What some leavers don't realise is that the entire world had gotten used to dealing with the EU as a whole and that the world probably doesn't care that much about what Britain (or England/Wales) thinks about tariffs, terrorism, refugees, wars, human rights, etc.

Britain will have to follow the EU on many issues if it wants access to the common market.

Britain is going from having a very strong voice in a very powerful organisation that the world has to deal with to being a rather small country the world can largely ignore.

The distinction is less important than you think, because the second question gets at the heart of the issue and naturally follows the first. Unlike the US, The EU does not have a strong executive/legislative/judicial (and perhaps more-importantly, a shared language/national history) backbone that ties the member states together.

Also, the UK is still the 5th largest economy in the world by GDP ($2.8T). It may be 1/7 the size of the US economy and 1/4 the size of the Chinese economy, but it's hardly going to be ignored.

> Also, the UK is still the 5th largest economy in the world by GDP ($2.8T).

But relatively speaking, it's position is weakening year by year, as it's seeing anaemic growth compared to a large number of other economies.

More importantly, we're seeing the rise of more and more trading blocks, at a time when the UK has decided to stand outside. E.g. Africa is going to overtake the UK as a whole shortly. Hardly all that strange given we're talking about more countries than the EU. But ECOWAS - one of the regional pillars of the African Union - is on a trajectory to overtake the UK all on its own sometime in the next couple of decades, and with current growth it is likely more of them will.

It is pretty much inconceivable that the UK will remain 5th over the next decade, and it's looking likely that the UK won't even remain in the top ten over the next two decades, unless something happens to massively increase UK growth.

You misunderstand my point. Even if, on the surface, they continue to ask what the "EU" thinks, they'll actually be asking (as they always have) what Merkel, Hollande, and (now) Theresa May think. Greece, Italy, Portugal, etc. don't have a say because they need to keep their heads down and continue to service their debt to the big 3 EU leaders, who clearly don't agree on much, even at the global level (war, trade agreements, etc).

Have you been to Africa? Have you seen the level of infrastructure (education, access to electricity and clean water) relative to violence (civil wars), corruption, and pillaging of resources (western countries, China) that continues to take place across even the most developed African nations?

The UK may not even exit the EU at the end of the day [1]. It's much too early to make such dire predictions for the future of UK growth. I prefer the simple or "naive" view that things will not change much.

[1] A referendum in the UK is not binding on the government of the day; it is advisory. The UK has a government with a slender majority (implying it will be tricky to ram things through parliament), it is looking for a new prime minister (and, possibly, a new leader of the opposition), the referendum result was close (the country is split) and no one seems certain who has the power to get the ball rolling by triggering the “infamous” Article 50.

EU will die its slow death, Brexit is not the cause, its the catalyst.

The EU sceptics may be smug now but the EU is not some selfserving idea. It's now more relevant than ever.

2. The pound is recovering, and has already climbed back up beyond the point when the calculation in the article was made.

3. 5th or 6th, honestly, what difference does it make? The point is that they're still a major player in the world economy.

The UK was also going to give it up (alongside its WTO seat) which was what drove Cameron's 'ever closer union' clause.

[citation needed]

So, I for one see the Brexit (the process, not the outcome) as positive to European democracy. The process will (and should) be long and hard to reach a fair outcome to both Britain and EU and voters will learn from this.

The EU is messy by design, despite its obvious democratic-deficits which needs to be tackled by those who believe in european integration. I'd rather have neighbours settle their issues and common goals in a messy, frustrating forum then in the good-old battle-field (military or economic).

How? Seems to me most of the predicted bad consequences were tied to leaving the EU, which (barring some mutual agreement with the EU on an alternate timetable) happens two years after Article 50 is invoked, which it has not yet been. Why would the UK continuing to do well while it is still in the EU discredit any of the predictions of problems stemming from leaving the EU?

The Brexit crash was the beginning. The media told everyone to panic, so everyone sold. Then people realized how irrational that was. Personally, I'm hoping for more liberal-media driven sell offs. They're great opportunities to invest.

The future of the British economy is strong: an educated populace, competitive companies, and a pro-business government. They're going to get a great trade deal with America. They're going to do better than ever before having thrown off the beaurocrats in Brussels.

In response to dragonwriter below (I'm rate-limited):

In two years time is when the tariffs would kick in overnight in the absence of a deal. No company is stupid enough to wait that long to adjust their operations.

No, so actual consequences of leaving will take significant time to be clear after the exit, not be immediately apparent the day Britain finally leaves the EU.

(Which rather reinforces the point that they won't be clear long before Britain leaves the EU.)

> Don't you think markets take into account expected future outcomes?

Yes, but that's just another set of predictions, not actual counterevidence to any conflicting set of predictions.

So, in your view, the UK is doing " phenomenally well" right now? I mean I have read other opinions, including "deep political, social, democratic and economic crisis" and "value of the pound plunges".

If the EU is trying to convince the remaining member states that "leaving is terrible, you should remain", then it's absolutely working:

http://www.politico.eu/article/support-for-angela-merkel-ris... https://www.buzzfeed.com/albertonardelli/support-for-eu-memb...

And as for today vs a month ago, what's the evidence for that? I see them in a very strong position. The anti-business Labour Party is doing poorly in the polls, and the Conservatives have quickly coalesced around a new leader. The FTSE100 and FTSE250 are doing fine. There's every reason to believe that both Hillary (judging by her policies over time) and Trump (by explicit statement) are eager to sign a great deal with the UK. The future is bright for Britain.

But not in very good shape at all compared to say, the UK a month ago.

We'll see what comes of this, but as I said, I think Britain's fundamentals are very strong right now. There's no doubt that Brexit created uncertainty in areas where there was none before; markets hate uncertainty. Britain's trade relations were certainties within the EU, but so were uncontrolled migration and over-regulation. Now, on those and many more issues, the Brits themselves will decide and negotiate. No one is quite sure what they will do, especially after the next election. But if Britain makes the right choices, and at least for now I think they have leadership that's inclined to make those right choices, I believe that they will do better than they could have within the EU.

Just like the Brexit campaign. Good job.

The likely dissolution of the political entity currently known as the UK, more formally the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" would preclude it "doing well", not so?

Now of course, if support for Scottish independence consistently polls at over 60% for years, that's a different story. But I think that pro-independence forces are likely to weaken as Brexit proves to have been a good move.

Or not, in which case England loses 5 million people (England is 53 million btw) and some oil. On the plus side, they'd shake off a chunk of the electorate that seems to be set on economic suicide by socialism.

> The EU referendum was already on the table during the Scottish referendum. The people of Scotland knew the risk.

Incorrect, it was sold as the other way around: Scotland must stay in the UK or it might be out of the EU. You are detached from reality. A second Scottish referendum is likely.

1) https://next.ft.com/content/1219f41c-4456-11e6-9b66-0712b387...

David Cameron said he was going to wait for his replacement to start Article 50, and he would step down in October. Now that he's announced that he's stepping down tomorrow, we'll have a new prime minister much more quickly than anticipated. That might mean Article 50 could be coming within the next few weeks/months.

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/08/legal-attemp... [2] http://www.parliament.uk/about/faqs/house-of-commons-faqs/bu...

Britain could have national votes every week if the Government decided to hold them, but the government seems disinclined to have another referendum on Brexit.

More than 4 million people signed a petition for a new referendum

On top of that we now know that most of the promises from the leave camp were flat out lies, and they've basically been shown to not have the faintest idea what they want to achieve.

I'm sure some would switch and vote leave out of spite, but frankly I don't think the vote was fair or democratic to begin with - it presented a false choice, in that "leave" could campaign on anything under the sun, with contradicting ideas about what leaving actually meant, and we see now the problems that causes: Did the 52% want EEA membership? Did they want full on isolationism? Something in between? We don't know. And we don't know how the results would be if they had to pick a specific option, but it is highly unlikely that they'd be unchanged.

Cameron (our DM) came along and gave us all a free re-roll.

People with 10 or less voted yes. 11 - 15 were about 50/50 depending on risk aversion. 16 - 20 voted no.

The numbers are almost always going to sway in favour of change, there are too many people down at the bottom.

Sure, more options on how to leave would have been amazing, left-exit was interesting, green-exit was also interesting. Right-racist-exit was bonkers, but people liked it.

But remember that remain-the-same and remain-and-re-negotiate had both been tried. And for millions and millions of people it was shit. Utter shit. Credit card chomping, crappy zero hour job, minimum wage, second hand clothes, crappy car, no life insurance, no pension, crap.

Next time you're in an Oxfam shop look at us. Picking over dead man suits for our next job interview. The shame of it. Jobs gone. High streets gone. Only option is to move to London away from elderly parents, our kids, our friends.

Yep.

Except for one teeny weeny insignificantly minor detail: these things have nothing whatsoever to do with the EU, and everything to do with the austerity/de-industrialization policies of neo-liberal UK governments, primarily Tory, but to a somewhat less extent also New-Labour.

And the EU was, if anything, a counter to those forces, with structural funds, with labor standards, with investments by non-UK firms in the de-industrialized parts of the UK for access to the common market etc.

And leaving the EU will make these things worse.

So voting against the EU to protest these conditions is not even cutting off your nose to spite your face, it's cutting off your nose to spite someone else's face!

While it deserves the word "pathetic" I can't bring myself to it. It really is just sad. Very, very sad.

Pathetic? Name calling, wow that's low. I love how butt hurt you are. The more furious rich people are the better the decision feels.

In fact there may be no way to keep any of them happy, since apparently many of them voted Leave for impossible/EU-unrelated reasons: to keep non-EU immigration down; to spend money we won't even have on the NHS; because they don't like what the UK government has been doing and will keep doing outside the EU with even greater impunity, etc.

"Pathetic" 1. Arousing sadness, compassion, or sympathy, esp. through vulnerability or sadness; pitiable.

Seems fair enough. "Name-calling"?

"Rich people": I work for a university as support staff. I earn under the median UK wage and surely well under the median HN wage. We've had deeper and deeper cuts year on year for the past several years and post-Brexit an even bigger chunk of our budget looks like disappearing along with our best academics and researchers, not to mention other support staff, foreign language teachers/cataloguers/negotiators, etc. Education and research careers have been a route into the middle class for many and it's a shame to see that threatened - even more of a shame when the people who voted for it, the press, politicians have hardly even acknowledged it's a problem.

But have fun assuming that only rich people are interested in science or can get any benefit from cooperating with colleagues elsewhere in Europe...

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

And I still think it's a crying shame to flush science, research and education in this country down the toilet just for the sake of waving two fingers at some unknown bureaucrats and uncaring politicians, whether I get paid or not.

To address the description of the source of the problem offered upthread? Voting against the people actually responsible for the problems in UK elections (general elections and otherwise.)

If the problem is in Westminster, voting against the EU does nothing to solve the problem.

If you are unhappy with what the UK government is doing, and the things you say you are unhappy about are 100% UK gov, not EU, then the time to "vote the bums out" is the UK general election.

Really having a hard time figuring out what you were/are trying to accomplish.

One side was allowed to sell a fairy-tale that was customised for each recipient, while the other had to deal with reality. The fairy-tales may have been appealing, but only one of them can even potentially become reality.

The reality is that we're ending up with something that nobody voted for, because it hasn't been put together yet. The only thing we do know is that it won't look like any of the promises, because most them have already been shown to be lies.

As it stands, remaining is the most democratic option, as it is the only promised alternative that actually exist and that we have an indicator of the level of support for, and the only option that doesn't rule out substantial subsets of the others later on.

Barring that, many of us will do what we can to minimise the ability for the Leave voters to harm us, by fighting for independence.

> And for millions and millions of people it was shit. Utter shit. Credit card chomping, crappy zero hour job, minimum wage, second hand clothes, crappy car, no life insurance, no pension, crap.

And I respect that a lot of people got it hard. But none of that has anything to do with the EU, and everything to do with the same governments that have been lying to you for decades (and yes, I include New Labour in that).

Brexit is going to affect those of us who are most angry about this least in most respects. I can deal with the economic fallout. I'll benefit from the housing market collapsing, as we can afford to take advantage of it. The impending interest rate drop means I will now pay less on my mortgage per month than I had budgeted with paying per week when we took it out before the financial crisis.

Meanwhile those in the most precarious situations are likely to get hit by slowdowns coupled with the effects of a government that doesn't give a shit about them.

And with the EU gone, a bunch of regulations that have prevented successive UK governments from stepping all over you will be gone.

If this country doesn't get ripped apart by independence movements, it will be torn apart through anger that'll make the winter of discontent seems like a polite garden party at the current rate when people realise the effects of Brexit.

I suspect not; for one, I think many of the 4+ million who signed the petition for a new referendum would probably vote "Remain".

This has been debated to death, 99% of politicians agree that the vote is cast, let's move on.

A central aspect of a democracy is that people are allowed to change their mind, and that people are allowed to continue to campaign for a decision to be overturned.

So no, we won't move on. Even after a Brexit we won't move on - some of us will fight to rejoin, some of us will work for independence (for my part, I've offered to help one of the groups starting to work for independence for London).

But this is not over, even it if takes breaking the UK apart to finish it.

The UK hasn't done their own trade negotiations for over 30 years. The EU has. They haven't got the right people with the right experience to do this (yet). They need to hire the best they can, or outsource, in order to get things in place within the deadline once the UK parliament has voted the referendum result through and Article 50 is submitted.

It is going to be tight. I imagine that Whitehall is in a shit storm right now.

I've actually read trade deals. The idea that there's only a handful of people in the world who can negotiate these things is ridiculous.

Its also two things negotiators and knowing your strengths.

The world's best negotiators wont be able help you very much if you do not have much to offer.

Also I am skeptical of your assertion that anyone could write trade deals. It requires a very deep understanding of economics, international finance, geopolitics and a bunch of other topics - I would say being able to be a good trade negotiator is a lot more difficult than being a programmer and has far more profound consequences.

Like I said, I've read trade deals. One I actually read almost from start to finish (the recent WTO deal on upgrading customs rules, I forgot the specific name).

If Chile can sign trade deals with much bigger economic powers, much more quickly than the EU can, I see no reason why the UK would be unable to. Can you justify your assertion that trade negotiation is much harder than programming, or is that just a feeling?

China pursues a mercantilist strategy in many respects. Take steel, for example: unrestricted trade with China would wreak havoc on Germany's steel industry, with potential knock-on effects further along the value chain - and there's no guarantee that China would keep steel prices low after predatory pricing.

No, that does not follow.

This continues to be one of the most suicidal moves in British history.

It would take decades for the UK to catch up to the EU on trade agreements again, if they ever do.

However, why obey EU rules when you're about to leave? The only reason to do this would be to leave on good terms. But the EU sees Brexit as a betrayal that must be punished severely to try and scare other countries into not leaving. There are no "good terms" by their choice, not the UK's.

So the UK should start immediately violating whatever EU rules are convenient to do so, once Article 50 is invoked.

I doubt any trade agreements the UK might be able to get, would be worth the backlash of turning the EU into an enemy. Especially considering that anyone the UK would want to trade with, probably doesn't also want to harm their relationship to the EU. That last point alone probably ensures that nobody is going to start trade discussions with the UK anyway until after they leave.

However they have already shown very clearly that they aren't like that. Given the total absence of compromise previously I see no reason to expect any now, unless quite a few of the current leaders of the Commission and EU countries are removed.

The EU will use whatever tactics it can to preserve its own power, national populations be damned.

Nowadays, not so much. Perhaps that's Juncker, or perhaps it's the fact that it's now so large. See how Cameron's negotiation went (or rather, didn't).

Besides, most of the compromises were simply not forcing the UK to do new things. That's only seen as a compromise because the EU is run by people who believe every member should be forcibly 'harmonised' through automatic implementation of new EU laws. If the EU was more like a standards body that simply recommended laws instead of mandating their implementation, there would be no need for allowing alternatives to be seen as "compromise"

There would be no point in an EU that couldn't mandate laws.

Suffice it to say, the EU could have taken many structures that are not the one it has now.

The problem for the UK is that they always want have all the benefits but they don't want all the duties.

There are lots of small favours that the UK will now need to hand out to get what it wants from EEA member states. These favours will cost. Its loosing a institute or a foundation there.

Its clear that the UK benefited a lot economically from being in the single market and regaining access under new agreements is going to be costly. That is not punishment. That is the real world, the UK ate its cake no one is going to give it a new one for free.

I really don’t mind the brexit voters, them I understand. I can’t understand how a conservative party launched itself in the most revolutionary course imaginable over internal politics. Not just reversing 40 years of slow progress in one direction but burning it all down to the ground. Over a very badly phrased referendum.

I think Cameron will go down in history as a terrible PM, a modern day Chamberlain.

"Why would you think we wouldn't?"

"You're breaking your treaty with the EU."

All the UK will be doing is following the treaties in place to end an existing agreement. That's not breaking a treaty - it is following it.

The UK signed the deal knowing the consequences of it, why would another country sign a trade deal with you knowing that you will not follow the terms due to your countries internal politics ?

No, don't having the same deal while outside of the EU is not punishing.

Trade creates wealth and wealth is not zero sum. Trade deals get signed because all parties involved believe it will be to their mutual benefit. Why would you want to sign a trade deal with a weak country? It is self-defeating: you would get little out of it.

Parts of the EU establishment seem locked in a mindset that they can only grow by taking things away from others. I saw a lot of discussion post-Brexit by countries that want to abuse regulatory passporting to try and force banks and other high-earning firms into other EU countries, but no discussion at all about making those countries naturally more attractive. It's the equivalent of saying "We will grow our economy by forcing Facebook to relocate its HQ from Silicon Valley to France by passing a regulation saying they must do so". Even if you brought overwhelming political and economic power to bear and somehow forced the Zuck to move to Paris, it'd just be a terrible idea for all sorts of long term reasons.

But the rest of your comment seems to say "Yes."

> Trade deals get signed because all parties involved believe it will be to their mutual benefit.

I think that's optimistic. Deals get signed fundamentally because each side individually benefits. A better deal will see the weaker partner able to grow as a result, but that's not necessary for it to be worthwhile to the stronger partner.

> Why would you want to sign a trade deal with a weak country? It is self-defeating: you would get little out of it.

There's always a stronger and a weaker player at the table. It might take some fiddling to work out which is which, and it's certainly not limited to a single axis, but deals still happen.

> abuse regulatory passporting

I don't see that as abuse, that's just playing the game with the pieces that are on the board. From France's point of view, given the choice between a quick zero-sum win where they gain the limited number of banks available and a long-term mutual win where everyone grows, why not do both?

There's a legal requirement as part of the Lisbon treaty that as soon as a country invokes Article 50 (leaving the EU) they have 2 years to negotiate treaties with all parties involved, after which all existing EU treaties with that country cease to apply. That means, from the day the government invokes Article 50, there is a maximum of 2 years access to EU funding for any science project in the UK. Any project that will take longer than that has pretty much zero chance of getting funded in the first place. Given the fact that Theresa May might invoke Article 50 on Thursday, getting a long term project funded is going to be impossible.

> "What is important is that we do this in the right timescale and we do it to get the right deal for the UK," Ms May told ITV television, reiterating that she would not trigger the article this year.)

http://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/no-exit-trigger-unt...

China recently rated the UK as the number one soft power in the world [1] ... rather than just judging countries on the size of their economy, "soft power" is a measure of a countries ability to achieve its aims through diplomacy and influence. The UK has links of language, culture, trade and kinship across the globe dating back to the time of Empire.

Unshackled from the failing trade block of the EU I don't see any reason why the UK couldn't carve out a very acceptable niche for itself operating again as an independent sovereign nation.

This wasn't a corporate decision just based on raw economic numbers. This was a decision based on principle rather than pragmatism. It's democracy in action, and sometimes it's messy.

http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21657655-oxbridge-one-...

Europe and Antarctica are the only two continents on Earth to see no net positive growth to their economies in the last few decades.

Hmm...the numbers appear to disagree with your claim:

  http://www.tradingeconomics.com/european-union/gdp-annual-growth-rate

Hmm...the article does not say that China is the source of the ratings: "compiled by Portland, a London-based PR firm".

Let me repeat that: a London-based PR firm rates Britain highly. In other news, the pope says vatican tops in catholicism and the US president thinks US is the greatest.

In addition, "Britain scored highly in its “engagement” with the world, [..] its diplomats staffing the largest number of permanent missions to multilateral organisations".

Hmm...

And finally: "But many of the assets that pushed Britain to the top of the soft-power table are in play. In the next couple of years the country faces a referendum on its membership of the EU; a slimmer role for the BBC, its prolific public broadcaster; and a continuing squeeze on immigration, which has already made its universities less attractive to foreign students. Much of Britain’s hard power was long ago given up. Its soft power endures—for now."

Gee...

All countries in the EU have a keen idea of their self interest at all times, and the UK is no exception. The national interest here has always been wholehearted participation in the single market deepening and expansion and little interest at all in the larger political project, which did not exist when the UK joined the EEC. "Special deals" do not fairly characterise the relationship.

I don't think that EU leaders have an urge to make the UK suffer that is dominant over the desire to have good neighbours and a healthy, stable future. We have all done well out of the relationship and we want to prosper together in the future. Europe needs wholehearted cooperation on the issues that unite us, and that needs good faith and an appreciation of what we still have.

Stats show there was (is?) a clear divide between leave and remain along geographical, age, and class boundaries, which are most certainly correlated with higher education and/or interest in technical subjects.

And yes, we sympathise with you.

Assuming countries are willing to grant the UK alone the same terms as the EU as a whole, and don't (ab)use this chance to negotiate a better situation for themselves.

Even if by some miracle Theresa May decides to withhold invoking article 50 before creating new treaties using back channels with the 50 other trading partners of the UK, it wont be possible to enact them until the UK leaves the EU and negotiates a new trade deal with the EU.

Neither of these conditions are in the interest of the EU or the UK if talks are to be amicable and realistic. Amicable and realistic talks are very much in the interests of all concerned - and I guess from the EU point of view, the leadership resolution in the UK could have been a lot worse. The rules are meant to discourage les autres, but there is little appetite at the moment for other countries to flirt with leaving. Also rhetoric is beginning to calm down as well - no more calls for immediate Article 50 invocation and UKIP have faded into the background a little.

So far so not as bad as it could be.

Well, that's your opinion. EU officials and heads of government appear to disagree with your view of what's best for them, having consistently and unerringly insisted that there will be NO negotiations whatsoever until Article 50 is invoked.

The new administration is setting up a brexit department and accumulating expertise necessary to start negotiations. Talk is of article 50 invocation by year end (I think).

Citation needed.

I have never seen this, and a quick check reveals the opposite:

"Ms Merkel added: “We have spoken to Britain and made clear there will be no negotiations with Britain until they have made their application, and there will be no cherry picking.”"

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-eu-refe...

This is from yesterday.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/09/philip-hammo...

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/02612186-467b-11e6-8d68-72e9211e86...