BBC: UK Votes To Leave The European Union (bbc.com) 1592
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: The UK has voted by 52% to 48% to leave the European Union after 43 years in a historic referendum, a BBC forecast suggests. London and Scotland voted strongly to stay in the EU but the remain vote has been undermined by poor results in the north of England. Voters in Wales and the English shires have backed Brexit in large numbers. The referendum turnout was 71.8% -- with more than 30 million people voting -- the highest turnout since 1992. London has voted to stay in the EU by around 60% to 40%. However, no other region of England has voted in favor of remaining. Britain would be the first country to leave the EU since its formation -- but a leave vote will not immediately mean Britain ceases to be a member of the 28-nation bloc. That process could take a minimum of two years, with Leave campaigners suggesting during the referendum campaign that it should not be completed until 2020 -- the date of the next scheduled general election. The prime minister will have to decide when to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which would give the UK two years to negotiate its withdrawal. Once Article 50 has been triggered a country can not rejoin without the consent of all member states. British Prime Minister David Cameron is under pressure to resign as a result of the decision. UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage called on him to quit "immediately." One labor source said, "If we vote to leave, Cameron should seriously consider his position." Several pro-Leave Conservatives including Boris Johnson and Michael Gove have signed a letter to Mr. Cameron urging him to stay no matter the decision. Mr. Cameron did say he would trigger Article 50 as soon as possible after a leave vote.
Update 6/24 09:33 GMT: David Cameron has resigned.
Update 6/24 09:33 GMT: David Cameron has resigned.
Rationale aside... (Score:5, Insightful)
The sheer showing the finger value to 'experts' is amazing in this one!
Re: Rationale aside... (Score:4, Insightful)
Then it's time for the central EU to re-evaluate their positions and their strategies. Today they are usually seen as a kindergarten for retired politicians.
Re: Rationale aside... (Score:4, Interesting)
I have a couple of ideas:
- strengthen parliament.
- toss out the likes of Juncker et al, which always have misused EU to the advantage of their country
- vote the corrupt mass which is the EVP out of parliament. They've been in "power" for too long and are too well lubricated by lobbies
- start working on an "EU for the people". We'd had enough of an "EU for the money".
Re: Rationale aside... (Score:5, Interesting)
An EU constitution must set out how the (central) state operates, what its relation is to the people and member states, and last but not least it outlines (and limits) the state's mandate. And in case of the EU, a statement about the overall objectives of the Union might have been nice as well. We have none of this. And we have gotten to the stage where meaningful reform (such as your suggestions) is never going to happen anymore. Not without some very strong incentive... perhaps in the form of more influential member states threatening to leave after the UK has. The popular vote is already approaching a majority for "leave" in many member states.
Re: Rationale aside... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Rationale aside... (Score:5, Funny)
It's not a proper constitution, it doesn't say you can have guns!
Re: Rationale aside... (Score:5, Insightful)
Europe??
In the EU, the EU or its collections of institutions is often referred to as "Europe".
And yes, they are written in legal language, laws usually are, and yes they are treaties because that is what laws between countries are.
Treaties are written in legalese, and they have to, as they deal with details. Constitutions on the other hand deal with base principles, ideals, and ground rules, and they can and usually are written in short and extremely accessible language. In case of Europe (I'll just keep calling it that), the treaties would need to follow from the constitution.
Re: Rationale aside... (Score:4)
Where are mod points when you need them ?
Re: Rationale aside... (Score:5, Insightful)
- strengthen parliament.
This is the big one. The main reform needed is to kill the commission. You can keep the Council of Ministers as an executive branch if you don't want to have a parliamentary executive, but the elected MEPs must have the most power in the system. This has to be coupled with making EU Parliament voting records public though. It's an embarrassment that, in a nominal democracy, the electorate can't see if their representatives are actually representing them.
- start working on an "EU for the people". We'd had enough of an "EU for the money".
And this is the other one. Part of this involves moving money around. The Germans pushed for the Euro because they benefitted hugely from artificially devaluing their currency and stimulating exports, but they also vetoed the mechanism to rebalance this over the long run. This, as many economists predicted, resulted in wealth concentrating in a few countries and the others needing to be bailed out when their economies collapsed. Only, unfortunately, we didn't bail them out, we bailed out the banks that had made loans to them. The Greek bailout should have been accompanies by a default. The banks should have lost their poor investments and the money should have gone into stimulating the growth of the Greek economy. Instead, we got austerity policies that, like every other time they've been tried, caused the economy to shrink and paid a load of money to banks. If you make a risky investment.
Re: Rationale aside... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't get this argument. Devaluing your currency isn't difficult. The Germans, of all people, are aware of that.
As to Greece, they had two problems.
One: they were able to borrow cheaply, and instead of investing it in things like infrastructure and training they pissed half of it up the wall and used the rest to speculate on property.
Two: none of them paid any tax.
End of Great Britain? (Score:5, Insightful)
So Small Britain, or the United Kingdom of England and Wales, will leave the EU.
Probably, we will see Northern Ireland join the Irish Republic and Scotland to become independent during the next 2 years.
Re: End of Great Britain? (Score:5, Informative)
Northern Ireland has the potential to be an absolute cluster fuck. There are still hardcore elements here who are literally violently in favour of a United Ireland or a United Kingdom, any suggestion of leaving the UK with inflame those old tensions. The pro-UK vote could get split between a non-EU England/Wales and an EU-Scotland.
NI has done disproportionately well from the EU but we're small fish in the UK, I seriously doubt we'll get the same support now.
Re:End of Great Britain? (Score:5, Interesting)
Scotland certainly has a good case for a new vote, as it is clear they remained in the UK only to avoid being thrown out of the EU.
There is no chance that Northern Ireland would choose to join the Republic of Ireland. There are deep seated sectarian divisions that make this impossible.
Let this vote act as a warning to the US electorate on the impact xenophobia and anti migrant feeling can have on disenchanted voters. Donald Trump is poised to take advantage of the same irrational emotions. A Trump presidency could have an even greater global impact than the UK exit from the EU.
Re:End of Great Britain? (Score:5, Insightful)
I can think of worse scenarios than the picture you paint. Leaving the EU opens up a host of new possibilities - regrettably most are less favourable.
This decision to leave has been a bit like when a teenager decides to move away from home because he can't stand being told to clean up his room and wash his clothes; after a while he will realise that he actually still has to do these things, but now he also has to pay bills and he isn't part of the daily meals cooked by his mom. No doubt we will manage, but this was a stupid and unnecessary thing to do. Those who voted leave did so because they didn't want so many foreigners coming to Britain, basically - but common sense says that there is no realistic way to stop that happening without incurring massive costs, and no matter who is in charge of the government, they will still have to address reality as it is.
Just to mention one, very important aspect: UK has built up a close relationship with China in recent years, and we have a massive trade deal with them. One of the main reasons why China chose UK instead of Germany was that we have the best climate for foreign investors, the most liberal labour market - and we were firmly embedded in the EU - or so they thought. So, UK was an attractive entry point to the European market - yesterday. Today we have turned out to be a less reliable partner. It may be that our relationship with China will become significantly less warm, unless we tread carefully. Some people may think this is a good thing, but realistically, this is not likely to be good for our economy.
Other things we don't really want to lose, if we think responsibly about things: London is on of the biggest financial centres in the world, if not the biggest. Being in EU is an important factor in this, for the same reasons. We may not like bankers, but we would feel it keenly if they started moving to Frankfurt or Paris - which they may well do, if we are not careful. And so on. All in all, unless we are willing to take some big hits, we will have to keep following the same old rules as before, only now we are no longer part of the daily life in the family. How clever was that?
Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Alex Salmond has already called for a second Scottish independence referendum and I don't see how that can be refuse, the same for NI. I'm pro-union and pro-eu and certainly see Scotland leaving the UK now.
Re:End of Great Britain? (Score:5, Insightful)
Liverpool, Manchester, Oxford, Newcastle, Norwich -- most of the large towns voted Remain. Birmingham voted 50.4 vs. 49.6 for the Leave. You could say that Remain was the vote of the elite and of everyone else except the English and the Welsh. Gibraltar for instance voted 96% Remain. Leave was the vote of small town and rural Wales and England. And this shows the depth of the problem. The UK is deeply split. There is the Welsh and English "regular people" vote at one side, and then there is the elite vote, and the vote of everyone else. And this split seems to fit to the categories of people whose wages and living conditions barely improved in the last 40 years, and those, who are better off now.
Re:End of Great Britain? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're basically right in your analysys, but I wouldn't say that (roughly) 50% of the populations counts as "elite".
Re:End of Great Britain? (Score:5, Interesting)
Remainers are younger than 45, live in large towns and have an university degree or are students at an university.
Leavers are older than 45, live in rural and small town regions, mainly in the East and North of England and in Central Wales, and have no university degree.
In general, Remainers are profiting or hope to profite from Globalization and free movement, because they are young, well educated and live close to the economic centers. Leavers are much older, less well educated and live in regions which are hard hit by globalization and are in a long economic downturn. They were children or young adults, when UK joined the EU, and they feel they never got anything back during their lifetime, while all the profits from the economic cooperation went somewhere else.
Re:End of Great Britain? (Score:5, Funny)
A bit like Trump supporters? I wonder if they can be traced back to a common ancestor.
Re:End of Great Britain? (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny is that now the Leavers from the group you've described (rural, small towns, not educated) will have it much tougher during and after the crisis. The poor will starve first.
Re:End of Great Britain? (Score:5, Insightful)
Quite sad how pensioners get to decide the future of the next generation against their wishes.
So the UK is now USA 2.0 (Score:5, Interesting)
There is more thorough analysis available, which basicly states, that the groups Remain and Leave have very distinct properties.
Remainers are younger than 45, live in large towns and have an university degree or are students at an university.
Leavers are older than 45, live in rural and small town regions, mainly in the East and North of England and in Central Wales, and have no university degree.
I found these comments really interesting because you're basically saying that the UK has now become just like the USA. We have the same issues here. People in small towns with no higher education have completely different values and desires from the educated people who live in cities. I can't speak to UK politics, but some of this in the US is the fault of the Republican Party, who in the past decade started embracing anti-intellectuals as a valued voting bloc. In fact, I'd point out that Sarah Palin has made her career out of promoting anti-intellectualism as the solution to all of America's problems. Sorry to hear you're now one of us, UK people.
Re:End of Great Britain? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, but that's not the EU's fault, now is it? That's the fault of 40 years of Tory and Neo-Tory government.
Scotland seems to understand that, after drowning the Neo-Tories in their own excrement they massively voted pro-EU.
Re:End of Great Britain? (Score:5, Insightful)
Kick in the balls (Score:4, Informative)
The picture emerging this morning on social media from friends that had so far kept quiet is that this a kick in the balls for the establishment.
Re:End of Great Britain? (Score:4, Insightful)
Leave was the vote of the Elite. Their greatest con trick was to convince people that it was a vote in their interests. They talk about cutting "red tape", failing to mention that the red tape is employment rights and rules against injecting your farm animals with steroids, all the stuff that we want and need but which costs the wealthy money.
They talk about taking back power, but they only mean power for themselves. It seems that ordinary people in some parts saw through it, but in other areas bigotry and xenophobia probably swung it. The politics of hate and jealousy are extremely powerful, and they work everywhere. Like Hermann Goering said, people are easy to manipulate if you tell them they are being attacked.
Re:End of Great Britain? (Score:5, Funny)
What's that? I only read the first half of your post for some reason.
Re:End of Great Britain? (Score:4, Funny)
This is a local country, for local people!
Re:End of Great Britain? (Score:5, Insightful)
>This is a local country, for local people!
You guys conquered more than half the world - you don't get to (EVER) complain about immigration. You're the single largest source of immigrants in the history of the world.
Frankly, by any sane system anybody who was born in any country you have ever ruled should qualify for automatic citizenship of Britain - it's the only fair compensation for having been ruled by Britain.
Re:End of Great Britain? (Score:5, Insightful)
it's the only fair compensation for having been ruled by Britain
Nah that's like the "reparations" garbage. You can't hold people responsible for the sins of their ancestors. Normal people who haven't been brainwashed into being guilty for simply being alive will reject that nonsense.
Re:End of Great Britain? (Score:5, Interesting)
You can't hold people responsible for the sins of their ancestors.
Sure you can. Not guilty in a criminal law kind of way, but definitely in a civil law kind of way. Many people who are alive today have inherited massive profits from the crimes of their ancestors, and it is at least theoretically possible to put a number on that profit, and award that to the people who inherited the corresponding losses from their disadvantaged ancestors.
Re: End of Great Britain? (Score:5, Insightful)
That makes no sense. No country has an obligation to bring in people - especially immigrants who have nothing but contempt for their host country. You are advocating cultural invasion as a means of curing some ill. All this will lead to is violence. And YOU are the one pushing for violence.
Re:Not all Scots want to leave GB (Score:4, Funny)
Democracy restored (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Democracy restored (Score:5, Informative)
no legislation can be passed without the say-so of unelected bureaucrats (the European Commission)
This is not correct: the European Council [wikipedia.org] stands above the European Commission and can over-rule them in everything.
Re:Democracy restored (Score:5, Informative)
The parliament pretty much rubber stamps. The one nuclear power they have is to sack the Commission, last time they chickened out though. Junckers himself is Luxembourger, Luxembourg is a major tax haven (yes, that's ad hominem, but it's an 'indicator').
I worked for both for nearly ten years and came out a marginal 'leaver'. That said, there's going to be some long term chaos now, that I'd prefer to avoid.
Re:Democracy restored (Score:5, Informative)
For the uninformed, the UK is undemocratic. We have a broken "first past the post" electoral system rather than some kind of proportional representation, which means that the government of the day is only voted for by a small minority but gets all the power. We also have a legion of unelected "peers" in the House of Lords, many of whom inherited their title or are there because they are religious leaders. It's a job for life and we don't get any say on who is appointed.
The EU on the other hand has a directly elected parliament, and governments appoint the members of the Commission for a few years at a time. It's much more democratic than the UK and we are diminished without it.
Re:Democracy restored (Score:4, Insightful)
Proof, if it were needed, that people are too stupid to be trusted with decisions like this. The primary objection was that "the loser could win", demonstrating beyond any doubt that most people can't understand simple mathematics.
Re:Democracy restored (Score:5, Interesting)
No, it's more like vaccination. I'd rather have elected officials listening to experts and making the decision, than having a popular vote where fear and stupidity are the dominant factors. One of the reasons we have elected representatives is to provide this buffer.
No-where has direct democracy for everything. It would just be the tyranny of the majority, unrestrained by laws and constitutions and emboldened by the democratic mandate. If I were as disingenuous as you I'd call you a tyrant.
Look at it another way, it was only the over 50 vote that took us out. All other age groups voted in, by some margin. In about 5 years time enough people will have died of old age to swing it the other way, but of course we can't expect to have another vote or re-join, can we? How is that democratic or fair?
Re:Democracy restored (Score:5, Insightful)
To give you an idea, my vote has never counted in a UK election, despite always participating. My chosen candidate never wins locally, so I have zero influence over who governs the country. That's how our unfair system works, if your local candidate doesn't win your vote is discarded and ignored.
It's not just a different kind of democracy, it's fundamentally unfair. Whenever anyone sets up a new democracy they base it on proportional representation, not the first-past-the-post system.
Re:Democracy restored (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Democracy restored (Score:5, Insightful)
Some how I doubt that is going to happen. Because leaving the EU is primarily about racism, not bureaucracy.
Personally I expect to experience a great amount of schadenfreude watching the consequences of this circular firing squad. Now the UK's economic and political situation is in complete chaos, and that will inevitably lead to an economic downturn. Markets are allergenic to uncertainty. It's not going to work itself out quickly, so the economic mess will linger.
In terms of mass stupidity, I also suggest that they drop the metric units system and join the US in using imperial units. As long as they want to deny the relevancy of the rest of the world, it's another way to be out of step with (almost) everyone else.
Re:Democracy restored (Score:4, Insightful)
The Queen is the longest serving UK monarch in history, and has yet to interfere in Government decisions. I'm not sure that's really a barrier to democracy.
The House of Lords is indeed appointed and not elected. I really hate the idea of hereditary peers, and detest the political cronyism reflected in its appointees. However: Because it's not elected, the House is able to voice the non-populist views, draw the minority perspectives into legislation and prevent a tyranny of the majority.
This strengthens and is a crucial element of UK democracy and I would be distraught if we lost this purely because some people want an elected House. I do support reform, but nobody's offered a superior option.
Because leaving the EU is primarily about racism, not bureaucracy.
Get your fucking head out of the fucking sand and fucking listen to the people of the UK and why the voted to ditch the fucking EU.
None of the campaigning was done on racist grounds. None of the campaigners said "I hate the "
Most people voting Leave go on holiday in the EU, they want trade with the EU, they don't give a shit what colour someone is.
This has fuck all to do with racism. This has everything to do with sovereignty, self-determination, control over the laws and policies of the UK and a love of Great Britain.
That's not racist. That's pride. Backing all of that ahead of travel convenience, economic certainty, stability; that's integrity. You might want to give that a go.
Re:Democracy restored (Score:5, Interesting)
I thought that wasn't true, post-Treaty of Lisbon? I'm an American so I could be uninformed on the issue. This is my impression:
Voters directly elect their Members of European Parliament. And I assume they directly elect their heads of state, which make up the European Council members.
The Council, those elected heads of state, nominate the Commission President, who then has to be approved by the directly elected MEPs.
The Council nominates Commissioners, with the agreement of the President. Then the Parliament, through directly elected MEPs, has to approve them. Basically to me Commissioners are like U.S. Executive branch Cabinet members.
Commissioners propose legislation to the Parliament but the Parliament has full power to pass, modify, and/or deny legislation.
The only thing I've seen that looked shady was that Commissioner-proposed legislation can maybe pass on Parliament inaction.
And maybe some cases where the elected heads of state can bypass Parliament and approve Commission proposals but I think the European Court of Justice has cracked down on both of those?
Mostly it seems very much in keeping with democratic republic ideals. At least as much as the U.K. parliament.
I don't get why people focus on the Commissioners when it really seems like the power struggle has been between the Council and Parliament, with the Lisbon Treat increasing Parliament's power and thus decreasing the Council's.
Re:Democracy restored (Score:4, Insightful)
It's sad that an American outside the EU is far more informed than 95% of British voters. Ignorance has ruined us.
Re:Democracy restored (Score:4, Informative)
That'll be why David Cameron went to Europe earlier this year and asked for just the barest minimum level of control over certain UK policies, and got told to fuck off even over that.
The inability for a British Prime Minister to decline to hand money over to people living in another country and the fact he had to ask - let alone the way he was treated when he did ask - is a massive factor in yesterday's vote.
Re:Democracy restored (Score:5, Insightful)
The inability for a British Prime Minister to decline to hand money over to people living in another country and the fact he had to ask
For fuck's sake, why the ever living fuck are people so incredibly stupid? This is and always was a complete and utter lie.
Today literally proved that we could unilaterally decline to "hand over" the money. Today literally proved that we always did have soverignty. If we didn't then the vote would never have happened.
The only thing we were never able to do is get other people to do exactly what we wanted. Big surprise, eh? Apparently however a bunch of raging idiots decided to fuck up the country in order to learn a very simple point. And they're going to learn it doubly so when we try and fail to negotiate a trade deal which is better than what we had already.
The Naked Truth (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's the naked truth from an Spaniard:
1) UK got privileges no other country got:
- They kept their old monetary unit (GBP)
- They kept the *right to refuse entry* (not signed SENGEN)
- They kept the old measuring unit system (instead of International System)
- They kept colonies in other countries of the EU (Gibraltar) even though it's clearly illegal and have a specific article forbidding it.
Etc.
2) The Universal Declaration of Human Right, which all countries are obliged to comply with as is *written* in the European Treaties and Constitution, says clearly:
Art. 1. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
3) As the UK did not comply with the "rights" part of the UDHR, forced by the EU Constitution and International Treaties, and shitted in the treaties that form the core and meaning of the EU (SENGEN, no colonies, etc.) I can say anything but...
GO F**K YOURSELVES
PS: It's a pity that Ireland got kicked too due to their stupidity.
Re:The Naked Truth (Score:5, Insightful)
Please don't tell us (the whole of the UK) to f**k ourselves.
I am one of almost half the voters who wanted to remain. Almost all of my friends wanted the same. I work with people from across Europe and elsewhere on a daily basis. Some of us are very pro-Europe (although Europe is not perfect) and want to be in the EU as much as you probably do.
Some of us DO want Schengen and more open borders.
Some of us DO want a common currency. (or at least don't hate the idea)
I think I stand with much of Europe and half of the UK in saying "GO F**K YOURSELVES" to the Leave voters.
Please don't forget about us Remain voters and don't hate us! If you do, the Exit voters really HAVE won.
Re: The Naked Truth (Score:5, Interesting)
Even we uncouth Americans recognize the UK for what it is—a country that liked to be in the EU whenever it suited them, to the extent that they wanted to be, but also pretended that none of the rules applied to them. They've basically been an EU nation in name only for as long as I can remember. Frankly, I'm disappointed that the EU didn't throw them out years ago.
And as everyone predicted, the pound is tanking without the strength of the EU to prop it up. If the EU really wanted to have fun, they could probably make the UK economy collapse completely by refusing to trade with them. The impact on the rest of the EU would be small compared with the impact on the UK. Then in five years, they could offer to reluctantly let the UK back in with an exchange rate of two pounds to the Euro, but only if they actually started acting like real members of the EU. Some of the EU member nations might well decide to do that just out of spite.
Frankly, I'm surprised the pound is still worth as much as it is, given how tenuous their economic outlook is without the backing of the EU. I suspect that things will get a lot worse for the UK before they stabilize. The good news is that the U.K. can expect plenty of us yanks coming as tourists next summer when a pound is only worth 75 cents. Cheers.
Re: The Naked Truth (Score:5, Interesting)
Even we uncouth Americans recognize the UK for what it isâ"a country that liked to be in the EU whenever it suited them, to the extent that they wanted to be, but also pretended that none of the rules applied to them.
(...)
And as everyone predicted, the pound is tanking without the strength of the EU to prop it up. If the EU really wanted to have fun, they could probably make the UK economy collapse completely by refusing to trade with them. (...) Some of the EU member nations might well decide to do that just out of spite.
Yes, Britain was in a relationship with the EU but didn't want to commit as the EU was going more and more in the direction of the United States of Europe, one border, one currency, one everything. And now they finally said "I think we've grown apart, I'm breaking up with you" and you want them to go into full psycho ex-girlfriend mode? I'm surprised it actually came to this, but I think retaliation from the EU would only hurt their reputation and strengthen the UK resolve to go their own way.
I think this is a good opprtunity to show that this is not the US, we're not going to start a civil war if you want to secede. This is not the Soviet Union where tanks will roll in your streets to occupy you. If you don't want to be a part of the EU, nobody's forcing you. I'm from Norway, a country that has rejected the EU twice in 1972 and 1994 and one of the reasons has been the feeling that this loss of sovereignty is permanent, you can join but if we find out this was a bad idea we can in practice never leave. Well now we'll see.
Re: The Naked Truth (Score:4, Interesting)
If the EU really wanted to have fun, they could probably make the UK economy collapse completely by refusing to trade with them.
This is exactly what is going to happen. Other far right parties in the EU are now calling for their own referendums, and there is no way that the EU will want to do anything to encourage them. Even if it means having a 10% tariff on German cars and French wine exports to the UK, it's a relatively small price to pay to keep the EU together.
The UK is going to be punished hard for this. We can't expect to walk away from the EU and get a better or even the same deal that we had, that's just a fantasy.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Congratulations, Britain! (Score:5, Insightful)
And now get fucked royally by them, because they arent a 350 mil. consumer block anymore.
Congrats to that
Re:Congratulations, Britain! (Score:5, Insightful)
As an Australian, the free trade agreements with China was one of the worst things to happen. The EU is smart to block it. But hey if you want to destroy your manufacturing industry and turn into a USA style intellectual property powerhouse backed by only services then be my guest.
Re:Congratulations, Britain! (Score:5, Interesting)
Great, I'm really looking forward to competing with China on standards and wages.
The EU is going to punish us hard now. There are already rumblings from the far right about referendums, and they will want to stamp down on those hard. The Pound and markets are crashing. It's already too late, and those non-EU countries we want to do deals with are now going to pray on our weakness and desperation to do some kind of deal, any kind of deal as soon as possible.
Oh, and we will probably have Boris in charge, so double, sorry triple fucked.
Re:Congratulations, Britain! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Congratulations, Britain! (Score:5, Insightful)
For example - Australia and USA.
Australia can't sell beef, steel, sugar and a pile of other things to the USA but got some pretty nasty copyright and other laws imposed as a consequence of the "free-trade deal". Australians can't buy software direct from the USA at a US price and can't buy some US audiobooks at all. Tents, boots, electronic equipment - so many things blocked from sale online - free trade was it?
The only thing that comes out of a free trade deal is boasting rights for the person who sat at the table as things are signed away, which is worth a few votes for three years or more until people work out that the deal was worthless or perhaps even damaging. That's long enough for a popularity boost and many in politics are happy to sell of the prosperity of other people or to fuck their nation over for personal benefit.
If it's with China expect the conditions to change without notice.
How could Britain vote to leave? (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, John Oliver eviscerated the Leavers on his show! How could this happen? How could racist old white men hijack the vote? It is 2016!
Pound is in the toliet (Score:4, Interesting)
Ummm. Isn't this want everyone wants? A weak currency? Everyone says China is getting stupid rich and kicking everyone's ass because their currency is weak. It isn't fair! Weak currency == unstoppable.
So now the pound has dropped a lot. All of England's exports just got cheaper. We need US businesses to call them an unfair currency manipulator and push for high tariffs. That will fix things! (this is sarcasm. Something no one seems to get here.)
Me thinks those Savile row suits just became a lot better looking.
Seriously, A weak pound will help the UK. It is a plus when selling your goods. More people will visit.
Re:Pound is in the toliet (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah if only the UK had a manufacturing based economy instead of a consumer based one.
Rebellion against political consensus (Score:5, Insightful)
How ages voted (Score:5, Interesting)
Ben Riley-Smith @benrileysmith
HOW AGES VOTED
(YouGov poll)
18-24: 75% Remain
25-49: 56% Remain
50-64: 44% Remain
65+: 39% Remain#EUref
6:24 PM - 23 Jun 2016
If they would have waited some years it would been a remain.
Re:How ages voted (Score:5, Insightful)
Once again, the Baby Boomers fucked us. No houses, financial meltdowns, an economy built on debt and an "I'm all right Jack" attitude, and now out of the EU too. It makes me wonder how much more damage they can do before they die off.
Of course they are probably quite well insulated from this, having little if any mortgage to pay off and plenty of assets to cover the damage to their pensions. Of course they expect the taxpayer to pick up the bill for those pensions if things get really bad, due to a massive sense of entitlement.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
I feel rejected. (Score:5, Funny)
Jeez, they didn't have to be so mean about it.
From a very far on looker (Score:5, Insightful)
From the perspective of a very far on looker (a Canadian living in China), the result of the referendum is very unfortunate. Since WWII, generations and generations of people, with long term vision for a stable and peaceful Europe, had put their weight to form the Union. It's certainly not perfect, but it's better, by a long measure, than the situation in the first half of the 20th century. I am quite amazed that more older generation stand by the Leave camp. I would have thought that they should be the ones who know better. With one referendum, which is more fueled by temporary discontent than calm reasoning, they want to dismantle what took years and years to gradually build up. The chain reactions in the coming years won't be pretty, and I hope I would be wrong.
I was born in Cambodia, been through the Khmer Rouge regime, lost 80% of our family, spent 8 years in a refugee camp in Vietnam, and was lucky enough to be accepted in Canada when I was 18. In the 1990s, I was very happy to see the Berlin wall fall, and that Europeans countries were merging into one block with their interests tightly interconnected, and I could only dream of a same scenario for Asia, a scenario that would take many many more years to even be a prospective, if at all.
I blame slashdot for Brexit! Hear me out. (Score:4, Insightful)
There are a number of obvious contributing factors to Brexit. Nationalism and selfishness are two of the most obvious.
So let's consider the enlightened discussion here on slashdot, this bastion of intellectual turmoil and whatever.
There have been several hundred comments so far. No mention of "nationalism" yet appears. One marginally related but tangential mention of "selfish" and no mentions of "selfishness". Maybe there are some hidden references, but then their invisibility reflects the failure of the moderation system. However, I think Brexit reflects a larger failure of journalism in general and a more specific failure of slashdot in particular.
People who were capable of thinking about the future would not vote in favor of fracturing Europe. They would have been able to put the broader long-term interests of their own grandchildren ahead of their various minor terrors of foreigners stealing their jobs, especially considering that if 52% hated the EU I'd bet that a much higher percentage hate their own jobs and ought to be glad if some immigrants would steal them.
Same rise of ignorant short-sighted stupidity has made it possible for the Donald of Trump to become a serious contender for the presidency, squatting on his bizarre high chair that he imagines as a throne. Don't look too closely at the legs: One leg for the government haters, one for the Hillary haters, a leg of bigots, and a last leg of overt racists. Yeah, a few Trumpists are smart enough to try to talk nice, but scratch a Trump supporter and you find a hater.
My problem with all of this is that I'm a believer in enlightened self-interest (per Heinlein, even). If people see sufficiently large pictures, then they will see how their private and national selfishness has to be limited for the long-term survival of the human species.
Why don't they see the large pictures? I think it's mostly because the existing economic models, including slashdot's pitiful economic models, drive them to short-term BS journalism and reality TV. Brexit and Trumpism are just natural outcomes. Gawd save us all, but he won't. (Even if he existed, it would be a breach of his divinely insane plan.)
Media manipulation backfire. (Score:5, Insightful)
When you get an highly politicized media forcing a side and pushing and shaming people for not taking it, you may end alienating a large portion of the population and making em disobey you, even when you're pushing for the right decision.
And i bet at least in part, people just voted to leave because the creepy manipulative forceful thing they can't truly trust told em to vote to stay.
Re:Good for them (Score:5, Insightful)
Germany "raped" Greece? How so? The Greeks very predictably couldn't run their own country - or rather, they ran it into the ground. What was the rest of the EU supposed to do? Just give them money endlessly with no consequences or responsibility to change their ways?
Re:Good for them (Score:4, Insightful)
So back to my statement - it was clear that Greece had made a lot of mistakes. Should it have been raped for them? What's they purpose of the union, then?
Re:Good for them (Score:5, Informative)
Had Greece been out of the EU, they could have devalued their currency and/or defaulted on their debts. After a couple of years of turmoil they could have achieved sustainable growth.
While I agree with the first part, I can't see how you can get the second from it. Have you ever worked/lived in Greece, or tried to run a company there? I'd rather try running a company in Nigeria, it has the same level of dysfunctionality and corruption but at least it's out in the open, and you can buy your way past any obstacles. In Greece, everything is unfuriatingly broken but you also typically can't buy your way past the obstacles (exceptions being for medical treatment and similar). I honestly don't know how you can fix that country short of some sort of reformat-and-reinstall.
I'm not saying this to bash Greece, just that having experienced it as a business environment I can't imagine how you'd fix it, there's just no easy solution I can think of.
Re: Good for them (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Good for them (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Good for them (Score:5, Insightful)
>Well, all these things happened after Greeks mismanaged their country to get into this situation.
Doesn't matter. For starters - that was two governments ago - and most of the people who suffer the most weren't even eligible to vote when the government who did this was in power. But more importantly - it doesn't matter because this is not a solution. It won't help them get out of the situation. It won't even get the creditors some of their money back.
All it will achieve is make sure even less of that debt will ever be paid than otherwise would have.
It's the same reasoning as why we got rid of debtors prison - because it's a stupid solution. Throwing a bad debtor in prison just makes it impossible for him to ever pay the debt. It's to the creditor's advantage to come up with a payment plan that actually gets the debt or part of it paid - and keeps the debtor productive to pay it.
Austerity in Greece has had the same effect as debtors prison and just destroyed what was left of the economy, as it always does - the only thing it ever can do - a simple mathematical fact proven every time it's tried anywhere.
If Greece's debts were truly as bad as was being said -then the solution was the same solution that you or I would take if we ended up with a debt problem on the same relative scale. Bankruptcy. Pay what you can with the assets you have left, and then write of the rest and let you get on with your life and try to rebuild your finances.
Re: Good for them (Score:4, Insightful)
And were forced into austerity measures that would leave their people as slaves for the next century.
That was done as an example to Italy, Spain and Portugal (and maybe France too). If Greece had been let off easy, others would have wanted the same deal, and the dominoes would have fallen. By making the bailout prohibitively painful, the Germans created a firewall that stopped the rot from spreading.
Re:Good for them (Score:4, Insightful)
Now the UK is in the unenviable situation to serve as the showcase by which even poor people will learn how much they actually benefit from a huge common market in Europe and how damaging the decision to leave is.
Yeah, because Norway and Switzerland weren't example enough of how bad it is to not be in the European Union.
Re:Good for them (Score:5, Insightful)
Unlike most European countries, Norway is rich in natural resources (oil and gas). Switzerland is the "secret" stash of European criminals (all collar colours). In a way the UK was justified to compare itself to these countries as long as it was in the EU, but the influence and value of "the City" depends on the EU membership, so the UK will not only find itself without equal access to the common market, and the many concessions it negotiated with the EU wiped out, but also one of the big reasons for its influence on Europe fleeing the country. I understand that people in favor of Brexit are ecstatic now, but they too will learn to understand what damage they've done first and foremost to their own interests.
Re:Good for them (Score:5, Interesting)
Haha... hahahaha... If you think that the UK has a better negotiating position alone than in the EU about free trade, you are seriously deranged.
Re:Good for them (Score:5, Informative)
Huh what? GDP from 1960s until today [google.no], please do tell when we had a "decade long recession".
Re:Good for them (Score:4, Insightful)
We won't get the same deal because we can't walk away. 45% of our exports go to Europe, where as 14% of theirs come here. We have much, much more to lose. In fact for them tariffs on 14% of their exports are a relatively small price to pay compared to further break up of the EU.
Anyway, the UKIPers and Europhobic part of the Tory party will demand we don't agree to freedom of movement, which is an absolute non-negotiable requirement of being in the Single Market and getting the deal we currently have. Again, the EU stands to lose far, far more by giving us an exemption so there is 0% chance they will.
Re:Good for them (Score:4, Insightful)
It has been in the EU for 43 years, it'll do just fine outside it...
If you mean that we'll survive: of course we will. However, what's likely is we'll have yet another long recession followed up by signing up to a bunch of rules we have literally no say in and no way of changing.
It won't be good for us. And it's a great win for xenophobia and stupidity.
It also has the world's 6th largest economy and a very powerful friend in the United States... a LOT of Americans would take the UK's side over the EU's, and if Trump becomes President, so will he...
A friend, like the one who always hovers round offering favours yet never gets as much in return. And ironically, Trump winning may well actually be better for us now than the alternative. I can't find myself supporting him though.
Re:Good for them (Score:5, Interesting)
From now on there will be no serious player within EU who would try to stop further federalization.
That's probably a good thing! I'm not kidding.
I strongly believe Europe is at the wrong level of federalization, one doomed to fail by which I mean the level of federalization by necessity will change, not that Europe will fail. The reason is the central currency without central taxation.
The problem was exemplified by Greece to some extent, though there were other things involved there. For example, Germany has strong exports meaning there is essentially a net flow of money in. Without being to float their currency, the flow of money out of somewhere like Greece does not work well and is not sustainable. This is ALWAYS the case on any national level. There are richer, more vibrant areas (e.g. London in the UK) and poorer, less vibrant ones (say, Wales) and the central taxation means that the money can be redistributed so that the trade hubs don't end up acting as giant black holes.
Now the EU has a central currency, I believe that an EU Federal taxation scheme will eventually happen because there is no way of operating something country sized without shifting money around. It's also the way the US works with the blue states subsidizing the red ones for the greater good (i.e. keeping the country whole).
What may well happen is we leave and stop fucking up Europe. Europe will get stronger and we'll have a recession. Eventually we'll re-join the single market and accept all of the rules. That way we'll have a nice strong Europe to trade with which will be god for us but no influence with which to fuck it up.
Yes that's cynical and no the world isn't that simple but I don't have a whole hell of a lot of faith in my fellow countrymen just now, so cut me some slack, OK?
Re:Good for them (Score:5, Informative)
The Greeks very predictably couldn't run their own country....What was the rest of the EU supposed to do? Just give them money endlessly with no consequences or responsibility to change their ways?
The reasonable alternative would have been to allow Greece to declare bankrupcy and allow those banks who invested in Greece to fail.
Re:Good for them (Score:4, Insightful)
Well they got cheap loans and noone said no since it was in euro and the consensus was that the whole EU stood behind the euro so loans to goverment was safe.
Had Greece had their own currency, they would never have gotten so many loans and thus the mistake would not had happend.
The sadest part is that Greece only was accepted into the euro by "creative" bookkeeping. They should never have been let in. But the leaders of EU wanted so many as possible members nations to join the Euro that even greece managed to squeze in. If the rules to join had been more clear the greece tragegy would never had happen.
It could have been avoided if EU had insisted on sound economy to join the Euro.
Re:Good for them (Score:5, Insightful)
But Germany did screw up Greece by imposing more and more austerity measures just when the country needed a boost from fiscal spending.
Problem is it needed responsible fiscal spending, not just spending. Greece is great at spending, but the vast majority of it is completely irresponsible. Providing more money would just have lead to more of the same. The only options were to bring in regulators to tell the Greeks how to spend (which wouldn't have gone down at all well) or to cut off the credit (which didn't go so well either). It's not something that can be fixed by any external agency, you'd need to reform the Greek way of doing business.
Re:Good for them (Score:5, Insightful)
In the EU when people say "free movement" what they actually mean is "cheap labour". That's great for multinationals and very large national businesses, but horrible for anyone trying to pay the mortgage/rent, maintain the family and so on.
Re: Good for them (Score:4)
Yes, because elected and unelected local representatives make more stupid decisions since they don't have to compromise with elected and unelected foreign representatives. Many EU directives are more sensible than the local laws have previously been.
Re:An omen of a Trump victory (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:An omen of a Trump victory (Score:4, Insightful)
For some reason, doing good work no one else is applying for is frowned upon in the UK.
This is straight up corporate propaganda: people would applying for those jobs if they were remunerated fairly but that's not in the interest of the corporate elite.
Re:An omen of a Trump victory (Score:4, Interesting)
So, how Mexican is Texas?
Maybe those other places aren't much like Iraq either?
The Republican party are already undermining him and cutting off the money supply. It's unlikely that he will make it on his own fortune. If he does, then I agree with you that a lot of people are going to get a shock since they appear to see him as something other than the grasping casino owner who blew a vast amount of inherited money to get to where he is. He'll make Nixon, Ford, Johnson, Clinton and all the rest look like saints in comparison. He'll make Carter look like a political mastermind.
Re: You made it, Syrians! (Score:4, Informative)
The European Union is not a state, but it has its shortcomings, though. For example, most EU citizens don't really know who prepares the laws, how these people are chosen or elected (often not even elected), how do EU laws affect national drafting of laws and so forth. Even the good things' origin, such as the benefits of a single market, are not known, and people don't realize that it's the EU that allows them to order pretty much anything from another EU country over the Internet without any more hassle than what they would have if they ordered it locally.
I reckon Scotland will be leaving the UK soon and might join the EU as a sovereign state later on. The fate of Northern Ireland is a big question mark, but they're obviously not happy with the UK leaving and this might start a similar political movement there too.
Re: You made it, Syrians! (Score:5, Funny)
Build a wall, and make the Romans pay for it.
Re: You made it, Syrians! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: You made it, Syrians! (Score:4, Insightful)
As far as I see, not even the EU sceptic UK politicians really wanted this. They just wanted to beat Cameron and probably blackmail the EU. I believe this has backfired, and the UK will suffer. (EU too, but to a much less degree). I'm sure Farage and the rest of the crooks wanted that Brexit fails, but only barely. Now, lets see how UK will fare without the cheap EU workers, increased trade tax, visa to the EU and all the 'good things' non-EU countries have to cope with.
And don't forget about the exit package! (Score:5, Insightful)
And don't forget that the EU will have to give them a pretty louse "exit package", or risk making exiting the EU "appealing" to others. So, the "negotiations" won't go smoothly, and the UK will probably end up with worse deals than other non-EU countries - even if the EU itself might be losing on them.
Another interesting thing is to note that young people overwhelmingly voted "remain" (it was about 75-25 in the 18-24 category), when the most "leave" votes were in the 65+ category (60-40). So the UK will leave due to the votes of people who won't be part of the non-EU future (for long at least)...
Re: You made it, Syrians! (Score:5, Insightful)
As you say, the whole thing started out as a political sop, designed purely to placate its own right-wing "Eurosceptic" members.
I voted "Yes" in the Scottish independence referendum in 2014 for a number of reasons. A major one was that I knew the EU referendum was on the horizon and I wasn't prepared to risk Scotland being dragged out of the EU by Tories playing political football with the country's future simply to placate their own voter base in the south east of England.
Back then, I still thought it was far more likely than not that the UK would remain within the EU; I just wasn't prepared to risk it.
I look forward to the response of every politician that scaremongered about whether an independent Scotland's position would have the right to remain within the EU during the 2014 referendum. The same people who convinced Scotland to remain a part of the UK (#) and to accept the results of being in bed with an elephant that's barely aware of its existence most of the time. Whether that outcome was the Tory government majority across the UK as a whole in the 2015 general election rendering the SNP's overwhelming majority of MPs in Scotland irrelevant (the Tories got *one* isolated seat here). Or whether that was Scotland being dragged out of the EU against its will by a party and political process that has long been centered around the south-east of England.
I'm not suggesting that all these people- especially not the Labour supporters- wanted a Tory government or the UK out of the EU (Scotland against its will). I'm saying that they placed their own UK-centric interests first, knowing the risk to Scotland. Especially the Labour supporters.
I wonder how many of those people will have the nerve to show their faces now that the scaremongering outcome they claimed would happen if Scotland voted "Yes" to independence has come true thanks to their "No" side winning and the Tory-centric English vote dragging it out anyway.
(#) In particular, I'm thinking of the utterly worthless Labour party (until recently dominant in Scotland) that only got back into power in the 90s- admittedly very successfully- by selling out everything they stood for in order to appeal to Middle England, turning themselves into little more than red Tories. The same Labour party that may now have elected the stereotypically left-wing Jeremy Corbyn as leader (##) but don't stand a cat's chance in hell of getting elected by that same Middle England electorate and can be dismissed as irrelevant.
(##) Someone who at least appeared principled at first- even if I didn't agree with much of what he stood for- but was so utterly lukewarm, half-baked and borderline invisible in his support for "Remain" that one suspects this may have been intentional. (Corbyn was well-known for his Euroscepticism, but claimed to have switched to remain with some reservations. Please excuse my scepticism.)
Re: You made it, Syrians! (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, lets see how UK will fare without the cheap EU workers,
The GB is free to invite as many cheap workers as they want or need, the only difference is that whey will no longer be *forced* to do so.
increased trade tax,
The trade taxes are governed by the European Economic Area, not the European Union. Whether GB stays out of EU but in EEA (like Norway and Switzerland for instance) remains to be seen.
visa to the EU and all the 'good things' non-EU countries have to cope with.
Visas to the "EU" are in fact governed by the Schengen Treaty which has nothing at all to do with the EU, and the standing of GB with respect to the Schengen Zone has not changed one iota because of the referendum.
You know, I wish that GB chose to stay, as my country is going to suffer for its leaving (as now there will be no counterweight at all to the Germany-France tandem, who will proceed to rape the rest of EU in name of their national interests until it completely falls apart). However, boy, I do have the grim satisfaction of someone having the courage to stand up and give the middle finger to crooks and liars like you and the eurocrats, who spew such blatant false propaganda. Attributing every good thing, from hens laying eggs to the sun rising, to the gracious benevolence of the EU.
Re: You made it, Syrians! (Score:5, Insightful)
The US has its problems, yes. But it's hardly dead, and that's a pretty dumb thing to say. The US is still the world's largest economy. The US exerts a tremendous amount of political influence. The US has a massive military with a hell of a lot of firepower. That hardly sounds dead to me. In so many ways, the US is actually a rock of stability compared to Europe. Since the Civil War, we haven't had any states seriously try to leave the US. Our Presidency has been handed over peacefully each time to the winner of the election. We haven't fought wars over here in North America for a long time. Despite our faults, the US has been extremely stable and will probably continue to be for a long time. The rest of the world knows it, too. That's why, for example, the dominant reserve currency throughout the world is the US Dollar. If we were truly that bad, the world wouldn't trust the US Dollar. I know that it's practically a sport around here to bash the US, but we've been quite a bit more stable than Europe.
Re: You made it, Syrians! (Score:5, Insightful)
But the EU is hardly the same kind of union that the USA are. Mostly in the mind of its subjects.
The USA consider themselves a nation. When 9/11 struck, Californians felt as attacked as anyone in New York did. Do you think a Portuguese would give a shit if someone blew half of Tallinn apart? THAT is the big difference.
The EU is an economy union, and only that. With nation states inside trying to rip as much out of the cake that this union is for their own national benefit as possible. With the Brits having been one of the worst offenders of this behavior.
And as long as this doesn't change I will not accept that spiel that "the EU is the biggest economy". Bullshit. The EU as a unified economy doesn't exist. It is a union for corporations trying to maximize their profits, there is not anything tangible in it for the people in the union or their economies beyond the interests of the corporations.