Brexit

[Teaos]

Well that was a surprise!



I think that is interesting.

People saying that those who have to live with the fall out the least supported it the most, but also the people who had to put up with the EU the most are the ones who voted to leave it.

Quite possibly the biggest political event since the fall of the USSR. Depends on the aftermath, if it leads to Scotland breaking the Union, independence votes else where and Catalonia getting its shit together it ranks in the all time biggest moments. If it just ends with England fucking itself, it will just go down as a country voting for its own economic crippling.

[Graham Kennedy]

I voted leave myself, but I honestly thought remain would win by a slim margin. Really never expected to be on the winning side of this. Yay me!

It's gonna be a rocky road for a while, though. I don't see why it justifies a new Scottish referendum, but honestly I wonder if they wouldn't be best on their own anyway. I strongly favoured keeping the union intact, but I'm getting sick and tired of 8% of the country constantly bitching and whining because they don't get to dictate every aspect of life for everyone in it.

Wonder who the next PM will be. Boris?

[IanKennedy]

Or you could put it another way. The younger people are those that get to benefit from it for the longest time. It has yet to prove to be a bad thing and I think it's a little soon to be claiming it is.

Interestingly Sweden and the Netherlands have both started facing calls for it to have a vote to leave too. They have always had a similar view of the EU as we have it looks like it's given them ideas. Strangely I also voted to leave. Which is you knew my politics you would be surprised at. If Sweden and the Netherlands go's too you've got to wonder how many more of the richer bricks you can remove from the wall before it all falls down.

The problem with the EU today is that it has radically changed from what it was when we joined. What we joined was the "Common market", effectively a free trade deal between the member states. It then morphed into something quite different. The major expansion of the EU has led to a more and more untenable situation. The newer countries don't have the economic capability to hold up their end of the arrangement and it has led to a situation where Germany, France and the UK end up bailing out governments that seem incapable of running a sensible tax system. Greece is a prime example of this where an average GP earns in excess of €100,000 a year and yet pays no taxes. Their tax form almost has a box that says "how much would you like to pay". We have a Greek working in our department only a a few offices down from me and he says it's really bad. He's not surprised that they are in the situation they are in and it's why he is working here rather than there.

I'm not saying that richer countries shouldn't help poorer ones. The UK has one of the highest rates of Government Aid per head of population world wide and I can't see that changing, nor do I want that to change. However, there's a big difference between helping people in a bad situation and bailing out people because their rich don't like paying tax.

[IanKennedy]

Borris for PM, hmmm...

He plays a bit of a buffoon from time to time but he's actually very bright. He went to he same school as Cameron did and he's quite ambitious too. He also did a very good job as Mayor of London. I could perhaps see him making a try for it.

[Mikey]

Well, obviously I can't speak to the day-to-day particulars as a native would; I can tell you that Wall St. certainly wasn't thrilled with the news. However, I do believe that after some growing pains, there will be a bit less fallout than a lot of people believe. For many, many years - centuries - Europe traded to and from Wessex/Angle-land/Normandy Junior/the UkoGBaNI without the benefit of an anti-levy organization or common currency; hell, one of the primary (but unspoken) motivations of the American Revolution was the uncanny ability of the English to direct hard currency in a one-way flow back to the mother country while maintaining the legality of reciprocal trade.

Philosophically, I have never believed that the EU would maintain its status quo in perpetuum. To an outside observer such as me, it seemed a more carefully disguised form of the artificial nation-building and forced compromise that occurred after WWI and led in large part to WWII.

Regarding the next PM: I'd always gotten the impression that there was far more to Boris than he let on in his day-to-day public facade. Who would likely arise as his main competition?

Regarding Scotland: they seem to be your version of Quebec. After who-knows-how long of their jawing about independence, why (besides national pride) don't you just let them go already?

[Captain Seafort]

Regarding the next PM: I'd always gotten the impression that there was far more to Boris than he let on in his day-to-day public facade. Who would likely arise as his main competition?

Theresa May, who, interestingly, has been pretty quiet for the duration of the referendum campaign.

Regarding Scotland: they seem to be your version of Quebec. After who-knows-how long of their jawing about independence, why (besides national pride) don't you just let them go already?

Mainly because a) most of them don't want to go anywhere, b) the North Sea oil fields are still useful for topping up the coffers.

[sunnyside]

People saying that those who have to live with the fall out the least supported it the most, but also the people who had to put up with the EU the most are the ones who voted to leave it.

Interesting angle. However the portrayal in the news in the US is that while there are a number of factors on both sides of the issue, the major factor behind leaving is/was the immigration issue, and so it was portrayed as very much like our current Trump/Hillary immigration debate in the US.

One would expect youth to take the more liberal tack. Also that young segment would tend to include more people with roots outside of the UK who would benefit from staying in more (and may not care so much about the UK itself).

Though I am surprised by the Kennedy's position on this matter, and so I wonder if it's being mischaracterized over here.

[Graham Kennedy]

Well, there's two strands to the whole leave debate really.

I think Ian raised some good points. The EU has changed hugely in character since it began. It now has as a foundational principle the idea of "ever closer union"; written in those words, with IIRC no implication that any degree of union could ever be enough for them. To me, that means that an EU superstate along the lines of the US is the ultimate aim, though you will rarely get pro-Europe people to admit that. And I don't want that. I think it's perfectly reasonable not to want that, and I think a great many Brits don't want it either.

Then you have the other strand, where it's all about keeping the brown people out, because we don't like them coming over here stealing our jobs and women.

And then you have some overlap between the two, where I think there are reasonable concerns with having 300,000+ immigrants every year coming into a country of only 60,000,000. Where you find people who have been here for decades and don't speak English. Where rather than assimilating, you find areas of towns and cities turning into mini versions of Poland or Pakistan or wherever.

Unfortunately on the Remain side there's a tendency to look at all that and go "Everyone who votes leave is a racist Little Englander!" I don't doubt that many are, but many are not. And there's only so long that you can ignore them or scold them before it bites you on the ass. Which has now happened.

Me, I think we're probably in for some rough times. Probably lose Scotland. Maybe even Northern Ireland. Maybe a recession.

But I think 20 years down the line, we'll be glad we did it. Time will tell.

[Mikey]

The EU has changed hugely in character since it began. It now has as a foundational principle the idea of "ever closer union"; written in those words, with IIRC no implication that any degree of union could ever be enough for them.

I had noticed this tendency most strongly under the rule of Emperor Sarkozy I, and I thought there might have been a referendum at that point. So no, I certainly don't blame any Brit (or any continental European, for that matter) for feeling stifled or leeched of their nationality by that idea.

[Graham Kennedy]

What's weird is that they also seem to want to have ever greater expansion, with more and more countries joining up. Those two aims seem diametrically opposed to me...

[Captain Seafort]

What's weird is that they also seem to want to have ever greater expansion, with more and more countries joining up. Those two aims seem diametrically opposed to me...

They are, because the expansion has largely been championed by the anti-United States of Europe faction within the EU, including the UK, as a counter to and brake on "ever closer union".

[Teaos]

I'm loving the whinging. "Who voted leave? I haven't meet a single one." Gotta love confirmation bias.

[Reliant121]

I find myself a member of the generation who, of those that turned up, voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU. I feel personally that I have lost a big part of my identity in stopping being a citizen of the European Union (eventually) and all the benefits it entails. I do not necessarily support the ever closer union element of the EU but our voice was one of the largest in opposition of that ideal. I can't help but feel a degree of resentment for the generations who voted against and will suffer the consequences for the least amount of time.

For me, myself? I do not want to give up my status as a European Citizen and so am considering options to leave the United Kingdom. I've never been even slightly loyal to the concept of my nation anyway so I guess it's given me the push to go elsewhere like part of me has always wanted to. Fully appreciate that seems a knee-jerk reaction but with the rise of centre-right/further right/nationalist politics here, Britain is beginning to look like a Nation I don't want any part in.

Ultimately, Democracy spoke and the will of the people be done.

[Atekimogus]

It then morphed into something quite different. The major expansion of the EU has led to a more and more untenable situation. The newer countries don't have the economic capability to hold up their end of the arrangement and it has led to a situation where Germany, France and the UK end up bailing out governments that seem incapable of running a sensible tax system. Greece is a prime example of this where an average GP earns in excess of €100,000 a year and yet pays no taxes. Their tax form almost has a box that says "how much would you like to pay". We have a Greek working in our department only a a few offices down from me and he says it's really bad. He's not surprised that they are in the situation they are in and it's why he is working here rather than there.

Well greece....the bigger problem are the former soviet eastern european nations. They weren't ready to join the EU, it was far to early. Not only economically, they are also culturally completely incompatible with modern western european countries. I have a few co-workers from the eastern bloc and they would be more compatible with the USA than with the rest of europe. They are ultra-capitalistic, anti-social, anti-welfare and anti-taxes and basically against any form of government interence.

Idk if this is an alergic reaction to being under communist rule for so long......


That being said.....if the statistics are to be believed basically the old and uneducated voted for leaving and Trump congratulated them........thats all you need to know right there

But seriously....we have quite a few scientist visiting our company as part of an EU exchange programme (from Italy, Scotland, Spain, Germany etc. etc.) and they are all quite upset about the whole thing.


I am all for democracy......but I am not sure you should let something THAT important, with consequences even exptert cannot really forsee at the moment, go to a direct vote, simply because - I'll be blunt here - you can't have idiots voting on such an issue. Now I am not saying everyone voting for leaving is an idiot, but appaerently one of the top google-searches after the brexit in the UK was "what is the EU"......

Personally...I find the current rise in nationalism very worrying....

[Nutso]