Now we're in a sorry situation where each party's incentive is the opposite of what is required for a healthy economy, and the important decisions require referendums and take a very long time. The fact that the vote to leave was mostly supported by older voters is a tragedy for the future generation, who do not have a straightforward way of having their concerns heard in the coming decades.

Goodbye Britain, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

I think vindictive sanctions or refusing new trade deals with the UK would be stupid, childish and harmful for the EU. I hope they work together on a reasonable and fair deal. And then maybe the EU can move forward towards a closer union, and maybe also address some of the problems with the EU, because it's hardly perfect.

There'll be negotiation and both the EU and the UK will get less than they want. There'll be free trade for sure, ironically there'll most likely free movement too.

It is possible that the UK gets a slightly better deal than what Switzerland and Norway have, because the UK is bigger, but it's still not going to be a lot better. Certainly not in the current climate.

- they have dragged their feet for 40 years, preventing EU progress

- they have forced on the EU expansion to the East (which I welcome), and then complained that too many poles are migrating to the UK

- they have prevented political integration and shoved down our throats a neo-liberal EU

- they have been treated excepcionally well by the rest of the EU, with excemptions and rebates. How have they thanked us? By continuing to blame all their problems on the EU.

And now they leave.

But I do not loathe them (my personal experience with british people is excellent). I think that you, as a country, have been extremely unfair with your EU partners, and basically betrayed the European project, and the trust that we have deposited in you.

So, the only thing left now is just to accept things as they are: you have chosen to leave, so please do it immediately. Do not burden us with your petty politics. We are not interested in knowing if the next prime minister is going to have the majority to invoke article 50 or not, or if you will have a new referendum, or if Scotland will split from the UK. We do not want to wait for 6 motnhs, or 2 years, or 10 years until you get your house in order. We do not want this uncertainty anymore. We have respectfully waited the last two years (?) for your referendum to be held, but now we have had enough. David Cameron has organized this mess, and he should bear responsibility for making it legally binding.

YOU have decided, and must take responsibility. We can not wait for years while your jonsons, farages and whoever sort their internal politics.

Cameron called the referendum and assured in case of defeat he would activate article 50 immediately. He must deliver. You have two years time to negotiate anyway.

I am sorry for the UK, I really am. I think you were an important partner, even though a bit unfair. But we must respect your decission: we can not pretend this is business as usual. The british people have voted, and we must respect that.

Specially sorry for the remainers, but this is something you need to sort out internally.

You are a sovereign nation.

However, and I know this will grate horribly, but the EU might have to wait, whether it likes it or not. If article 50 is not invoked, no one can force the UK out. What's more, there are gathering suspicions that the UK could consider a second vote in some months' time. Only by waiting could this happen.

For context: I am British and do not want to leave the EU, despite my best efforts to find the positives in my other comments. I think that the UK had a good deal before and was able to influence policy from within. Now we will be punished by the EU and break up internally.

But beyond all of this, I don't want to live in a country where people have voted so stupidly, and so nastily. One of the leave campaign's biggest claims has been proven to be false. Actually proven to be false. And people voted on that. This in my view is almost grounds for a voiding of the entire process. I feel ashamed of my country and I'm a "true" Brit by their standards. I consider myself lucky in that I can leave and live somewhere else, and this is what I intend to do. I no longer feel a part of the country of my family and of my life so far. And I didn't see such a strong feeling coming until it hit me with the leave vote.

This has been a big blow and, unless we act united and fast, the EU is going to crumble. You say that, due to how the referendum has played out, it would be better to repeat it in some months time. What happens in those months? Nobody knows, but probably very big damage for the EU and for European countries, while financial havoc paralizes the economy.

And afterwards? You vote again? Leave again? Why wait more then? Remain? Can the EU really deal with such unstability, a partner which does not accept a role alongside the rest of EU members, constantly complaining, penny pinching and accusing the EU of all imaginable problems? We have frankly had enough. I understand this is not your personal stance, but that is the UK's attitude.

I think that “what is done can not be undone“. Lets try to craft a deal which suits both parties. It could be that lots of EU agreements can be salvaged for EU-UK cooperation.

If we were talking about this last week, I would support you, but reality has kicked in, and you wanted leave. This is not a game you get to play again and again. This was a one-man bet, and the whole country played along. What a disaster!

There is precedent for a second referendum - Ireland did so in 2009 on accepting the 28th Amendment. I admit, this is a lot bigger.

I think the context here which may help this to make more sense to those outside: a lot of British people voted for leave on false claims. Ok, lots of elections have false claims. But these were enormously misleading and widely spread. It seems like there are a lot who regret their decision, though I'm not sure what % they represent. If there is a general election called early with a party that explicitly backs EU membership winning, then there's no way we can leave without another referendum. And if we vote to stay, I think there would be grounds for the EU to get us to accept a lot of things which we might not have before.

But yes, it's a totally miserable situation for everyone.. you know what, I'd even say it's miserable for the politicians who 'won'.

I understand that the plan is maybe not detailed, but I assume they have some kind of detailed roadmap on how to proceed? The Scotland independence referendum had a very detailed plan, hundreds of pages long.

The other issue is the British government: that Cameron did in fact not prepare for losing is his biggest blunder, and history will judge him for that.

It's disingenuous to say they "took everything and gave nothing."

Besides, you are counting only EU related expenditures. Are you counting indirect benefits? How much money makes london operating EUR finantial center? And lots of other indirect benefits.

> they have taken everything from the EU, and given little in return

(not edited, that's my original statement)

Reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lScVfwe-Rp0

If you want to go with the rationalist perspective you seem to be advocating, then the UK government will have to be anti-democratic and strike a deal explicitly against their citizen's declared interests.

(This vote is particularly vexing for me since I'm Irish (voted stay) and now will have to sell my house in order to leave. Quite upsetting, overall.)

And it's not about Germany. It's about 27 countries, some of which don't even like Germany too much right now.

Accepting lots of troublesome unskilled illegal immigrants hurt the German economy, and the workers, but sent a message.

I think I can see a pattern here...

It's the other way around: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/may/09/germany-imf...

Actually robots will take away lots of jobs. Why do we need more unskilled people in our lands, when soon even the skilled labour will be automatized, and unemployment will grow further?

Except they can. Many Syrian refugees are proficient in English, and many even speak German. There was strong collaboration between German and Syrian universities historically.

(I'm not saying that everyone can read and write, but then again, Western societies have a surprising number of total and functional analphabets.)

And re the automation argument: Automation only takes away medium-skilled jobs. Jobs are for unskilled people because they don't require training, and that's also why they are a poor fit for robots. (Robots don't like irregular situations and need programming for new tasks, whereas you can easily explain a new task to a human worker in a few sentences.)

I always laugh at how people equate more people in a country with growing unemployment rates. If this really worried you, you would move to outlaw procreation, since procreation produces new workers to compete with you about 18 years from now.

Only if the birth rate is above replacement which it isn't in any developed western country.

Let's be clear: it's the UK that felt obliged to send a message.

The rest of Europe's countries does not have delusions of grandeur and feel disenfranchised by foreign workers making minimum wage.

There are many reasons to leave the EU, other than "delusions of grandeur" (the US seems to do pretty well..) and xenophoia. Perhaps the UK wanted to make choices without being slandered like this.

What choice? You can wish that the refugee crisis would not exist, but the choice has been made when deciding whether or not to be the 6th largest weapon exporter.

Acting like an overrun victim now is a bit schizophrenic and it's sad to see 52 percent small minded bigots pulling down a country in this way.

What an astute grasp of politics..

You honestly believe that?

Not to punish the UK, but to firmly establish the principle that leaving the EU is painful

Do you realise how crazy you people sound? "There's no punishment for leaving the Mafia, you just have to understand the principle that it will be as painful as possible".

The EU has warped into an ideological disease that sees European people's turned against one another by an absolutist religion that sees diversity as a flaw to be fixed and believes its own hype about stopping wars.

The EU does nothing to stop war. If turning Europe into a single country could stop war, there'd be no civil wars, but today the only wars are civil wars.

I have to say, with this kind of attitude, I am even more glad that the UK has left the EU. Who would want to be partners with this kind of spite and hatred?

Has the EU actually said this or is this just what people on the internet are assuming?

But yes, multiple people connected with the EU government have been making statements to this effect: out means out. It is not in the EU's interest to give the UK a more favourable deal than it had before, because that signals to other member countries that leaving has financial benefits.

Be able to set immigration to points based - like the US, Canada, Australia. Why should we discriminate against Indians, Chinese, Bangladeshis, Africans for the EU? I like immigrants and I think they help our economy, but I want this to be run better.

I don't agree with how the EU subsidizes e.g. French farmers at the expense of e.g. African farmers.

To not be a part of what seems to be a failing system and having to answer to the un-elected European Commission, and to therefore avoid being swept along in integration which isn't so good.

It might sound odd, but I didn't vote for leave. But I can see that now that this is what we have, maybe there are some reasons to be positive.

Because EU people are not immigrants. That's the whole point. They are citizens, which happen to be born 1000 km to the east and in a different historic region - but they are citizens. There is no discrimination here because you're comparing apples and oranges.

One day, if globalization advances far enough, we will have the exact same conditions for all (or most) of the world, in some form or another. But brexit is a step back from this, not forward.

Don't you think not having enough local food production to feed the population is a liability of any sovereign nation? Personally, I think there are "strategically important" industries (like food, steel, weapons) that countries need to protect to remain sovereign, by subsidies or other means.

So why are UK's xenophobes more afraid of the Polish Plumber than the Bangladeshi Goat Farmer??? That's what makes no sense to me. If you're going to be scared that your "Britishness" is disappearing, fine - but at least be logical about it. Who's more a danger to your way of life? Someone from 400 kilometers away or someone from 10,000?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

Sorry for the belated reply, but I didn't see this sooner.

This vote will set in motion a chain of events that can reshape politics across the continent. The EU leaders who have little to lose will use their votes to force the UK's main trading partners (Germany, Netherlands, Sweden etc) to start a trade war with the UK, at the same time as the UK is wanting to sign trade deals. This will piss off the populations in those countries. Referendums may well follow there too.

Or other debtor countries in the EU will see this as a chance to possibly get out of the union and "start over" as it were.

Hitler and Stalin will be proud of their heritage.