"Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe." - Frank Zappa
Stupidity is supposedly infinite, because intelligence is a very small needle in the search space of good decision making and understanding, the rest of that space is made of stupidity.
I think it's more or less self-evident, but to put it explicitly, in the current political ambience, results of referenda and elections are determined more by people's susceptibility to scare mongering than rational thinking. Is this relevant enough?
I'm starting to think that the book Manufacturing Consent should be part of our school curriculum. I'd suggest seeing through media spin is a very useful life skill.
Haha, hell no! Many people absorb what the media says with barely any questioning. Take this article for example, why is there no suggestion of Remain voters switching to Leave? Perhaps it's because the media coverage has been so one sided there's very little chance many people who voted to Remain would have need to question their convictions.
> Perhaps it's because the media coverage has been so one sided
All the most one-side media coverage was on the Leave side, wasn't it? The Sun, The Daily Mail and The Daily Express in particular -- the main mass-circulation tabloids -- were full of pro-Leave lies.
These are also papers that, not coincidentally, hate the BBC for being independent and excellent value for money.
There have been lies and propaganda on both sides, I won't deny that. However, the coverage in the 'impartial' BBC has been anything but. There have been very few instances of information-rich coverage from any of the mainstream news outlets, the coverage has been much more about personality politics than about fostering a healthy debate.
Are you really trying to say that all academies are corrupt? I fail to see how not being controlled by a LEA means that you are straight away in the hands of corrupt big business/the man/the illuminati/whoever you think these corrupt people are.
> Boris Johnson said that British people would continue to be able to live, work and study in the EU, while at the same time the UK would be able to introduce a points-based system to control migration.
I can hardly understand how can so many people believe such an obvious liar.
Cameron did not say that. He said "Can we be so sure peace and stability on our continent are assured beyond any shadow of doubt? Is that a risk worth taking?" which is absolutely valid. It is forty years since there was a fascist government in Spain, 30 years since half of Europe was run by authoritarian communist regimes, 20 years since there was genocide in Kosovo, and a war in Ukraine is still ongoing. The EU has been absolutely vital in stabilizing the continent over that timescale. Croatia and Serbia were involved in a civil war where 20,000 people died within our lifetimes, and Serbia will probably join Croatia as a member of the EU within the next decade, with open borders between he countries and guaranteed rights for minority groups. Cameron's comments were absolutely reasonable.
Leave says that the EU in undemocratic. But the EU is a democracy. It is certainly much more democratic than the British first-past-the-post and the house of Lords. Saying that the EU in undemocratic is just a meme.
Then there is the question about the UK contributions. The UK does get its money worth, by the profit made trading in one of the biggest markets in the world (and with the countries that have trade deals with that market). By the investment that flows to UK (the FDI). By being part of continent that is much more prosperous then it would be otherwise.
The UK needs the EU more than the EU needs the UK.
Leave says that the UK has too many migrants, but it has fewer migrants than Ireland, Austria, Norway, Switzerland. Roughly the same number as France and Germany.
The Leave camp doesn't have a plan and is awfully misinformed as to how the world works. It is a populist movement and that is all there is to it.
Though to be fair, I would like to see a bit of compromise from the EU side of table. They are simply too intransigent.
In theory everyone in Spain can move to Malta. Of course this would never happen in practice. But if the people in Malta are worried. The EU should consider providing them the legal means to deal with that hypothetical scenario. Instead of saying, its free movement, and that's it.
Yeah, it's just a meme... just like we couldn't possibly trade in the EU without a trade deal is just a meme... or that all Leave campaigners are racist/stupid is just a meme...
If you think you can get a better deal than the one we have now, you are irrational or uninformed, if not stupid. You might get the same deal, but not a better one. It's just as irrational as an England supporter believing that England can win Euro 2016 after being knocked out.
The Leave campaign and the referendum have both been engineered to rid Britain of both UKIP and Euroscepticism, one way or the other. The only good thing that will result from Brexit will be the disappearance of Nigel Farage, who will no longer have a reason to exist.
Cameron has left article 50 inactive — more or less guaranteeing a Brexit trial period as far as the markets are concerned, and also guaranteeing a second referendum in the form of a Conservative leadership contest and subsequently a general election, with manifestos promising to initiate or cancel Brexit.
Worst case scenario, on a global scale, UK fares well and EU starts to crack — Leave campaign was right (against all the odds and math) and article 50 is triggered.
Best case scenario, UK fares badly, for EU it's business as usual, article 50 never activated, people vote for reformed Conservatives or Labour to cancel Brexit with landslide after people suffered with pricy food and clothing for months.
For a damage control strategy to handle the result of a fundamentally terrible decision — to ask the masses a question without a definition of a meaningful majority — it's actually not bad.
> "If you think you can get a better deal than the one we have now, you are irrational or uninformed, if not stupid."
It's not all about economics. There are other reasons to Leave that have nothing to do with economics (or immigration, for that matter). Perhaps if you took the time into understanding the problems that exist in the EU you'd see this too. I'd be happy to explain further if you wanted to understand my own position.
> Those fundamental treaties severely limit the ability of EU member state governments to fund public investment, rescue failing companies and industries, save jobs or use public ownership for wider economic, social and environmental purposes. Should Britain elect a left or progressive government, the treaties will act as a strait-jacket on its policies, which could only be removed if every other EU member state government agrees to treaty change.
While it's true that this still concerns "economics, immigration and some nebulous freedom", the argument is that the EU policies aren't left enough, and, for example, restrict the right of refugees. Quoting from http://www.leftleave.org/the-eu-ratcheting-up-racism/ :
> ... the fact that is that the biggest ratcheting up of the attack on migrants has just been pushed through by the European Union; the treaty arranged by Angela Merkel between the EU and Turkey. That ripped up long established rights of refugees fleeing war and means those in Greece will face deportation back to Turkey, itself becoming less stable, and new arrivals will now be put in detention camps unlike before. The corruption behind all this, with the EU bribing the Turks to sign, speaks volumes about the undemocratic nature of the EU. And yet there are those who think Farage is the main driver of anti-migrant racism, not noticing he’s been sidelined and could only dream of doing something as despicable as fixing that treaty with Turkey.
> If you think you can get a better deal than the one we have now, you are irrational or uninformed, if not stupid.
Sad but true.
It seems to me the EU has every incentive to offer the worst deal possible, to discourage other EU states from risking the same sort of vote.
Probably the best we could do is get the same deal as Norway, but Norway still pays money to the EU, follows EU regulations (many of them are necessary to sell goods to the EU), and allows the free movement of workers. (As does Switzerland, even though it's not in the EU, and voted against it.)
A number of Leave voters apparently want no immigration and those immigrants we have to be "sent home". I expect this includes all the ones born in London, Birmingham, Bradford, Leicester etc, whose parents arrived in the 1950s and 1960s.
> just like we couldn't possibly trade in the EU without a trade deal is just a meme
This is not what has been said, what has been said is that UK can't have the same trade deals they have right now without the duties they have right now.
The suggested implications that arise from leaving have been heavily based on the perceived damage to the economy. The basis for those implications has always been the volume of trade the UK does with the EU. Even if people aren't outright suggesting that trade will drop to zero, there's a reason that no indications are given to how much trade is likely to drop, and instead the volume of current trade is provided in its place.
This all comes back to media manipulation. Sometimes the media doesn't lie to you directly, they lie through omission. For example, take a look at this comedy sketch from The Guardian about the European Court of Human Rights:
This video was brought out at the time when the EU referendum was being publicly discussed. It seems to make a good case for staying in the EU, right? However, there's one key bit of information that is omitted from the video, the European Convention on Human Rights which forms the legal underpinnings of the European Court of Human Rights was negotiated outside the EU through the Council of Europe:
Do you see how, in the context when it was released, that the video could be misleading, even when there weren't any direct lies in the video (that I'm aware of)? I'd suggest it'd be easy to assume after watching the video that giving up the EU also means giving up the European Convention on Human Rights, even when that's not the case.
> Though to be fair, I would like to see a bit of compromise from the EU side of table. They are simply too intransigent.
This is part of the problem. It would not be fair. The UK already had a special position, with many advantages that other EU countries did not have as a compromise. A line was drawn and that apparently was not enough for the UK.
> The UK needs the EU more than the EU needs the UK.
I beg to differ.
The Eurocrats in Brussels who are unelected. Wanted Britian out immediately after the result.
Merkel, on the other hand. Had the Car manufacturers on the phone screaming at her about the result. For them, the UK is 25% of their export market. I am sure other German manufacturers are not too happy with the result either.
The UK is simply in a better position than the EU. Now more than ever.
Think about all those directives the EU placed on the UK. Now they can be all changed.
Think about agriculture, fishing, energy, etc. Everything that HAD to be negotiated as an EU entity. That only things could have been pushed through the EU parliment is if all EU states agreed. That no other country had been penalised!
Now, British interests come first. If the UK wants to do something and France or another country doesn't like it. Now it's tough luck.
Now many times has France Veto'd something that Britian wanted before, because her interests were marginalised or a sector under threat?
This is what people simply just don't understand.
Once all the smoke clears. Britian has a real chance to be more competitive than France or Germany and that scares the hell out of them!
> Merkel, on the other hand. Had the Car manufacturers on the phone screaming at her about the result.
Wishful thinking or do you have any source for this?
> The UK is simply in a better position than the EU. Now more than ever
> Once all the smoke clears. Britian has a real chance to be more competitive than France or Germany and that scares the hell out of them!
The "eurocrats" are elected, there are elections for the eu parlement every 5 years. The 28 (soon 27) members of the european comission are proposed by the member states (eg their elected leaders) and approved by the european parlement. And finally the council of europe is made up of elected national ministers (per domain).
With regard to the rules: you would still have to comply to most of these rules to be part of the single market (which most leave proponents want to be). Studies from WTO and IMF have shown that not going that route (eg trading under WTO rules) would impact UK severely (up to 9% of the GPD). See for example https://www.imf.org/external/np/ms/2016/051316.htm
> Now, British interests come first. If the UK wants to do something and France or another country doesn't like it. Now it's tough luck.
Will you still call it "British" if Scotland decides to leave the UK in favor of the EU?
Isn't there even worse luck for the UK should they want to sell something to the EU which doesn't meet EU standards, and France objects to the change? And won't British manufacturers who have both a domestic and mainland market have the overhead of following two sets of standards? I guess it's tough luck for them.
> scares the hell out of them!
Sitting here in Sweden, I have a feeling more of confusion than being scared. The longer the UK drags its heels on leaving, the more it feels like the UK just want to be the special snowflake in the center of everyone's attention.
Except that no one will ever trust investing in trade with Britain again after this. "British interests come first", in Britain. Brexit erased what is now $2.8 trillion from the global markets, devalued what was thought to be a strong safe currency, losing UK territories and has no leadership to speak of taking any sort of accountability for this disaster.
To the rest of the world it's shocking and infuriating to witness. You see a nation that will be more competitive, we see a nation in freefall collapse. Even here in the USA, we are not on board with this. Our banks are pulling out of London as we speak.
No banks, no pound, no stability.. no leverage. To the rest of the world from now on, British interests come last.
I can say the vitriol after the result has been crazy. My FB has dozens and dozens of posts from Remoaners decrying the idiots, racists, and old people who dared to vote against their righteous interest. At least there's a bit of humour now that England have been booted out of the European Championship.
And it's all come out AFTER the result. Before the result, I suppose people thought it would go to Remain, but also there was very little activity. At least in my feed.
I'm quite shocked by how little sympathy my friends have for the other side. There's a real split between people in the UK. People are saying they're "ashamed" of their country, they don't get why vast swathes of ordinary people away from London would want to leave Europe.
For the record, most of my friends are university educated and voted Remain. The most powerful feature in classifying between the two camps seems to be university education (seems 100% of my non uni educated friends went for leave), the second conservatism (uni educated conservative voters more likely to be leavers).
I'm somewhat indifferent on the issue; I reckon leaving will send a signal about reforming the EU, but also the UK needs to trade with Europe, so they cannot ever really leave. Any deal done will end up looking like Switzerland, which says it's not in the EU, but for practical stuff is. Do I think that's worth the hassle of actually leaving? Pretty marginal.
> the UK needs to trade with Europe, so they cannot ever really leave. Any deal done will end up looking like Switzerland
Thse statements are seemingly facts to you, but personally I am not sure how either could become reality.
I believe that the UK will have to leave, because the referendum is said to be binding. Going back on that would not be good for future voting or agreements.
Swiss politicians did not, as far as I know, behave in any way similar to how some British politicians behave when it concerns the EU.
Switzerland held a referendum on stopping freedom of movement with the EU, which passed. The EU refused to even discuss it and the borders are still open and that's not going to change unless Switzerland wants to cancel all it's EU deals. Which isn't going to happen.
You usually don't even have to show your passport when boarding a plane in Zurich as long you're flying within the Schengen area.
I think that's the case in most Schengen airports now.
What can happen is that you're checked by customs at the border. Since Switzerland is not in a customs union with the EU. Generally speaking, though, it's free flowing.
"All four European Free Trade Association (EFTA) member states – Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland – have signed agreements on association with the Schengen Agreement, even though they are outside the EU"
> Thse statements are seemingly facts to you, but personally I am not sure how either could become reality.
No, not at all. Things could turn out very differently, it's true. But I lean towards thinking that the countries involved will want to continue trading with each other and basically not rock the economic boat too much.
Many of the countries that remain in and strongly support the EU are likely to, in the immediate term, not give excellent trade terms to Britain to keep the perceived cost of leaving high to avoid encouraging leave movements in a couple of other members.
And then it's a poker game. How much are they willing to hurt their already lethargic economies to punish the UK? I reckon if all countries has a referendum, a fair few would vote to leave as well. It can't sit that well with people to punish the UK for leaving when there's a sizeable number of French, Dutch, etc, who want to leave as well.
The is actually a very good point. People are acting like it was all incredibly obvious that voting Leave was a terrible thing to do. But it wasn't obvious before the vote. At least not to the average voter.
A lot of the blame for that has to go to the media who printed anything the Leave campaign said even if it wasn't true (the £350m thing especially).
I don't think it's fair to totally blame the Leave voters for their bad decision. Besides it isn't totally clear now that it is that bad of a decision. The pound only dropped 6% (compared to 30% in 2008). And that's due to uncertainty more than anything else. It could easily go up again. In fact you can barely see the change on this graph:
> they don't get why vast swathes of ordinary people away from London would want to leave Europe.
To me it seems like most Leavers voted Leave because of some dissatisfaction with their life (too poor), and the Leave campaign successfully convinced them that it was because of Europe and immigrants. Or they just voted the way the government didn't want them to as a protest.
> But it wasn't obvious before the vote. At least not to the average voter. A lot of the blame for that has to go to the media who printed anything the Leave campaign.
Which succinctly sums up why simple democracy is a bad way to make large scale decisions. It's good it was non binding.
>The is actually a very good point. People are acting like it was all incredibly obvious that voting Leave was a terrible thing to do. But it wasn't obvious before the vote. At least not to the average voter.
I cannot disagree with you hard enough. All of the things that are "coming out" now were refuted during the lead up to the referendum, not only by the Remain campaigners, but by the experts the Leave campaign was so clever to disqualify.
The was a handful of people/companies/economists that sided with Leave, while the lion's share was solidly with Remain - and they all said it was a terrible thing to do.
But it wasn't obvious before the vote. At least not to
the average voter.
I've heard it suggested [1] that the leave vote is indicative of a lack of trust in our political institutions. I think that's an interesting point of view, because it explains a lot about the recriminations about the result.
If you think our institutions are basically sound, and you hear dire warnings about brexit from government economists, national and foreign politicians, journalists, think tanks, business leaders, academics and industry bodies you'll naturally think "these well-credentialed experts all agree, only an idiot would ignore all these warnings"
If you think our institutions are unsound, and you hear dire warnings from the bodies that failed to predict or prevent the 2008 financial crisis and that told us Iraq had WMDs they could launch within 45 minutes, you'll naturally think "these bodies are just mouthpieces for the PM, only an idiot would believe all these warnings"
In other words, it _was_ obvious to _remain_ voters that we should remain - it just wasn't obvious to _leave_ voters because they approach the question with different world views.
The reason you can't see it isn't that the drop isn't significant. It's because it's only been a week, and on a 10 year scale, it's just that last pixel on the graph. Meanwhile, it has shifted the entire graph upwards.
> I reckon leaving will send a signal about reforming the EU...
I heard this frequently, but it is never specified _what_ exactly should be reformed.
Also I think that most people really overestimate the EU budget: It's about 1/10th of Germany's/France's or 6 times of Luxemburg's.
Someone was saying this sort of thing recently. "Way less of the EU budget is spent on admin than people think"
I think the true number was ~8.5bn from 140bn budget (but I'm going on memory, I assume it was euros). I'm not sure that is a low budget? France and Germany are actually running a country. Infrastructure, social security, armed forces, police etc etc. This is a layer of government over and above that, redistributing and legislating for (in theory) the benefit of all.
I honestly don't see it as a small budget, and whilst the admin costs may be 5% instead of 20% (which I seem to have as the median expected number in the survey) - it's still billions.
> but it is never specified _what_ exactly should be reformed
It's pretty clear that the EU, more specifically the Euro Zone, as currently run, can't go on. We either need a Federal government (i.e. fiscal + monetary union), or to disintegrate the Euro. Simply said, it's unthinkable that the US government would install capital controls in Alabama, whereas the EU government can do that in Greece.
That's the main issue; there are many smaller ones as well, but they exist in almost any political system and aren't specific to the EU.
Although I voted remain, I almost voted leave. There are good, very good reasons to leave. There are very very good reasons to remain and 'fix' from the inside.
However a friend on FB unfriended me after he declared all leavers were racist idiots. I suggested we need to understand why people voted leave. I tried to point out that the rise of the far right within Europe might be down to EU policies.
So maybe, just maybe, the leavers have it right. Do we want to be living in the Unites States of EU or do we want countries that identify as European and trade and travel equally between them all?
We live within a democracy and the public have spoken. Our politicians should execute the will of the people.
Er, the Leave campaign was expressly against free travel, and it's kind of silly to think you'd get the same trade terms leaving the EU. So the choice you provide to support the idea that maybe the leavers have it right is neither one the leavers are offering (on the travel part) nor one that is remotely realistic on either point as a result of voting leave (it's something that might have been achievable by staying in and advocating a different course for the EU.)
And you live within a representative, rather than direct, democracy which features non-binding referenda; the people speak with binding authority through elections of representatives. There may be reasons that the government should put the results of the referendum into policy, but appeals to the nature of the system of government do not provide that reason.
In California, constitutionally, the power of referendum and initiative is reserved to the people, and does trump there per our the legislature. So, a system of government argument of the type you made would work for California.
The UK, however, has no such reserved powers of the people, but instead has parliamentary supremacy. The referendum is not, in that system, superior to the representatives.
"Two, while not everyone who might vote “Leave” is an appalling racist and/or low-information nationalist, it’s pretty clear that nearly every appalling racist/low-info nationalist is voting “Leave,” and that the people engineering the Leave vote are perfectly happy to leverage those folks to get what they want. If you find yourself on the same side as appalling racists/ignorant “patriots”, you might ask yourself why, and additionally whether you might be more appalling and/or ignorant than you’d like to admit."
> I'm somewhat indifferent on the issue; I reckon leaving will send a signal about reforming the EU ... Do I think that's worth the hassle of actually leaving? Pretty marginal.
It's this which upsets me as someone in favour of remaining. I know a large number of people who are personally concerned for the immediate safety of their jobs following an exit vote (working in the finance sector in London, working for research institutions currently funded by the EU, or Brits working outside the UK) and also have friends (and a sister-in-law) who have come to the UK thanks to the freedoms afforded by the EU, and who are worried about their futures now.
I have great sympathy with the desire to send politicians a message, and with a desire to make the EU a more transparent, more efficient organisation, but you can surely understand the frustration of people who are facing very real fears for their own livelihoods, when someone in favour of exiting tells us they are doing so not because they believe that leaving is the best thing for the UK, but rather because they want to "send a message". This message comes at a great potential cost, and the people sending the message are in many cases not the ones paying the price
That mandate of the EU is, and always was, to prevent WW3. That is its raison d'être, and all decisions branch out from not wanting to repeat past mistakes, and end up like Serbia/Croatia in 1996. You can point out Swiss all you want, but Switzerland is as special is the City of London (not London city).
> "That mandate of the EU is, and always was, to prevent WW3."
Sort of. Many see that start of the EU was the ECSC (European Coal and Steel Community). Robert Schuman proposed it in 1950 to "make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible".
However, the ideas behind the EU started before the ECSC. Jean Monnet is regarded by many to be the 'father' of the EU. Here's a quote from a speech he gave in 1943...
"There will be no peace in Europe if the States rebuild themselves on the basis of national sovereignty, with its implications of prestige politics and economic protection…. The countries of Europe are not strong enough individually to be able to guarantee prosperity and social development for their peoples. The States of Europe must therefore form a federation or a European entity that would make them into a common economic unit."
Furthermore, there have been other groups that have promoted peace in the region, namely NATO and OSCE. The agreement that led to NATO was signed in 1949, and OSCE was started in 1975, well ahead of the formation of the political union of the EU (the ECSC and EEC were mostly trade deals).
It's also worth noting that there was a failed attempt to build a pan-European military in 1952, and that Jean-Claude Junckher has indicated the EU may want its own army in the future:
> That mandate of the EU is, and always was, to prevent WW3.
That's an interesting generational difference-of-view.
Growing up in the Cold War, to us it was NATO that kept the peace both within the western hemisphere and within Europe. Barring a couple of tantrums it even kept Turkey and Greece from going to war!
Best of all it didn't require much sacrifice of sovereignity other than perhaps bases for US forces and land for the pan-European fuel pipelines, plus keeping defence spending above the agreed thresholds.
The EEC was barely mentioned in terms of international relations and we only studied it in school in the context of trade and agricultural policy. But those who grew-up in the post-Maastricht Treaty period seem to have a wholly different view of what the EU is and wants to be, and a very much poorer view of NATO.
And I think that is reflected by the results of the UK referendum; to many of the Cold War generation the EU is an usurper, a bloated amorphous creature of indistinct purpose that evolved without their consent and seems to insert its tentacles into every aspect of their lives. Why does it exist, why is it needed and why can't it just focus on intra-European trade like it used to? Until those questions are answered there will always be people sceptical of the EU.
People are critical of the flagrant dishonesty of the Leave campaign, the way that all concerns were dismissed with the 'Project Fear' or 'the British public has had enough of experts' thought terminating cliches, and now the refusal to admit that the public have been lied to, and the new tendency to blame Remain voters and the EU for 'talking down the economy', or for requiring now what everyone knew would be the case beforehand in our trading/diplomatic/legal relationship post Brexit. And also the naked self-absorption of Leave campaigners like Boris Johnson, who made a series of completely unworkable promises and now doesn't even bother to turn up to parliament to discuss them.
Britain paid £270m a week, and received back £100m. Johnson invented a £350m figure, the entirety of which he promised to the health service, and then promised the £100m spending commitments would be met. So his new spending requirements are £450m a week, and the money saved £270m. In other words, he has pretended to magic £180m a week out of thin air.
He has also effectively promised major restrictions of immigration alongside access to the single market, which everyone knew was impossible, and promised there won't be a recession, which is unlikely. He gambled the country's stability for his personal advancement, and his duplicity and incompetence will probably lead to a far right party becoming a major force in British politics.
While you're probably right that the 'Leave' campaign is probably winning on the dishonesty front, there was a fairly sizeable departure from reality on both sides.
Yes, I think that's reasonable, the whole campaign was of a poor standard. Very negative, and with little explanation of the actual mechanisms of trade or governance underlying the question.
Having said that, there's plenty more you could bring up against the Leave side. The central claim of the imminent accession of Turkey in particular was an outright lie. And the general stoking up of xenophobia in order to get their way (followed by duplicity in trying to redefine their campaign the day after the vote had been taken).
>People are critical of the flagrant dishonesty of the Leave campaign
It's not like the remain campaign was much more honest, and the level of scaremongering was absurd.
Beyond the pale is the number of complaints that the sky has, in fact, fallen in because the FTSE has plunged and the pound has dropped.
As if people from Sunderland or rural Wales were concerned about the cost of holidaying the Riviera or taking a hit on their non-existent stock portfolios.
>He has also effectively promised major restrictions of immigration alongside access to the single market, which everyone knew was impossible
Case in point. We'll continue to trade with Europe even without unrestricted immigration - it just won't be tarriff free trade. Nonetheless, the tarriff level will be throttled by WTO rules anyhow. Average tarriffs with the US is I think something like 2%. Not a sky falling figure that.
> As if people from Sunderland or rural Wales were concerned about the cost of holidaying the Riviera or taking a hit on their non-existent stock portfolios.
Economic downturns and recessions disproportionately affect the poor[0] and disadvantaged[1].
They'll still get hit hardest. Weak pound means more expensive imports. UK imports ~40% of it's food [1]. That food will now cost more to import raising prices at the supermarkets. Poorer people spend a larger %'age of their income on essentials like food.
The weak pound means importing oil (priced in USD) will be more expensive. This will affect Petrol prices (we're already seeing a 2-3p rise at the pumps). Poorer people spend a larger %'age of their income on essentials like fuel.
There are a number of knock-on effects from the weak pound. Yes it's good for exports but overall it's going to be a rough couple of years for the already disadvantaged.
Speaking to your point on competition as well - if the UK wishes to join the EU free market they will most likely need to accept freedom of movement. No treaty has ever been agreed with any country without this caveat (that covers the Swiss, Norway etc). It's possible that the UK may be an exception but it's unlikely.
Much like Russia (which suffered a much worse currency slump and also imports a lot of food), the UK will likely roll with it and engage in import substitution.
>Speaking to your point on competition as well - if the UK wishes to join the EU free market they will most likely need to accept freedom of movement.
That's clearly the deal the remainers wanted to take but if I recall correctly they lost.
At the low end I'm pretty sure the wage rises coming from fewer Poles, etc. will at least match - and possibly outstrip inflation caused by newly instituted 2-4% tariffs.
Have you read the linked article? The leave campaigners are now furiously back-pedalling on their claims about reduced immigration. I'm intrigued as to why you think there'll be "fewer Poles etc.".
Where are these extra jobs going to come from with a rock bottom pound and markets in freefall? Do you believe this was a vote about repatriation or something?
I didn't read it that way. Boris trying to characterize the campaign as being pro-control rather than anti-immigration seems to be an attempt to extend an olive branch to the remainers rather than an attempt to do a 180 on immigration.
He is about to enter a leadership contest and is hoping for votes from tory members of the remain campaign.
He might do a 180 on immigration but I wouldn't say this is evidence of it, and he likely knows he'll pay a heavy price come next elections if he does (assuming he wins leadership).
The other guy who actually is backpedaling is just an MEP whom I'm pretty sure nobody gives a fuck about.
Boris was only in it to become PM. In the metro yesterday Boris was quoted as to saying "the 'only change' the public would see post-brexit was greater control of uk laws".
WTO rules would be completely disastrous. WTO only deals with goods, and the UK is overwhelmingly a service economy, and even in goods you have significant tariffs (10% on cars for instance, which is a major UK industry). Projections I read in the FT for a return to WTO trading are for a 3-7% fall in GDP, which is not far off the scale of the 2008 recession. Thank god it won't be nearly as bad as that. I'd actually say comparing to WTO was an element of the genuine scaremongering of the remain campaign, because almost certainly there will be some bilateral deals done regardless, to protect existing supply chains integrated into European companies.
You responded to a thoughtful, reflective comment with an angry partisan one. That's the wrong direction in which to take an HN discussion. Please re-read lordnacho's comment and learn from it—I don't mean about UK politics, of course, but about how discourse is supposed to work on this site.
I'm not too impressed by the logic of the first part about immigration.
>During the campaign, some Leave campaigners sent a clear message that the referendum was about controlling immigration. Some are now being more nuanced, saying the UK's decision to leave the EU would not guarantee a significant decrease in immigration levels.
Hm. So is it the same people and comparable claims? Let's see ...
>Nigel Farage said: "Mass immigration is still hopelessly out of control and set to get worse if we remain inside the EU."
>Similarly, leading pro-Leave campaigner and Tory leader front runner Boris Johnson said that the only solution to the scale of immigration which the UK was facing, was to leave the EU.
>But in an article published in the Daily Telegraph on Monday, Mr Johnson denied a victory for leaving the EU could be linked to immigration.
Um what? This is not at all inconsistent with the above statement. You can think that X is a good reason to leave the EU without thinking that most people who voted to leave did so because of X.
>He wrote: "It is said that those who voted Leave were mainly driven by anxieties about immigration. I do not believe that is so."
This is completely consistent with the previous statement.
They don't have any quote from Farage in that section, only from "MEP Daniel Hannan" who wasn't mentioned previously.
This reads as intentional misleading on the part of the BBC.
The rest of the article isn't much better. The bar for demonstrating hypocrisy or retraction at least requires the same people to make the claims and that the two claims aren't consistent. The BBC has not met it.
Post-brexit, all the talk on both sides is about the immigration issues, the financial contribution and the future of the UK. No talk about the cultural identity of the UK or a debate about whether it is a european culture. Both brexiters and bremainers see the EU as an economic agreement only. The UK should go its own way. the anglosphere is a better fit for them. The support for bremain ranges from reluctant, to lukewarm, dispassionate and wary. We should seek people who actually believe in EU's future. I think Brexit was inevitable, although it came prematurely.
All the current brexit leaders, however, are delusional. UK needs to find better leadership to get through this.
> some of those who campaigned for Leave are now distancing themselves from this claim. Some have gone as far as admitting that it had been a mistake.
So some people said something, and some other said something else, and some other changed their mind. I would really expect better journalism from BBC. Amateur bloggers are doing better job.
If BBC did their job in the first place, Brexit would never win. It would be very simple to debung £350m figure and explain how EU works. Instead they pushed their own political agenda.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 151 ms ] threadhttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent
Haha, hell no! Many people absorb what the media says with barely any questioning. Take this article for example, why is there no suggestion of Remain voters switching to Leave? Perhaps it's because the media coverage has been so one sided there's very little chance many people who voted to Remain would have need to question their convictions.
All the most one-side media coverage was on the Leave side, wasn't it? The Sun, The Daily Mail and The Daily Express in particular -- the main mass-circulation tabloids -- were full of pro-Leave lies.
These are also papers that, not coincidentally, hate the BBC for being independent and excellent value for money.
Really? What do you have in mind?
Which mainstream sources have been more impartial?
Good since he is an dirty communist.
I can hardly understand how can so many people believe such an obvious liar.
Then there is the question about the UK contributions. The UK does get its money worth, by the profit made trading in one of the biggest markets in the world (and with the countries that have trade deals with that market). By the investment that flows to UK (the FDI). By being part of continent that is much more prosperous then it would be otherwise.
The UK needs the EU more than the EU needs the UK.
Leave says that the UK has too many migrants, but it has fewer migrants than Ireland, Austria, Norway, Switzerland. Roughly the same number as France and Germany.
The Leave camp doesn't have a plan and is awfully misinformed as to how the world works. It is a populist movement and that is all there is to it.
Though to be fair, I would like to see a bit of compromise from the EU side of table. They are simply too intransigent.
In theory everyone in Spain can move to Malta. Of course this would never happen in practice. But if the people in Malta are worried. The EU should consider providing them the legal means to deal with that hypothetical scenario. Instead of saying, its free movement, and that's it.
Yeah, it's just a meme... just like we couldn't possibly trade in the EU without a trade deal is just a meme... or that all Leave campaigners are racist/stupid is just a meme...
The Leave campaign and the referendum have both been engineered to rid Britain of both UKIP and Euroscepticism, one way or the other. The only good thing that will result from Brexit will be the disappearance of Nigel Farage, who will no longer have a reason to exist.
Cameron has left article 50 inactive — more or less guaranteeing a Brexit trial period as far as the markets are concerned, and also guaranteeing a second referendum in the form of a Conservative leadership contest and subsequently a general election, with manifestos promising to initiate or cancel Brexit.
Worst case scenario, on a global scale, UK fares well and EU starts to crack — Leave campaign was right (against all the odds and math) and article 50 is triggered.
Best case scenario, UK fares badly, for EU it's business as usual, article 50 never activated, people vote for reformed Conservatives or Labour to cancel Brexit with landslide after people suffered with pricy food and clothing for months.
For a damage control strategy to handle the result of a fundamentally terrible decision — to ask the masses a question without a definition of a meaningful majority — it's actually not bad.
It's not all about economics. There are other reasons to Leave that have nothing to do with economics (or immigration, for that matter). Perhaps if you took the time into understanding the problems that exist in the EU you'd see this too. I'd be happy to explain further if you wanted to understand my own position.
I would like to know those reasons, thanks. Almost what I have read from the leave camp are economics, immigration and some nebulous freedom.
Quoting http://www.leftleave.org/seven-more-myths-about-the-eu/ :
> Those fundamental treaties severely limit the ability of EU member state governments to fund public investment, rescue failing companies and industries, save jobs or use public ownership for wider economic, social and environmental purposes. Should Britain elect a left or progressive government, the treaties will act as a strait-jacket on its policies, which could only be removed if every other EU member state government agrees to treaty change.
While it's true that this still concerns "economics, immigration and some nebulous freedom", the argument is that the EU policies aren't left enough, and, for example, restrict the right of refugees. Quoting from http://www.leftleave.org/the-eu-ratcheting-up-racism/ :
> ... the fact that is that the biggest ratcheting up of the attack on migrants has just been pushed through by the European Union; the treaty arranged by Angela Merkel between the EU and Turkey. That ripped up long established rights of refugees fleeing war and means those in Greece will face deportation back to Turkey, itself becoming less stable, and new arrivals will now be put in detention camps unlike before. The corruption behind all this, with the EU bribing the Turks to sign, speaks volumes about the undemocratic nature of the EU. And yet there are those who think Farage is the main driver of anti-migrant racism, not noticing he’s been sidelined and could only dream of doing something as despicable as fixing that treaty with Turkey.
Here is an interview (with transcript) of people for a "Left Exit", http://www.democracynow.org/2016/6/24/debate_after_shocking_... .
Leftist parties in other countries have a similar anti-EU positions.
However, they are, as far as I can tell, quite the minority.
Sad but true.
It seems to me the EU has every incentive to offer the worst deal possible, to discourage other EU states from risking the same sort of vote.
Probably the best we could do is get the same deal as Norway, but Norway still pays money to the EU, follows EU regulations (many of them are necessary to sell goods to the EU), and allows the free movement of workers. (As does Switzerland, even though it's not in the EU, and voted against it.)
A number of Leave voters apparently want no immigration and those immigrants we have to be "sent home". I expect this includes all the ones born in London, Birmingham, Bradford, Leicester etc, whose parents arrived in the 1950s and 1960s.
This is not what has been said, what has been said is that UK can't have the same trade deals they have right now without the duties they have right now.
This all comes back to media manipulation. Sometimes the media doesn't lie to you directly, they lie through omission. For example, take a look at this comedy sketch from The Guardian about the European Court of Human Rights:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptfmAY6M6aA
This video was brought out at the time when the EU referendum was being publicly discussed. It seems to make a good case for staying in the EU, right? However, there's one key bit of information that is omitted from the video, the European Convention on Human Rights which forms the legal underpinnings of the European Court of Human Rights was negotiated outside the EU through the Council of Europe:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_R...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Europe
Do you see how, in the context when it was released, that the video could be misleading, even when there weren't any direct lies in the video (that I'm aware of)? I'd suggest it'd be easy to assume after watching the video that giving up the EU also means giving up the European Convention on Human Rights, even when that's not the case.
This is part of the problem. It would not be fair. The UK already had a special position, with many advantages that other EU countries did not have as a compromise. A line was drawn and that apparently was not enough for the UK.
And no, not everybody wants to move to the UK.
This is also simply a meme, and normally quoted in knee-jerk reflex to an utterance of the other.
I beg to differ.
The Eurocrats in Brussels who are unelected. Wanted Britian out immediately after the result.
Merkel, on the other hand. Had the Car manufacturers on the phone screaming at her about the result. For them, the UK is 25% of their export market. I am sure other German manufacturers are not too happy with the result either.
The UK is simply in a better position than the EU. Now more than ever.
Think about all those directives the EU placed on the UK. Now they can be all changed.
Think about agriculture, fishing, energy, etc. Everything that HAD to be negotiated as an EU entity. That only things could have been pushed through the EU parliment is if all EU states agreed. That no other country had been penalised!
Now, British interests come first. If the UK wants to do something and France or another country doesn't like it. Now it's tough luck.
Now many times has France Veto'd something that Britian wanted before, because her interests were marginalised or a sector under threat?
This is what people simply just don't understand.
Once all the smoke clears. Britian has a real chance to be more competitive than France or Germany and that scares the hell out of them!
Wishful thinking or do you have any source for this?
> The UK is simply in a better position than the EU. Now more than ever > Once all the smoke clears. Britian has a real chance to be more competitive than France or Germany and that scares the hell out of them!
I really like to live in that fantasy world
With regard to the rules: you would still have to comply to most of these rules to be part of the single market (which most leave proponents want to be). Studies from WTO and IMF have shown that not going that route (eg trading under WTO rules) would impact UK severely (up to 9% of the GPD). See for example https://www.imf.org/external/np/ms/2016/051316.htm
Will you still call it "British" if Scotland decides to leave the UK in favor of the EU?
Isn't there even worse luck for the UK should they want to sell something to the EU which doesn't meet EU standards, and France objects to the change? And won't British manufacturers who have both a domestic and mainland market have the overhead of following two sets of standards? I guess it's tough luck for them.
> scares the hell out of them!
Sitting here in Sweden, I have a feeling more of confusion than being scared. The longer the UK drags its heels on leaving, the more it feels like the UK just want to be the special snowflake in the center of everyone's attention.
We wouldn't mind Scotland joining the Nordic countries either. See http://satwcomic.com/part-of-the-gang and http://satwcomic.com/new-nordic for a comic view.
To the rest of the world it's shocking and infuriating to witness. You see a nation that will be more competitive, we see a nation in freefall collapse. Even here in the USA, we are not on board with this. Our banks are pulling out of London as we speak.
No banks, no pound, no stability.. no leverage. To the rest of the world from now on, British interests come last.
intransigent in what? I remember that they offer a new deal with more concessions to UK before the referendum
And it's all come out AFTER the result. Before the result, I suppose people thought it would go to Remain, but also there was very little activity. At least in my feed.
I'm quite shocked by how little sympathy my friends have for the other side. There's a real split between people in the UK. People are saying they're "ashamed" of their country, they don't get why vast swathes of ordinary people away from London would want to leave Europe.
For the record, most of my friends are university educated and voted Remain. The most powerful feature in classifying between the two camps seems to be university education (seems 100% of my non uni educated friends went for leave), the second conservatism (uni educated conservative voters more likely to be leavers).
I'm somewhat indifferent on the issue; I reckon leaving will send a signal about reforming the EU, but also the UK needs to trade with Europe, so they cannot ever really leave. Any deal done will end up looking like Switzerland, which says it's not in the EU, but for practical stuff is. Do I think that's worth the hassle of actually leaving? Pretty marginal.
Thse statements are seemingly facts to you, but personally I am not sure how either could become reality.
I believe that the UK will have to leave, because the referendum is said to be binding. Going back on that would not be good for future voting or agreements. Swiss politicians did not, as far as I know, behave in any way similar to how some British politicians behave when it concerns the EU.
Legally, referendums in the UK are advisory only.
I'm not sure where you draw the line for this, but last time I went into Switzerland I had my passport checked at the border.
I think that's the case in most Schengen airports now.
What can happen is that you're checked by customs at the border. Since Switzerland is not in a customs union with the EU. Generally speaking, though, it's free flowing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area)
So if you fly in from the UK (or any non-Schengen country) you need t show a passport. As is the case in any other Schengen country.
And random checks at the border are permitted (i.e. contraband, people trafficking).
Also a country is allowed to re-implement border controls in case of crisis.
And how exactly do you show that you're a citizen of a country in the Schengen area without showing a passport?
No, not at all. Things could turn out very differently, it's true. But I lean towards thinking that the countries involved will want to continue trading with each other and basically not rock the economic boat too much.
It was a non-binding referendum.
[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/brexit-result... [2] http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-32810887 [3] http://www.theweek.co.uk/brexit/73775/eu-referendum-is-the-b... [4] http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/23/welcome-to-the-world-after-br...
I was misinformed by some of my local media that said it was binding.
"Het referendum gaat door en het is een bindend referendum." http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2016/02/19/brexit-afgewend-eu-berei...
The is actually a very good point. People are acting like it was all incredibly obvious that voting Leave was a terrible thing to do. But it wasn't obvious before the vote. At least not to the average voter.
A lot of the blame for that has to go to the media who printed anything the Leave campaign said even if it wasn't true (the £350m thing especially).
I don't think it's fair to totally blame the Leave voters for their bad decision. Besides it isn't totally clear now that it is that bad of a decision. The pound only dropped 6% (compared to 30% in 2008). And that's due to uncertainty more than anything else. It could easily go up again. In fact you can barely see the change on this graph:
http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=GBP&to=USD&view=10Y
> they don't get why vast swathes of ordinary people away from London would want to leave Europe.
To me it seems like most Leavers voted Leave because of some dissatisfaction with their life (too poor), and the Leave campaign successfully convinced them that it was because of Europe and immigrants. Or they just voted the way the government didn't want them to as a protest.
Which succinctly sums up why simple democracy is a bad way to make large scale decisions. It's good it was non binding.
>The is actually a very good point. People are acting like it was all incredibly obvious that voting Leave was a terrible thing to do. But it wasn't obvious before the vote. At least not to the average voter.
I cannot disagree with you hard enough. All of the things that are "coming out" now were refuted during the lead up to the referendum, not only by the Remain campaigners, but by the experts the Leave campaign was so clever to disqualify. The was a handful of people/companies/economists that sided with Leave, while the lion's share was solidly with Remain - and they all said it was a terrible thing to do.
If you think our institutions are basically sound, and you hear dire warnings about brexit from government economists, national and foreign politicians, journalists, think tanks, business leaders, academics and industry bodies you'll naturally think "these well-credentialed experts all agree, only an idiot would ignore all these warnings"
If you think our institutions are unsound, and you hear dire warnings from the bodies that failed to predict or prevent the 2008 financial crisis and that told us Iraq had WMDs they could launch within 45 minutes, you'll naturally think "these bodies are just mouthpieces for the PM, only an idiot would believe all these warnings"
In other words, it _was_ obvious to _remain_ voters that we should remain - it just wasn't obvious to _leave_ voters because they approach the question with different world views.
[1] https://theintercept.com/2016/06/25/brexit-is-only-the-lates...
The reason you can't see it isn't that the drop isn't significant. It's because it's only been a week, and on a 10 year scale, it's just that last pixel on the graph. Meanwhile, it has shifted the entire graph upwards.
I heard this frequently, but it is never specified _what_ exactly should be reformed. Also I think that most people really overestimate the EU budget: It's about 1/10th of Germany's/France's or 6 times of Luxemburg's.
I think the true number was ~8.5bn from 140bn budget (but I'm going on memory, I assume it was euros). I'm not sure that is a low budget? France and Germany are actually running a country. Infrastructure, social security, armed forces, police etc etc. This is a layer of government over and above that, redistributing and legislating for (in theory) the benefit of all.
I honestly don't see it as a small budget, and whilst the admin costs may be 5% instead of 20% (which I seem to have as the median expected number in the survey) - it's still billions.
It's all a question of perspective.
It's pretty clear that the EU, more specifically the Euro Zone, as currently run, can't go on. We either need a Federal government (i.e. fiscal + monetary union), or to disintegrate the Euro. Simply said, it's unthinkable that the US government would install capital controls in Alabama, whereas the EU government can do that in Greece.
That's the main issue; there are many smaller ones as well, but they exist in almost any political system and aren't specific to the EU.
However a friend on FB unfriended me after he declared all leavers were racist idiots. I suggested we need to understand why people voted leave. I tried to point out that the rise of the far right within Europe might be down to EU policies.
I think there are some big issues within Europe as described by Tony Benn https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=8&v=f0wFii8klNg
Of interest there are rumours that the EU is to announce a superstate http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/683739/EU-referendum-...
So maybe, just maybe, the leavers have it right. Do we want to be living in the Unites States of EU or do we want countries that identify as European and trade and travel equally between them all?
We live within a democracy and the public have spoken. Our politicians should execute the will of the people.
And you live within a representative, rather than direct, democracy which features non-binding referenda; the people speak with binding authority through elections of representatives. There may be reasons that the government should put the results of the referendum into policy, but appeals to the nature of the system of government do not provide that reason.
2. Referendum > Representatives (the only reason we use representatives is because referendums don't scale)
The UK, however, has no such reserved powers of the people, but instead has parliamentary supremacy. The referendum is not, in that system, superior to the representatives.
John Scalzi put it much more succinctly:
(from http://whatever.scalzi.com/2016/06/22/hey-scalzi-do-you-have...) :
"Two, while not everyone who might vote “Leave” is an appalling racist and/or low-information nationalist, it’s pretty clear that nearly every appalling racist/low-info nationalist is voting “Leave,” and that the people engineering the Leave vote are perfectly happy to leverage those folks to get what they want. If you find yourself on the same side as appalling racists/ignorant “patriots”, you might ask yourself why, and additionally whether you might be more appalling and/or ignorant than you’d like to admit."
The Express is a provably unreliable source with no interest in telling the truth about anything beyond the football scores.
Seriously?
> decrying the idiots, racists, and old people who dared to vote against their righteous interest
The people who voted to leave are, generally, xenophobic old people. And they did vote against their own best interests, as they tend to.
It's this which upsets me as someone in favour of remaining. I know a large number of people who are personally concerned for the immediate safety of their jobs following an exit vote (working in the finance sector in London, working for research institutions currently funded by the EU, or Brits working outside the UK) and also have friends (and a sister-in-law) who have come to the UK thanks to the freedoms afforded by the EU, and who are worried about their futures now.
I have great sympathy with the desire to send politicians a message, and with a desire to make the EU a more transparent, more efficient organisation, but you can surely understand the frustration of people who are facing very real fears for their own livelihoods, when someone in favour of exiting tells us they are doing so not because they believe that leaving is the best thing for the UK, but rather because they want to "send a message". This message comes at a great potential cost, and the people sending the message are in many cases not the ones paying the price
Sort of. Many see that start of the EU was the ECSC (European Coal and Steel Community). Robert Schuman proposed it in 1950 to "make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Coal_and_Steel_Commun...
However, the ideas behind the EU started before the ECSC. Jean Monnet is regarded by many to be the 'father' of the EU. Here's a quote from a speech he gave in 1943...
https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jean_Monnet
"There will be no peace in Europe if the States rebuild themselves on the basis of national sovereignty, with its implications of prestige politics and economic protection…. The countries of Europe are not strong enough individually to be able to guarantee prosperity and social development for their peoples. The States of Europe must therefore form a federation or a European entity that would make them into a common economic unit."
Furthermore, there have been other groups that have promoted peace in the region, namely NATO and OSCE. The agreement that led to NATO was signed in 1949, and OSCE was started in 1975, well ahead of the formation of the political union of the EU (the ECSC and EEC were mostly trade deals).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organization_for_Security_and_...
It's also worth noting that there was a failed attempt to build a pan-European military in 1952, and that Jean-Claude Junckher has indicated the EU may want its own army in the future:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Defence_Community
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/08/jean-claude-ju...
That's an interesting generational difference-of-view.
Growing up in the Cold War, to us it was NATO that kept the peace both within the western hemisphere and within Europe. Barring a couple of tantrums it even kept Turkey and Greece from going to war!
Best of all it didn't require much sacrifice of sovereignity other than perhaps bases for US forces and land for the pan-European fuel pipelines, plus keeping defence spending above the agreed thresholds.
The EEC was barely mentioned in terms of international relations and we only studied it in school in the context of trade and agricultural policy. But those who grew-up in the post-Maastricht Treaty period seem to have a wholly different view of what the EU is and wants to be, and a very much poorer view of NATO.
And I think that is reflected by the results of the UK referendum; to many of the Cold War generation the EU is an usurper, a bloated amorphous creature of indistinct purpose that evolved without their consent and seems to insert its tentacles into every aspect of their lives. Why does it exist, why is it needed and why can't it just focus on intra-European trade like it used to? Until those questions are answered there will always be people sceptical of the EU.
Britain paid £270m a week, and received back £100m. Johnson invented a £350m figure, the entirety of which he promised to the health service, and then promised the £100m spending commitments would be met. So his new spending requirements are £450m a week, and the money saved £270m. In other words, he has pretended to magic £180m a week out of thin air.
He has also effectively promised major restrictions of immigration alongside access to the single market, which everyone knew was impossible, and promised there won't be a recession, which is unlikely. He gambled the country's stability for his personal advancement, and his duplicity and incompetence will probably lead to a far right party becoming a major force in British politics.
It is not surprising that people are angry.
Having said that, there's plenty more you could bring up against the Leave side. The central claim of the imminent accession of Turkey in particular was an outright lie. And the general stoking up of xenophobia in order to get their way (followed by duplicity in trying to redefine their campaign the day after the vote had been taken).
It's not like the remain campaign was much more honest, and the level of scaremongering was absurd.
Beyond the pale is the number of complaints that the sky has, in fact, fallen in because the FTSE has plunged and the pound has dropped.
As if people from Sunderland or rural Wales were concerned about the cost of holidaying the Riviera or taking a hit on their non-existent stock portfolios.
>He has also effectively promised major restrictions of immigration alongside access to the single market, which everyone knew was impossible
Case in point. We'll continue to trade with Europe even without unrestricted immigration - it just won't be tarriff free trade. Nonetheless, the tarriff level will be throttled by WTO rules anyhow. Average tarriffs with the US is I think something like 2%. Not a sky falling figure that.
Economic downturns and recessions disproportionately affect the poor[0] and disadvantaged[1].
[0] http://www.russellsage.org/research/special-initiatives/grea...
[1] https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/disc...
B) Actually they'll stand to do better because:
* There will be less competition for jobs, meaning a rise in wages.
* Westminster is more likely to direct funding their way in order to avoid another repeat of Thursday.
* The low pound will be good for export industries.
The weak pound means importing oil (priced in USD) will be more expensive. This will affect Petrol prices (we're already seeing a 2-3p rise at the pumps). Poorer people spend a larger %'age of their income on essentials like fuel.
There are a number of knock-on effects from the weak pound. Yes it's good for exports but overall it's going to be a rough couple of years for the already disadvantaged.
Speaking to your point on competition as well - if the UK wishes to join the EU free market they will most likely need to accept freedom of movement. No treaty has ever been agreed with any country without this caveat (that covers the Swiss, Norway etc). It's possible that the UK may be an exception but it's unlikely.
[1] http://www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/issue/uk.html
I can think of one rule which will get revoked in that case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set-aside
Much like Russia (which suffered a much worse currency slump and also imports a lot of food), the UK will likely roll with it and engage in import substitution.
>Speaking to your point on competition as well - if the UK wishes to join the EU free market they will most likely need to accept freedom of movement.
That's clearly the deal the remainers wanted to take but if I recall correctly they lost.
At the low end I'm pretty sure the wage rises coming from fewer Poles, etc. will at least match - and possibly outstrip inflation caused by newly instituted 2-4% tariffs.
Where are these extra jobs going to come from with a rock bottom pound and markets in freefall? Do you believe this was a vote about repatriation or something?
He is about to enter a leadership contest and is hoping for votes from tory members of the remain campaign.
He might do a 180 on immigration but I wouldn't say this is evidence of it, and he likely knows he'll pay a heavy price come next elections if he does (assuming he wins leadership).
The other guy who actually is backpedaling is just an MEP whom I'm pretty sure nobody gives a fuck about.
Even farage has his doubts - https://youtu.be/WrAHJ9fDHUU?t=384
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11992985 and marked it off-topic.
>During the campaign, some Leave campaigners sent a clear message that the referendum was about controlling immigration. Some are now being more nuanced, saying the UK's decision to leave the EU would not guarantee a significant decrease in immigration levels.
Hm. So is it the same people and comparable claims? Let's see ...
>Nigel Farage said: "Mass immigration is still hopelessly out of control and set to get worse if we remain inside the EU."
>Similarly, leading pro-Leave campaigner and Tory leader front runner Boris Johnson said that the only solution to the scale of immigration which the UK was facing, was to leave the EU.
>But in an article published in the Daily Telegraph on Monday, Mr Johnson denied a victory for leaving the EU could be linked to immigration.
Um what? This is not at all inconsistent with the above statement. You can think that X is a good reason to leave the EU without thinking that most people who voted to leave did so because of X.
>He wrote: "It is said that those who voted Leave were mainly driven by anxieties about immigration. I do not believe that is so."
This is completely consistent with the previous statement.
They don't have any quote from Farage in that section, only from "MEP Daniel Hannan" who wasn't mentioned previously.
This reads as intentional misleading on the part of the BBC.
The rest of the article isn't much better. The bar for demonstrating hypocrisy or retraction at least requires the same people to make the claims and that the two claims aren't consistent. The BBC has not met it.
All the current brexit leaders, however, are delusional. UK needs to find better leadership to get through this.
So some people said something, and some other said something else, and some other changed their mind. I would really expect better journalism from BBC. Amateur bloggers are doing better job.
If BBC did their job in the first place, Brexit would never win. It would be very simple to debung £350m figure and explain how EU works. Instead they pushed their own political agenda.