopt the euro. The EU has chosen not to enforce this rule on legacy members for now, but certainly would enforce it on Britain and anyway good luck selling "we want to join but we plan to illegally ignore the rules" to either the EU or the British electorate.

Reality is the EU wasn't every opportunity in the UK and it's blue going to rejoin unless there's essentially some undemocratic coup. The moment is explained what thinking would entail the proposal is dead.

The rules aren't "unenforced". Sweden, and the other non-eurozone countries without an opt-out, are complying with the rules. There's no rule requiring the EU members to meet the convergence criteria.

Instead of accussing me of lying, you could've just looked up the relevant treaties.

Here's an abridged summary: https://economy-finance.ec.europa.eu/euro/enlargement-euro-a...

And this is about ERM II, it explicitly says that it's voluntary: https://economy-finance.ec.europa.eu/euro/enlargement-euro-a...

The full treaty on European Union is here: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...

Tixerb. Here I reversed it.

IQ200 move right here. Just make sure the UK does not learn this weird one trick

The net result of Brexit was a disaster for Britain, and basically ‘who cares’ for Europe. I think that if Britain wants to join, as they say, beggars don’t get to choose.

As a European citizen, I think that Britain belongs in Europe. On the other hand it’s time to grow up for Europe.

The general problem with Remainers is that they tend to see Europe through rose tinted glasses rather that what is actually happening there. Sure, UK is having hard times but look at what is happening in Europe. Rampant unemployment and social issues are the norm in Europe. The issue with Brexit was that the UK leadership never believed it would happen and did not want it to happen. Brexit was never really implemented. With tough times coming, people will see that we can be nimble enough with Brexit to avoid sluggish EU processes.

FT and other media struggle to accept the results of democratic processes

1. The referendum wasn't actually democratic.

2. The obligations that people read into the referendum (incorrectly, but whatever) have been discharged: Brexit happened. That is the past.

3. Democracy is not "One man, one vote, one time". New majorities mean new democratic mandates. Time moves on.

4. And these majorities are much, much larger than ~ 52:48 majority for Brexit. A split that, had it gone for remain, Nigel Farage said would have meant "unfinished business".

I agree with #3 and I imagine Brexit will be reversed because of demographics. Give it a generation or so and the conformist younger people who have had globalisation propaganda and lack of pride in their country programmed into their minds since childhood will vote to rejoin. Every TV show, every teacher, most NGOs, are at it.

Got it, people only ever want to join a bigger federation of states due to brainwashing and lack of pride in their own state. Good to know you have all the answers.

Hard to imagine Britain joining both the Euro and the Schengen zones. I just don’t see the British public not thinking they’re special and demanding exceptions and carve outs just for them.

The currency is a hard no, even from hardent remainer quarters. The Euro and the ECB haven't even been a success for the EU as-is, a single fiscal policy cannot reconcile the economies of Germany and Greece. The hubris of the UK submitting to the Euro isn't pragmatic or in the realms of reality. Participation from the UK hardly changes things also, making it come across almost vindictive.

> The Euro and the ECB haven't even been a success for the EU as-is, a single fiscal policy cannot reconcile the economies of Germany and Greece.

Of course it has been a success. I (half-German, half-Croatian) grew up in times where each of the borders from Germany to Croatia had anything from 1-4 hours of waiting time, you'd need to exchange currency at each border (at outrageous rates) as well simply to be able to pay for fuel and food, and heaven forbid you even got a call on your phone due to roaming charges.

Nowadays? No border controls at least on the way to Croatia any more (the other way around does because of certain far-right politicians), no currency exchanges, no leftover currency when you go back, seamless cross-border bank transfers, no phone roaming surprise bills... it's utterly awesome.

To play devil’s advocate, a lot of that is now ameliorated by the decline of cash and the rise of certain neobanks. I’m in Denmark at the moment, and thanks to my banks (N26, Revolut), I can cheaply convert my savings (EUR) and spend in the local currency (DKK); either at transaction time (N26 and Revolut), or ahead of time (Revolut) all with minimal fees.

Yes and the Neobanks, both N26 and Revolute rely on fact that financial regulators across the block recognise each other, so N26 regulated in Germany can operate in Ireland. Etc.

Sure, but that doesn’t necessarily require a single currency.

For what it’s worth, I’m in favour of the euro (and further EU integration).

What year was this? The removal of a lot of this financial friction was coming to and end regardless of the Euro or ECB. Didn't Croatia only join the Euro this year? I'm finding it hard to believe this archaic mechanism existed up until Jan 2023, that is to say I find the example slightly disingenuous.

The friction between Ireland and the UK is near zero, both have different currencies.

This isn't to say there aren't benefits to the Euro; on an individual level of course not thinking about exchanging or exchange rates makes life easy. It's simply not palatable to the UK, Brits or the core financial institutions by which its service oriented economy excels.

> What year was this? The removal of a lot of this financial friction was coming to and end regardless of the Euro or ECB. Didn't Croatia only join the Euro this year? I'm finding it hard to believe this archaic mechanism existed up until Jan 2023, that is to say I find the example slightly disingenuous.

Indeed, Schengen and Euro were only introduced this year - but I lived through how all of the old crap slowly got dismantled, each year it was one annoyance less.

The most painful thing is to see how many people want to dismantle all of that progress.

Everything except the money changing on your list could be achieved without the Euro.

I was a remainer and I'd love to rejoin and Schengen, the mobile roaming stuff, etc. are all wonderful and I would like them back.

I'm not convinced the Euro would be a good idea and I'm absolutely convinced that you'd lose public support for rejoining if you tried to go that route.

I keep wondering if EEA + Schengen would be a viable middle ground.

No borders on the continent is useful, but not sure what it has to do with currency.

Nowadays when I travel, I just pay with my usual bank or credit card and get good rates without thinking about it. If my bank didn't have good rates, there's Revolut.

The main pain is that the EU hasn't standardised payment systems. So in parts of NL and Germany, you might find your Visa isn't accepted because they only take Maestro, or, in Sweden, Swish, for example.

The only country which benefited from the Euro is Germany and they had the audacity to not only refuse the fiscal policies and transfers which might have made that fair but actually undermine the most affected countries like Greece even more. I personally lost all hope for the union after the debt crisis and considering the state of politics and denial of reality in the north of Europe, I really wish we would just leave too. I’m sad we lost the open border with the UK however, genuinely love the country but I’m not sure the rest of the EU is worth it.

I found Conrad Bastable‘s essay [1] on the subject fascinating.

[1] https://www.conradbastable.com/essays/the-germany-shock-the-...

Yeah, the sentiment from the continental EU, even amongst the euro-skeptic, is that the British are playing both sides; they are European when it suits them, and non-European when it suits them.

I can’t imagine anyone would bend over backwards to accommodate the UK at this point.

I suspect they could maintain an opt out for the Schengen, purely because a land border exists with Ireland, which isn’t part of the Schengen area either. (That being said I’d like it if Ireland joined Schengen, as it makes it just a tad more convenient when flying to the rest of the EU)

Doubtful that they could avoid a commitment to joining the eurozone though.

You couldn’t campaign on it because you’re basically telling the EU upfront that you intend to negotiate joining the EU in bad faith

Apart from the visa policy I can’t imagine how the UK joining the Schengen would change much.

Airports would still require travel documentation (e.g id card or passport)

Unfortunately Ireland will definitely not join Schengen unless the UK rejoin and do the same, as it would really mess up our border with Northern Ireland. I too would like it for the convenience but it's very unlikely to happen.

Ireland is not against Schengen. They are out because of UK and previous agreement. I think they would be extremely glad to join Schengen if UK was forced at exact same time.

I agree (I'm from Ireland, and we're generally fairly pro-EU). Being an island though, the reality it doesn't make a huge difference to us day-to-day.

The way I'd imagine the UK retaining it's opt-out here, is that it's something that the EU could compromise on without really losing much (and importantly without losing face, as the Irish border and preservation of the GFA is a reasonable excuse to find reason to compromise) and that the UK negotiators could then present as a "win" back home, making the other conditions that the UK now has to accept (for example the euro) easier to sell the general populace on.

Obviously though, I'd much prefer if both the UK and Ireland joined Schengen together.

The first time I went to Tenerife I was deeply puzzled by seeing long immigration queues on TFS. It took me weeks of wondering who those people were, before I realized that they were UK vacationers who didn't enjoy any of the convenience of Schengen. Even Swiss and Norwegians would just walk through like on a domestic flight, UK visitors got special attention.

That day I understood a lot more about brexit (that was still undecided at the time I think) than the day before: those who'd vote leave (and even most of those who'd vote stay) never had the opportunity to enjoy anything about the EU as a live, graspable experience, it had always just been an abstract concept for them. Something-something-economy, nothing that touched their lives.

If you're old enough (or sufficiently well-traveled) to have been stopped at borders, gone through the hassle of foreign currency, it's such an awesome "yes, this is the future!" moment to go to a place where people talk a language you don't understand, road signs are weird, but you never stopped, you can use the cash from home and the only sign of passing the border was the customary SMS telling you that all is fine when the phone logs into the roaming network. UK people never had any of that and I believe that the vote would have gone quite different if they did.

The benefits you describe are really unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

Would you also be a fan of a global union with a single currency?

Would Californians prefer to have a separate Cal$?

This was only implemented to "punish" Britons. EU citizens are allowed to use electronic gates in the UK

Brexit was a top level decision disguised as populism. There won't be a new referendum predicated on polling that few trust, then or now. Continental Europe's future alignment may be to the East. The UK no more wants to be on that wagon, nor even the chance of it, than they did in WWI and WWII. Therefore, in my opinion, they won't be rejoining the EU. Articles like this are fodder.

Retaining Brexit diehards is absolutely essential for Tories to avoid a complete battering at the next general election. This is just the sort of tosh that will scare any centre-left-leaning Europhobes back on side.

Stories like this and —more recently— anti-green policies will run thick throughout the coming campaign.

When the UK media and general public talked about Europe they didn’t include themselves in that term, so it’s no surprise Brexit happened on a macro level. It’s a cultural failing first of all for Europe.

General de Gaulle was right in the 60s that the brits are more trouble than they're worth. France is smart and won't let them back in. Brexit is now and forever as far as the EU is concerned.

The guy who famously received safety for himself and his family in Britain during the war, what a thanks indeed... Believe it or not I've heard this anecdote told as a projection of anti-European sentiment, have you considered what might have been for the Anglo-European relationship had he not felt France was the centre of the European project and portrayed the UK this way?

He saw Britain as a stooge for the USA. He was right. He still is.

Then it appears we had no choice, a self fulfilling prophecy.

The Gaulle considered the United Kingdom too closely aligned with the United States for comfort. At the time, De Gaulle's first veto on that topic came shortly after the US agreed to supply the UK with Polaris missiles for the UK's nuclear weapons program.

De Gaulle also wanted to shield the nascent EEC from the United States's influence as much as possible. For him, integrating the United Kingdom into the EEC would have moved the EEC's barycenter too far towards Washington.

I find it hard to see us rejoining in a hurry but I think we could move to a soft brexit, Norway / Switzerland type deal fairly soon assuming Labour get in.

Wishful thinking. First the EU needs to change itself so people will want to re-join. Rather it seems that the EU is going opposite direction. After Covid era, I guess no sound person trust its institutions anymore.

Can you elaborate on this? As someone relatively uninformed as to what the EU did during COVID that makes it unsound now.

> First the EU needs to change itself so people will want to re-join

Already happened. From the fine article:

"60 per cent of Britons now think Brexit was the wrong decision and would vote to rejoin the EU at a second referendum"

And young voters are just a tad more lopsided:

"Young voters are the most pro-EU of the lot, with 79 per cent of 18- to 24-year-olds wanting to rejoin"

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