Five years of Brexit reshaped Britain
ft.com
ft.com
Here is a current poll.
“11% of Britons say Brexit has been a success, with more Leavers saying it has gone badly than well”
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/51484-how-do-britons-...
> And so far, do you think that Brexit has been more of a success or more of a failure? %
With 62% saying failure (the rest are don't know/neither).
Note that only 55% say it was wrong to leave, and on such a close referendum anyway I'm not even sure that's a statistically significant different answer than in 2016.
Key point: you can think it hasn't gone well (managed poorly, opportunities no taken, whatever) without thinking it was wrong, or even that in hindsight being in the EU is better.
(You can also have voted to remain, but now want to make the best of it, and think it's going well/badly - it's completely independent.)
Conveniently ignoring that only 30% say we were right to leave. Nice try.
I was comparing the 'failure' to 'wrong' figures; yes you can also compare 'right' if you want. You can also compare many other figures that I don't think you are 'conveniently ignoring', it's just if you want everything you can go and read the linked survey results.
I think that's why so many US voters are now telling each other "I hope you get what you voted for" after the last presidential election. Sometimes you need a really, really bad hangover to decide that you need to make some changes in your life.
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/3534-will-britain-vot...
But now, leaving seems to be like constantly picking at a festering scab.
Then you start realising that the fab new modules you were thinking of using have all sorts of missing features and limitations and now your performance has dropped x% and memory usage went up instead of down.
...but you put the old module on the banned list and can't take the hit to your credibility of admitting that it wasn't as bad as the alternatives.
Does it? I feel similarly to your description of joining about it: maybe I can't join an EU line (more often I now join an EU + UK + ... line, so it's only a signing quirk) and my passport is a different colour, but otherwise it hasn't made a difference day-to-day.. at all? Maybe if I was an international lorry driver or something?
(I assume UK ETA is the same, but I haven't travelled in with anyone requiring one yet. My wife doesn't with a BRP which is also a euphemism for a visa if you like, and that is similarly straightforward.)
"Apart from [big long list of stuff people never thought much about before] what has the EU ever done for us?!?"
The Treaty of Rome indeed.
There were 26 years between the UK joining and the euro being introduced. 29 between that and coins & notes being in people's hands (for the first three years the currency was primarily only used for accounting purposes not day-to-day, though in the run up to 2002 prices were often presenting in both currencies in preparation for the public switch starting).
> But now, leaving seems to be like constantly picking at a festering scab.
There was a plan for joining. Leaving was a desire without a (properly thought out) plan.
After joining it took time to fully integrate and over the decades, unpicking all that was always going to be much more complicated than merging into it in the first place (the “we are not in any more, we don't have to do a thing or pay what we'd already agrees” ideas many brexit supporters seemed to have were pure fantasy). Most divorces are more complicated than the marriage that preceded them.
Of course, it is all us remoaners fault for not helping the leavers make their plan. :)
What's hurt us from leaving is the single market. It's now vastly more difficult to trade with the EU, our closest geographical neighbour. Lots of post-referendum talk about amazing trade deals with Australia and the USA and Canada and India came largely to nothing, and they're all so far away and much more difficult to manage the logistics of. Plus the awkward situation where Northern Ireland is still kind of in the single market and kind of not, due to the need to preserve various agreements about trade and movement over the Irish border.
Ultimately, EU membership was what helped us get out of the economic pit we were in in the early 1970s. It's what helped us build the massive services economy which fuelled the 1980s on a wave of consumer credit and London skyscrapers. I'm not saying those are necessarily good things, but the day to day impact of EU membership was actually enormous - just most people weren't consciously aware of it.
Which is why it was possible for a bunch of charlatans to convince a tiny majority to vote to leave it.
there was (and still is) no single market for services, so how could have joining the EEC have caused any of these things?
the 80s boom this was purely a result of Thatcherite policy (for better or worse), it had nothing to do with the EEC
In that case, yes. But other kind of services do take advantage of the single market. The issue is the language barrier, so Germany, Austria benefits a bit more than other, but with non-english speakers aging out of the workforce, this is changing (we used to be mostly franco-belge, we now work with Spain, Italy and Romania. Weirdly our bad accent makes it easier to understand each others than Oxford English)
Well, let's address the "there still is no single market...". You are entitled to your opinion, but it differs to the official stance from the EU.
Here the page about the Single Market for Services: https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/single-market/ser...
Now let's have a look at the Treaty of Rome (1957): https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=LEGISSUM...
The summary says:
> It created a common market based on the free movement of:
> goods
> people
> services
> capital.
I assume we can differ in the opinion of how much of that has been achieved and at what time, and I agree it is far from perfect, but your statement is rather undifferentiated and categorical.
the EU taking credit for things for which it was entirely uninvolved? imagine that
> Now let's have a look at the Treaty of Rome (1957)
the Treaty of Rome (1957) was, and still is, an aspiration
the signing of it did not spontaneously unify the laws and regulations of its parties, create a common market, unified defence policy, and create a political union. this took time and is still ongoing
> I assume we can differ in the opinion of how much of that has been achieved and at what time
the Single European Act itself, the instrument which created the EU single market did not enter effect until 1987, so clearly it could not have been the catalyst for the changes to the UK services economy in the 70s
the EU single market still does not encompass most services: professional qualifications are almost entirely controlled by member states, there is no banking union, there is no capital markets union, and it goes on
it does not exist in any functional way whatsoever
you don't have to make my word for it, you can read it in the EU's own reports on the subject, such as the latest here: https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/document/download... (1.1 Barriers in the Single Market)
this is very different to the single market for goods, which is extremely effective and functionally complete
but why debate this, when we have a direct example to refer to? a member state with significant intra-EU service exports leaving the single market
if being part of the EU single market for services was important, you would expect that UK service exports to the EU would decline significantly as a result
so, what happened in reality?
the exact opposite: UK service exports to the EU have increased since brexit
this should confirm to even the most pro-EU person that the single market for services is woeful
I also remember the Liberal Democrats advocating for a referendum on EU membership from the early 2000s onward. However, when the vote finally happened, the level of vitriol and disdain the party directed at Leave voters completely changed my perception of what "liberal" and "democratic" truly mean. Their stance no longer aligned with those ideals.
Corporate lobbying has a significant impact on EU policy, often overshadowing the interests of its citizens. The EU’s influence is a mix of positives, negatives, and deeply concerning interventions. One striking example was when the entire EU was forced to pay higher prices for imported solar panels to protect a single German company. Another was the rushed adoption of CFL lighting just before LED technology became viable—CFLs contain mercury, posing a serious health hazard if broken, and many have likely ended up polluting landfills.
While I support the idealistic vision of a united Europe, many well-intentioned policies have been poorly thought out, leading to unintended consequences. The depopulation of many towns and villages across Europe due to youth migration is a direct result of EU-driven policies, yet little thought was given to the broader impact.
The UK sought EU reforms, but when those were denied, a referendum became inevitable. Many who voted Leave did so because the trade bloc they originally joined had evolved into something they no longer recognized. For decades, key decisions were made without direct input from the British people. It's no surprise that those who had once voted to join felt compelled to vote to leave. Yet, the mainstream media labeled them as racists, disregarding the complexity of their concerns.
Beyond the UK's experience, France’s actions in African countries when it adopted the Euro are worth investigating—they reveal a shocking side of EU monetary policy. Meanwhile, Germany, whose strong currency transitioned smoothly into the Euro, benefited enormously—often at the expense of struggling nations like Greece and Italy, which found themselves locked into an economic framework that served German interests far more than their own.
Saddest part is, France blocked any reforms until the UK had left the EU, and had they only engaged back then and made some reforms, the UK could have justified a new vote on the EU, with a more informed opinion. That in itself is a tradegy, but then the UK being physically seperated from Europe, has always seen many cultures and approached, not as aligned as the Europe and subsequently the EU as a whole, which beyond cheap holidays, duty free, not many really embraced the EU as a whole and vice versa.
Can you elaborate on this? I know enough to know that I should not pretend to know anything.
It also touched on here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiD24uEvY1U
Basically, the CFA got locked into the Euro currency when France joined it penalised African countries (former French colonies) into it as the CFA was pegged to the French Franc. This made those former colonies crippled by exports to anywhere apart from France who with the CFA setup that those African countries having to store 50% of their currency reserves with France at a 0.75% interest rate. Combined with the subsequent Euro pegging, that alone penalised those former African colonies with the CFA. Equally, they gained nothing from France joining the Euro and lots more pain.
However you feel about the way the EU and member states are currently run, it's odd to make such a big deal about leaving and then copy everything about the EU. Feels like you're just creating an EU country with less freedom of movement and free trade.
I'd speculate that Brexit was actually a response to an energy crisis slowly eroding living standards and people are getting more antsy when it turns out that it didn't lead to saner energy policy than the EU mainland. I remain glad that I'm closer to China who, for all her faults, at least has the whole energy-and-prosperity link under control. I wish my civilisation would re-learn that one.
[0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-energy-use?tab...
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?...
Suppose a country goes on a broad national campaign to insulate drafty houses. That drops energy use, but has no corresponding drop in living standard.
i.e. there is some sort of measure/factor for efficient application of energy needed for it to really be meaningful
Because if that were true I'd expect the UK would be a world-leading paradise with vast energy surpluses and everyone having a high old time in great comfort. That isn't the vibe they're giving off. They look like a nation with a slow-rolling energy crisis and a social contract that is coming under quite a bit of pressure because of it. Happy people don't vote for Nigel Farage.
Also, the US is down 30% as well since peak MWh/person. If you had invested $1 in the S&P 500 at that peak, in about 1970, you’d have about $300 now. Seems like energy use mightn’t be all that coupled to economic success, but if you want to call the US since 1970 a failed society I’m not going to stop you.
The US just elected Trump, where he won the popular vote. And are experiencing a sort of general crisis across financial, military and political domains. I don't think the US is particularly stable either, they just cope a bit better than the Europeans and are more flexible in calling for change when things aren't working out. Although I doubt it'll help them in the short term.
B) Or we could blame people not keeping five terrible refrigerators with no insulation at full blast instead of one good modern one.
I mean it’s probably not option A entirely, there’s sure to be options C through to Z too, but I’m probably not gonna consider B overly relevant.
That's kinda my point - we don't know the answer. The 33% could be a bad thing (deindustrialization), or a good thing (energy efficiency) or the most like - a mix.
It's largely a meaningless datapoint on its own.
It can't be energy efficiency. Energy efficiency causes energy consumption to increase. That's basic economics [0]. The argument, at best, is that the energy efficiency improvements are cancelling out the energy availability problems to the point where quality of life stays about the same. Although the type of efficiencies gains we'd need to see to cancel out a 33% drop would be so staggering to the point where it'd be a major deal to the point where nobody would be able to stop pointing at the UK's outrageous success as an international beacon of Quality of Life improvements.
The actual message seems to be that they're having a lot of troubles and QoL is dropping.
Switching from incandescents to LEDs reduces electricity consumption by up to 90% to produce the same amount of light. I mean sure, someone will have twice as much light in their life after that switch. Heck, show me the person who now have five times more light bulbs in their ceiling.
But show me the person who now has ten bulbs in the ceiling to make your statement marginally true, or twenty times, increasing annually, to make it representative of your point.
No, really. Show me the person who has twenty times the holes in the ceiling than originally designed, twenty times the light, they must have gone permanently blind. It’d be fascinating to meet that person. Given the confidence with which you stated that it’s basic economics, is it you?
And an important concept that you may be unaware of is 'fungibility' - that means some goods (energy being a prime example) can be repurposed across a wide range of activities and not just lighting. So if people don't need to put as much energy into lighting then they take the energy they would have used and put it to something else, like more comforts in their life. It is a very reliable trend.
Also pretty sure that Jevons’ paradox might actually not apply indefinitely for a finite resource with a real price attached to it, but how does me, the ignoramus, dare to stand in the way of this ever more exponentially enlightened (literally) economic powerhouse.
Here’s an important concept you seem to be unaware of: elasticity of demand.
Jeez, I better randomly turn on a resistive space heater in the middle of summer when I’m not home so we can all live better lives somehow.
Do you think I should randomly flail my arms about in the hope it’ll somehow make more dividends for my bank of choice? Just want to double-check.
Well the data does seem to incline in that direction. Particularly the UK, as far as I can tell it is impossible to be both intellectually honest and believe that a 33% (!) reduction in per capita energy is good for people's living standards. Someone'd have to be wilfully ignorant of Jevons' paradox, the only way to get that drop off is some sort of squeeze in their ability to access energy which isn't fun to live through. I feel for the poor who are being forced to live with that and be told that they're better off and shouldn't believe their lying eyes. It also neatly explains a lot of the political trends the UK has undergone in the last decade like the high debt level and general dissatisfaction with the leadership.
And here I thought we did “normal” things like “switch on the light” and notice that an LED still works just as well as an incandescent.
Or some decide to turn on the dishwasher instead of doing the dishes by hand, which does it far more efficiently.
Just wondering, since you seem to know, how do I make the money directly come out of the wall? Do I need to turn the crappy old five space heaters all to setting three to get all the money? Or should I just use the reverse cycle AC at a comfortable temperature like a normal person?
Also, you’re calling the US’ economic success since 1970 a failure, since that also saw a drop in per capital use of 33%, so I’ll happily trade you all the money you made since 1970 for a pile of wooden logs, seems like that’d be a great deal for you, eh?
That would increase measured energy consumption per capita.
> Also, you’re calling the US’ economic success since 1970 a failure
They've gone from the world's leading hegemon to arguably 2nd largest economy vs China which is now the world's industrial superpower. And indeed there are a lot of notable turns for the worse [0] in the US that started coming up from the 1970s. I do think there is a case to be made the the US's post-70s economic policy has been pretty lackluster. And there does seem to be a real problem that set in around 2000, it has been pretty much worse-to-worse steps since then. The energy trend is related.
> And here I thought we did “normal” things like “switch on the light” and notice that an LED still works just as well as an incandescent.
How much energy do you think that is saving? Order of magnitude?
I feel compelled to ask, how are you using your personal 400 kW today? Surely you must be using that amount since you think it’s vital to your personal prosperity. Is it Bitcoin mining or… honestly I can’t think of anything else?
> That would increase measured energy consumption per capita.
Not if the water is heated I would have thought is the understood assumption. But if you want to wash them in near enough ice water while pumping a substation into your crypto operation, then you do you.
Also, congrats. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bolder claim than calling the US stock market since 1970 an underperformer. Let us know that we evidently don’t, but make sure you’re not backtesting there with 50 years of hindsight. Make a prediction of similar boldness. I’m probably not gonna put money on that though, just wanna put that up my index fund investing front.
2. All the graphs relate to energy, energy is the economy. It is literally impossible to fabricate/transport any good or run any service without some sort of energy consumption happening. The reason the energy trend matters so much is because it leads every activity.
> I feel compelled to ask, how are you using your personal 400 kW today?
There is, and I speak with a great deal of literalness when I say this, no aspect of either of our lifestyles that doesn't involve consuming energy. I suspect you have a poor understanding of what energy is.
> Also, congrats. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bolder claim than calling the US stock market since 1970 an underperformer
An economy isn't the stock market. And I don't know how you made that mistake since just in another of your post you were complaining that too much money was going to billionaires! The stock market has been going great, the economy has been going so-so trending towards poorly.
Maybe not in this universe, but good luck to you nevertheless.
And yeah that was a typo. I guess that’s what happens when you use but a few watts on a mobile phone instead of an AI on the latest RTX to burn the equivalent half a log for every letter. I guess I’m not respecting the needs of the economy too much by doing that, eh?
It is clear post 2007, UK and France and perhaps Germany as well had 15 years of stagnation. Using Bank of England 's calculator [2] £10.00 in 2008 would equal to £16.00 today.
[1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?location...
[2] https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/in...
https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/index.php?tbl=T...
China appears to have a similar progress.
Which makes sense as energy is a costly input and so using less to get the same result is a good thing.
In other documents the EIA list people moving to Southern states as one of several factors driving this trend.
Just moving from coal and gas plants of 40% efficiency to 60% combined cycle gas plants would make everything consuming the generated electricity use 1/3rd less primary energy with no changes on their end.
That does more to cast doubt on the GDP than anything else; a lot of the commonly used metrics are flawed. One of the interesting things about the Trump campaign(s) is his message is typically that the economy is bad and it seems a lot of people have on-the-ground experiences that match that.
Since GDP dissociated from energy use in the 70s, I tend to side with the people who think the metrics are flawed. If GDP isn't a proxy for energy it isn't obvious what it is measuring or why anyone should care about that - for all that people do for reasons that are hard to unravel. There is a such a thing as intangible wealth but on aggregate it still pales compared to the tangible sort that requires energy.
> Just moving from coal and gas plants ...
One of the reasons I link the OurWorldInData series is they include fudge factors to try and account for that. If you look at the graph you can see it uses something they call the substitution method.
I get the vague feeling this has been pointed out to you before but maybe not.
And it knows that plant efficiency is increasing over time so it updates the compensation factor it uses. That means that over time a nuclear plant producing the exact same amount of electricity every year will look like a declining primary energy usage.
The effect is slightly muted by their use of a global average efficiency conversion factor. An actual country deploying globe leading efficiency fossil fuel plants would see a greater effect in the direct, un-substituted numbers as less fossil fuels will be needed to generate the same amount of electricity.
The Brexit vote was June 2016. The withdrawal agreement was first drafted in 2018. The business impact was being felt for years before Covid as uncertainty and confusion affected investment.
In the UK it has basically been a massive injection of inequality.
I'd rather have money printing be used for long-term investments, all things being equal.
But if it can be done, I'd rather inject it in the real economy rather than in the stock market and second-hand real estate. Multiple things could have been done to do that. Rent freeze + automatic social security payments (rather than paying the business, you pay the now inactive employees until the economy starts again) would have been great.
Universal basic income, known as UBI is one tool to enable this. Removed inequality and equally, restores dignity and makes benefits and the lambasting and disdain of those in that position a thing of the past.
I think you can safely cancel out Covid and Putin when comparing the way living standards and cost of living have changed over the last decade between the UK and countries like France, Germany, The Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, etc.
Do you feel differently?Are you baiting some reponse for sake of proving a point?
As for finance, it seems a complicated area. Some UK companies seem to list on the NYSE now which is a reminder that when we lose things they don't only have to be lost to the EU.
So, I think the real issue was the new investments (net FDI fell off a cliff for years after the vote). Generally companies won't move unless forced to, but new companies generally seemed to avoid the UK post Brexit.
In fact, Ireland benefited from a bunch of this, I worked for 1-2 companies who'd moved their headquarters and staff from the UK to IE because they needed an EU base.
> Indeed London is still a very attractive place for EU skilled labour despite the added friction.
Honestly, not unless you work in finance. I was offered a Big tech role in London a few years back, and it was basically my euro salary converted into pounds, so it didn't make any financial sense for me to move (which is easy because I'm an Irish citizen).
I don't know what stats you're looking at. As a percentage of market share the UK is essentially where it was in 2017 and inline with historical trends. Moreover it has been recently increasing largely due to poor conditions in Germany.
https://www.ey.com/en_uk/newsroom/2024/07/foreign-direct-inv...
You'll need to download the XLS file but it definitely seems to show substantial declines since 2016 (post Brexit vote).
That being said, the numbers are so large that I'm concerned I'm misinterpeting something.
My original comment was based on something reported in the FT recently, though I find myself unable to find the article itself.
Great for their home country, bad for the UK.
London is #2 Nearest EU is at #10
it's an insignificant fraction of financial services London provides and certainly not significant data point to measure the EU against London
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_stock_exchanges (Nasdaq Nordic and Baltic are presented combined into one valuation)
exchange traded equities are a minority of trading (probably not even 1%)
a) Having English be the national language is a massive advantage which only Ireland shares (and Ireland has plenty of American tech outposts). That's an advantage people don't mention often.
b) The EU keeps adding regulations, which make it a less attractive place to invest. The UK seems to copy each of these regulations though, which maybe makes this a moot point.
But I think ultimately, it's probably down to network effects. The same way Twitter/X stuck around even though basically everything about it changed, cities might do the same.
The UK and EU have roughly similar problems, benefits, infrastructure and regulatory environments.
If there was a Singapore-like city state off of the coast of France, I'm sure things would look different.
Which new EU regulation since Brexit has UK copied into law?
...and then proceeded to basically copy every EU regulation. Whatever one's take is on EU regulation, it's just odd to me to do that because you basically lose the upside of the EU while keeping the downside.
The result is we suffered only 10% of the maximum damage in exchange for 0% of the "advantages" (can't sign our own trade deals, no say in the EU, must take rules, last in queue for access etc).
I think this is actually the worst outcome long term: a car crash hard Brexit would have all but assured reentry in the long term. Instead we will be in Europe for all practical purposes but dragging our feet at the back...
this is not true in the slightest, we had the 2nd hardest exit possible
a possible outcome could have been that we left the EU and remained in the EU single market and EU customs union
there's this rather famous EU commission slide of the various options the UK could take: https://i.kinja-img.com/image/upload/c_fit,q_60,w_1315/adf2f... with integration decreasing as you move right (the "brexit hardness")
we ended up with the Canada option, the only harder option would have been to drop out without a signed deal (which thankfully didn't happen)
The predicted overnight exodus didn't happen, but I'm certainly seeing a slow bleed out happening. We've had attrition on London headcount & all the replacements are in EU.
Nothing was done in this regard. Frankly speaking the government thought the border check was good. And both UK and EU and each individual countries customs have very different views of the rules.
>Starmer’s negotiations with the EU could reduce friction for some individual sectors, such as food and drink exporters, if Labour makes good on its promise to strike a veterinary agreement with Brussels.
Only agriculture sector, not Food and Drink which often implies something else.
>smaller companies had less capacity to deal with “the deluge” of new bureaucracy, while larger businesses had the money and staff to adapt.
I can assure you even large businesses took very long time and still failed to adapt.
We can all argue about whether Brexit was right or wrong on politics. But there isn't a single shred of doubt post Brexit handling was absolutely appalling.
That’s not the bit that confuses me, the bit that I’ve never had a satisfying answer to is why would anyone have believed anything else might be possible?
If the task was akin to extracting your eggs from a baked cake, then which personalities looked up to the job in 2016?
The problem is absolutely no one inside the government, politicians or civil servant has any idea about trading. This makes drafting any decent, workable agreement and procedure near impossible. And that is ignoring all the politics involves, both internal and external.
Having said that, all that expectation may be a tall order. I have known little to zero government that actually execute well. Singapore being perhaps the only one. US Government does well comparatively speaking, partly because they are well paid, only let down are the politics.
Correct, because all of the (then) EU countries outsourced this to the EU.
It was a reaction to regulatory over-reach by unelected officials on the continent, which even those officials acknowledged at the time: https://www.politico.eu/article/jean-claude-juncker-says-eu-...
Yet I don't think that anybody can argue that it was handled well. It was handled abysmally poorly.
- The regulatory burden on individuals and small businesses has increased quite dramatically since Brexit. New customs declarations, VAT rules, compliance checks, etc.
- Transit of goods to and from EU states is now many times more difficult than it was, and a lot of European firms simply don't want to ship to the UK any longer.
- Temporary skilled immigration from places like Poland and Romania has been replaced by permanent and largely unskilled immigration from places like Pakistan. En masse. Much to the consternation of Brexit voters, who have, for the most part, simply become anti-status-quo voters.
The impression I get is that the UK political establishment reclaimed some control over its laws, regulations, and borders -- and proceeded to spite the populace with them. Maybe they wanted revenge for being forced into a Brexit they didn't want to go through with. "We'll give it to 'em, good and hard."
The EU commission consists of appointed bureaucrats, and one's national representatives in the EU commission and the EU parliament are always -- by definition -- a minority. I think that the UK's old share was something like 9%, which was not nearly enough to pass or block legislation without a lot of outside assistance.
Simply put, there was no way for a voter in the UK to meaningfully affect EU regulations. There was -- and still is -- essentially zero democratic influence at the member-state level.
Kansas is run by officials who are formally affiliated with the national political parties -- the Democrats or Republicans -- and in most cases they'll push the party line. In the UK, if you're an old-school Tory, which is a sizable portion of the national voting demographic, the majority of the political parties in the EU commission and parliament will not reflect, promote, or support many of the positions you feel most comfortable with. The EU commission and parliament are dominated by centrist, pan-European blocs (e.g., EPP, S&D, Renew Europe) that rarely align with Tory priorities.
Kansas itself is not a uniparty state; the current governor is a Democrat, the former was a Republican. The EU, in contrast, had (and still has) an entrenched majority that is to the Tories as the Democracts are to Republicans -- and there's no prospect of that changing. So, de facto, those old-school Tories were like Republicans in Hawaii -- set to lose every contest.
Further, if Kansas were somehow a uniparty state, a Kansas man who feels out of place or unhappy with his local political situation could pack up and move to Texas, or Idaho, or Vermont. Happens all the time. But you can't exactly ask a working-age man from Leeds to pack up and move to Luxembourg or Slovenia. It's a much more difficult proposition, and it almost never happens.
But also, if you don't like Kansas as an example, you can take any different example, taking any region, in any country. You often have parties that are located in some part of a country and not the other (Scottish and Welsh for example, but you probably have that in plenty of other places) and that don't align either with the dominant parties. Where do you stop? It looks like you it's just an easy no-true-scotsman argument where you just decide that this specific case is "unelected officials", and you can always find unrelated differences to pretend that other cases are ok.
For example, for point 2, what do you expect? That somehow EU states will provide to UK all the advantages of being in the union even if it is a bad strategy for them while at the same time UK does not give them any advantages?
The Brexit took a really long time to be installed. There were TONS of people telling "ok, the previous one is an idiot, put me in charge and I will reach the greatest deal ever", then failing and being replaced by someone saying the same. And a lot of these people were actively pro-brexit from the start, so it's hard to believe they fudged it on purpose. Also, what would be the point? They are also living in UK, and they are politician here. Surely, it is in their interest to get a strong country and be seen as a hero rather than as an incompetent.
A more realistic hypothesis is simply that it is just impossible to reach a perfect situation where you have the cake and eat it.
This bullshit again.
Pray tell me, who exactly are the unelected officials?
Are you talking about the EU commission? They are appointed by the national governments, who are all elected.
It's like complaining that some minister in your own damn government did something you dislike, and call him an "unelected official".
It's quite funny to see that 5 years after Brexit the UK is still governed by unelected bureaucrats, including a few Russians in the House of Lords.
Are they going to get rid of hereditary membership for the House of Lords?
That is only four years… Proofread by LLM I guess.
Should not comment when sick at home…