Now the UK will not contribute 0.3% of its GDP, lose some of its favourable deals that far exceed 0.3% of GDP, and lose the 10% vote in EU affairs, yet will be subjected to those affairs as part of the inevitable effort of negotiating to keep many (though impossibly all) of the benefits the UK now has as a member.
That's not independence, really. That's losing 10% influence in a union which you'll still be trading and working with, and who will still be subjecting you to lots of requirements under this new partnership, which you'll have a reduced say in.
Unless the UK actually wants to be independent in the semantic sense of isolationism, i.e. not deal with the EU at all anymore. Yes, then you'd have independence, and you'd also have a country that'll be completely wrecked, for the same principles that a broad boycott (e.g. Cuba for many decades, North Korea, Iraq during some of its harshest years etc) is so devastating, because interconnectedness is extremely valuable. That interconnectedness will still be sought for by the UK, but now it can't vote and is at the mercy of the largest economy in the world. Obviously the UK's economy and power will play a significant role in negotiations, no doubt, but the UK outside of the EU needs the EU more than vice versa.
So the independence argument I agree, is quite flimsy.
[Expat in the UK who could not vote but followed this all quite closely... All of the numbers I quoted can be found in wikipedia if you want to go digging.]
Why say you're sticking to the facts and then repeat pretty much the facts I stated with a different perspective?
8.5b (I think I had it at 7b, it depends on various valuations but ultimately it doesn't matter much as it's roughly the same) on the British economy (roughly 1.9 trillion pounds) is a fraction of a percent, I stated about 0.3%, you're stating around 0.45%, again, it's not much different, they're all figures in the same ballpark.
This 0.45% I cite because it's British GDP. I'm talking from the perspective of Britain having to give up part of its GDP as a contribution to the EU. That contribution is 0.45% of its economy, in return, you got 10% of the EU vote. That's reality and facts, no?
That's a tiny price to pay. Imagine you could pay 7b a year for 10% of the vote in the US, or in China, or hell imagine China or the US could purchase a 10% vote in the EU for 7b, it's a ridiculously silly small amount of money.
How am I not sticking to reality and facts.
However I do believe you've neglected the other points of the post which were about the value of access to the European market place and that 10% say in how said market is run. Those are costs / benefits which are not so easily counted before the painful divorce is complete.
In reality, most significant European trading partners with UK just want to keep on trading with them mostly as they have been, and will work out deals that allow such trading to mostly continue. There doesn't seem to be much reason to think such trade deals will be radically changed in a way that damages anyone for the long term.
http://openeurope.org.uk/today/blog/how-would-key-export-sec...
Some key UK export sectors - especially finance - have a very low probability of being able to carry on as normal.
The German car industry accounts for around 3% of GDP. Sales to the UK are less than 1% of German GDP.
The UK financial industry accounts for around 10% of GDP. Sales to the EU are around 4% of UK GDP.
As a rough guess estimate, post-Brexit disruption is going to lose 1-2% of that, and could lose more - because there's very little London can do for Europe that can't be done just as easily in Frankfurt.
The UK has a lot more to lose than Germany does.
But the EU traditionally plays hardball with negotiations. Ask Greece.
So there is no chance at all the UK isn't going to have to make significant - expensive - sacrifices to keep trading.
This vote is literally the most staggeringly stupid and self-destructive act I've seen in my lifetime.
Take away the jingoism and the flag-waving and the blatant lies about immigration and sovereignty, and you have a country which relies on a huge captive market voting to - at best - change the terms of access to that market in ways that cannot possibly be more advantageous than they are now.
Some trade will continue, but the overall effect on the UK is going to be very negative indeed.
In terms of positives here is a list.
1) People have woken up to the disastrous gap between rich and poor, realizing, I hope, that there is no communication between the provenances and the technocrats and that while you can bully and marginalize the poor you are simply unable to ignore them without resorting to repression. A vote like this is much better than a ring of estates where law breaks down and people are condemned to hopeless disassociation from the society that funds them. Now, will the UK's elite front up and start helping our fellow countryfolk? I doubt it, but that's the test on the table - create meaningful engagement in life and society for the bottom 25% rather than just hoping that they shut up and go away.
2) The EU can now reform its financial and governance arrangements to fit the needs of the Euro, if the EU doesn't do this the Euro is going to collapse, so I hope it does. This will make the EU more prosperous than it would otherwise be. Guesses please - the European state's GDP post a Euro collapse vs. the EU's GDP with a reformed and functioning single currency?
3. The UK will break up enabling Scotland to further develop its distinctive and hopefully very successful economy and national identity, in particular it will be interesting to see if this results in Edinburgh rebuilding itself as a financial centre as opposed to Frankfurt, Paris and London. If I were the SNP I would be planning a bloody great hub airport and some other very shiny infrastructure (high speed rail to Newcastle, Leeds and Manchester? Cross rail for Edinburgh/Glasgow?)
The real winners here are probably going to be Hong Kong and Singapore. Those are top of mind alternatives when finance strategically places organizations in London, and with low tax and compatible legal systems (from what I understand Hong Kong's is pretty much a carbon copy of the UK) they basically got one competing city of the game.
> the blatant lies about immigration and sovereignty
The immigration nonsense disturbs me. Even if the UK leaves the EU, surely the freedom of movement will remain just as with the other non-EU European countries. Leaving won't make a difference. Plus with the commonwealth and all, the country is basically built on migrants. I hope that it influenced the vote only for a minority of people, and that the outside media image that this was important is just that, a stupid media image.
There were no mass rapes, gropings, etc.
Would you believe the papers if they said Jews were out in force, drinking the blood of your Christian babies?
Edit: Oh forgive me for pointing out the blood libel. What could ever go wrong from framing an entire ethnicity for stealing our jobs and raping our women?
That's an ineffective way of communicating your point.
Although i get why the person above is frustrated with people spouting lies about immigrants their reaction is indeed not favourable to a healthy discussion :S
On the order of 1000 women got assaulted. One person got sentenced thus far, to the best of my knowledge - and he is indeed a "fresh immigrant".
You have absolutely no basis for your claims.
That's 5 too many rapes, and 2k assaults (groping etc) too many, I've been molested before and it's obviously unacceptable. But it's also a far cry from rape, usually, like in my case.
Yet the media at times reported on this as if there were thousands of women getting raped in the streets. Those were blatant lies.
Some viewers and some sections of the (social) media, particularly online, also interpreted these alleged mass rapes as some kind of savagery that only a foreigner could engage in. Uncivilised barbarism only a muslim refugee could engage in. Yet every single year at Octoberfest, about 10 women report getting raped, and cases of sexual assault by drunk partygoers is orders of magnitude larger. Even outside of large festivities, about 20 women in Germany are raped every day, again, minorities have no monopoly on these criminal acts. Hell, for a brief example of the same city, Cologne, only a few months ago a reporter was sexually assaulted by white Germans who groped her, kissed her and made sexual remarks.
That's the point the guy was trying to make. Obviously none of this is acceptable, but immigrants or foreigners have no monopoly on criminal, unacceptable acts. The one or the other group may be overrepresented in crime figures, the data shows that, too. But the same data shows in study after study that when you control for things like age (young people commit more crimes), socioeconomic status (poor, unemployed people commit more crimes), gender (obvious) etc etc, ethnicity plays no role in crime. i.e. there's nothing inherent about an ethnicity or religion that programs people to such savage acts.
And this is obvious, we don't say these things about jews for example. But we used to, that's where the comment on jews drinking blood of babies comes from, because that's the silly rhetoric we used to spread, which led to widespread prosecution against them. Today we see, particularly on less sophisticated but all too popular social media, mistaken narratives about immigrants or foreigners or muslims or various other minorities, coming here to rape our women. That's a narrative we should reject because it's not true. It wasn't too long ago we somehow had a story of a 13 year old girl getting gang-raped by arabs for 30 hours, in the daily mail. Obviously that's a shitty paper, but it's also very well read. Turns out it was a complete fabrication, but who remembers that? But it's that exact narrative that leads people to unreasonable fear (there's enough of actual issues to be scared for, no need for unreasonable fears on top), fear that inspires things like this leave vote.
So did more than 1k women get assaulted? Yes, undoubtedly. Were there mass rapes? No. Are rapes and assaults by Germans a daily phenomenon, just like it is in every other place on the planet where people's rights are never 100% fully respected? Yes.
In short, it was horrible, but sometimes also blown out of proportion with bs rhetoric and blatant lies we don't need to have.
One day looking at women is rape. The other day mobs assaulting women in a Taharrush is blowing things out of proportion.
I won't even comment on the former, it's akin to a silly stereotype of the feminist movement you see on 4Chan.
Mobs assaulting women is not blowing things out of proportion, in and of itself. All of that deserves attention, none of that is acceptable, and I welcome these facts being presented.
But groping a woman and raping a woman are two different things, and you simply shouldn't report the former as the latter. If you do, you blow it out of proportion, there's nothing strange about this. Similarly there's a difference between punching a man and shooting a man, between stealing a pair of shoes and stealing a car. Just stick to the facts. 0.25% of incidents involving rape, is not mass rape. 5 reported rapes on NYE, while more than 20 are reported daily in Germany, and twice as much happen every year during Octoberfest, is not some new level of mass rape. If you don't report that honestly and blatantly lie about that (and other things, like e.g. a 13 year old getting gang-raped for 30 hours which never happened, but incited fear and hatred, which have led to increased hate crimes in the past year) then yes, you are blowing things out of proportion. That isn't a mixed signal.
Oh that's OK then.
Seems like good evidence that the parties will want to ensure trading continues mostly the same as it has been. A big question is whether the rest of the EU would be able to block such arrangements. I don't think they will either want to or be able to.
Do you know what you're talking about? That's a sincere question. My understanding is that the UK's significant trading partners are members of the EU, and that it's the EU, not the individual partners, who will have to decide on any new trade deals with the UK. As others have said, what sort of precedent would the EU be setting if they gave a withdrawing member the same benefits it had as an actual member? The EU does not want more members withdrawing.
What countries would want to leave the EU? I'm not aware of any of the poorer countries wanting to leave. And it would not affect the EU much. For the richer countries, the EU is an enormous benefit, so leaving would be rather silly.
The UK is the only country that has been questioning its EU membership for many decades. But it seems to be unique in the position.
So for normal trade in goods and services, it doesn't make sense for the EU to impose too many barriers.
The financial sector is an exception. It does make sense for the EU to grab more power there.
The big issue however, is that many countries have significant parts of their population that are against the EU. So there is a real risk that the UK will be hit with sanctions, not because it makes sense for the EU, but because it makes political senses in some of the EU member countries.
That would be sad, but that's the world we live in.
As a snarky side remark, what will the UK do in the future instead of continuing to import cars, regardless of terms? Rely on its domestic automotive industry?
One of the more credible arguments for leaving the EU is so the UK can negotiate their own international trade deals, as they feel the EU has been slow in negotiation. Opening up free trade to the US and Japan would probably be a priority.
And how the deal will be better than the deal between EU and USA/Japan?
Obviously it's a huge risk as well since they're a smaller economy.
London, one of the 3 financial capitals of the globe, will lose its status in favor (probably) of a more diverse mix of European cities.
This will have downstream effects on other trade flows in and out of the UK.
https://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/public...
I don't know why people are crying about the financial sector. They have fucked over ordinary people time and time and time again and for once they get the short end of the stick. They're extractive parasitic economic actors who drive up costs and don't produce anything of value.
Take an obvious and very direct example. Cleaning staff. Not having to compete with EU illegal immigrants will improve their labor conditions. Building workers and Polish guest workers who send all money back home and live in extremely poor conditions, same. Yes that probably means the next time you need your toilet repaired, you'll pay more, but you'll pay more so the plumber can have a better life.
Even for tech startups, this may be an improvement. I know over 4 London-based startups that don't directly sell to customers. They "consult" for a foreign entity (a US company in 50% of the cases, other 2 use Asian proxies), which then sells to EU customers because selling digital products to EU customers from outside of the EU is far cheaper and simpler than doing it from inside the EU.
One thing I absolutely do not get is why socialists and even those left-inclined are so massively pro globalization. That just makes no sense whatsoever. There are constant complaints about globalization here. How Monsanto/Big finance/Suez/... convinced congress/EU/ECB/... that X is going to happen/be legal which means state/city/even small town Y gets shafted in Y way. For once, that becomes a little harder.
But yes, it's probably the wrong thing for center London tech and finance workers and managers.
The EU is reacting, imho, in the worst possible way. The press in France, Netherlands and Belgium is full of articles on how it was stupid, boneheaded, evil, weak for Cameron to allow the vote in the first place. It's generally all being blamed on Cameron, and his mistake is allowing people to vote in the first place. Very EU, being so overtly anti-democratic.
But let's face facts here: the EU will try to make this work the same way the other referendums worked [1][2]. When the votes turned against the EU, they canceled the rest of the voting ("postponed" the term used, but they never happened). And then they cheated (the referendum happened because the law said it should happen before the law was changed. The law was changed without referenda). So I'm giving the odds of a Brexit happening at best 30-40%. Granted, that's far better odds than I gave it yesterday, so maybe I'll be wrong again. But the EU has a long history of ignoring democratic votes.
The sky is not falling, this is not the worst thing to ever happen, and frankly, the market is wrong. This is a massive overreaction.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_European_Constitution_r... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_European_Constitution_re...
My understanding is that selling digital products within the EU to other EU countries is annoying. The main reason I hear is having to collect VAT for each B2B transaction at the rate of the country you're selling to.
When it comes time to settle the taxes it is handled in an aggregated manner with one filing under a VATMOSS scheme, which distributes the collected VAT to the member states in one go. This attempt at simplification seems to have backfired with many calling it 'VATMESS'.
However, from what I read online, US based companies selling into the EU technically have to charge this too (although they can aggregate it as well under a 'Non-Union' VATMOSS filing).
With the above in mind, is the structure you talk about in place for other reasons than VAT?
If now there are "illegal", how will change when the UK leaves?
They do work in the construction sector.
Even if one accepts that existing trade will be accommodated through direct agreements, that only protects existing industries. What does it mean for future industries and how existing industries grow and change? When a new industry develops and wants to export, they are going to find they face trade barriers until such time as the EU and UK get around to negotiating a new (or modified) trade agreement. That's a huge disadvantage and will see a lot of investment, especially in tech companies go to the EU where previously it might have gone to the UK.
Well, they can have the same deal that Norway or Switzerland have with the EU. The problem is that to have that deal they have to agree to be part of Shengen Area
2. It is quite possible to opt out of EU regulations while part of the EEA. But the Norwegian government do not have the balls to do so.
3. Norway had an older agreement with Denmark and Sweden about passport-free travel. It was not Shengen compatible. So either Norway had to join Shengen, or Norwegians had to get used to getting passports to visit said nations.
If ten equal partners get together to negotiate on a collective agreement, then the results will probably be fair to all parties.
If nine of those partners negotiate collectively with one partner, then the results will probably heavily favor the collective.
But, I guess it's better to have the freedom to be screwed than to be forced to take a good deal.
That is to say, the EU without the UK has less leverage than before, and the UK without the EU has less leverage than before, so now neither the EU nor the UK has nearly as much bargaining power as they had combined.
Negotiating with the EU is a disaster. Too many special interests to deal with all at once! As the old saying goes: too many chefs spoil the broth.
The second sentence of the parenthetical, if taken to be true, casts significant doubt on the claim in the final sentence.
I don't doubt that the requirement for consensus in the EU makes EU-to-outside trade deals difficult to negotiate. OTOH, that same fact makes successful negotiation of an EU-Britain trade deal (either as part of or subsequent to an exit agreement) uncertain.
The EU has been extremely ineffective at negotiating trade deals between the 28 EU countries, and non EU countries.
We (UK) will be far more effective at negotiating our own trade deals with non EU countries. It's far simpler for a start.
Exactly, which casts strong doubts on the this claim from your earlier post: "We will negotiate a trade deal with the EU as a whole."
Because, you know, that is a trade deal between the 27 remaining EU countries and a non-(or soon to be non-)EU country, the exact thing you say that the EU isn't successful at doing.
It is massively in the EU's interests to do a deal with us quickly.
The only sensible way to measure income is with purchasing power, and that's far more complex than an exchange rate (since many of the services and goods originate in the UK anyways).
Giving the same deal that they have right now is what will give further fuel to leave. Why should I stay when I can have a better deal leaving?
That would provide perfect ammunition for nationalists everywhere.
See:
http://newobserveronline.com/brexit-contagion-germany-fears-...
In what world is punishing having a worst deal that they have now because they don't have the duties?
And yes, you talk about mutual beneficial union, that is not what UK wants
Do you have read your link? Because it says that the contagion will happen if there is a good deal with UK. Just the contrary you say
Seriously. Do you even know what you're talking about? Only our elected government (who were on the remain side), can invoke article 50, and it's up to them to decide when.
Hopefully the whole EU does collapse.
As a matter of fact, yes I do. Boris Johnson has come out and said there is "no need to rush", and he was on the Leave side.
> Only our elected government (who were on the remain side), can invoke article 50
That's just a roundabout way of saying "The Tories", innit? Cameron is a lame duck, and if the Leave wing of the Tories wanted him out tomorrow, he'd be out tomorrow.
Which car company in the UK could take the market share from Germany?
Seems like a seller market to me.
Sounds like a nightmare to me. On the other hand, Switzerland seems to be doing well (although they are maybe focussing more on the EU than the Britain that you advocate).
Quite the opposite, and an old Murdoch quote resurfaced[0] covering exactly that:
> I once asked Rupert Murdoch why he was so opposed to the European Union. “That’s easy,” he replied. “When I go into Downing Street they do what I say; when I go to Brussels they take no notice.”
[0] http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/anthony-hilton-sta...
Isn't this exactly the type of attitude that lead to Brexit? I can't believe I'm defending Murdoch, but who are you to determine one's "cultural identity"? What a bizarre comment.
Don't take my comment wrong. I'm not rejecting foreigners in America or anywhere else. I recognize my family's own European origins and humanity's migrant nature.
But I will say, particular to Murdoch, that I wish he had stayed in Australia, and I'm sure many Americans share my sentiment. He has had a vicious influence on this country's foreign and domestic policy, which has cost many innocent lives, and he has grown rich off it. A modern-day Hearst, and a shame...
You make the EU sound like an abusive spouse. "Don't leave me or I'll hurt you!"
Do you believe that if the UK leaves the EU, France and Germany will go to war? If not, I don't see how "created to prevent another world war" is relevant.
The UK decided that it could tell the EU to get fucked and get all the benefits of the relationship without any of the drawbacks, it is not in the EU's interest to confirm that and it has very little reason to bend over for the UK. To reuse your ménage analogy, it's more like one spouse deciding to up and go and asking for the house, car, accounts and still being invited to christmas and family dinners.
(By analogy, the citizens of Britain/France/etc are the children, who'd like to continue to play with one another, but perhaps one of their abusive parents will use violence to prevent this.)
No, it really isn't.
> By analogy, the citizens of Britain/France/etc are the children, who'd like to continue to play with one another, but perhaps one of their abusive parents will use violence to prevent this.
So the UK left with one of the children and is telling the others they can't see them anymore.
The EU has no rational reason to be especially sweet on the UK, and looking internally and at the future it can't even be seen as that as it would bolster eurosceptic movements inside the Union.
There's no point of view under which being soft on the UK is rational.
Huh? This is your characterization of a referendum on membership?
there were constant phrases from "Leave" party that relationship with EU is abusive, UK is like slave.. it doesn't look for me like intelectual debate with polite arguments.
[1] http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/nigel-farage-claims-...
You're the one who brought on the rationality argument, and while things differ across conflicts, in this specific instance yes being "mean"[0] is rational.
[0] if "not bending over to the whims of an asshole" is considered mean these days
But the UK got extraordinarily preferential treatment in the EU all those decades.
What most people actually advocate is real, tough negotiations, driven by both parties' interests.
And the outcome will --predictably-- not what the Leavers wished for. It will also not be what the EU wished for. That ship has sailed.
Britain will get a deal, based on relative strengths and things the EU and Britain have to offer and the other side wants.
And very much depending on the timeframe the Brits are shooting for. If they want something quick (one to three years) only the Norwegian EFTA model is realistic.
If ten to fifteen years are quick enough all kinds of complicated deals can be negotiated. Can Britain really wait that long?
Directly? No. Trade war between EU and Britain? Might happen.
And if the EU doesn't take fairly drastic action to, it will fray further, essentially destabilizing Europe. No war will come from that, either. Not yet. But if the EU were to crumble, it's a good bet there'll be a division between haves and have-nots. We're still not at war - but the have-nots have crumbling economies now, creating unrest. Meanwhile, the few haves that are left over are likely to envy each other what little they still gain from such a union. Sooner or later, we'll go back to individual states. A few strong European powers, not bound by the EU any more, and many crumbling economies around it.
Meanwhile, the pressure on the smaller states from migrants and refugees increases. (If you think we're done with middle East and African troubles, I suggest you take a look at climate projections). They will start to let them pass through and/or ignore them, because they have to, to survive at all. There's not much political clout left to move the agenda on a global scale any more, so that option is out.
As a result, the stronger countries militarize their borders. Sooner or later, somebody will mount a preemptive mission into some of the smaller countries, simply because it "makes sense" to stop the flood of migrants earlier.
Play the scenario from there.
Sure, nothing guarantees it will happen that way, but there's a good chance something like that will happen. The point of the EU was to prevent that - to make the common bond so valuable that nobody would want to risk it.
Britain's voting public decided that the value was low enough. If the EU wants to have any relevance in the long run, they will need to make it clear to Britain that yes, that bond is pretty valuable, and tough luck for Britain.
That is how it's relevant - in the very long term, as a stabilizing force.
And no, it's not "Don't leave me or I'll hurt you". It's "we had a contract, you broke it, that means I don't need to uphold my end of it either". That's generally how this whole treaty business works.
It's right in the contract that member states have the freedom to leave.
So tl;dr; Britain should stay in the EU because #remain folks want to start a trade war with them to punish them for leaving? And that maybe this will result in an actual hot war? You seem to be doubling down on my abusive spouse metaphor.
I'm a huge free trader and open borders type. (And also a yank in India, so no skin in the game.) But listening to the arguments of #remain folks makes me think the UK is better off on their own. With friends like these, who needs enemies?
I think you're mischaracterizing the situation.
Perspective 1: UK is breaking up with the EU, not vice-versa.
P2: EU gets some adv/dis-advantages by including UK specifically P3: UK had some advantages/disadvantages from being part of EU P4: EU has incentive outside of British sitch to stay unified
My (american) perspective is that Britain should stay in the EU because while their direct adv to leave may outweigh direct disadv to stay, they are subject to P4, which is to make an example of someone who leaves.
Exclude your judgement of right, wrong, and what should be. Look simply at leverage.
When France decided to leave the previous union of European states, the #remain folks definitely inflicted a lot of short term pain. Lots of French beaches still have monuments thanking the British, American and Canadian soldiers who died in support of #leave. Did that short term pain make #leave the wrong choice?
Also, as a Yank, I'd just like to tell any Brits on here that we still love them. Think about joining NAFTA. Our wine is just as good as French wine and London needs more burritos. We'd love to have some curries and all your delicious baked goods.
Also, the UK has negotiated many concessions over the years, including the rebate, various exemptions and vetos including from the ever-closer union and the euro. So a less good deal as the result of a total renegotiation we initiated is not so much a punishment as a reflection of the reality of the prior concessions.
There is of course realpolitik in the desire to ensure we have a less good deal and are seen to suffer by other countries to discourage other leaves, but I think that will come naturally from the factors above anyway.
You can call this sort of vindictiveness "realpolitik" and try to sound sophisticated, but this hardly invalidates my abusive ex-husband analogy.
A is true
A is likely to cause B
C is also true
C is likely to cause B
If B occurs, it is incorrect to blame only C
And you're still comparing a mutual union of countries for their mutual and collective benefit to the Nazis?
And the pain GB will experience post-leave is due to not having access of benefits a treaty granted them. The leave folk believe that's fine, and it'll be a long-term benefit. That's arguable, but leaving that aside: The short-term pain is entirely self-inflicted.
Blaming that on the EU is a rather staggering amount of cognitive dissonance.
And your "abusive" quote is way off also. It's not about abuse, it's about, as per any negotiation, either side will try to extract as much value as they possibly can. And if there is a power differential between the participants, the one with the upper hand absolutely will make the other party pay a price, and if accepted, it will be a fair price per the market.
Regardless of judgement, you have to look at leverage. That's what really matters in terms of outcomes.
I believe it's important for individuals to build character based on morals (ie judge leverage for abuse), but that's like suggesting thermodynamics law 2 just isn't very nice.
You're right: it sucks. But wishing it were otherwise is not super relevant.
I really hate this sentiment. This is just about the worst EU can do, it would damage its legitimacy in the eyes of us, EU citizens, even more than the handling of the Greek crisis already did.
I don't see any reason to punish a country for voting to leave the EU, except pure spite and greed for more power. Why can't we all be friends, each on the terms that they want?!
Now, the UK has clearly stated they don't like some things like free movement of people. The point of getting out of the EU is not to do a copy/paste of the current agreements and sign them in a week. The UK (not the EU) has decided to cancel everything and start from scratch because they don't feel like they could get to a comfortable situation inside the EU.
Even with the best of intentions, negotiating this kind of complex inter-state treaties take years. And, understandably, there will be extra care and friction because the UK has already got out once. Meanwhile, all the benefits are not going to be present.
I, sincerely, don't think we should think this in terms of "punishment", but if someone gets out of an agreement and immediately starts to renegotiate (more favourable) terms, it's reasonable to expect the negotiation to be hard...
Non-european people coming in as economic inmigrants, to be more precise.
But it's complex. People were asked by the media which way they would vote and why. Asians were saying they'd been promised more immigration from their country by the Leave campaign, while other people were saying they'd vote Leave because there were too many Africans living in their street. The thought of Turkey joining, and letting in Syrian refugees was also in the mix.
And one of the intellectual leaders of Leave has already stated he's confused why people think voting Leave will reduce immigration.
Unfortunately for Britain, they've shown their hand early and they have no real leverage. I think the EU will demonstrate good will because they understand that those most directly affected by this vote did not agree with it. So I won't be surprised to see visa waivers and the like for expats.
I also think future trade agreements will be "fair." Which is to say, I don't think they will be punitive, but I doubt it will be as favorable to "independent" England as it was to "member" England.
In the end I doubt the UK will get as nice a deal as Swiss or Norway nor at such a fast rate. The main deal of the EU is free movement, that is not on the table due to the UK. Without free movement of people, free movement of goods and money are going to be difficult.
As for free movement of things, I believe it is in the best interest of the EU to allow lenient trade with UK, insofar as it doesn't damage its reputation as a legitimate institution.
However if reputation does take precedence over economic sense, then the UK has plenty of other new opportunities, on a global scale, negotiate trade freely with little EU intervention.
What I'm arguing is that the UK has plenty of bargaining chips, and can trade elsewhere if it doesn't feel like it's getting a fair deal in the EU.
Now it will be negotiating with a block of them. The UK just willingly decreased their leverage so they had free will.
Thank you, from all of America. You managed to be completely embarrasing in your 2016 election cycle, before we are really able to be shockingly shameful in front of you.
Brits are polite to the end.
It seems to be rather the opposite. The EU is calling for fast negotiations whereas the UK is taking it easy.
The EU wants a fast official declaration from the UK that they want to leave. They want to start the clock running. If after two years there is no agreement, so what, let's negotiate for however long it takes.
Britain wants fast negotiations, because their economy depends on results, but they don't want to formally start the process. Because if they can't get a deal in two years after article 50 invocation they are in a very, very bad position.
Your ideology has been deprecated. Please install upgrades.
Unlike the mythical Freedom Markets™, actual functional open markets require regulation, begetting bureaucracy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Utopia_of_Rules
https://www.amazon.com/Utopia-Rules-Technology-Stupidity-Bur...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/oliver-burkeman-co...
http://boingboing.net/2015/02/02/david-graebers-the-utopia-o...
"Are you suggesting that without a central leviathan like the EU, free trade and cooperation is untenable?"
Correct.
Frameworks for interdependence and vast bureaucracies aren't mutually exclusive (in fact, they often go together: the US federal government is both of those things, too.)
That's an interesting theory, but I would suggest that most successful such frameworks in human history have included some form of bureaucracy.
What frameworks would you point to as examples of what you're talking about (besides the EU... cause I think it's objectively a bad example haha)?
For example, how do you reach an optimal solution for orphans with the enforcement of private property rights? Or what about regulation of the relationship between a doctor and their patients? If the patient is mentally unable to act as a rational agent, there may be a conflict of interest between the doctor and patient without regulation.
What about health and safety standards? How does only focusing on private property rights deal with the vast asymmetry of information out there?
You couldn't be more wrong here. If anything the creation of the EU makes war much more likely, precisely because of the inevitability of its breakup. The UK is just the first to go, but many more countries will leave too, effectively finishing off the EU project. And with the end of the EU, comes the bitter divorce between European countries, which is fertile grounds for a new world war.
> Europe's longest period of peace correlates with the existence of the EU.
A few years ago, they were asked to contribute a few billions to Greece's economy that also was (and is, I presume) completely wasted. Most Germans complained loudly and politicians like Angela Merkel made it a point not to give them more money than absolutely necessary.
Why did they complain so much in Greece's but not East Germany's case? Think about that for some time then you see why the EU is doomed.
So it was always about power, then? Why shouldn't all states enjoy the free movement of goods & people without giving up their sovereignty?
The EU should have required only as much authority as it absolutely needed; instead it demanded too much.
Free movement between sovereign entities always entails yielding some amount of sovereignty loss, you can't have free movement of goods and people between two cities if there isn't a supra-city structure.
> The EU should have required only as much authority as it absolutely needed; instead it demanded too much.
That's just your opinion, I do not agree with it.
They just want to keep free movement of goods and services.
Last time I checked membership in the EU is voluntary. Why should there be punishment?
If you remove the free market from the EU's mission (as painted by your scenario above of everyone leaving and carrying on trading) what is the function of the state excluding the market? What is the idea there?
I hear all the time that the EU prevented war in Europe, but frankly war in Europe has been prevented by occupation by Britain and the United States. There are currently 21500 British troops in Germany. This is going to end in 2020, it will be fascinating to see what happens at that point.
Not really. Once the dust had settled, it was French-German reconciliation that kept continental Europe stable, not the British or US military. Sure, foreign troops in Germany had their role to play, but since the collapse of the Soviet Union 25 years ago, not so much as far as domestic affairs are concerned.
As if.
It was created as an amalgamation of post-war globalist trade deals. The EU administrative bodies were tacked on later to make it palatable as a governing body.
It's not inherently bad that an organization is founded on trade, but don't shit on my plate and call it pudding.
To deincentivise countries going to war with each other...
Deincentivising some kinds of war might have been a unexpected benefit, but it wasn't the motive.
> 'make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Coal_and_Steel_Commun...
That's complete ahistorical nonsense.
No, free trade did not do that, the seeds of the EU were sown at the Hague Congress for the express purpose of European integration as an antidote to nationalistic extremes. The Economic integration started being added with the Treaty of Rome.
Of course free trade was an inevitable consequence of european integration, I never claimed otherwise.
Trade did exist. Free trade less so, and a durable expectation of free trade on predictable terms (free or otherwise) even less so.
The EU is a framework is facilitate that interdependence, and while it has many faults, it was created to prevent another world war and in that it has succeeded.
Great Britain's future is very dependent on the decisions of its neighbors and trade partners, and it has just told those neighbors and trade partners to go to hell. The EU will make the UK pay a price for Brexit, and rightly so, otherwise all member states would leave and still enjoy the free movement of goods and people.
Every power structure is co-optable by large corporations and special interests. The Leave leaders are no different. You have swapped out one regrettable elite for another, much as the former British colonies nations did mid-century. There are many problems "independence" doesn't solve, and dealing with special interests is one of them.
Best of luck.