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UK votes to leave EU

• baristaGeek 10y ago
  I'm hearing a lot of people comment that this will cause a huge macroeconomic deficit worldwide, and I'm going to briefly explain why I believe the Pound Sterling's 9% devaluation is purely speculative. The UK simply didn't buy the EU's story about the Euro, and now they want a fully independent monetary policy. I'm not sure how much they have studied such possibility, but I bet that taking this to a democratic level was a data-driven decision. The EU is going to want to put some political pressure for sure, but I don't think that they are going to want to do such a huge damage as wanting to establish a trade embargo with the 5th biggest economy of the world.
  • return0 10y ago
    > now they want a fully independent monetary policy In what way is it more independent now? It was independent before.
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• Xophmeister 10y ago
  This is why we can't have nice things.
• jnwrd 10y ago
  smh uk
• lossolo 10y ago
  Unfortunately nationalism and populism won another war. Now watch Scotland make referendum to leave UK and after leaving they will join EU.
  • zacketysack3 10y ago
    As a free market supporter it is horrifying that protectionist sentiments reign supreme in the UK. Hopefully this does not foreshadow the US congressional and presidential elections in November.
    • tuna-piano 10y ago
      Was this vote protectionist? I assume they'll just setup free trade deals with Europe, similiar to what Norway and Switzerland already have?
    • ekianjo 10y ago
      It's actually a good thing for Free Market, since the UK will now be able to define what rules they want to play with, instead of having to rely on EU's bureaucrats.
      • deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      • nikdaheratik 10y ago
        For their internal markets maybe, but the EU is half of their exports. So either they stop exporting, or they follow the rules of the EU without having a say in them. There are some good arguments for leaving, but this isn't one of them, IMO.
  • ekianjo 10y ago
    To be frank the EU was built on power centralization and socialism as key principles. It's been what, 15 years+ since the Eurozone and the Economy is still doing as bad as before, if not worse for most member states. Hardly a success model by ANY measure.
    • toomuchtodo 10y ago
      How does anyone expect growth in a developed country? You can't free market your way out of it without sacrificing your social obligations and protections. What is success? High YOY GDP growth? Or quality of life? Look to America (my country) with very limited worker protections, almost no social safety nets, extremely high income and wealthy inequality; we still only eek out only ~2% GDP growth, and that's on the backs of the poor.
      • ekianjo 10y ago
        There are many measures of success, and if you want to talk about quality of life, by all means look at how bad the discontentment with the EU has been growing over the years, among all member states. Keeping everyone in the EU is not sustainable.
        • toomuchtodo 10y ago
          Show me a model you'd replicate. I will argue that Britain was the model I'd replicate. Was.
          • ekianjo 10y ago
            I'm not playing politics, but in my take any movement that distances you from a remote central power is positive in the end. Freedom should have been the basis for the EU, not Socialism. We all know where it's headed now.
            • toomuchtodo 10y ago
              Is the supposed freedom worth it if your country's economy suffers? I'm not asking for political reasons either, I'm talking purely economical. Freedom has a cost, and it seems that the UK populace who voted to leave does not fully understand that cost.
  • Consultant32452 10y ago
    Is populism supposed to be bad? I just looked up the definition to make sure and it's basically the principle that ordinary people should have control over government rather than political insiders and wealthy elite. That sounds like democracy to me. Is there an aspect I'm missing?
    • mmbaghdad 10y ago
      It is supposed to, if you add fear mongering to it. Dictators usually believe in it, that's why they try to control every news outlet or public space there is and spread their propaganda
    • elthran 10y ago
      For me, the downside of populism is that the political insiders and wealthy elite just so happen to be the people who actually understand how economies and governments and international agreements work. The common man may think he knows everything, but he really doesn't.
      • Clubber 10y ago
        Agreed, but whether or not they manipulate the economy to the benefit of the citizens is another story.
        • mhuffman 10y ago
          Right, they have no incentive other than to make themselves better off. And it shows[1]. [1] http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FPPS%2FPPS12_03%2FS1537592714001595a.pdf http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FPPS%2FPPS...
      • badloginagain 10y ago
        That and the populist vote doesn't vote rationally. They vote emotionally. This puts you in a state where charismatic leaders will appeal to and exploit emotional triggers in people. Historical evidence suggests that such leaders tend to move towards to political extremes.
  • rayiner 10y ago
    It's ironic to me that a site where people extol the virtues of consistent culture at startups is so down on people voting to free themselves from a body politic they don't believe shares their values.
    • booleanbetrayal 10y ago
      "Change the world (but don't)!"
      • Simon321 10y ago
        With change people usually mean positive change. Progress. This is undoing change, the opposite of progress. Now it's just like it was before.
        • dropit_sphere 10y ago
          Wahtever you do, don't fix bugs after you've introduced them. Do you want to be stuck in the past?
• Numberwang 10y ago
  Sigh....London should have a vote next to leave the UK.
• Johnie 10y ago
  British Pound is at the lowest level since 1985 at 1.33 USD/GBP.
  • mathgenius 10y ago
    I wonder how many people would change their mind now because of this. If the pound keeps tanking, perhaps the market will end up forcing a bremain. Once again the financial markets behaving like a psycho bitch. Do you remember that one girlfriend that you knew was a bad idea but you just couldn't help yourself?
    • fixxer 10y ago
      Well, that rate also puts a floor under a lot of domestic manufacturing (see how it has worked for China?), so a little bit more complicated that "gee, Miami is so much more expensive now."
      • Johnie 10y ago
        Exactly. Low currency is great for manufacturing.
        • newrotik 10y ago
          Not only manufacturing. It will become effectively cheaper to hire people in the UK from outside. We had a (too) strong Swiss franc for years now, and it's been a bane for businesses/economy.
          • kartickv 10y ago
            It will help British industry, while hurting savers, so maybe it's more a transfer of wealth than an overall benefit or loss?
          • guitarbill 10y ago
            sadly it's also become much more difficult to hire people from outside. also, isn't more immigration the opposite of what the leave campaign voted for?
• mariopt 10y ago
  Does anyone knows how this will affect tech recruitment?
  • virmundi 10y ago
    It's hard to say. It could make Britain turn inward for labour. With the lost of less expensive external labour, the local market could rise as wages track demand. At the same time Britain may be loosing a lot of money soon. This could drive down demand since the EU will probably look to exclude the UK from contracts as a punitive measure, even if it's just a subconscious thing. You might also see tech leave the country. Selling in the EU will be more costly. As a result, companies might start moving out or collapsing. Their former employees would then leave too.
  • pyb 10y ago
    From what I see, London's tech industry will largely shift to Berlin and other places.
    • gonvaled 10y ago
      This would be fantastic!
  • nikdaheratik 10y ago
    It likely means less immigrants coming in to do tech work in the UK, but there would still be huge incentives to allow some form of immigration since the UK wants to be able to have its citizens get work abroad. If they go to a more Australian model, likely alot tech work would be under a protected class of worker that would be allowed to establish some kind of residency.
    • maze-le 10y ago
      Well, the UK has always been a country that I had in view when thinking about working abroad. I think I can cross that off my list now. On the other hand, there is Ireland, wich I think will get a boom of tech companies migrating from the UK. And there is the possibility of an independent Scotland in the near future.
• M2Ys4U 10y ago
  I have never felt less British than I do right now. :(
  • christoph 10y ago
    Can I ask why? The public spoke in completely free and democratic manner, against everything so called "experts" said. I thought this was a staple of being British?
    • addicted 10y ago
      Maybe the OP is Scottish? Scotland had a pretty clear Remain vote.
    • davidgay 10y ago
      Not the OP, but as someone born in Britain, raised in Switzerland and now living in the US, I concur. At least in my case think of it as my identity being some mix of Europe-in-general, Britain-somewhat, Switzerland-somewhat. Now Britain says "we're not Europe" (to horribly over-simplify). That doesn't make me think "oh well, now I'm less European", instead it makes me thing "oh well, now I'm less British".
      • M2Ys4U 10y ago
        >That doesn't make me think "oh well, now I'm less European", instead it makes me thing "oh well, now I'm less British". I was born here and I've lived in England my whole life, but that's exactly how I feel. I've always identified as both British and European. Now that the UK has decided to isolate itself from Europe it hasn't made me feel less European it's made me feel less British.
        • ionised 10y ago
          Recent history has just outlined to me how massive the gulf is between my own politics and philosophies are to the rest of the country. Britain is right-wing, xenophobic, corrupt and utterly in the service of financial elites who direct everyones attention toward Johnny Foreigner in order to hide their own self-serving agendas. Plus we're well on the way to becoming a police state now that we face a future without the tempering hand of the EU on our thoroughly right-wing, demagogue politicians. I need to start seriously considering moving somewhere else because I have very little patience for the path this country is on.
• blhack 10y ago
  I don't really understand the reasoning either for or against this. The default seems to be non eu-membership. So why should Britain stay in the EU? People are commenting on this as though it's really obvious.
  • eli 10y ago
    The "default" would surely be to remain being an EU member, i.e. to do nothing. Voting to leave is a significant change from the status quo.
  • selectron 10y ago
    I agree with this. There has to be some balance - it is not like EU membership lifts the economies that enter it, so it doesn't seem like it should be so bad to leave the EU. I also expect people to overstate the effects - like currency devaluing is both good and bad for the UK while people are acting like it is some kind of disaster. Stock markets also seem to largely be decoupled from the real economies these days.
    • Tomte 10y ago
      Poland and most other Eastern European Economies got a huge boost by access to the Common Market.
      • rodgerd 10y ago
        Much of the UK gets a huge boost from the EU. Places like the north and midlands get massive amounts of money pumped in from renewal and development funds.
      • dguaraglia 10y ago
        Tell that to Greece, Portugal and Spain. Truth is, the EU is not a perfect solution. Even if Europe were to become a "single nation" (like the United States) that wouldn't mean all parts of the Union would have the same economic development. Just look at the stark differences between places like New York, Massachusetts or California vs. Missouri and Luisiana. Prima facie it's impossible to predict if the UK will be as severely affected as the Remain camp wants to paint it. Time will tell. If anything, I'm curious about all this (if painfully aware that it might affect the life of millions of people for the worst.)
• hardwaresofton 10y ago
  Would love to see what the people who were shorting european stock (expecting this outcome) made out with. I think I read an article earlier today about Blackrock shorting like 50% of their european holdings or something?
• a13n 10y ago
  Can someone please give an unbiased summary of what this means and how it will impact the UK, Europe, and the rest of the world?
  • BoysenberryPi 10y ago
    Despite what most people are claiming on social media and even here, the fact is no one actually knows what is going to happen. Even Nigel Farage, the leader behind the "Brexit" movement, has said he has "absolutely no idea what will happen..." http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/world/nigel-farage-has-absolutely-no-idea-what-will-happen-if-uk-votes-for-brexit-739925.html http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/world/nigel-farage...
    • panic 10y ago
      Why did they have a vote if they hadn't planned for what would happen afterward? It's completely absurd.
      • nkassis 10y ago
        It is, it usually seems to be with referendums like this. I remember a similar situation with the Quebec referendum of 95. A lot of unresolved questions, vague ideas on how to essentially keep certain things the same and change others but no concrete plan. Brexit is obviously way worse given the global impact. It will take at least decades to fully resolve.
      • cobrophy 10y ago
        Because the consequences can only be determined by a long and drawn out negotiation process. Like getting a divorce and then work out custody and share of assets after.
      • rodgerd 10y ago
        Because it was a tactical concession to solve an internal party political problem David Cameron had. Oh well, at least he won't be best remembered for face-fucking a pig.
• martythemaniak 10y ago
  Is Scotland going to be exiting the UK next? Guess we'll see in a few years. Hard to know what will happen here, but I suspect once the UK (or what's left of it) signs a trade deal with the EU, they'll get the same deal as Norway - all the compliance with EU regulations, with none of the say. I suppose people may be happy with that deal, as long as they can get to say they're "free". I'm hoping this somehow leave the EU in better shape, perhaps more cohesive, perhaps reforming in ways to minimize chances of anyone else leaving. As a Bulgarian (not living in Europe) this makes me somewhat bitter - seems Englishmen can't accept belonging to a club we also belong to.
  • lossolo 10y ago
    Norway and Switzerland pay for that deals to EU fund. Funny thing is that if UK will get the same deal which i highly doubt (not as good as others after leaving - EU leaders already said that you can't have cake and eat cake) they will pay only 8% less than they pay as members of EU now.
  • mcorrand 10y ago
    Gibraltar may want out too, they voted almost unanimously to remain and they probably won't want to be locked into their detroit by a UE border
    • smcl 10y ago
      I don't know why you're getting downvoted. Even though they semi-recently voted to stay in the UK, they were by far the highest area to vote "Remain" - 95.91%
      • mcorrand 10y ago
        My post was not bringing much to the discussion - I edited it to clarify my thinking. As British as the people of Gibraltar may feel, I don't think their patriotism will prevail over the prospect of being stuck from the main landmass by a border garded by a revengeful EU... Revengeful being the operative word, since there was always a crossing since the UK is not part of Schengen; but at least they were part of the EU.
• smcl 10y ago
  The way Scotland voted "Remain" is pretty stark: http://imgur.com/gallery/JjbEPZZ/new http://imgur.com/gallery/JjbEPZZ/new I can see an Independence Referendum 2.0 being pushed through...
  • thetmkay 10y ago
    Can London too?
    • smcl 10y ago
      I jokingly said to my friend that we could solve a handful of complex problems easily - England* declares independence from the UK and leaves the EU, the rest of us get to remain. Since we're already in fantasy land, London can remain if they like :) * = I am assuming the Welsh vote was due to a few of the Welsh lads being too exited by the Euros to vote, so they get a pass on being narrowly "Leave" this time
      • addicted 10y ago
        http://www.theweek.co.uk/uk-news/60388/could-london-declare-independence http://www.theweek.co.uk/uk-news/60388/could-london-declare-...
      • toyg 10y ago
        More seriously, things would have been so much simpler with a new federal settlement and a devolved English Parliament.
    • hkjgkjy 10y ago
      The City should be put on an inflatable mattress and dock next to New York City.
      • agumonkey 10y ago
        Newton's Apple.
    • 10y ago
• thetmkay 10y ago
  I voted today. I work in London at a startup with international markets. I believe in the ideal of free movement. I think the EU is a bit of a mess conceptually and mechanically, but in general a step forward for Europe. This is really the beginning of a very long, tedious and ultimately unsatisfying couple of years of dissatisfaction and instability as we negotiate with the EU and the rest of the world.
  • sandworm101 10y ago
    >>> ... as we negotiate with the EU and the rest of the world. HA! Negotiate. If Britain want to shoot itself in the foot and unsettle the world economy, it can do so on its own. The EU need not concede on anything. Why should they, given that Britain won't be a voting member in a couple years. If I were France I would start bricking up the chunnel tomorrow.
    • noarchy 10y ago
      > If I were France I would start bricking up the chunnel tomorrow. Depending on how things turn out in France in the near future, they may be busy fighting "Frexit" sentiments in their own country. Le Pen has already brought up the possibility (granted, I don't expect her to be in power, but the idea is out there).
      • addicted 10y ago
        Which is exactly why I think the EU will try to make Britain a lesson and not make any concessions. It would be in the EU's interests to really damage Britain even if it means they get hurt themselves, because if Britain is allowed to leave without much pain, there may not be an EU left.
        • toyg 10y ago
          Greece was a blueprint. Once you stop working with the system, the system bitchslaps you to keep others in line.
      • 10y ago
• patrickg_zill 10y ago
  I don't understand the hand-wringing. Countries have engaged in trade for thousands of years - Brexit won't change that.
  • toyg 10y ago
    Oh yeah; they also engaged in trade wars, which often degenerated in conventional wars. The EU was built to avoid that. Welcome back to the Hobbesian jungle.
    • q5 10y ago
      I was reading this today and a quote stood out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protectionism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protectionism >"When goods cannot cross borders, armies will." I think it would be interesting to see how many protectionist schemes have lead to wars vs. free trade.
    • Zpalmtree 10y ago
      What is nato for $200
      • toyg 10y ago
        An alliance against a common enemy (Russia). It doesn't exclude there won't ever be any contrast between members, which might result in military confrontation. History is full of alliances that ended for one reason or another.
  • gonvaled 10y ago
    They also paid tariffs, and micro-regulated what, how, when, and in what quantities could be imported / exported. Brexit will change that.
• benwilber0 10y ago
  They have many good reasons to leave the EU. And very few reasons to stay.
• eganist 10y ago
  It's a domino effect looking forward. Other nationalist parties in other nations e.g. France will look at this result and try to leave as well. Scotland could easily leave the UK given that they wanted overwhelmingly to stay. It'll be interesting to watch how foreign UK citizens will be impacted with their jobs in Europe. The consequences are huge.
  • ErikAugust 10y ago
    "Frexit". I say that as a joke, but I can see that happening.
    • xyzzy4 10y ago
      I'm still waiting on Texit (Texas).
      • RGamma 10y ago
        In Germany we've been waiting for the Bavarian exit for decades now :)
• Tsagadai 10y ago
  This decision is going to have major effects on markets over the next few days.
• ekianjo 10y ago
  Populism is seen as bad by people who want centralization of power (socialists of all borders in general, as well as fascists). So if you have been fed the socialist propaganda for years when living in the EU, you assume it's bad.
  • firebones 10y ago
    The characterization of populism reminds me of the Demotivator poster on meetings: "None of us is as dumb as all of us."
  • lossolo 10y ago
    So Trumps populism is something good because what? Americans was taught that it's a good thing? What's your point here? USA has federal government = centralization of power so whats your point? I am living in EU, but i am not socialist and for sure i am not fascist so what you wrote is totally wrong. EDIT: And next time think before saying that someone is in same shoes as fascists. My grand grandmother husband and son was killed fighting with fascists.
    • matt-attack 10y ago
      I'm pretty sure he just stated that both socialists and fascist want centralization of power. I'm pretty sure that's not a debatable stance. It doesn't imply that if you're a socialist then you must be fascist. That'd be a logical fallacy. Just as if I said, "soccer moms and skin-heads both breathe air". Should soccer moms feel attacked? Am I name calling? Of course not.
  • ubernostrum 10y ago
    Populism is seen as bad by people who think "Let's beat those guys up, not necessarily because they did something bad or deserve it, but just because we're angry and want to beat someone" is a bad idea.
  • dang 10y ago
    Please don't call names in arguments (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), especially politically inflammatory ones. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11966245 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11966245 and marked it off-topic.
• mudil 10y ago
  You know what? Some of us are sick of regulations from Brussels, of unelected bureaucracy, of CE Marks of approval, of socialism, of rampant immigration, of refugees, of Russian prostitutes, of Polish kielbasa shops in London, of feeling like foreigners in our own land. And we might not be in the minority anymore.
  • ChrisClark 10y ago
    At least this has helped everyone identify the racists among them. Leaving might be perfectly fine, it just brought out the worst of people too.
    • mudil 10y ago
      Yeah, millions of racists. Just because we are sick of Polish kielbasa shops in London.
      • mudil 10y ago
        We are also anti-CE Mark racists.
      • yongjik 10y ago
        Of all things you could be angry about, you are upset that you can buy Polish sausages in London? Really? (...Poe's law strikes back...)
      • viraptor 10y ago
        That's what it sounds like. I mean, if you raised the issue of different rules for shops, vegan ideas, of anything else, then we could think you have issues with actual politics. But you only mentioned the Polish and sausage components. And I since you didn't mention British butcher shops... (same with Russian prostitutes)
      • mwfunk 10y ago
        So, your argument against charges of racism is that you voted to leave the EU simply because you felt there were too many kielbasa places in London?!? Kind of an overreaction, don't you think?
• mudil 10y ago
  Doom and gloom, doom and gloom! In your world, in order to survive England needs to kneel before the unelected bureaucrats of Brussels.
  • toyg 10y ago
    I'm tired of this unelected trope. MEPs are elected, and they have final say on legislation. Commissioners PROPOSE legislation (which is then amended by Parliament committees, usually), are nominated BY THE GOVERNMENTS YOU ELECTED, and can be dismissed by the Commission President, who answers to the ELECTED European Parliament. The failure to make people understand Lisbon 2009 reforms is what is killing the EU.
    • cobrophy 10y ago
      Not to mention the UK is ruled by a hereditory monarchy with an unelected upper house of parliament.
      • vixen99 10y ago
        You forgot to mention she has no executive power at all and this is symbolized at the start of every parliamentary session in the the Black Rod ritual. Check it out! Yes, Britain has a revising upper chamber populated by people who've made some kind of distinguished contribution to British society during their careers. As with all human enterprises, mistakes occur & some members (peers) have questionable qualifications and corruptive practices do sometimes surface as everywhere else. Sometimes political cronies are appointed. This does not mean we throw the bath water out with the baby. The upper house provides a venue for extended discussion of laws put forward by the lower house but ultimately has no power to overturn decisions made in the lower house. Most members of the House of Lords (often experts in various subjects) have no or minimal vested interests in the issues brought before them and can therefore offer totally independent opinions since they do not have to answer to an electorate. Being unelected does not necessarily always equate to a zero qualification for a limited role in law making.
        • 10y ago
• djsumdog 10y ago
  The UK and the US really head the current hegemony that is currently instilling so much war in the world. I believe the EU does share this responsibility, but I also really hope the UK leaving the EU helps the rest of Europe in in pushing back against these covertly back wars in Syria and elsewhere. British citizens may not be able to world and live throughout the EU any more either. People already abroad may lose their work status on nations without reciprocal fall-back agreements. This is a pretty big change, but I don't think it's a bad one.
• lettergram 10y ago
  I still have severe doubts this will happen. It will take many years to renegotiate and most treaties will be in effect until then. My guess is very little changes, it's more of a sign that people want their country sovereign as opposed to being ruled by a committee in another country.
  • fapjacks 10y ago
    Now this is an interesting comment. Does anyone have specifics about the timeline with respect to the treaties already binding the UK to other EU members? EDIT: As mentioned elsewhere, here's an interesting summary with projected timelines: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/504216/The_process_for_withdrawing_from_the_EU_print_ready.pdf https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...
    • ohthehugemanate 10y ago
      This is a non binding referendum, so nothing HAS to happen at all. But all the party leaders have promised to abide by the result, with varying definitions of "immediately." Once the PM formally starts the process, it must be completed in 2 years according to the Lisbon treaty. The end of that period is when the trade deals expire. There will clearly be preparation before they formally pull the trigger, but it's anybody's guess just how long it will be. There may be a change in UK leadership over this, and there are upcoming elections in France and Germany to consider. The Leave campaign has talked about 2020 as a good date to end the separation. For all the treaties that will expire, trade will fall back to the WTO rules, which (to my understanding) are like the benches at train stations. They're arguably better than nothing, but very uncomfortable to sit on for any length of time. IMO the market to watch is finance. Losing the free movement of money is an enormous blow to London as a global financial hub. Especially since the London and European stock exchanges are merging, it's possible the big investment banks will simply move to Frankfurt. The financial sector contributes 84bn to GDP (of 2.8tn), so there's a lot at risk there. So if any treaties get signed quick, it'll be the financial ones.
  • iainmerrick 10y ago
• leot 10y ago
  What's stopping Britons from having another referendum?
  • gonvaled 10y ago
    It is not legally binding, so nothing. But who would take responsibility of organizing that, disregarding the opinion of the majority of the British people? And what do you suggest, having a non-binding referendum until Remain wins? Out is out.
    • deanclatworthy 10y ago
      It's not really a majority though. If I polled 100 people and said to you the majority said leave, how many would you estimate that is? 75-90 perhaps? This result seems to be 52/48 so it's incredible that such a monumentally important decision is to be made from this interpretation of a majority.
      • deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      • gonvaled 10y ago
        That's just how referendums work: better to have 48% of unhappy people than 52% of unhappy people. You will never have 100% agreement anyway.
    • dguaraglia 10y ago
      I don't know, that's not exactly what happened in Ireland with the Lisbon Treaty. When the first referendum didn't get the results "expected", they forced a second referendum after much campaigning and the results were different. Democracy at work? Bureaucracy at work? Who knows.
      • leot 10y ago
        The 18th and 21st amendments to the US Constitution come to mind. This decision feels very much like it's on the wrong side of history, but perhaps that's just the denial.
• Apocryphon 10y ago
  Is this the beginning of the next great recession?
• lettergram 10y ago
  It's called the commonwealth, and it includes 30 percent of the land mass of earth.
  • toyg 10y ago
    It's also little more than a figment of imagination these days, as the bulk of UK trade is with Europe, Australia has turned to China, Canada lives off US trade and South Africa is following suit. I guess there's always Zimbabwe...
  • thesimpsons1022 10y ago
    not really analog or even close to what the eu is.
  • speeder 10y ago
    Also the sun never sets in it. Literally.
  • SwellJoe 10y ago
    But what percentage of the GDP?
    • MLR 10y ago
      Similar to the EU currently and growing much faster, India and the African nations have a lot more growth potential than modern day Europe.
  • rangibaby 10y ago
    There's not much "common wealth" in the Commonwealth though. I think the main extent of our cooperation is hosting the Commonwealth Games every few years. I wonder if the UK will start buying NZ dairy products again. UK joining the EEC (they went from taking 75% of NZ cheese exports to <10%) and the oil shock in 1973 basically tanked the NZ economy.
  • TheCoelacanth 10y ago
    Of course, a lot of that land mass is in virtually uninhabitable parts of Canada and Australia.
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• sandworm101 10y ago
  And a special thank you from Canada. This vote is going to give Quebec ideas again.
  • addicted 10y ago
    I don't expect the UK to come out better off from this. This may actually work really well for the opponents of separatist movements in developed nations.
    • sandworm101 10y ago
      Oh, Quebec won't ever leave. Even those who want to "leave" don't really mean leave. They always expected to keep Canadian money and passports. But we will have to live though a year of pathetic 'will they/won't they' news stories along with another round of French language laws and other things only the gray-haired care about.
  • maze-le 10y ago
    ... and Scotland, Ulster, Flanders, Catalonia, the Basque Country, Verona, Corsica. There are more separatist movements than one might think.
• jedmeyers 10y ago
  As some people already said, even if the vote will be 'Leave' the Parliament most likely will not consider it and will not part ways with the EU siting some made-up problems, that "prohibit" the exit right away. Await another referendum until the necessary results are obtained.
  • gonvaled 10y ago
    Not so sure on this one: one thing that the UK is an example of is its respect for democracy. I hope the parliament accepts this non-binding vote, and take the necessary steps to swiftly break with the EU. We in the EU can then proceed unhindered.
    • jedmeyers 10y ago
      > Not so sure on this one: one thing that the UK is an example of is its respect for democracy Ha! Let's remind each other about this conversation in 3 months and review our arguments.
      • gonvaled 10y ago
        There is absolutely no way that the British parliament is not going to ratify this. The bigger question is how this can be implemented. This is unexplored territory, for all involved parties.
      • tremon 10y ago
        Looks like 3 months is too short. Cameron looks like he has no intention of getting the party started before his replacement is chosen, and that won't happen 'til October... Ironically, it's the EU that seems impatient to get this over with.
    • ionised 10y ago
      > Not so sure on this one: one thing that the UK is an example of is its respect for democracy. As a Brit, I find that laughable.
• LAMike 10y ago
  Time to buy Bitcoin and gold
• BeefySwain 10y ago
  Is now a good time to invest in British currency? Are there some good resources for how to do that?
  • draugadrotten 10y ago
    > Is now a good time to invest in British currency? Are there some good resources for how to do that? I can't imagine that it would be a good idea for you to invest in anything when you have to rely on the judgment of internet strangers if it's a "good time" to do so. If you disagree, I have a really fine bridge to sell you in London.
  • defen 10y ago
    If you have to ask, that means you shouldn't. The word you're looking for is FOREX and it's a great way to lose all your money.
• sidcool 10y ago
  That was quite unexpected. Till very late before polling, most people were in favor of staying in the EU. Nationalism takes over logic in Europe again.
• jackgavigan 10y ago
  There's a decent chance that this will spur the EU into proposing a package of reforms with a view towards a second referendum. Technically, this referendum was an advisory referendum (i.e. its result is not legally binding). If that doesn't happen, I would expect the UK to shift from membership of the EU to membership of the European Economic Area (alongside Norway and Iceland) or similar.
  • DonaldFisk 10y ago
    Unlikely. Much of the resentment from Leave voters was over immigration from EU countries. The EEA guarantees free movement of people within it. If there are further referendums, they'll be for Scottish independence, Irish unity and for Gibraltar to become part of Spain.
• jlg23 10y ago
  I'm not from the UK and I don't have any problems with the Limeys but I still thinks this is awesome: For way too long national governments in the EU have passed legislation on the EU level when they could not get it through national parliaments and then they could refer to "the EU says so". I hope this serves as a wake-up call to national governments that they should actually listen to their citizens.
  • broodbucket 10y ago
    52% of the country just asserted that there's only one party, a minor party, that agrees with them on this incredibly important issue. Everything in UK politics is going to change.
    • nmeofthestate 10y ago
      The one minor party won the most recent Euro elections, but FPTP locked them out of power at Westminster. And something like just under half of the UK ruling party's MPs supported Brexit.
• cpncrunch 10y ago
  Please fix title. The article title is "EU referendum: BBC forecasts UK vote to leave". The count hasn't even finished yet, and it is still possible for the remain vote to win at the current time (albeit unlikely).
  • smcl 10y ago
    The vote has long finished, I'm afraid. They're just counting now
    • cpncrunch 10y ago
      The count hasn't finished, and the article title on HN doesn't match the title of the BBC article. It's deceptive, implying that the count has finished and the UK has voted to leave Europe. If you look through the comments here you'll see most people have got the wrong end of the stick from the incorrect HN title (presumably they haven't actually read the article).
  • xyzzy4 10y ago
    There's a higher chance of pigs flying at this point.
    • cpncrunch 10y ago
      That's not the point. I completely agree with you. The point is that the HN article title is wrong and deceptive, and most HN posters have been misled into thinking the count has finished. Am I the only person on HN who bothered to read the actual article and cares about the facts? It's a bit ironic, don't you think, considering the politics and lack of facts behind this vote?
      • GavinMcG 10y ago
        > The point is that the HN article title is wrong and deceptive Hardly. Britain has voted. The result of the vote is that Britain will leave the EU. The fact that the votes haven't been counted to 100% doesn't make that fact any less the case. Statistics work.
• vacri 10y ago
  This is going to hammer them so hard, they're going to have to change 'pounds sterling' to 'pounds cupric'...
• paradite 10y ago
  A slightly meta discussion: I noticed that some "typical headline news" are gathering a lot of votes and getting to the top of front page. This seems to be working against the HN guidelines: If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. I know political news get some kind of penalties. Would that apply to a more generic headline news like this? Personally, I upvote stories like this purely because of its significance. And I am not sure if that was the intended use case.
  • bbcbasic 10y ago
    Maybe this news is a bit special?
  • skissane 10y ago
    This isn't some run-of-the-mill political news story. This is world history in the making. Surely, if any case deserves an exception to the general rule, it's this one.
• thesimpsons1022 10y ago
  anyone else concerned? The entire world seems to be moving towards fascist right wing nationalist politics. Whether it is the brexit, trumpism, or the austrian elections. Europe keeps getting destabilized. If i was an enemy of europe and freedom, id be cheering. Instead i'm deeply concerned.
  • bjourne 10y ago
    I don't think the EU was stable to begin with. See the refugee problems, Greece financial situation, North vs. South gap, different economies... It's better we end the relationships on good terms like this than be dragged into a US Civil War scenario.
  • Zpalmtree 10y ago
    The EU is the opposite of freedom. This is Britain choosing to not let unelected bureaucrats of Brussels tell Britain what laws we should have.
    • 627467 10y ago
      ...even if you ignore the second largest democraticaly elected body in the world, European Directives are designed by nationally appointed bureaucrats and implemented (as law) how and when the local Parliaments decide. I agreed that the People should have even more direct influence in this process but leaving the room is the opposite of being constructive. The thing is, the -exit camps can't have it both ways: saying that EU is imposing and than arguing that someone should make it more Democratic or" else we'll leave".
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    • eggie 10y ago
      Many of us non-UK people find your position hilarious. You seek freedom from a representative system in a monarchy whose upper legislature is composed of hereditary titulars. You'll say they don't do much, and I'll remind you that neither do the bureaucrats in Brussels.
• dangjc 10y ago
  It's amazing that such deep constitutional change will be achieved with such a slim majority. 48% of British people will be ejected out of the EU essentially against their will. The UK has always embraced first past the post voting, but it really shows here how it creates very discontinuous inflection points.
  • nerfhammer 10y ago
    FPTP makes no difference when there are only two possible options.
    • gnoway 10y ago
      It's surprising that the referendum will pass with a simple majority, though. This seems like a 2/3 or 3/4 kind of decision to me.
      • ghayes 10y ago
        Just for comparison: to pass a US Constitutional Amendment, it requires consent of 2/3 of both houses of Congress and ratification by 3/4 of all US states. Treaties require consent of the President and 2/3 of the Senate.
        • dragonwriter 10y ago
          And none of those -- even if you assume every representative in every body involved is elected solely based on their position on the issue in question and votes in accordance with the position on which they got elected -- requires even a majority (much less a 2/3 or 3/4 supermajority) in the electorate.
        • reillyse 10y ago
          and the US has the absolute worst recording on changing their constitution. The last amendment (the 27th) was ratified in 1992 and took nearly 203 years to become law. I think they should lower the barriers to getting stuff done.
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• jstsch 10y ago
  Ironically Brexit might bring a federal Europe closer to reality. It strengthens the dominance of France and Germany.
  • mtgx 10y ago
    Yeah, Germany is going to come out a big winner out of this. And I'm glad, too. Germany seems a lot more democratic than UK lately. It deserves to be the #1 country in the EU.
    • maze-le 10y ago
      I'd actually see this as a problem. Germany is already percieved as too powerful in the union. And in the fields, where they really have influence (e.g.: Eurogruppe) they screwed things up pretty much. Besides other nationalists already see German power as threat, the rise of the far right in France and Poland is by some degree influenced by this development. I think the EU with less German influence would be better. (FYI I am german)
  • return0 10y ago
    I also feel it will benefit the tiny economic centers (malta, lux and cyprus).
• pavornyoh 10y ago
  A bit of a naive question as I am fascinated by what is happening. I admit I don't completely understand so my question is if the UK is made up of England, Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland why aren't they represented at the European cup currently being held/played in France as the United Kingdom? Why are they playing as separate countries yet voting together to leave the EU? I don't get it.
  • toyg 10y ago
    That's a historical curiosity due to how the relevant sports developed. Football, rugby and cricket were all formalized in the UK, so the initial arrangements reflected a vision of Scotland, England etc being "countries". The first international football match, for example, was Scotland-England. As the game expanded, other countries started their own international federations, which UK clubs eventually joined. As part of the joining, British representatives obtained clauses that safeguard their role as "custodians" of the game, which basically mean you cannot change the rules of football without UK representatives agreeing. Part of those clauses imply and require that UK countries will remain separate; so you have a Scottish authority, an English authority and so on, with separate leagues and separate national teams. The two elements (representation in rule committees and in tournaments) rely on each other; renouncing one would basically mean renouncing the other. Of course, you're never going to renounce you ability to make the rules, so here we are. In the Olympics, for example, it's different, because that institution was actually born in France and reflected a different vision from the start; which is why Britain traditionally does not compete in Olympic football.
  • TheCoelacanth 10y ago
    They get their own football teams because the requirement to be a sovereign nation didn't exist when their teams formed and they are grandfathered in.
  • aryehof 10y ago
    Because despite all the pointers to "definitions" to the contrary, the United Kingdom is but a single country, with a single passport, a single UN seat, one olympic team, one set of defense forces, and with a single central government only which can enter into formal agreements with foreign powers. Any dissolution of power to "regions" like Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is at the discretion of the central government, which can remove them at will. The fact that it has separate sports teams is a weird throwback to history, now intended perhaps to largely confuse foreigners. (Perhaps a clever way to allow the UK to increase its odds of winning? :)
• geff82 10y ago
  I'll take my UK company home to Germany at the end of the year. No need for a base in a non-EU-country.
  • edko 10y ago
    Have you considered Estonia?
    • geff82 10y ago
      Actually yes, but I am more familiar with UK, US, German and Swiss business/company laws. As I am also considering moving to the US in 2017/2018 (in case Trump is NOT president), an Estonian e-company seems to be a good fit to have a foothold in the EU.
  • Udo 10y ago
    If you're originally from Germany, you will be forced to leave the UK anyway. In a sense, getting people like you out of the country was a big part of the whole Brexit proposition...
    • UVB-76 10y ago
      This isn't necessarily the case. Many EU migrants will be able to claim residency in the UK if they meet certain criteria. In all likelihood the UK will join the EEA and retain free movement, but even if not, economic migration will still be encouraged and a visa system will be in place, just as the country has for the rest of the world.
      • ionised 10y ago
        What criteria would those be? My girlfriend is Polish and has lived and worked here for 7 years. She's never claimed benefits or anything.
    • dragonwriter 10y ago
      > If you're originally from Germany, you will be forced to leave the UK anyway. Its amazing that you know what the terms of the exit deal that Britain and the EU will negotiate under Article 50 already.
• peterkshultz 10y ago
  I had been following the likelihood of a Brexit on Bloomberg. Before polls opened today, they said there was a 25% chance of the UK leaving. Seems they were quite, quite wrong. http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2016-brexit-watch/ http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2016-brexit-watch/
  • asddubs 10y ago
    25% chance of leaving is not the same as "they are definitely going to stay". I don't see how you can call a percentage based prediction "quite wrong" if it doesn't end up happening.
    • addicted 10y ago
      Agreed. They'd be wrong if they made a bunch of 25% predictions and the 25% predictions happened more than 1/4 times.
      • asddubs 10y ago
        ah, thank you, that's what I was trying to say but couldn't quite figure out how to say
    • peterkshultz 10y ago
      Fair enough. Perhaps my surprise comes from the fact that the prediction markets got it wrong as well. You're right nevertheless--25% is a meaningful probability.
  • sharp11 10y ago
    Yes, interesting that the prediction markets got this quite wrong as well.
  • Tomte 10y ago
    Why? 25% is a very significant chunk. You'd expect the 25% option to happen more often than just now and then. 25% of the time, actually.
  • 10y ago
• grownseed 10y ago
  I have a particularly strong attachment to Scotland, and as most Scottish people have, I would have voted to remain in the EU, however messy it is, though I suppose my opinion on the matter has little relevance since I can't vote. More interestingly, I find this is a telling example of the limitations of democracy as we know it. Democracy, very broadly speaking, ignores population clusters (physical or ideological) to the extent that the "voice of the people" is actually not representative of anyone's in particular. I've tried to educate myself about alternatives or adaptations, but I have to admit I haven't found anything especially convincing thus far.
  • rnnr 10y ago
    All these limitations are(or were?) very well known facts. Modern republics(representative democracies), the existence of senates, all try to address this. Ancient Athenians had gone much further with the establishment of Sortition(random election of representatives). We call random people to vote for issues out of their expertise and we enforce the rule of the majority to everyone.(what happens to the 48% who voted remain?). This is obviously ridiculous but everyone is brainwashed as we learn at school that democracy is like the biggest invention of mankind. Athenians at least were allowed to ridicule it all the time.
• malloryerik 10y ago
  Japan is also being bludgeoned here with safe haven flows to the yen. Up 15% against sterling in a matter of hours. Up 5% against another safe haven, the USD... And they have negative interest rates... wow.
• hkjgkjy 10y ago
  Swede and EU citizen. Saddened by this, but the people's voice shall rule. What I would like to see is a more Swiss-style democratic involvement in EU. It is not for no reason many Europeans feel detached from what the EU does.
• Gatsky 10y ago
  Yet another example that immigration policy trumps pretty well all other concerns. This has played out several times in Australia. 5% of the population suddenly voted for a nationalist candidate Pauline Hanson who came from nowhere, had no policies, no credibility and no clue just because she was against immigration. Major political parties took note that day, and since then they have in various roundabout ways adopted a similar stance on immigration, knowing that it is electoral suicide to entertain reform. It was sobering to see Brexit campaigners citing Australia's immigration policy as a 'good system'. In reality it is the opposite of courageous and humane government. But clearly, it's what people want...
  • q5 10y ago
    Was immigration policy the only factor driving people's votes? Do you believe that over 50% of the UK population harbors ill will towards immigrant populations? What about the democratic arguments against the European Commission or the arguments against protectionist trade barriers? To distill the entire vote into a single issue is foolish. I think it's easy to say that immigration and underlying racism or xenophobia were the cause for the result if you don't agree with the result. Comparing 5% of Australian voters electing Pauline Hanson is a far stretch considering that one vote was a general election, the other was a referendum and one result was 5% of the population and the other is over 50%. Anecdotes of some campaigners citing Australia's immigration policy is not a strong enough argument to refute other fundamental issues that went into people's votes and is not proof of "Yet another example that immigration policy trumps pretty well all other concerns".
    • Gatsky 10y ago
      I'm not saying that 52% of the UK voted leave because of immigration, but I'm certain that at least 4% did, which is enough to clinch the win. In an otherwise tight race, that is a big difference so I think it really has trumped other policy issues in this case. But I can't 'prove' it if that's what you're looking for. I don't think it is an unreasonable statement given that the polls repeatedly identified immigration as the key issue driving the leave vote eg [1]. [1] http://m.smh.com.au/world/brexit-poll-why-the-british-people-will-vote-to-remain-in--or-leave--the-eu-20160623-gpqo3n.html http://m.smh.com.au/world/brexit-poll-why-the-british-people...
• beninvalencia 10y ago
  As other comments have noted, the point is that the EU will not want to give the UK a good deal on leaving, because the EU does not want to give any encouragement to the other countries which want to leave the EU (some of which want to leave more strongly than the UK do - apparently). Secondly, why would the UK end up with a Norway or Switzerland deal, when the UK is the 5th largest economy in the world? This is unprecedented. This isn't some one sided negotiation. The EU needs the UK. If you sift through the garbage press, you'll see that the BDI in Germany - "The Voice of German Industry" - says that trade curbs against the UK would be "foolish". Of course they would be! Do you know how many German cars are sold in the UK each year? "About a fifth of all cars produced in Germany last year, or around 820,000 vehicles, were exported to the UK, making it the single biggest destination by volume." Source: FT.com "The UK is the fourth-biggest export market for German engineering companies, with sales of €6.8bn last year." Source: FT.com The scaremongering goes on even after the vote has been called...
  • ganwar 10y ago
    The unnecessary scaremongering goes on even after the vote has been called...
  • badloginagain 10y ago
    The scaremongering has just begun. A successful UK exit is going to be powerful ammunition for any nationalist politician in any EU country.
    • beninvalencia 10y ago
      This is also a very astute comment I think. The EU and those with interests that are similar will need to increase scaremongering even more to try and prevent other countries from leaving the EU. I wonder what will happen at Greece's next bailout/imposed conditions breaking point...
      • danielmorozoff 10y ago
        This is precisely the case. The integrity of the entire block is now in question as any trade with the U.K. Will now jeopardize some interests internal to the eu. Nationalism is inevitable. Let's hope this does not culminate in war.
• deagle50 10y ago
  Nobody said leaving the 4th reich was going to be easy... edit: holy downvotes batman! Can anyone seriously argue the EU isn't another German empire?
  • Aelinsaar 10y ago
    They just peacefully voted to leave it, so yes.
    • deagle50 10y ago
      Let's see how it plays out, I suspect when the dust settles many of the current schemes will remain under a different name.
      • deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      • Aelinsaar 10y ago
        I suspect when the dust settles, after a couple of years of agonizing negotiations, there will be a push for another vote that will not pass.
    • rodgerd 10y ago
      Well, apart from the bit where an exit supporter murdered an MP.
      • vixen99 10y ago
        That's a cheap shot! You're factually correct but it's clear that you want to suggest a subtext. The man is reported as having had psychiatric problems over a significant period of time and is said to have asked for counseling the day before the tragic attack. I would say (wouldn't you?) that someone who said 'To persuade everyone to vote Leave, I'm going to kill a Remain supporter' is in dire need of immediate psychiatric help preferably with the help of a strait jacket.
      • 10y ago
• sandworm101 10y ago
  But you assume that people in the UK have an alternative to those German cars. They don't. Germany makes better cars than anyone else. Brits will still buy them, they will just now be more expensive. Two words: British Leyland
  • dang 10y ago
    We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11966471 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11966471 and marked it off-topic.
  • marcoperaza 10y ago
    That's not how pricing works. Higher pricing for German cars will lower sales substantially in favor of cheaper cars. Even if someone still buys a German car, they will probably choose less expensive options. There's no way that the continent starts a trade war with the UK. Neither Hillary nor Trump agree with Obama's "back of the queue" comment. So no matter who wins in November in the US, they will almost certainly be very eager to make a good trade deal with the UK. Australia and New Zealand will too. Hopefully, this will result in a reinvigorated Anglosphere.
    • sandworm101 10y ago
      Perhaps in a perfectly fair and free economy ... such as in a collective group of countries that all trade freely with each other. That may now be over. Britain still needs cars and, unable to produce them locally, may well tolerate the higher prices.
      • WillPostForFood 10y ago
        Also consider BMW/Mercedes/VW-Audi as political influences in Germany - they are going to do anything they can to keep their products flowing, and prices down.
    • beninvalencia 10y ago
      I think Sandworm's comment is not really sensible. Most people surely buy on some price to quality benchmark, i.e. value. If German cars are suddenly x% more expensive, well that will have a big impact. Not to mention US/Japanese/French cars being perfectly decent!
• matt_wulfeck 10y ago
  I'll take my position as a "leave". In my opinion recent years has shown that power centralization brings a lot of harm. Even among our own government, I'll predict we'll find more value on powerful local and state governments.
• FajitaNachos 10y ago
  U.S. market futures are taking a nice dump.
• marcoperaza 10y ago
  Take the US federal government, take away 2/3 of Congress's powers, give all of those powers to the civil service, and then replace the President with a committee appointed by state governments on a staggered basis. That's the EU. Congratulations Britain, today you took back control of your own destiny.
  • imtringued 10y ago
    I'm sorry for your loss.
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  • _pmf_ 10y ago
    > Congratulations Britain, today you took back control of your own destiny. Proudly galloping off into the dusk towards a glorious future as the world's uncontested exporter of wine gummies and vinegar chips.
  • ionised 10y ago
    > Congratulations Britain, today you took back control of your own destiny. Congratulations Britain, today you handed your destinies over to oligarchs in the City of London instead of oligarchs in Brussels.
• asddubs 10y ago
  so uh, slightly random question, if i import things from great britain to the EU, do I have to pay import taxes now, or is there a "grace period"?
  • Tomte 10y ago
    There is a grace period, especially since the UK hasn't even started the formal process of leaving, yet. Parliament will also need to decide on this. There is only one scenario without a grace period: some more radical Brexit supporters advocate breaking EU laws and regulations immediately (right to work and live and so on), just because the European courts take their time and by the time they'd hear the case the UK would already have left, so no consequences. In that case some European politicians have replied there will be an immediate cutoff from the Common Market. Both threats are highly unlikely to be played out, IMO.
  • ballooney 10y ago
    It will officially take two years to leave once the process has started, which it has not been yet (that's what the Prime Minister declares). Whether or not you subsequently have to pay import taxes after Britain has left is also something that will have to be negotiated.
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  • nicky0 10y ago
    Nothing has actually changed yet.
• tzs 10y ago
  Considering what parts of the UK preferred to stay and which preferred to leave, I wonder if overall the way to give the most people what they want would have been to leave the UK in the EU but have England leave the UK.
  • deanclatworthy 10y ago
    The UK is basically England. All the decisions are made there. England wouldn't leave the UK as much as disbanding it.
    • notahacker 10y ago
      And the part of the UK most strongly in favour of remaining in the EU was London, which is the part of England where the decisions get made...
      • sevenless 10y ago
        So we have a sort of layer cake solution. The UK minus England's in; England's out; London's in as an exclave; Buckingham Palace and Westminster are out as exclaves within the exclave, and the City of London, which as everyone knows is different from London, is in, but separately governed as another exclave within the exclave. Everyone got that?
• spdy 10y ago
  And the 100 year cycle is in full effect. Sad times ...
• sidcool 10y ago
  I wonder the role of the US in this.
• sengork 10y ago
  This correlates with XE.com currency converter website being down at the moment. Probably due to the pound value fluctuating...
  • aorth 10y ago
    Hah! I noticed the same thing. I woke up and immediately went to XE currency app on Android to check the rate of GBP, but the app is having issues and even crashed once.
• ziyadparekh 10y ago
  What does mean for the US economy in terms of exports to the UK and larger EU countries? The pound drops sharply (~15%). The Euro down to $1.08. Does this mean that a stronger dollar will negatively impact US exports?
  • airesQ 10y ago
    It means that we are going the hear to phrase "strong currency headwinds" in all earnings conference calls for the foreseeable future. And overseas sales will probably go down.
• pbarnes_1 10y ago
  This is a disaster. Something with such a huge impact on global society as a whole should have required a 2/3 majority.
  • vixen99 10y ago
    Status quo is always good? Looks like there might be disasters waiting elsewhere. For example, La Stampa: "A recent poll found that 48 per cent of Italians would leave the EU if given the chance to vote in their own referendum."
• owenversteeg 10y ago
  Since for some reason the larger, older, higher-voted, more popular thread was marked as a dupe I'm copying my popular comment over here: The BBC just announced that "Britain has voted to leave the European Union". Leave only needs 2,105,984 more votes to win. [edit 12:15am EST] 1,715,256 votes now and closing fast. [edit 12:19am EST] 1,196,678 [edit 12:27am EST] 894,189 [edit 12:31am EST] 785,549 [edit 12:37am EST] 741,795 [edit 12:38am EST] 592,337 [edit 12:45am EST] 448,596 [edit 12:46am EST] 373,532 [edit 12:51am EST] 308,519 [edit 12:57am EST] 94,635 [edit 1:00am EST] 37,665 [edit 1:02am EST] 0. The UK has officially voted to leave. Predicted result: Leave 52%, Remain 48% Wow. So what happens now? - Scotland voted 62% Remain. The SNP said it will call a second independence referendum if Leave wins. Many estimate that the independence movement will win this time around. Literally every single Scottish division voted to remain. - Gibraltar will probably be royally screwed [0] as well as some other areas that are heavily dependent on trade/travel with EU countries - The pound drops like a rock. Was stable at $1.48 all day, peaked at $1.50 earlier after Remain was doing well (~6pm EST), now at $1.33 (12:13am EST), now at $1.32 (12:21am EST) and the lowest level since 1985. In 1985 it hit $1.08, which was then the lowest value in a very long time. - The pound is down 17% from the yen by the way. - Other independence movements in other EU countries gain a bit of legitimacy. The euro drops (currently at $1.09, down four cents or 3%), and the yen gains (currently up 6%) (12:25am EST) - For those of us fortunate enough to have our savings in dollars, everything denominated in pounds is currently on a 12% off sale. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11965342 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11965342
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
• slg 10y ago
  I think this should be a wake up call for those of us who are American. Populist movements that rely heavily on anger, fear, and anti-immigration rhetoric can still be effective in western democracies even if a large majority of experts think it shouldn't and won't happen. This is the first time I have legitimately thought we might end up with a Trump presidency.
  • thirdsun 10y ago
    My thoughts as well - it's surprising (well, maybe not) to see how effective these populist movements are these days whether it's France (Front National), Germany (AfD), Britain (UKIP), Czech, Poland, etc. To me it seems that Switzerland is the only country where its population can be trusted with plebiscitary measures, referendums and other forms of rather direct democracy.
    • kele 10y ago
      And yet Switzerland is much less immigration friendly than all the countries you've mentioned.
      • thirdsun 10y ago
        I didn't mean specific issues like immigration, but the general ability of the people to understand and comprehend complex issues and problems and vote accordingly - even if I disagree. Meanwhile it seems everywhere else whoever shouts the loudest, promises the most fantastic things or tells the most fear mongering tales gets ahead. Just my impression of course.
      • faebi 10y ago
        And yet switzerland has one of the highest percentages of immigrants. Switzerland has a foreigners share of ~24%. Except Luxembourg every other EU nation has less immigrants than switzerland. As an example, Great Britain has only ~8%.
        • kele 10y ago
• arethuza 10y ago
  I wonder if the EU will now say that Scotland can get membership if we vote for independence? Obviously they couldn't do that while the UK was in the EU, but now that the UK wants to leave and Scotland doesn't that view might well change. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-36599102 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-3659... NB On a personal note I am way more upset by this result than any other election or referendum I have voted in - even the first Scottish Independence Referendum.
  • JohnTHaller 10y ago
    I'd wager Scotland will want to leave the UK and join the EU. But I'd also wager that the backdoor deals made during the exit negotiations will prevent that from happening.
    • jacquesm 10y ago
      > But I'd also wager that the backdoor deals made during the exit negotiations will prevent that from happening. Who would make those deals and what is there to gain from that by those parties?
      • arethuza 10y ago
        I can imagine that there will be a lot of negotiations over the next two years - I can imagine a UK government asking for conditions to be applied to a Scottish entrance to the EU with the EU government getting something it wants in return. I can't imagine that our new, and probably far more right wing, government will be keen on Scottish independence and will probably take every opportunity to raise road blocks that will prevent it.
    • Steeeve 10y ago
      I'd take that wager. The margin's in Scottland were not high enough to indicate that kind of radical step. 80% of the people who voted remain would have to want to take the additional steps of departing the UK and joining the EU. Considering that the voting demographics state that the strong remain vote lies with youth, that means getting the youth to vote again and making sure they don't have their minds changed again. Then you'd have to have the EU not piss off Scottish people in regards to the UK departure AND offer generous terms to them to revolt. It's a talking point today, but Scotland isn't going to join the EU independently.
• rdtsc 10y ago
  Being selfish here, wonder how this affects US. Even though on the surface EU and UK are alies and trade partners, it is not all black and white. I believe US will benefit because they will be able to play UK against EU and vice-versa to gain somehow. Say if EU doesn't allow import of US chicken they can go and try to persuade UK to not allow some import from EU in exchange for some other favor and so on. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if this strengthens US's stock market in short to medium term, as everyone will flee to US stocks due to perceived volatility.
  • balls187 10y ago
    At the most basic, a strong US Dollar against the UK GBP means that US exports to GB become more costly, which reduces US exports, which hurts the US Economy, which is not good for the US.
    • blfr 10y ago
      And a weak US Dollar against the UK GBP means that US consumers will pay more for goods, which reduces their ability to consume, which is not good for the US. Therefore all change is bad.
      • balls187 10y ago
        A weak dollar means cost of consumer goods increases. Luckily most consume goods don't come from the UK. But yes, with the strong US Dollar (in general) our exports have taken a hit.
  • nikdaheratik 10y ago
    There are a number of issues and it likely will affect each industry separately. The main concern are trade agreements that are US-EU vs. ones that are US-UK. The former will have to be renegotiated again or dropped completely with respect to the US-UK trade. It's impossible to say what will happen in each case as the US will have the upper hand in US-UK negotiations. Also, dropping the UK from the EU is less favorable in EU-US deals than it was as it's dropping a large economy from its market. However, the election results in the US are probably a bigger consideration in the short term as a huge anti-free trade or anti-immigration election in the US would cause major changes as well.
• chubs 10y ago
  The country that gave us the Magna Carta, literally the manuscript for limited-government liberty, has done it again, on (almost) its 800th anniversary! Super interesting days ahead.
• meowface 10y ago
  In my opinion, the chances of any sort of war at this point remain pretty low. However, it's possible a Trump presidency and fractured EU might lead to a perfect storm for some kind of global conflict in a few years. I think still a low chance, but it does almost sound like the beginning chapter of a history book.
  • jolux 10y ago
    It's the beginning chapter of a history book we've all read several times. What a shame.
  • mablap 10y ago
    Let's not forget this was the general sentiment pre WWI and WWII...
    • voidz 10y ago
      There it is. You have all been listening to nonsense media way too much in my opinion.
      • mablap 10y ago
        What do you mean? I am not predicting a war, but pointing out its possibility is inherently volatile.
    • Sacho 10y ago
      Is that a useful metric? How often is the general sentiment similar, without leading to a war? How often has there been a war, without such a general sentiment prior to it? It doesn't seem like being aware of this piece of data is very useful.
      • mablap 10y ago
        It is quite useful in the following sense: correctly predicting a war at the moment is not really possible. So I agree with you here. What is certain is that the (nationalistic) political class will use this situation to its advantage. Viewed through historical lenses, this is not exactly good news. But that does not lead de facto to war.
• Sami_Lehtinen 10y ago
  It's official - the UK has voted to leave the European Union.
• kspaans 10y ago
  If Northern Ireland can't secede and join the Republic of Ireland, what will happen to that land border?
  • lucaspiller 10y ago
    Probably nothing. Ireland isn't part of Schengen and has always had relatively open borders with the UK.
    • ropiku 10y ago
      It's still an EU border so unless they accept the single market (free movement of people&goods) it does have to become a real border.
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
• force_reboot 10y ago
  Really happy to see this. Of course this is about immigration. Moderates on all sides of politics in all countries have long asserted that it is important that Israel remain a "Jewish and democratic state". Now some right wing extremists have taken this same logic and applied to other countries :-)
• justinzollars 10y ago
  I wish people would stop opening pandoras box. This could get messy.
• dang 10y ago
  There was an earlier discussion at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11964880 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11964880, but that one was focused on the results in progress while this one is focused on the outcome, so we'll treat this one as current.
• trekforever 10y ago
  time to plan my cheap vacation from US to London
• paganel 10y ago
  > In my opinion, the chances of any sort of war at this point remain pretty low. I would have said the same thing 4 or 5 years ago, but in the meantime we did in fact have a war in Europe, I'm talking about the war in Eastern Ukraine (which is still part of Europe). But you're sort of right, who can think of something like that spreading to the Western side of the continent? Until last night I would would have answered: "no sane person", but after I saw the idiot Nigel Farage speak on the BBC (I don't actually follow UK politics, this was my first time hearing him actually speak) I had quite the internal shock. To hear a (what has now become) mainstream politician talk so vividly against immigration and against "multinationals" in 2016 was... don't know how to put it, harrowing. You're probably from the States where you people treat Trump like the idiot that he is and think that even if gets elected things will move on as usual, but us in this part of the world have had the privilege of slaughtering ourselves in the trenches of the Ardennes or in the steppes of Western Russia because of people like Farage in the past.
  • wsc981 10y ago
    I find your opinion very shocking. You seem to picture Farage as a new Stalin or Hitler? I don't buy this. Farage is no extremist. Immigration is hurting Europe. A country needs social cohesion to have a strong government. Mass-immigration without integration breaks down social cohesion. I see it happen in my country (The Netherlands). Immigration at the current scale is not sustainable. Many immigrants are from backwards societies and don't adapt. Even worse, our government expects us to adapt to the immigrants way of life (just this week in Germany some nudists were prohibited from walking nude, because an asylum centrum was being build nearby the nudist camp and they might take offence [0]). The governments of countries try to keep tensions between immigrants under wraps, especially in asylum centra. Often the guards in these centra are muslims so share the same ideas as the majority of immigrants. Woman are sometimes forced into prostitution under watchful eyes of the guards [1]. Christian & Yezidi immigrants have to hide their religion or be threatened with violence [2][3]. This kind of stuff certainly is happening in The Netherlands and Germany. Yesterday in my hometown (Dordrecht) some Kurdish people celebrated their children graduated and put out the Dutch and Kurdish flag [4]. They were threatened by about 30 Turkish people to remove flag and windows were thrown in. In retaliation other people attacked the Turkish mosque in Dordrecht [5]. In another town, last week people from Jewish decent put the Jewish flag outside their home to celebrate graduation of their son. But they too were threatened by Moroccan people to remove the flag immediately [6]. More and more Jews are leaving Europe for Israel [7]. Europe is not save anymore for Jews as more and more muslim immigrants enter Europe. In The Netherlands every synagoge has permanent security and I imagine in many other European countries it's the same. In some way an ethnic cleansing of Jews in Europe is happening right now. We're importing tribal warfare and values into Europe on a massive scale [8]. Apparently 1 in 4 Swedish woman will be raped and the main culprits are immigrants, by a very large amount [9]. --- [0]: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/21/row-over-refugee-shelter-in-germany-as-nudists-are-told-to-cover/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/21/row-over-refugee-... [1]: http://awdnews.com/top-news/refugee-women-are-forced-to-become-€10-a-time-prostitutes-at-german-asylum-camps http://awdnews.com/top-news/refugee-women-are-forced-to-beco... [2]: http://www.dw.com/en/german-activists-decry-attacks-on-christian-refugees-in-asylum-centers/a-19244927 http://www.dw.com/en/german-activists-decry-attacks-on-chris... [3]: http://www.germanjoys.eu/2015/09/violent-sunni-fanatics-threaten-christians-and-yezidis-in-german-shelters.html http://www.germanjoys.eu/2015/09/violent-sunni-fanatics-thre... [4]: http://www.rijnmond.nl/nieuws/143347/Koerdische-familie-in-Dordrecht-belaagd-om-vlag http://www.rijnmond.nl/nieuws/143347/Koerdische-familie-in-D... [5]: http://nos.nl/artikel/2113139-mannen-bestormen-turkse-moskee-in-dordrecht.html http://nos.nl/artikel/2113139-mannen-bestormen-turkse-moskee... [6]: http://regio.tpo.nl/2016/06/20/even-een-israelische-vlag-ophangen-kan-dus-al-niet-meer-in-almere-faunabuurt/ http://regio.tpo.nl/2016/06/20/even-een-israelische-vlag-oph... [7]: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/jews-are-leaving-france-in-record-numbers-amid-rising-anti-semitism-and-fears-of-more-isis-inspired-a6832391.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/jews-are-leav... [8]: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3391075/Why-Germany-t-face-truth-migrant-sex-attacks-SUE-REID-finds-nation-denial-wave-horrific-attacks-reported-Europe.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3391075/Why-Germany-... [9]: http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/175434/1-4-swedish-women-will-be-raped-sexual-assaults-daniel-greenfield http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/175434/1-4-swedish-women-w...
• anigbrowl 10y ago
  A disaster. The implications for the EU project, and for global stability, are grave.
• Zpalmtree 10y ago
  Really proud that my country chose democracy over a potential loss of money.
  • generj 10y ago
    Nothing potential about it - your bank account is worth 10% less than it was yesterday.
    • draugadrotten 10y ago
      ...and by the same logic, any mortgage is suddenly 10% smaller? Sounds like a good deal to the average citizen.
      • generj 10y ago
        No, because your mortgage is still denominated in pounds. No change there. But most goods are sold from other countries, so their prices just went up overnight. Of course, there are sticky prices but in general I would expect prices for imports to be higher in the near future with a weaker currency. However, a weak currency does encourage exports, so it is true that the benefits/costs are complex. But in the past large currency devaluations have been harmful to the average citizen, and that is the consensus on them.
  • airesQ 10y ago
    You had democracy, and you still do. Now Latvia has veto power on whether the UK can have access to the single market (provided that the UK ever leaves, something that has not happened).
  • return0 10y ago
    If they voted remain, they would have still chosen democraacy...
  • ionised 10y ago
    The UK has voted for unfettered servitude to the City of London financial institutions.
• darawk 10y ago
  So, devil's advocate here: Can someone explain to me why this is a bad thing? I feel like most educated people seem to think this is terrible (and the markets seem to agree), but to me, the European union seems like an anti-democratic institution that doesn't really provide much value. I mean, don't me wrong, removing trade barriers is probably good. But won't the UK just be able to pretty quickly renegotiate basically similar terms again anyway? Are their trading partners really going to stop trading with them or substantially alter their tariff schedules as a result of this?
  • UK-AL 10y ago
    The markets are mostly reacting to the uncertainty this creates, rather than judgement if this was good or bad in the long term. Nobody knows the future status of the uk. If we get good deals expect the markets to recover in a couple of years.
    • gonvaled 10y ago
      Zimbabwe also wants good deals. And Burkina Fasso. It does not mean they get them. There are around 200 countries on Earth. Sorry, 200 countries and the UK, which is special, by natural right. So let's say that those 201 countries have to make an agreement to sell cars: that's something like 40200 agreements. And each country has to negotiate 200 agreements. To sell cars. Have fun with that.
      • UK-AL 10y ago
        There literally hundreds of prosperous countries outside the eu, who trade with many other countries.
        • cygx 10y ago
          There literally are not, as the total number of countries on the planet is less than two hundred.
  • doikor 10y ago
• pastProlog 10y ago
  At the end of the day, the EU as it is is something that was shoved onto the people of Europe by big business, bureaucrats, Eurocrats etc. Working people feel all the negative impact of open borders and so-called "free trade", and the 1% gets all the gains from it. The mass of people barely feel they have any control over the Parliament of the UK, never mind the even more remote government in Brussels. Many see the EU as constituted as something concocted by bureaucrats in business and government, for their own ends, a view which I think is correct. So the UK or Greece and the like being fed up with the EU should come as no surprise. I think the EU as organized is a bad idea. I don't think European integration is a bad idea, but it was done without much consultation of the populace of Europe, and things like this are the result. In the US, the popular candidates with mass rallies bucking against their party establishments have been Trump and Sanders, although Sanders was pushed aside for the establishment candidate with the help of superdelegates etc. Congressional job ratings for 2016 fluctuated between 13% to 18% approval, 75-84% disapproval. The average American feels alienated from Washington DC because Washington DC is unresponsive to the desires of the average American. The situation is not dissimilar from Europe.
  • DanBC 10y ago
    > Working people feel all the negative impact of open borders and so-called "free trade", and the 1% gets all the gains from it. How does the 1% gain from the Working Time Directive?
    • ppereira 10y ago
      Please don't cherry pick an (unmentioned) directive in a one-line rebuttal; try to challenge the comment's core arguments.
      • tonyedgecombe 10y ago
        Actually the working time directive is right at the core of what the leave campaigners disliked about the EU.
  • HillaryBriss 10y ago
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• lifeisstillgood 10y ago
  Let's call the rising tide of politicians shouting "Our Nation First!" (And stage whispering "Our Race First") something like "the New Right". Not fascism per se but isolationist, anti-laissez faire and definitely anti-science. So what is "The New Left"? Left wing politics in the UK is in disarray, Bernie Saunders espouses a vision that most of Europe sees as frankly old hat centrist, and there is no defining political viewpoint that is encompassing the (now dispossessed) young, the march of technology, the lessons learnt over communism and socialism. Is the answer just to double down on democracy? Turn to your principles in time of trouble? We are losing the argument in open debate though. Just more "trust us, this is business as usual" does not seem to be a rallying cry. Where is the intellectual core of what will oppose the New Right?
  • ozborn 10y ago
    Direct democracy over representative democracy? Sousveillance instead of surveillance? A politics of abundance instead of rapacity?
• 627467 10y ago
  The alt-right agenda gets their first win. It's not just crazy ideas that people will never validate.
  • sevenless 10y ago
    There's nothing 'alt' about xenophobia over immigration. This is also the primary explanation for the rise of UKIP, the Front National, the Dansk Folkeparti, the AfD, Geert Wilders’ PVV, and so on.
    • 627467 10y ago
      I should have placed quotes around "alt-right" as there's not much "alt" in "alt-right" either.
• srott 10y ago
  I wish they would revert to Imperial units.
• davnn 10y ago
  I truly do not understand our society. Europe is split, even if the countries aren't, the people are. Every political decision ends up being a race of the well-educated against the less-educated. The clash of classes happens not only in Europe, the Trump success is the same story. Maybe I'm just too young and uninformed to understand and that's how the world works ever since?
  • WillPostForFood 10y ago
    If you want to understand society better, start by accepting that there are well educated people on both sides.
    • Simon321 10y ago
      In this case it's obvious that those were a minority on the 'Leave' side: http://m.imgur.com/SneDXWa?r http://m.imgur.com/SneDXWa?r
      • WillPostForFood 10y ago
        So like I said, there are well educated people on both sides. University educated split 65/35 to remain. There are reasons educated people disagree with each other. My point to the parent being: on just about every single issue, there is an educated person on both sides with an argument. To try and claim the high ground for oneself by saying there are no educated people in opposition is either self delusion or political posturing.
    • davnn 10y ago
      I do accept that, I may have conveyed the wrong message there. I also did want not judge on what's good or bad. What I do judge however is that politicians are abusing the divide and the mass media directly influencing it. Non-egalitarian politicians are advertising themselves as the saviour of the poor. It's ironic. The media is publishing data on how education influences the votes and thus implicitly show that there are "the stupid" against "the smart". Politics is completely torn away from content to emotional rage. When people vote for the far-right they do not show that the far-right have a well thought strategy to make their lives better, but they show that they are not satisfied with their current situation. That's worrisome to me.
• csjr 10y ago
  Too soon to calculate the damage on the markets and how long until recovery?
• sverige 10y ago
  What about the precedent of the previous, say, five or six centuries of European history? All of that is, in part, the story of "other countries' own interests." History has rightly judged Neville Chamberlain as an abysmal failure in dealing with German interests. I'm happy that Britain has given Merkel and her cronies the finger.
  • bmer 10y ago
    Neville Chamberlain <--> Adolf Hitler David Cameron <--> Angela Merkel According to your comment, Angela Merkel is about as evil and reckless as Adolf Hitler. Okay. I am not taking this seriously.
    • sverige 10y ago
      You've missed the point, which was about the UK being at the mercy of other countries' interests. My argument was simply that that is always a factor as long as we don't have one world government (and maybe even then - read all the comments about Scotland for a small picture of that.) There was no comparison of Hitler and Merkel implied. Britain and Germany are both far bigger than any of their past or present leaders.
  • dang 10y ago
    We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11966803 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11966803 and marked it off-topic.
• arisAlexis 10y ago
  The historians of the future will point at Greece for playing a major role in brexit and any subsequent demise of Europe with gaming the financial system and f*ng up the immigration issue.
  • return0 10y ago
    I agree on the immigration issue, but i don't see the major role on brexit.
• disordinary 10y ago
  The average age of someone who is voting to leave is above 60, the average age of someone who is voting to stay is below 35. The older generation have voted for something that the younger generation did not want but are now stuck with. They have voted away their future for short term gains. The sooner the baby boomers are all retired the better.
  • Retr0spectrum 10y ago
    They still vote when they're retired.
    • disordinary 10y ago
      Of course they do, but if the politicians have retired then no one is pushing their selfish and short sighted conservative agenda.
      • zanny 10y ago
        Trump is 70, Clinton is 68, and both are well past the US retirement age. You should fully expect that until the boomer generation dies major candidates will just get older (look at Mccain, and Romney was also past retirement age when he ran for president (65). Obama was fairly unique in being so young at just 46. The trend is retirees run for president, and retirees vote for them. Even the house and senate reflect these trends. The average age of a senator went from ~53 in 1980 to ~63 today. The house went from 49 to 57. For over a century the average was stagnant between 50 and 55 and only now is it going off the chart. These people simply do not retire. They will die in office with dementia but they are certainly not stepping down and their voting base will have nothing less than their own in office until they are all in the ground.
        • disordinary 10y ago
          It is a sad state of affairs, a lot of similar things happen in companies where it's hard to advance as positions of authority are locked out by people who have held it since they were given the opportunity at 30. It's an unfortunate side effect of increased healthcare and life expectancy. Politics in the US is definitely an old boys club (just look at all the political families) fortunately other countries aren't as bad.
• addicted 10y ago
  [quote]Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, has told ITV’s Good Morning Britain that he thought it was a mistake for the Vote Leave campaign to say that it could save £350m a week by leaving the EU and that the money could go to the NHS.[/quote] Well, nice to see that UKIP is wasting no time backtracking from the lies they sold this vote with.
  • UVB-76 10y ago
    Not that I'm an advocate for Nigel Farage or UKIP, but this is: a) Conflating campaign promises (it was Vote Leave who made the promise, not UKIP, so Farage is not backtracking on anything); b) Misunderstanding the nature of promises made during this campaign; there is no real 'official' leave campaign, and by voting to leave in the referendum, we have not elected any campaign group into power.
• glenndebacker 10y ago
  You know what I shows a lot how trustworthy a Great Britain is. Begging (you know the period where De Gaulles had his veto ?) to get in the EU because their economy was not doing great and from the moment that there are some problems, instead of dealing with those problems getting out. That being said as a European I couldn't care for the fifth "biggest" economy and I really hope that the EU keeps their 2 year timeline (if no deal can be reached in that timeframe it should be over) and deals on EU terms. They should not give a Switzerland or Norway deal without a hard bargain. My country and region is exposed a lot (jobs at our own country btw, trade,... ) and we where slowly recovering and now we are kicked down again. In the future we need to look for better and reliable business partners. Also it's sickening to see how this give extreme right wing parties (and not right wing in the American sense, but really racist xenophobic parties) a boost. All old is new again, it is only 70 ago years we saw the same uprising of these kind of parties. I do hope that this doesn't jeopardize peace at the main land, that I fear the most. I can only imagine that a Putin is having the day of his life. On a political sense I think in the end the EU can be possible better of, they never had a constructive attitude. With all the special statuses it got, it was already an island in Europe. Btw seeing how the Euro is also falling, the whole idea of a weakened pound which have a positive impact regarding trade is also seriously backfiring. UK goods and services are still as expensive, maybe more after today.
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• imperio59 10y ago
  The most interesting thing is the age distribution of votes: HOW AGES VOTED (YouGov poll) 18-24: 75% Remain 25-49: 56% Remain 50-64: 44% Remain 65+: 39% Remain Read into it what you wish, but this really sucks for the younger generation who did not want this yet will be stuck with this decision, likely for their entire lifetime.
  • zghst 10y ago
    I find the younger are usually more naive and more easily manipulated. They're young, they'll live and adapt
    • estefan 10y ago
      Whereas the old remember the "good old years before all those funny Polish shops started opening". Well at least it'll hit their pensions. Oh, wait, no it won't because most of them will have final salary pensions schemes the working generation is paying for and could never hope to have themselves... At least they can sell their houses which have increased in value by 100%s of percent over the last 30 years. So the older generation (& working class) have fucked us.
      • guitarbill 10y ago
        I do love it when retirees talk about immigrants taking all the jobs... Of course, all the immigrants taking all the jobs are also stealing all the benefits. Logical, really /s
      • Kequc 10y ago
        Yours is a simplistic cartoonish and insulting strawman of the older generation. Britain has been in the EU for 43 years, 65 year olds were kids themselves when it joined. Everyone in Britain has been in the EU their whole lives. Couldn't it possibly be to do with anything more recent?
        • soundwave106 10y ago
          The comment about the youth being easily manipulated was also frankly cartoonish and insulting. If anything I see the reverse. Immigrant fears was the driving factor for the Leave vote. Given that UK tabloids have been doing quite a good job exploiting immigrant fears of late, who's being manipulated here? The Donald Trump phenomenon has very similar parallels (build a wall!), demographics (white, leans no college education, leans elderly), and root cause (largely cultural discomfort). The rise of other far-right parties in Europe shows similar concerns. This vote to me smacks of the decades of American Southerners (and others in similar areas) voting against their own economic interests in order to protect a race-based pecking order. As in the American South, now England. It probably won't be the last vote like this, either.
• bromuro 10y ago
  As someone who doesn't want this neo-liberist, anti-democratic EU I see this as a very good news. Let's hope Denmark and France to follow.
  • tormeh 10y ago
    Well, Britain is largely responsible for making the EU neo-liberalist...
    • tonyedgecombe 10y ago
      and will probably shift further that way itself.
  • estefan 10y ago
    TBH I wouldn't be surprised if in 20 years there's a new Western EU of richer countries with the poorer countries left out.
  • ionised 10y ago
    British politicians and the City of London are all unhinged neo-liberals too, so this does nothing to change your indentured servitude to the oligarchs. If that's why you voted out, you've been made a fool of.
• zghst 10y ago
  Really shows how good of a "union" they left with all the scaremongering going on.
• dhruvrrp 10y ago
  So as this vote is non binding, the UK lawmakers would be responsible for repealing the EU membership. But since Scotland voted overwhelmingly to stay, could the Scottish MPs block the actual exit?
  • DonaldFisk 10y ago
    The Conservatives have an absolute majority in the HoC and their MPs will be whipped to vote for the UK to leave the EU.
  • phatfish 10y ago
    I believe it is possible in theory. Parliament now have to agree on how to action the divorce. If all the pro-EU PMs cross-party vote against the proposals then it could be held up. But who is willing to put their job/reputation on the line apart from maybe the SNP members? In any case this will not be done in two years which is the max time allowed by the EU treaty after the UK gov makes it official. Trade negotiations much more simple than this between the EU and other countries usually take 4-5 years or more. I will be surprised if the UK is out completely within 5 years. During that time the UK is still subject to all the terms of EU membership. Plus there are re-negotiations with all the other countries the UK had access to via the existing EU trade agreements.
• dangjc 10y ago
  Is modifying the free movement of people provision a workable compromise? The Swiss recently also voted to limit EU immigration. Sweden, Denmark, and France recently had temporary border controls to deal with refugees. Maybe there should be stronger adjustment mechanisms so people aren't 100% free to move en masse for now, yet still have the long term goal of achieving the freedom of movement ideal.
  • realityking 10y ago
    You're throwing unrelated things together. - The Swiss move is one-sided, it's not yet implemented. There's a good chance their EU treaties get cancelled when they implement it. - The border controls some countries implemented are a suspension of certain Schenfen rules. They do not affect the free movement of people within the EU. Also these Schengen rules have never applied to the UK.
    • dangjc 10y ago
      They're related by fear. Fear of being swamped by immigrants. Fear of terrorists. Fear of losing their country's identity. The UK, like Switzerland, adopted freedom of movement provisions to access the common market despite the UK not being in Schengen. The Swiss suspended negotiations on their new controls specifically to see the outcome of the UK referendum.
• djyde 10y ago
  It's time to buy Alfred powerpack :P
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• pavlov 10y ago
  I'm a Finn, and always thought that UK could be an interesting place to live some day. This decision completely destroys that possibility because moving to a non-EU country is not a realistic option -- I wouldn't go out of my way to look for bureaucratic headaches. Since the UK doesn't want people like me, I guess it will increasingly become another place I never think about. This was a major win for isolationism, but it's not clear to me why an island wants to be increasingly isolated. When you're already geographically isolated, wouldn't you want to try to compensate against that by reducing mental isolation rather than actively reinforcing it? Ultimate independence is when people forget you exist at all.
  • siliconviking 10y ago
    I wouldn't assume the UK "doesn't want" people like you there. I think they just want better say over who comes into their country. It's very possible, and perhaps even likely, that they will look to implement a similar solution as the US has -- visas for skilled workers, to the extent they have a need for foreign labor, and there might even be direct relationships with high-tech hubs like Scandinavia. But yes, there will be added bureaucracy, and some people will choose not to go because of it.
    • Havoc 10y ago
      >I wouldn't assume the UK "doesn't want" people like you there. I think they just want better say over who comes into their country. Problem is if you want to say buy a house or something permanent like that then its comforting to know you're not at the mercy of same visa regulation. Thats is no gone & I'm also re-evaluating my plans to move to the UK. Sure I'll get a visa easily anyway but still the uncertainty unsettles me.
  • kdamken 10y ago
    You're probably not the kind of people they're trying to prevent coming there. You're right though, I'm sure people will totally forget that the UK exists now.
  • Wintamute 10y ago
    According to the Brexit politicians they don't want isolationism, rather they want to open up the UK to the rest of the world. At the moment they have to privilege economic immigrants from the EU, and make it harder for high skilled workers to come to the country from the rest of the world. There will be a powerful political mandate to institute an Australian style points-based immigration policy ... this can be fine-tuned year on year to bring in the skills the UK needs, rather than an open door to the EU and barriers to everyone else. If you're a high skilled Norwegian worker you may find it easier to come and work and settle in the UK post Brexit than before. I don't think there's any question that the UK will continue with a high level of immigration.
• eksemplar 10y ago
  Is there really an UK left if North Ireland and Scotland deciede to leave?
  • airesQ 10y ago
    Yes, it would England and Wales. (Not that I'm fond of that prospect.)
• beedogs 10y ago
  Welcome to recession, England. You voted for it.
  • estefan 10y ago
    Optimism and over-confidence biases at work. Great :-/
• iamflimflam1 10y ago
  The map here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics/eu_referendum/results http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics/eu_referendum/results is pretty frightening for the UK - Scotland will demand another independence referendum. This time they will win and it's the end of the United Kingdom.
• ivoras 10y ago
  One more thing: the UK was the official reason English is one of the languages of the EU (same as, on paper at least, with all the other languages). It will require some more fiddling to keep it so.
  • gonvaled 10y ago
    Interesting angle. Ireland? EDIT I think that even without the UK (and Ireland), the EU would still use English as official language. For better or worse, English is a useful method of communication, even between lets say Spanish and Polish people.
  • guitarbill 10y ago
    I don't think that's true. What else would they use? English as a lingua franca is as practical as it is political (i.e. Germany and France both sort of saving face).
  • nicky0 10y ago
    I'm sure the Irish will have something to say about it.
  • Strom 10y ago
    Luckily English is the official language in other EU countries as well. Ireland & Malta. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_European_Union#Official_EU_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_European_Unio...
    • gejjaxxita 10y ago
      English is an official language of those countries.
  • igravious 10y ago
    Irish Republic. 5 million people. Once UK finally leaves the EU Ireland will be the largest state in the EU where the majority language is English. To help you find it :) Ireland is located in 26 out of 32 of the counties in that island to the west of Great Britain. ;-)
• osmala 10y ago
  The controlling political parties in rest of EU have huge interest of making Brexit costly to Britain even if it hurts their own country. If Brexit is successful and Britain improves then Euro-optimistic parties suffer future elections. Britain is having to negotiate with lots of countries interests, each controlled by political parties with their own agendas and trying to win against other parties in their next elections. Getting rid of eastern European immigration was main reason of Brexit now Britain has to get approval of countries whose population they just slandered in elections. Its unlikely to have ANY deal between EU and Britain, there are too many conflicting interests. So the end result is that all the EU deals just end and there is no replacement deal for them. Problem is when lots of countries want to leave their own mark on the deal and lot of people in the deal making process has vested interest in making bad deal for britain and Britain really cannot approve such deals.
• garyclarke27 10y ago
  Britsh Turkeys just voted for Christmas. V sad day I am utterly depressed, sets back civilisation's progress by a generation. One lesson from this is - Never underestimate the stupidity of the majority. US will be next and vote Trump in.
• lucb1e 10y ago
  What's most interesting about this thread to me is that before the vote the general consensus was "nobody knows what's better anymore anyway, hence also the close call". Now that the decision has been made to leave, most agree it was a big mistake and predict all sorts of bad consequences. What changed?
  • Tomrn 10y ago
    People have seen the market responding to uncertainty by dumping GBP and FTSE and are equating that with the UK economy actually being much worse off already. Hence the sudden 'realisation' that brexit was a terrible decision. Large numbers of traders betting on the UK betting on the UK being worse off does not make it so. (Or I guess it kind of does.. but that's markets for you!) At this point we have absolutely no information about what the Brexit deal will look like, it's impossible to know what the UK economy will be like post EU. For all we know the eurozone could face a crisis in the next few years and by distancing itself from Brussels the UK could end up better off. In a month or two when things have settled down we'll see a much more reasoned debate. Once article 50 is invoked and we begin to see what the 'leave' deal will actually look like you may see many people adjusting their position.
    • lucb1e 10y ago
      > People have seen the market responding to uncertainty by dumping GBP and FTSE and are equating that with the UK economy actually being much worse off already. Hence the sudden 'realisation' that brexit was a terrible decision. So uncertainty translated into markets diving, which translated into believing it was a bad idea because markets are diving. Interesting analysis that makes quite a bit of sense.
      • tremon 10y ago
        Yes, welcome to economics 101: The only science where the public can make things true by believing in them :)
• known 10y ago
  EU is only good for export-oriented countries; Imagine CHINDIA as a EU member :)
• siscia 10y ago
  We are all talking about economics but the whole deal is way more noble than mere money. No European ever has never think "woow this shinny $consumer_object is been produced inside the EU so I don't get to pay the import tax" but every single European younger than 50 at least once in its life has open up the Ryanair website and thought "for 30€ I guess this weekend I will be in London/Paris/Berlin/Madrid/Rome". The whole point of the European union is to be able to watch rugby with the English, get drunk in Berlin with good beer, being lazy at the seaside for a whole day with the Italians, have sex (or at least try to) with smoking hot French girls. And yes I can use the most stupid stereotypes because we all know that those are just stereotype and we can make fun of each other like only good friends can. The most infuriating thing is that the oldest part of the English population is taking aways these opportunities from the youngest British.
  • rmc 10y ago
    Fun fact: Ryanair exists because of EU free trade law. It's an Irish company, and the Irish government wanted to continue to protect it's state owned airline (Aer Lingus) on the lucrative Ireland/UK route, so tried to ban Ryanair from operating it. But EU law required that both countries had to veto the airline or route, and the UK (under Thatcher) were pro-free trade, so allowed it. Hence Ryanair was able to grow.
  • dba7dba 10y ago
    IMHO, the opportunity was taken away by Merkel, not the older English population. Merkel welcomed migrants/refugees into Germany which ultimately meant EU due to no border control. This opened the flood gate and increased the fear factor in older English people. I'm not talking about if it was wrong/right. Just stating an event.
    • farseer 10y ago
      Those poor refugees from afghanistan, iraq, syria and libya. All countries recently bombed/invaded on the orders of the older english population. In a messianic quest for security as America's sidekick.
• juliangamble 10y ago
  Murdochracy at work...
• thenewregiment 10y ago
  This is what happens if you let nationalists take over..
• alkonaut 10y ago
  I fail to understand how this is a referendum on migration as it is claimed to be. The movement of people with the EU is independent of the flow of people into the EU (the "migrant crisis" of the Syrian war for example). So how is it about migration? Are UK voters afraid of eastern European EU migrants or is it something else? If anything, being a part of the EU allows the UK to force migrants to seek asylum in the country where they entered the EU. Outside the EU I don't think they will have that possibility?
  • nicky0 10y ago
    The working classes have seen wages depressed by eastern Europeans willing to work for less in skilled manual fields e.g. building. It's a sore point for many.
    • alkonaut 10y ago
      Understandable, but also completely unrelated to the recent surge of non-EU migrants. I get a feeling that populists try to connect these two things (refugees and lowered wages from EU migration). I think the problem is related the weak labor laws of the U.K. (Compared to e.g France, Germany or the Nordics). UK workers can more easily be replaced and have less security when they are. It's a complete failure of social democrat policies if the popular response to depressed wages is right wing populism rather than unionization and calls for stronger labor laws.
      • tremon 10y ago
        It's even worse: the NHS budget has been severely cut by successive governments, yet it was very convenient to blame European migrants for the NHS crisis even though reports have shown have shown that migrants contribute more to the NHS than they take out.
• wildpeaks 10y ago
  Guess I'll have to move my Git hosting elsewhere then. That's too bad, I was quite fond of Codebase.
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  • nicky0 10y ago
    Why does this mean you can't host your code there?
  • herbst 10y ago
    i don't get this ether. Isn't hosting outside of the EU generally always a privacy benefit? Edit:// I clearly did exclude the US here.
• dandare 10y ago
  To understand how irrational the voters decision is, consider this story: here in Czech Republic, many people now "oppose the dictate of the EU" because as a part of consumer protection scheme introduced by EU Czechia's favourite margarine brand had to change it's name from butter to margarine. Only butter products can be labeled butter now and this has become a fuel in the increase of eurosceptics. Fubar.
  • optforfon 10y ago
    That being said.. the fact that there are people in Brussels that probably spend hundreds if not thousands of man-hours figuring out what is butter and is not kinda illustrates what people don't like about the EU
    • ino 10y ago
      I like having those regulations and the safety they provide, even if in many cases they might be too cautious. I don't trust companies, specially multinationals, to care for the consumers, their workers and the environment.
    • eeeeeeeeeeeee 10y ago
      I'm glad I live in a society that is doing these things. A few spend a lot of time on a specific problem so the many don't need to do all of that work over and over every day in an inefficient and ineffective way. Consumers can focus on buying and the government should be ensuring a fair and accurate marketplace.
  • tremon 10y ago
    So, a company producing margarine was told it could no longer call its product "butter"? I don't have a problem with that. Only butter products can be labeled butter Oh dear lord, what has this world come to...
• internaut 10y ago
  Ctrl-F:lies We should be talking about the lies. I'm pleased for the British and think in the long haul this is the correct decision. Right now though that interests me less than what happened with the media. It was all lies on every level I can think of. Even the Kippers thought they had lost the war. Is anybody going to talk about the fact that when the polls closed odds showed 95% chance of Leave? This was all very highly coordinated propaganda. What other reasonable explanation is there? Occam's Razor says: conspiracy is the simplest explanation. Really if you have a good explanation I'll be waiting to hear it.
• nailer 10y ago
  Tried to warn HN yesterday about this, it reached the front page in seconds then was flagkilled despite being massively relevant to British tech startups: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11952724 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11952724
• estefan 10y ago
  ...and Cameron announces his resignation... nearly... will he...? and... yes. His position was untenable. It goes from bad to worse. Leaving the EU and now we'll get Boris Johnson as well.
• cm2187 10y ago
  To those who think the UK will be hurt more than the EU, I find it interesting that the FTSE (-8.4%) is down less than the DAX (-9.5%) http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/stocks http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/stocks Obviously if you compound that with the pound losing 10% a FTSE investor is worse off. But my boss has met many investors recently and his feedback was that more investors were concerned for the future of the EU rather than the future of the UK.
  • tonyedgecombe 10y ago
    The FTSE 100 is mostly companies trading globally, often just being listed in the UK. The FTSE 250 is probably more representative of UK business as a whole and that is down more today.
• andy_ppp 10y ago
  There will be massive trade barriers put up by the EU/Germany - this could spell the end of the entire European project - look at how hard Greece got screwed to make sure other countries like Spain and Italy didn't think about leaving the Euro. That German cars will cost more in the UK (like everything else) really won't affect Germany as much as the end of Europe. And now Cameron resigns - I'm shocked.
• johndoez2 10y ago
  This was a very close vote. It should have gone to Remain. But the culprit was the chancellor, who threatened people with a punishment budget. The English do not like to be blackmailed. I think this was very much a "F-U" vote. It is a classic example of a stupid mistake by a single politician.
• threeseed 10y ago
  > Obama threatened the UK of no trade deal. He NEVER said that. You're either lying or ignorant. He simply said that the UK would go to the back of the line for trade deals and given it is simply a smaller market than the EU this is understandably so.
  • cm2187 10y ago
    You're either lying or ignorant. Fuck you
    • dang 10y ago
      Although this is a bannable offense, we're not going to ban you because threeseed shouldn't have posted anything of the sort. But please don't do this again. If someone else breaks the guidelines, don't respond by breaking them in turn. That makes HN a worse place for everybody. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
  • dang 10y ago
    > He NEVER said that. You're either lying or ignorant. You can't comment like this here, as I'm sure you know. Please edit such incivility out of everything you post to HN. If you like, you can do as I do and set 'delay' in your profile to a number of minutes (up to 10) to give you editing time before your comment is published. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11966563 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11966563 and marked it off-topic.
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
• _ph_ 10y ago
  A very sad day for everyone in Europe. The EU is not only about trade regulations, but about a continent who had a not very peaceful history finally growing together. The freedom of movement for European citizens was not only "convenient" but in fact an important civil right. When you live or have a business in one state of the US, you are bound to local regulations of course, but being part of the US granted you a lot of fundamental rights and freedoms. In my eyes, the EU was very much about the same thing. It didn't matter in which part of the EU you lived or had your business. Being part of the EU granted you rights and equal access to the rest of Europe. The EU in my eyes should aspire, to what the US has achieved already, being a large region, composed of quite a lot of different states, which are united, so that there are no arbitrary geographic borders limiting the freedom and the rights of the individual. This is not always easy, and it means, that the richer parts have to give to the poorer, but that is just basic humanity. Especially I am sad for the young generation in the UK. A very large part (about 75%) voted to stay in Europe, and this future is taken from them. I would guess no small part of them will try to move to the remaining EU states.
  • bkor 10y ago
    > The freedom of movement for European citizens UK was not part of Schengen. As such, it was always more difficult to go to/from the UK. Foreigners having a Schengen visa (work permit) still need an expensive Visa to go to UK. Then there's the pound instead of having the Euro. What was more easy is _permanently_ moving from UK to e.g. Spain (which happens a lot). Finding work in another EU country and being able to live there without too much hassle.
    • paglia_s 10y ago
      That's false, Schengen only regulates border checks, EU citizens had the same right to move to the UK as UK citizens moving to a Schengen area country.
    • joeyspn 10y ago
      > it was always more difficult to go to/from the UK This is not true. You obviously haven't travelled many times from UK to other european countries (or viceversa)...
• jacquesm 10y ago
  Surprising that a simple majority is enough to effect such a massive change, one would expect that a supermajority would be required to change the status quo. It's a sad day for the UK's younger generation who voted overwhelmingly to stay, the older generation, who will depend for their bread and butter on the younger ones has just made their life a lot harder. Everybody that's gleefully celebrating will be in an excellent position to review their take on this in a couple of years when the real impact will be a lot more clear than it is today.
  • UVB-76 10y ago
    To play devil's advocate: 1. Falling house prices (George Osborne estimated 18%, helped by rising interest rates) will help many, many young people get on the housing ladder. You can look at this as a massive redistribution of wealth from old to young; 2. Although full of optimism while studying at university, many UK graduates have been crowded out of the job market by more experienced EU migrants, coming from countries with far worse unemployment rates. 3. Young people didn't have much invested in the UK, and in many ways had the least to lose.
    • nmeofthestate 10y ago
      >Falling house prices But we would need to look at the root causes of a fall in house prices. Is it because people will have less money to spend? If so, then it's not made housing any more affordable.
  • hmmdiggy 10y ago
    > It's a sad day for the UK's younger generation who voted overwhelmingly to stay, the older generation Implying not all votes are equal. > who will depend for their bread and butter on the younger ones has just made their life a lot harder. Or rely on their pension they've worked their entire lives for, which having remained in the EU would be more at risk.
• anu_gupta 10y ago
  Honestly you and the old people voted are small-minded parochial idiots. I'm leaving this dead country as soon as I can
  • ZenoArrow 10y ago
    See my reply to AstralStorm. If you can argue with what I've said based on facts, then please do so.
  • dang 10y ago
    > you and the old people voted are small-minded parochial idiots You can't comment like this on HN, and if you do it again we will ban you. Please post civilly and substantively, or not at all. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11967357 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11967357 and marked it off-topic.
• tajen 10y ago
  I had no opinion about UK leaving Europe (because we don't know what their new situation will be), but I just wish a referendum existed every few years for all international treaties signed by our leaders, when they act as law. I'm looking at you, TPP and TTIP.
• ck2 10y ago
  My question as an ignorant American is does this mean other countries might also leave and how many can leave before it collapses?
  • return0 10y ago
    There are no announced plans for referenda anywhere else. I guess most of europe is standing waiting to see how this pans out. Despite common disgruntlement with EU, it seems most countries prefer to be in it. EU is capturing a lot of bashing because of other reasons, i believe. It is used sometimes as a scapegoat by populists. For example look at this: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1740f3a6-2cc2-11e6-bf8d-26294ad519fc.html#axzz4CUiICIcC http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1740f3a6-2cc2-11e6-bf8d-26294ad519... It appears EU is immensely unfavourable in greece, yet people again and again vote government to stay not only in the EU, but in the eurozone as well. That said, I would wager there is a lot of cognitive dissonance and disillusionment at this time across both ponds of the atlantic. These are unpredictable times.
  • CM30 10y ago
    There is definitely a renewed interest in leaving the EU among certain right wing parties in mainland Europe. For example: Dutch far right politician Geert Wilders tweeted it was time for a Dutch referendum on EU membership. Front National leader Marine Le Pen wants a French referendum on EU membership. Italy's Five Star Movement wants an Italian referendum... So yeah, various populist political parties are now using it to try and get their own 'Brexit' equivalent for their countries. It's not that serious yet (since hey, these parties aren't in power in these regions), but you can bet that if a far right or populist group gets control of an EU country now, they'll try and copy what's going on in the UK. As for how many can leave... depends more on what the countries are and how much of an economic effect they have. If France and Germany ever decide to leave, the EU is probably in trouble. If a small country/small countries leave, or one that's running at a loss at the moment (like say, Greece) does the same, then the EU can probably survive it. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36614643?ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbc_breaking&ns_source=twitter&ns_linkname=news_central http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36614643... http://www.wsj.com/articles/italys-5-star-movement-calls-for-euro-referendum-1466596802 http://www.wsj.com/articles/italys-5-star-movement-calls-for...
• acd 10y ago
  It is sad that Britain leaves the EU. Britain is one of EUs founding countries. One can wonder how this on the long term affects peace in Europe if there are external challenges like a country being invaded. A good thing I can see is that British offshore banking will not be allowed to siphon off European tax payers money. In my country there is things like pharmacies where medicines are payed by the wellfare state that is owned in British tax havens. Right now that is the only positive effect I can see that may end. In light Norway and Switzerland are also doing ok as countries.
  • DonaldFisk 10y ago
    It wasn't one of EU's founding countries. Those were France, (West) Germany, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg.
• k-mcgrady 10y ago
  What an absolute disaster. From what I've seen it was pretty evenly split (although a couple of points towards remain) in all age brackets up to 75+. People who won't be here in a few years when we actually leave have decided the fate of the country. If Scotland can do a deal with the EU to become a member if they can gain independence they'll win that, and the joint-ruling party in Northern Ireland is calling for a border poll as NI, like Scotland, voted remain (and the result is arguably going to have the biggest effect on Ireland). In my opinion the biggest issue in this campaign has been the propaganda. Already Nigel Farage has been on TV admitting one of the campaigns ads was completely wrong and any one I've seen defending a leave vote simply has the response "we couldn't let things stay the same". On both sides, despite months of campaigning, voters are completely uneducated on the consequences of either decision.
• interdrift 10y ago
  When I read this I imagine the type of 'leave' voters : old grannies and grandpa's who lived all their lives in a rat hole and doing their backyard. 75% of the youth voted stay. This just shows the huge gap of information that the youth has and the same not used information by the old generations
• nmy 10y ago
  Many US companies open a branch in London to enter the EU. It will be interesting to watch whether it does continue or if they choose another EU country.
  • tonyedgecombe 10y ago
    This is the biggest risk, that every time a business wants to invest in Europe over the coming years London looks a little less attractive and Paris or Berlin a little more.
• joe563323 10y ago
  Does it affect asia ?
• aryehof 10y ago
  I think the original EU (EEC) idea of a free economic trade zone was one that members could share and embrace. However, the Maastricht Treaty in 1993 went too far in "uniting" countries which do not have shared values, cultures and economic systems and priorities. Now we have a two-tier Europe with rich and poorer EU states. Capital and investment leaves the rich states for the poorer ones because of low wages and costs, while population leaves the poor for the richer states for their higher paying jobs and generous social welfare support. Guess where all the refugees and economic migrants want to live? It's a reality that cannot be sustained.
• manuw 10y ago
  Wow https://twitter.com/JillFilipovic/status/746226435891724288 https://twitter.com/JillFilipovic/status/746226435891724288
• codecamper 10y ago
  Hmm... What happens to the union with Ireland then? Will it still be possible to travel from Ireland to the UK without showing documents? If not... then will there be a new fence across Ireland (between north and south)?
  • datamoshr 10y ago
    Ireland and England have something called the Common Travel Area (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Travel_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Travel_Area) which is unrelated to the EU. Basically shouldn't be affected really. Only destabilizing thing that comes to mind would be the Scotland + N. Ireland leaving the UK might make them rethink this.
    • codecamper 10y ago
      You are right.. I was thinking EU relating to visa requirements, but that is Schengen in much of the EU, including Ireland. It seems there will be no change in regard to visas.
• coffeeaddicted 10y ago
  I blame the cookie law. You force millions of websurfers to click daily on OK buttons which basically say "EU make some bloody stupid laws" and you get some advertisment effect in the end.
• dharma1 10y ago
  I wonder how much bank the funds that shorted the pound are making. Some conducted their own polls
• MrLeftHand 10y ago
  My gosh, loads of people commenting. Hacker news is indulged in politics as we speak. It's a shame really. But to add my views to the board... Yes the EU wasn't perfect. I wouldn't call it undemocratic, or despotic, or communist, fascist, etc... But it was start of something getting people together. Making Europe a whole. Now the Brexit sparked other right wing parties in member countries to gain popularity. And we all can remember where far right nationalism leads to. Remember Hitler being on the cover of Time magazine? Because I do.
  • philippnagel 10y ago
    While I agree with you, I don't understand why "Hackers" shouldn't comment politics. How is that a shame?
    • MrLeftHand 10y ago
      Well, you're right, but hackernews might not be the best medium to do so.
    • davidw 10y ago
      Because it's in the guidelines: "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic." See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6120530 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6120530 Key takeaway: we can comment on politics as much as we want (I recently signed up for strongtowns.org !) but here is not a good place for it.
      • philippnagel 10y ago
        I disagree. "Most stories about politics [...]" implies that some are ok. The criterion is "[...] unless they're evidence of some interesting phenomenon.". As the Brexit is indeed a precedent, I would argue this story isn't off-topic. The amount of comments underlines this conclusion.
  • 10y ago
• tmptmp 10y ago
  I wish to point out an important but not-directly-economical angle to Brexit that has seemed to play an important role. I wish the liberals take a notice of the problem of immigration, mainly the immigration of from Islamic countries. I am a liberal at the core. But what I have found that when it comes to Islam, many mainstream liberals and liberal politicians follow a double standard. The legitimate criticism of Islam, Quran and its prophet are shunned by many mainstream liberals by labeling it as racist attacks, Islamophobia, far-right and what not. I call such people phoney liberals. The phoney liberals take a stance that the Britons/Europeans should bend over backwards to accommodate Muslims along with their medieval, backward Islamic way of life in order for the integration. They never tell Muslims in clear words that "Look, we have a policy of separation of church and state, in your case it means separation of mosque and state. You should accept, if you want to live here, that we value freedom of speech and that includes freedom to offend you too by criticizing Islam or by making fun of your religion, your prophet, your scriptures and your religious practices." But what did the phoney liberals do after Charlie Hebdo episode? They criticized the tabloid for being offending to Muslims. A liberal thinker Bill Maher has put this in a very good manner [1],[2],[3],[4] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntv3a80RGiw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntv3a80RGiw [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL8rZTuGfZo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL8rZTuGfZo [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75Zfgj2k0KM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75Zfgj2k0KM [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipu0ifyC-Xc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipu0ifyC-Xc
  • tmptmp 10y ago
    Here is a relevant point raised by Sam Harris. Sam Harris : Liberals failure to talk honestly about Islam is responsible for the rise of Trump [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YCWf0tHy7M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YCWf0tHy7M
  • deleted 10y ago
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• chvid 10y ago
  If this is followed by a Trump win in the US, it will mark the biggest change in mature men's hair style of recent times.
  • herbst 10y ago
    I dont even know where to store all the popcorn i will need in the next weeks and years. I am so excited that finally something happens again, especially as both things may lead to chaos and therefore real changes.
    • GeneralTspoon 10y ago
      We've made pretty good progress in the past few decades without chaos - I don't see why you would think it's necessary for people to suffer in order to change things. "Okay guys, just one last world war, then we'll really make some progress"
• cabalamat 10y ago
  > What culture do Germans, Greeks, Latvians, Bulgarians, Fins, and Spaniards share? The one that used to be called the Roman Empire, then Christendom, and is now called Western Civilisation. It is also arguably the greatest achievement of the human species.
  • Khaine 10y ago
    Yeah and it died with the Western Roman Empire
    • pvaldes 10y ago
      We still study and use extensively the Roman Law and the Common Law in fact. The origin to a lot of our current laws can be easily traced to Roman Empire.
      • Khaine 10y ago
        I'm well aware of that fact. But after the collapse of the western roman empire, Europe was divided between germanic tribal kings, and those kings have fought amongst themselves ever since. Even when one of those kings (Charlemagne) nearly united all of the roman lands together it collapsed into in-fighting. There is almost a thousand years of cultural difference between each of the member states of the EU. I think in the future a political union will happen, but it takes all of europe to be united as a people, to have common cause and that is a long way off. Today every member of the EU still fights for their national interest. I think Yes Minister said it best https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVrN-gkzVYI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVrN-gkzVYI
  • spraak 10y ago
    > It is also arguably the greatest achievement of the human species. Bleh, gross
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  • 10y ago
• alva 10y ago
  A beautiful day for the UK. No longer will those with "wrong opinions" be shut out of debate and policy because they are conditioned with a pavlovian response of fear from being called bad names
• register 10y ago
  This vote achieves two objectives. The first is to clarify the position of UK in Europe that has always been ambiguous. The second is to weaken the leadership of Germany showing clearly that they are leading in the wrong direction.In the end I believe that the long term conseguences will be beneficial for the rest of Europe.But UK has to pay the conseguences of their choices. I was already strongly skeptical, after the LIBOR scandal, about having London as the main stock exchange in Europe. After this vote I am completely against it: I want the main European stock exchange to BE IN EUROPE. Frankfurt or Paris are the most natural candidates.
• PythonicAlpha 10y ago
  That is a clear vote against a Europe that is not about democracy or peace, but solely about trade regulations and the interests of big corporations. The people in Europe see, how many regulations just come from Brussels to be just acknowledged by their own parliaments and the democratic process is just circumvented. They see, how much is just for the benefit of big corporations and not for their benefit. In Germany, we see, how the European idea is misused by our own politicians to bring up laws that they would not dare to let be voted on in their own parliaments. They just go to Brussels, let the law be decided there without much democratic intervention and than the law comes back into our country to be just acknowledged without discussions. The European idea is (was) a good one. A really united Europe would be a good thing and also a strong one. But that is just an idea and not the reality. We saw it with Greece. We are not united. In the end, every nation is just looking on their own benefits and money. We Germans really acted shamefully in this situation and we already have a big trench between northern and southern Europe. Old sentiments and even hatred is growing again in the EU. The idea was, to have a Europe, where never again will be war. We are now steering in a direction, where wars are getting more likely again, this time because of the EU and the Euro. Is it good, that UK leaves the EU? No, it is not. The only thing, I hope is, that the politicians might learn a lesson from it or the whole EU will break.
  • lazyjones 10y ago
    > *That is a clear vote against a Europe that is not about democracy or peace, but solely about trade regulations and the interests of big corporations. Agreed - but I don't believe it will affect the influence of corporations on Brits very much. They have a stranglehold on the UK government just as much as on the EU and a smaller entity is probably easier to influence. The Brexit would be good for the EU, at least for those who want a centralized, more united, less diversified EU and have been complaining about disagreement on major policies, where GB has often had a controversial position.
    • PythonicAlpha 10y ago
      You are right, that the Brexit does not help the British. But that is the problem with this voting, it is dominated by illogical feelings. The problem is also not the EU as such, but the governments of the EU countries.
• code_research 10y ago
  "need to install flash player" everywhere, what a shame. This is the BBC - really annoying.
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• yarou 10y ago
  This is really a historic moment. It could signal the end of the Maastricht experiment. A long and protracted disengagement period will only worsen volatility in the market, because of uncertainty around trade deals, as well as the political uncertainty of the UK itself. Not to sound like I'm wearing a tinfoil hat, but it's not surprising that Soros decided to go long on gold when he did.
• rcarmo 10y ago
  The tech industry is going to be upended: investment gone, nearshoring companies essentially gutted of their cost advantages, and the London startup ecosystem severely damaged, since _a lot_ of tech workers in the UK are expats. Might be an opportunity for some (am hopeful that the Web Summit moving to Lisbon will boost things here), but I'm not sure there will be any substantial upside for this anywhere...
• return0 10y ago
  It could prove to be a bad, really bad decision for the UK. It could probably be a great gift to those who despise the UK in the EU. The british overestimate the power of their economy at this moment i believe. - They had the unique privilege of a strong, international financial sector within the EU, while simultaneously having their own monetary policy. This attracted foreign capital, and this capital will feel less safe now. - They profit massively from the import of EU workers, not just the low-paying ones. Lots and lots of academics were welcomed to the huge academic sector. These workers don't have familial ties to the UK, they can move to another european country easily. - They profit from having hundreds of thousands EU students in UK universities. They used this arm to export their ideas and technology. This means their influence in the continent will be severely limited now. The resignation of David Cameron is a testament to what a big failure this is. I am still of the opinion that the referendum was more of a way to blow off steam for various issues , and the EU is used as a scapegoat here. Unfortunately, whatever the motives, in democracies decisions are respected. On the other hand, this presents plenty of opportunity for european countries, which stand to benefit from an inevitable shift of commercial activity. PS. What is funny is that british english will no longer be a EU language, even though it is the most widely used language in europe. I guess we 'll start using the maltese or irish accents more often .
  • siliconviking 10y ago
    "Unfortunately, whatever the motives, in democracies decisions are respected." Do you actually lament the fact that democracies respect the choice of their peoples?
    • return0 10y ago
      No, i did not express any feelings towards that fact, and it's none of your business to quiz me about it anyway. Democratic decisions are not always optimal though.
      • siliconviking 10y ago
        It is my understanding that reacting to what other people write is one of the main points about a discussion forum, but we can agree to disagree here! I do agree with you that democratic decisions are not always optimal.
• herbst 10y ago
  Really happy for the UK. Hope they can figure out a way to make this work without the EU trying to make a example out of them why you should never quit the EU.
• _Codemonkeyism 10y ago
  Young people in the UK got really really screwed.
  • UVB-76 10y ago
    Young people in the UK were already screwed. Leaving the EU will open up a whole range of challenges and opportunities, some of which may see young people ending up slightly less screwed.
    • airesQ 10y ago
      If you are referring to housing, the main problem was that there was not enough housing being built (last year ~140 000 houses got built, in 1971 ~400 000 got built), not that there were too many people.
      • _9MOTHER9HORSE 10y ago
        Yes, it's a supply side problem. The housing stock is virtually fixed. Being a member of the EU undoubtedly pushes demand up.
• anothermouse 10y ago
  For those of you outside the UK, please realise that this was not a xenophobic vote. Just because there were racist scum in the crowd voting brexit, doesn't mean all brexit supporters are likewise. There are many reasons why people voted to leave but the journalism covering this seemed to only be able to cover the sensationalist parts of the debate in the most childish fashion. This needed a serious discussion amongst adults, with a lot of thought and we didn't get it. So if it wasn't some racist backlash to immigration, then what was it? While I can't speak for all, here is a piece that explains many of the issues that people actually have with Europe, delivered in the serious manner that I wish more of the debate had been. http://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2016/02/david-davis-britain-would-be-better-off-out-of-the-eu-and-heres-why.html http://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2016/02/david-davis...
  • larard 10y ago
    The quality of discourse was terrible. Why did the leave camp stick to the 350 million argument after it had been so firmly skewered. There were many other reasons to vote leave that could have been discussed instead.
    • UK-AL 10y ago
      Both campaigns are guilty of this.
  • nicotonico 10y ago
    This is the greatest reason the polls were so wrong. The media decided brexit was wrong. And therefore they used the age-old argument "all who vote leave are rayciss". So leavers were in anonimity. But that does not stop them from voting. It was a shitshow.
    • CM30 10y ago
      It's a bit like attacking people and saying they're racist/sexist/whatever for disagreeing with your beliefs doesn't work and tends to backfire. By causing a bit of an 'us vs them' tone to the whole ordeal. Now if only the media would stop doing this and try actual reasoned debate instead.
• jliptzin 10y ago
  I am from the US visiting Germany for the last couple of weeks. You guys need to cool it with the football. Parading in the streets wearing the German flag after winning a game vs Poland, harassing someone wearing a polish flag cap. Really? Combine that with an EU breakdown and you guys are going to start WW3.
  • kgabis 10y ago
    Germany didn't win, it was a tie.
    • csense 10y ago
      I guess that makes Germany's record in world wars 0-2-1 then?
• secfirstmd 10y ago
  People of Ireland speaking here: -Want to stay in the EU? -Enjoy low corporate tax rate of 12.5%? Pro-business government? -Enjoy friendly, well educated, English speaking, Pro-American people, good beer, decent music, nice quality of life, low crime and safe green natural environment? Invest in Ireland -> http://www.idaireland.com http://www.idaireland.com This has been a public service announcement from the country next door. #irelandlovesyou :)
• jld89 10y ago
  Better a divorce now than later. They've been wanting to leave since the 80's. Everyone will be better off.
• banach 10y ago
  On the contrary, historical perspective is essential in understanding the issues that the EU is going through currently. If the German leadership took a good look in the mirror, it would see that it is subjecting Greece to a replica of the Treaty of Versaille and, as a result, should expect similar consequences. The PR outfall of that debacle is probably what pushed the Brits to vote for exit.
  • dnautics 10y ago
    that's nonsense. 1) the German debt post WWI was imposed upon it. The Greek debt was taken on by the country itself. 2) News flash: Austerity only hurts the poor when the political elite choose to cut social programs instead of giving their cronies a haircut. But you know, it's easier to hold the poor hostage. 3) A huge part of the reason why greece can't pay its obligations is because their 1% thinks paying taxes is a joke. 4) Germany's "clever" out of the Treaty of Versailles was to devalue the currency and pay back in cheaper nominal payments. Greece can't do that because while the local central banks can do some easing shenanigans, they're still part of the eurozone and so the effects will be diluted because you can be damned sure that Germany and France won't play Greece's game in that matter. So, in short: Nothing at all like the interbellum. >The PR outfall of that debacle is probably what pushed the Brits to vote for exit. But yes, the Brits are very wise to exit, because (especially if they enter the eurozone, which is clearly the next step in ever closer union) they are definitely the "next germany". And that might even happen without joining the eurozone, by fiat.
    • Symmetry 10y ago
      Greece in particular is sort of remarkable in how much of government spending goes to the top 20% and how little to the bottom 20%. See page 5 of this report. http://www.oecd.org/els/soc/OECD2014-Social-Expenditure-Update-Nov2014-8pages.pdf http://www.oecd.org/els/soc/OECD2014-Social-Expenditure-Upda...
  • nickik 10y ago
    Their is a lot wrong with what you say. Clearly you are not up with current historical studies on the 'Treaty of Versaille'. The treaty was actually not particularly hard or in any way impossible to mean by Germany. If Germany had better leadership they could easily have moved passed it and be the most wealthy nation again. What they are doing to Greece is actually much worse then Versaille. It has to do with the issue that Greece should have defaulted years (I was arguing this even in 2008) and change their government. Because of EU (EMU) logic this can not happen. So Greece is forced to change its government in the context of huge debt and even worse a flat demand curve (look at EU NGDP and Greece NGDP). Greece is about the only country that actually did significant Austerity but its not working. The EU should have let them default or take over their debt completely. You are probably right that PR is the main issue. It was with 'Versaille' as well. German government PR is the main reason why you use 'Versaille' as an example of evil practice. Maybe the most successful example of PR in the last 100 years.
• 50CNT 10y ago
  Since the discussion keeps circling back to effects and economics, I found this paper on "The Economic Impact of EU membership on the UK"[0] published by what looks like the House of Commons, which includes cost-benefit analyses of EU membership, effect of the EU on UK trade relations, impact of immigration from the EU, impact of EU regulation, Fiscal consequences of EU membership, etc. Whilst it doesn't seem to cover every nuance of the situation, it adresses some of the points brought up for discussion in this thread, such as punitive tariffs (ruled out based on WTO non-discrimination rule), and seems like a fairly unbiased primer. It's fairly short too, 32 pages, written for a MP level of reading comprehension. [0]researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06730/SN06730.pdf
• sidcool 10y ago
  So apparently the majority can be convinced to do something silly; who would have thought that happening in a modern, civilized, western world, the connected world, the flat earth! We underestimate the power of idiots in large numbers.
  • airesQ 10y ago
    The Daily Mail has a lot of readers.
• luxpir 10y ago
  "For the agreement to enter into force it needs to be approved by at least 72 percent of the continuing member states" [0]. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_withdrawal_from_the_European_Union#Procedure_for_leaving_the_EU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_withdrawal_from...
• nicotonico 10y ago
  Of course. Civilisation is built with wars and by killing those who don't share the values of the majority. Why? Because if you don't do it, somebody else will do it to you. As simple as that. Pacifists are nuts.
  • bovermyer 10y ago
    Wait... are you honestly suggesting that the only way to advance civilization is to kill the people who disagree with you? Because if you are, then you and I have very different ideas of insanity.
    • nicotonico 10y ago
      Yes. I am saying that, and that if you don't do it, others will kill you. And if you don't believe me, there you have the current religious terrorism (or warfare) in Europe. Does it ring a bell? It's not like it hasn't happened thousands of times throughout history.
      • bovermyer 10y ago
        Well, I disagree with you. I suppose that puts me on your kill list, and you on mine. Shall we race to the finish? (edit: the above is satire, folks)
        • derekjohn 10y ago
          Or you could, you know, choose not to kill each other.
          • bovermyer 10y ago
            I like this option so much better.
      • coldtea 10y ago
        >And if you don't believe me, there you have the current religious terrorism (or warfare) in Europe. Does it ring a bell? Yeah, there have been like 1000 (much less actually, but let's put it at that) victims in Europe in attacks in say, 10 years. Europeans use to kill the same number of those people, in their own countries, where on top they ruled and occupied their lands, every month or so. And sometimes just for fun. And not in some ancient ages -- up to the 1960s, and in some places, today still. Just two examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9tif_and_Guelma_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9tif_and_Guelma_massacre http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/inside-frances-secret-war-396062.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/inside-france...
• 323454 10y ago
  Looking at the age split in the vote, if I were a young Brit I would be considering tax evasion as a form of protest. If the older generation wants a free ride while simultaneously cannibalising the future of the young, let em starve (in the sense of reduced government services).
• Khaine 10y ago
  I think this shows the dangers in ignoring those without power. For to long, people who were made worse off by integration with the EU were ignored, when they voiced concern about immigration were shouted down as racist, were mocked, were made to feel stupid and now this is the result. I'm not saying that racism or xenophobia did not play a part, but when you brush everyone with concerns with that brush you push them towards extremism. This is a sad day for the EU and for the UK. This is a bad outcome for each side. I'm not sure where we go from here.
  • tremon 10y ago
    people who were made worse off by integration with the EU were ignored Correction: they were made worse off by their own government. The EU is an easy scapegoat, but the EU did not close down the mines or manufacturing plants.
    • Khaine 10y ago
      ummm no. I'm talking about the fact that unskilled wages have stagnated due to the influx migrants that was enabled by the EU. Honestly it doesn't matter who is really to blame as the people who voted perceived that the EU was the cause. And in these circumstances perception trumps reality. The lack empathy to understand where people are coming from and talking over the top to correct people is why this debate is so toxic, and why so many voted to leave. To win this debate the remain campaign needed to understand the drivers of brexit, to empathise with those wishing to leave and to show how that leaving wasn't the solution to their problems. Instead they browbeat people supporting brexit, by calling them racist, xenophobic, and stupid. I wanted the UK to remain in the EU. I still do, I'm not sure where we go from here.
      • tremon 10y ago
        in these circumstances perception trumps reality Yes, sad, isn't it? You can royally shaft part of your own citizens for forty years, decrease the tax burden on the richest people and largest businesses, and when push comes to shove, there is always an external enemy that you can blame. We've been down this road before.
• api 10y ago
  Well hey, so much for interest rates rising anytime soon. Probably good for tech funding, but bad for many other things. But that's the only kind of shamelessly self-interested sort of kind of silver lining I can think of. This is pretty bad IMHO.
• alexnewman 10y ago
  I never hear people bring up the undemocratic nature of the EU. Heck most Americans think the troika is a town in Greece
• mk89 10y ago
  Although I do understand a lot of comments about how sad and bad it is for Europe and for growth of this European identity, I am also of the idea that if a country doesn't want to stay, well, don't. I am alright, it means that Europe will have more decision-making power. It was a pain in the ass every once in a while to assist to UK's requests and threatens. We can focus now on how to make a better Europe. And things will move - very slowly, but they will. That's how history is, after all. Ah, just saying: the amount of refugees / people requesting asylum to UK is way less than in Germany/Hungary/Sweden just to mention some. This was just a populist move/slogan.
  • patrickk 10y ago
    > I am also of the idea that if a country doesn't want to stay Vastly complicated by the fact that Scotland and Northern Ireland don't want to leave, and will in fact face calls for independence referendums as a result. They get significant funding from the EU in these disadvantaged areas, and I find it hard to believe that the London government will step into the breach and up the funding in the face of a potential recession, and a London-focus over regional focus from Westminster. I can foresee the end of the UK.
    • mk89 10y ago
      > I can foresee the end of the UK. Be it, then. The world shapes itself continuously, and it will always do so.
• jaoued 10y ago
  "Put 11 fools on one side, 10 philosophers on the other side ... fools prevail. That's democracy " Jacques Brel
• nspattak 10y ago
  The EU is nowehere near what its declaration stated. aka there are fundamental problems in this union which the EU is trying to hide under the carpet but they can not be hidden. What I find surprising is that it is the British who first decide to act about them instead of the southerns.
• return0 10y ago
  Note to self: - Learn german - Invest in german language schools
• notacoward 10y ago
  That's a very strange, and in some cases inaccurate, portrayal of history. * The British were not an external enemy. That would have been the French. For the most part, even the people leading the revolution were proud of being British subjects and would have liked to remain so, but could no longer tolerate the conditions being attached to that status. Our enemy was recognized to be our own cousins, not some external force. * The shared dream of settling the continent was real but - given that said continent was already occupied and settling it meant exterminating the current residents - it's not something I'd want to put forward as key to our identity. * Shared culture, language, religion? Language, mostly. The Puritans in New England didn't really have much to say to the Quakers in Philadelphia, and both had even less in common with the not-particularly-religious folks down in Virginia. Yes, I guess they all were (or at least professed to be) Christians, but that's not too different than Europe today. So, basically, the difference between the US and the EU, according to the criteria you've mentioned, is that the US united to commit genocide and the EU united to avoid it. Congratulations on making the point that the two cases are different.
  • Clubber 10y ago
    The French were the external enemy of the English and subsequently the loyalists in the US. At the time of the Revolutionary War, the French were instrumental in winning it by bombarding English ships en route to the US. At the time of the Revolutionary War, the English were the common enemy of the revolutionaries. It wasn't cut and dry, there were many English loyalists in the colonies at the time of the war. After the US gained independence, most of them fled.
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  • steego 10y ago
    I feel like you're missing a big piece of the puzzle. A friend of mine did a lot of research for the book Slave Nation, and he summed up the circumstances which sparked the revolution and united the US. The way he very broadly sums it up was the South didn't have a reason to revolt until Lord Mansfield's ruling on slavery in the empire sparked fear and uncertainty of slavery's future in the South. That's what united the Northern and Southern states against the British. The book also goes on the explain the critical role slavery played in molding our constitution because it was the most contentious piece. It suggests that once the states reached a compromise on slavery, the rest of the pieces fell into place. I think that's a better characterization than "The US united to commit genocide." My story at least tries to flesh out how the interests of real humans leads them to commit atrocities. Your obtuse characterization paints them as villains with the depth of a comic book character. You will never learn from history if you paint people like comic book characters, because they'll never resemble the complex real people you're trying to compare them to.
• arca_vorago 10y ago
  This is good for the UK but bad for Europe, but y'all won't fully understand this move unless you edge into conspiracy theory territory. Allow me to take you there for a moment. The supranational oligarchy is mostly concentrated in a few key places in the world, Wall Street, City of London, Vatican City, DC, Switzerland, etc. The supranational oligarchy the most in control though according to my estimations is City of London. I analyze from an American perspective and Wall Street and DC seem to have rolled over for them on most occasions. That being said, the true goal of the oligarchy is a collectivist global government model. The problem is the collectivist model hurts the countries that join it while propping up their oligarchy. I predicted months ago UK would leave because they are the ones who pushed the EU onto the Europeans in the first place, (keeping the pound was a dead giveaway), and now I simply think they are aiming to maintain local order and prosperity at a higher level than Europe so as to keep their people placated somewhat. Next up, massive restrictions on Immigration in the UK. Recommended reader for background, anything by Carroll Quigley.
• ratsimihah 10y ago
  If the prime minister is resigning, it seems the vote is irreversible? Does anyone know how the UK plans to grow back strong?
• mmsimanga 10y ago
  As an observer out here in Africa, I understand why the Brits may be fed up with the way immigration is being handled. The citizens of Europe are being told to be welcoming. However, there is no solution in sight in the home countries of the immigrants. When are all the wars in the Middle-East going to end? When are the African dictators holding their countries to ransom going to be replaced by good governments? I purposely did not go into reasons why the said regions are unstable. At the end of the day the wars and governance issues need to be sorted out to stem the flow of immigrants. I don't think anyone has the answer. The solution is certainly not for the whole world to migrate to the "developed" countries.
• codecamper 10y ago
  Good developers must learn to ignore this sort of news & get back to work. That's what I'm going to do!
  • romanovcode 10y ago
    You can ignore politics all you want, but politics won't ignore you.
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
• deepvibrations 10y ago
  "When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I found I couldn't change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn't change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family. Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world."
  • the_common_man 10y ago
    Please stop adding meaningless fluff.
• deepvibrations 10y ago
  "When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I found I couldn't change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn't change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family. Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world."
• heyts 10y ago
  This might be somewhat related and certainly is not encouraging in the current context, unfortunately. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11876453 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11876453
• Annatar 10y ago
  The English, even to this present day, are not known for being benevolent masters... but they are known for being violent ones, who will stop at nothing to satisfy their short term interests. How many nations have the English downtrodden? How many do they still try to intimidate, bluff, or put pressure on, even as ordinary citizens in management positions? Of small comfort then, is the fact that the English have abolished slavery in 1833. To put it poetically, with one hand I embrace you, with another I stick my blade into your throat, while my boot tramples on your broken body, that's the portrayal one might construct from history and contemporary actions and thinking of the English. And "the commonwealth", oh my! Australia was a penal colony, of, you guessed it, the English. Not the Scottish, not the Welsh, not the Irish (Irish were busy being downtrodden, Scottish were busy massively emigrating because they were poor, while London threw galant parties, and the Welsh were trying to muster every bit of strength and intellect they could, so as not to be assimilated), and New Zealand... oh yes, in "the commonwealth", but not before the English killed a good number of Maori, isn't it? And then, we didn't even touch upon the mess that the English caused in India, or in Africa (Zulus really "got theirs" from the English, didn't they?), or the mess on the Bosphorus, or the "Arabian question of Palestine", the consequences of which the world is still suffering from today, with all the strife going on in Palestine... ah yes, our English, everybody else in Europe drives on the right, except in Anglo-Saxon lands, where it's of course the opposite... everybody else is on the metric system because it's practical, except for the English, who still scoff at that non-Imperial nonsense from Bruxelles, our "special Petunias", with their "traditions", who view the rest of EU citizens as immigrants... with such friends, who needs enemies? As sad as I am that the English have decided to ruin it once again for everybody, I say: if the English think the standards shouldn't apply to them, if they think that they are special, well good riddance, and stay out of EU.
  • hartpuff 10y ago
    > they are known for being violent ones Which imperialist was the non-violent one then? > Of small comfort then, is the fact that the English have abolished slavery in 1833. I imagine it was a major comfort to slaves at that time. But you probably know better. > And "the commonwealth", oh my! Oh my, indeed. Perhaps you can name another country, perhaps your own undoubtedly spotless nation, that has over 50 former colonies, comprising two billion people across six continents, happily and willingly belonging to such a commonwealth. Pretty strange thing for them to do, considering all the evil the British Empire committed non-stop, 24/7. > we didn't even touch the mess that the English caused in India The mess of leaving it as the world's largest democracy? (By population, that is. By size it just so happens to be another former colony of the British monsters.) In fact if we make a short list of the most advanced/stable/richest/democratic former colonies in the world, we'll probably find it does not include the likes of Vietnam, Algeria, Congo, Mexico or the Philippines, but does include the likes of the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, India. Funny that. > you think that you are special, well good riddance, and stay out of EU How is it special to be outside of the EU? Most countries in the world are.
• Pica_soO 10y ago
  They will come back- the world is gone, where superpowers try to charm the small players. Just look how the us stripped the swiss (a fellow democracy) of its main buisness-model (tax-avoidance). If you are not sumo-sized you will get shoved around, even with nukes.
• patrickaljord 10y ago
  Am I the only one who kind of feel positive about this regardless of the negative consequences in the short term economically. I mean, democratically this is a landmark, the people have just decided to reject one of the biggest and most powerful government institution on Earth in a peaceful way, by voting. I don't think this has ever happened in the history of humanity that a people decided to say fuck you to a huge powerful government body and be done with it peacefully, just voting them out of their life. This in a way should be celebrated. I mean, the very goal of a democracy is the power for the people to do exactly that, remove and change their government institutions whenever they feel like it. It could also all turn out ok if the UK becomes a EEA member. https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*TD7RywMw4YnWGpfjRpwKwA.png https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*TD7RywMw4YnWGpfjR... https://medium.com/@WhiteWednesday/poll-reveals-eea-option-has-big-support-including-half-of-leave-voters-7b67bd50667c#.3nnfrtfhb https://medium.com/@WhiteWednesday/poll-reveals-eea-option-h...
• cojant 10y ago
  Life expectancy in the UK is 71. As we need to be over 18 to vote, I suggest putting a cap on the higher end to... something like over 53 should not be allowed to vote!
• gloves 10y ago
  Sad day. Shocked.
• known 10y ago
  Will Scotland break away from UK? http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21701332-brexit-has-sparked-calls-another-independence-referendum-also-made-it-trickier http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21701332-brexit-has-sp...
• mstade 10y ago
  As a Swedish national doing business with clients in London, I fear the implications of this. As it were, I was able to stand up my business and start working with clients in London in a matter of a couple of weeks (with the lion's share of bureaucracy being Swedish, not cross-state.) No VISAs, no satellite entities, no special tax lawyers, just get a Swedish company up and start working with the UK. Done. The EU may be flawed in many ways, but the free movement of people, goods, and services ain't one. Unfortunately, that flies squarely in the face of the leave campaign's "controlling the borders" message. Sad day today.
• known 10y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominant_minority https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominant_minority should live in separate country
• dschiptsov 10y ago
  It probably "natural" for island nation with its own currency to remain "independent". So, economically UK is doomed to be new Japan.
• unemouette2 10y ago
  UE is deep shit, I home us french can get out of it soon
• csense 10y ago
  Contrarian opinion: I think Brexit's good for Britain. The EU is an example of the "tail wags the dog" situation which I think is similar to the way the American colonies felt about being ruled by Britain in the 1700's. Distant bureaucrats imposing rules not liked by the people they were imposed upon. For example the way the Germany / Greece situation worked out, with Germany feeling they had to spend money they didn't want to spend on Greece and Greece feeling like Germany was forcing them to impose austerity measures they really didn't want. The British issue seems to be largely with immigration (foreigners working for cheap and bringing down wages for everybody else) and economics (Brits were promised the EU would bring them prosperity, and prosperity isn't in the room right now, so they want to leave). But it's the same sense of the British people feel they're suffering by rules were imposed by an external entity (the EU says they have to accept these immigrants and these economic policies even though they don't really want them). The liberal opinion machine has done their best to paint pro-Brexit folks as racists, fascists, equating Brexit with Trump and Trump with Hitler. I think this is dishonest and not only slanders the conservative side, but reflects poorly on the liberal side as well (if calling the other side names is the best means of persuasion you have available, it says nothing flattering about the strength of your arguments.)
• deleted 10y ago
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• 0bash 10y ago
  The political mess that Britain created in the aftermath of WWI remains today. The competing agreements and the subsequent countries that were created to disunite Muslims from each other led to political instability throughout the Middle East. The rise of Zionism coupled with the disunity of the Muslims in that region has led to corrupt governments and economic decline for the Middle East as a whole. The divisions that the British instituted in the Muslim world remain strong today, despite being wholly created within the past 100 years. The differences between Iraqis, Syrians, Jordanians, etc. were entirely created by the European colonizers as a method of dividing the Arabs against each other. Now is time for EU to pay the same price.
• deleted 10y ago
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• willyt 10y ago
  People keep saying 'unelected bureaucracy', but this is a meme spread by the tabloid media. There is the council of ministers which is made up of representatives appointed by each country's democratically elected government. The council directs EU civil servants to draw up legislation. Every one of these representatives to the council has a veto over legislation that is proposed by it and control over how they are represented in the EU bureaucracy. There is then the EU parliament which is elected under a proportional representation system and has the ability to veto and propose amendments to decisions made by the council of ministers. Finally, EU directives are not 'laws' they are more like overarching goals that each country then passes into local laws to implement in detail, which is a further opportunity to kick back unwelcome legislation to the EU. Further, the EU employs civil servants at a ratio of civil servants to citizens of ~1/10000, compared to the UK ratio which is ~1/150. So it's not even particularly bureaucratic. If the council of ministers is making unpopular decisions it is because of a failure of democratically elected national governments to brief their representatives properly and engage with the process. But the fact is that plenty of people don't have a clue how the EU works. On the streets of Britain, public services have been run down by underinvestment, house prices are out of control due a reluctance to reign in property speculation and good blue collar jobs with decent pensions are being lost to globalisation, automation and 'Uberisation' of the labour market. So a bunch of older poorer people in villages and small towns across England and Wales (not Scotland), read in the right wing tabloids that immigrants are to blame, they take this at face value and fall for it hook line and sinker and will ironically end up with an even more right wing government that no-one has voted for under Boris Johnson. What's more, it was clear that the vote was entirely down to fear of immigration not actual experience of immigration as the brexit vote was strongest in areas with the least immigrants. Places where people have never met a brown person voted most strongly for out based purely on fear stoked by tabloids peddling a racist agenda. Indeed some of UKIP's campaign posters were almost facsimiles of 1930's NAZI imagery. There is a real democratic deficit in our system though. This referendum was proposed by the prime minister as part of a tactical gamble to control the right wing of his political party. This is a government which was only voted for by 1/3 of the electorate, and scraped through with a tiny majority of 6 MPs. The real wasteful bureaucracy with a strong dose of unelected elites is the UK parliament with the unelected House of Lords and the inefficient Houses of Parliament which is effectively a 'bistable' two party system due to the first past the post voting system. They waste unbelievable amounts of money changing things the previous government set up just in time for it all to be undone when they are voted out 10 years later. Political discourse amongst the populace seems like it is mostly dead in small town England and Wales, but it is striking to note however that political discourse is definitely not dead in Scotland and you can see the results as all of Scotland voted to remain. As an Englishman living in Scotland, and I speak for a lot of other English people I know up here too, I will definitely be voting to leave the UK and stay in the EU if the chance arises. There is plenty that is wrong with the EU, I think the council of ministers should be replaced, but it is at least as democratic as the UK parliament is now and more importantly it is a forward looking institution which is much more likely to evolve into something better than the UK parliament, especially after a vote like this.
• youngButEager 10y ago
  "The EU will be an easier-to-trade bloc of countries that will facilitate trade. THAT WAS THE CLAIM. Ask any English-born tradesperson trying to find work in England that pays anything. The reality is the EU morphed into a Leftist prank to have open borders and CENTRAL GOVERNMENT (in Brussels, Belgium). The Left says "let anyone into the country who wants to come." Yet me and my software engineer peers are constantly undermined by the very same thing -- elitists attempts to undermine our wages by flooding the tech worker ranks with as many foreign workers as our worthless U.S. Congress will allow. No freaking thank you. When my friends bring up 'the U.S. must eliminate our national borders' and I bring up the fact that our jobs have been undercut, our salaries marginalized, by that very same thing -- over-supply of labor -- it makes them stop and think of this 'no more borders' differently.
• dghughes 10y ago
  I find it odd a United Kingdom doesn't want to be in a united Europe.
• beninvalencia 10y ago
  I think it should be said to clear things up that EU citizens in the UK are not going to be "chucked out". This is not going to happen and the major political figures have said as much on live broadcast today. Yes, it would be prudent to get indefinite leave to remain if you can or something more solid - whatever you can. But the UK needs you and even if a hardcore right wing lunatic tried to expel you it is completely impractical. I also noticed some Irish people mentioning they would have to sell their house and leave - please for your sake, look up the official information on Irish/UK rules, you will find that they have freedom of movement regardless of the EU and in fact it goes much, much further than the EU rules. Specifically: "Unlike other EU citizens, UK citizens may retire to Ireland without having to establish that they have sufficient resources or that they have private health insurance." http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/moving_country/moving_to_ireland/rights_of_residence_in_ireland/residence_rules_UK_citizens.html http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/moving_country/moving_t... "Irish citizens automatically have a right to reside in the UK as part of the common travel area. If you were habitually resident in Ireland or any of the other places in the common travel area before you came to the UK, you will automatically satisfy the conditions of the HRT." https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/coming-from-abroad-and-claiming-benefits-the-habitual-residence-test/british-and-irish-citizens-claiming-benefits/ https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/coming-from-abroa... I think everybody needs to try and calm down. Even though a great many of us would have preferred not to leave, this can be OK. The UK can easily end up in the EEA which has freedom of movement etc anyway. This is not the time for panicked reactions!
• mlu 10y ago
  Why did they let the people decide in a direct referendum in the first place? That seems like a terrible idea for such a complex matter.
• mohsinr 10y ago
  2k+ comments wow!
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• subie 10y ago
  2016'th comment.
• univalent 10y ago
  Hate to use a poker analogy but: Cameron forgot the cardinal rule of gambling. Always leave yourself 'outs'. He raised the stakes when he had little to gain (shut up some dissidents in his party?) and everything to lose. No one forced him to do that.
• Chromozon 10y ago
  This is what happens when major decisions can be determined a simple majority vote. What does 52 to 48 mean? It means UNDECIDED. Half the country feels one way, and the other half feels the other way. For a change this large, it should require at least a 60/40 vote. If the population is undecided, why on earth would you suddenly stop what you have been doing for the last 50 years (which has worked out fine) and go down a different path? There needs to be much more of a push in the other direction.
  • ParkerK 10y ago
    >This is what happens when major decisions can be determined a simple majority vote. What does 52 to 48 mean? It means UNDECIDED. Half the country feels one way, and the other half feels the other way. For a change this large, it should require at least a 60/40 vote. If the population is undecided It's important to point out that most of the UK jvoted to leave, where as every province (do they have provinces?) in Scotland voted to remain. It's a tad ironic considering Scotland voted to remain in the UK the other year - but I think they'll be leaving the UK soon. I don't think the UK should remain because the vote was close, as once the Scottish vote is removed, it's much more than 52/48
  • alva 10y ago
    "What does 52 to 48 mean? It means UNDECIDED" No. It means 2% more people wanted Brexit.
    • dragonwriter 10y ago
      > "What does 52 to 48 mean? It means UNDECIDED" > No. It means 2% more people wanted Brexit. In traditional arithmetic, 52 is 4 more than 48, not 2 more.
      • alva 10y ago
        In traditional polling terminology, this was a 2% shift
        • 10y ago
• _audakel 10y ago
  Going out on a tangent - Would California be more successful as an independent country rather than as a state of the US? As things stand, California is currently the eighth largest economy in the world on their own. 17 of the top 30 U.S. tech companies are in California, which should come as no surprise. Tourism, entertainment, biotech, and agriculture are multibillion dollar industries already. Aerospace and defense contracts still rake in around $25bn a year. And many state business leaders are increasingly showing a real commitment to renewable energy. Overall, while I believe there is definitely more potential for a social democratic style of government if California were its own country, the changes would not be that drastic. Barring a major collapse, California would, like Canada, still remain in the U.S.'s economic and cultural shadow. And who knows? Secession might be the best thing to happen to other states like Texas, New York, and Massachusetts. Who else would be capable of filling the void left in the energy, media, and technology industries? There is certainly upside in such a move but also a great deal of risk.
  • Gaelan 10y ago
    I mean, the US doesn't have the best history with secession…
• hartpuff 10y ago
  > Young people are still building their lives, trying to establish their career. They're likely going to be denied the opportunity to live and work in 27 countries. Why? Do you think only EU citizens are allowed to live and work in the EU? Do you think British people are now banned from entry into the EU? Most people - young or old - do not even want to live and work in another European country. > I think it's pretty disgraceful that they've torpedoed our future based on their hazy rose-coloured memories of some supposedly-better past. I think it's pretty disgraceful that people like you demonstrate such incredible arrogance that your minority opinion is somehow innately superior; constructing ridiculous fantasies of why people voted to leave, based on absurd generalisations and a childish, rose-tinted view of the EU. There's nothing to stop you living in an EU country, if you think by virtue of those two letters it's such a utopia compared to the UK or any other non-EU country (aka almost every country on the planet).
  • dang 10y ago
    We've banned this account because you've repeatedly violated the HN guidelines both in this thread and elsewhere on the site. If you don't want it to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and promise to follow the rules in the future. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11968904 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11968904 and marked it off-topic.
    • orly101 10y ago
      > We've banned this account because you've repeatedly violated the HN guidelines both in this thread and elsewhere on the site. No I haven't. > If you don't want it to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and promise to follow the rules in the future. You should probably tell me what rules I've "repeatedly violated" all over this site then (despite this being the only thread I've posted to for 4 days). That might be difficult though, since I haven't violated any rules. Far from it in fact, I've received positive karma (still rising) for most of my posts in this thread (23 points from 8 posts) and not a single one has negative karma. Even this one you "detached and marked off topic" (despite it addressing exactly what the parent posted, in the same way the parent posted, even using some of the same words the parent used), was upvoted.
• lemiffe 10y ago
  This discussion on Hackernews should have happened before the exit and not after, 2100+ comments so far, it goes to say that we all have strong opinions on the matter that might have swayed some of us that can vote in the UK.
• bobthechef 10y ago
  So now that the transatlanticists (Hilary is one) have lost their EU insider, I suspect Poland will take its place. Given that Poland is a geopolitically strategic country, given Russian aggression, and given that German and Russia are "talking again", it seems that Brexit will prove fruitful for Poland in the long run...if both countries play their cards right. Impeding Polish immigration to Britain can also force a turn of events in Poland that prevent the gov't from relying on immigration to deal with unemployment through long overdue reforms.
• marcusgarvey 10y ago
  For everything there is a season. Globalism had a great reputation at the turn of the millennium. Then we had Iraq, the Great Financial Crisis and Syria, which damaged the credibility of the leadership class. So now status quo in the west cannot be taken for granted.
• jayess 10y ago
  Victory for self-determination.
• ommunist 10y ago
  I think this is a chance for the UK to overthrow Switzerland in private banking. For the rest of us, who are not so private in banking, its time to consider moving to Berlin.
  • XJOKOLAT 10y ago
    A few reasons why? (genuinely curious)
    • ommunist 10y ago
      Cheaper rent.
• jv22222 10y ago
  I wonder what the conspiracy theorists who believe in the New World Order conspiracy think about this. Seems like a blow to that theory from where I'm standing.
• woodpanel 10y ago
  As a modernist I loathe the Brits for this vote against the European project. As a libertarian I applaud them for their courage! As a stock holder I need a drink. I try to make up my mind, which Union will be more affected by the Brexit: The European Union or the British? Both institutions deserve some "house-cleaning" but after the Leave-Win it is sort of "either-or": A vote for "Union A" becomes a vote against "Union B" and vice-versa.
• NetTechM 10y ago
  America did this before it was mainstream.
• int0x80 10y ago
  Man, this thread is unreadable without comment-collapse.
• known 10y ago
  UK joined the EU only so it can break it from the inside :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37iHSwA1SwE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37iHSwA1SwE
• ascription 10y ago
  Britons today recover from a political bombshell, a vague distant aspect etched on the faces of Remainers and some Brexiteers alike, never quite fading as they proceed through the polite machinations of a just another Friday. Today there was no fire, nor planes charting a new course as they veer around the vertical borders of the common market, yet to the observer one thing is clear - something has changed, and this thing may not be undone. As the enormity of the situation sets in, Britain must reflect on her status. Yet as currency and foreign investment alike tick into the ether, we cannot afford leisurely introspection. Commentators alight to social media, fast food opinions winding through the networks to be forwarded, appraised, accosted, and forgotten. A stunned middle rouse from their silence, incredulity reigning. Someone must be blamed, and there are no shortage of targets. The deceitful far right must surely be deposed, their 350 million untruths a week publicly unravelled at the teeth of the media. Tautological slogans, much as we must surely want to “Make Britain British again” wear thin, amid claims of xenophobia being noncommittally dismissed, and swiftly, lest anyone ponder too long at their origin. The leave campaign celebrate an ethereal success, yet no definition of success appears. Nor was one provided - a marginal result in a referendum which declined to assert a majority, or to be legislatively bound to parliamentary action, leaves dangerous room for interpretation, yet as a consequence manages to leave none at all. The glaring omission makes one thing clear - there is no plan - for who can plan for what cannot be defined? The stage show props of austerity budgets are shuffled back under coats amid sheepish mutterings of “ah, well, before the vote, you see…”. The idea of success of this referendum was to do not with the outcome, but with its existence. A scrap, thrown far to the right in exchange for a grubby four years, has swiftly been devoured, and the leader finds his four years have, overnight, been devalued to two. Exposed to his short sell on the exchange rate of democracy to political capital, he has built an unflattering legacy. The leader who failed to lead, and the alumnus who handed the keys to the counterfeit every-men riding a wave of anti-intellectualism, has gambled one time too many and must bear the greatest loss of his era. Not only has the sea between Britain and the world become rougher than ever, but the political dice are cast, and as they tumble to a halt, the shape of the United Kingdom itself now rests on how they lie.
• w_t_payne 10y ago
  London Stays. http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-latest-london-independence-time-to-leave-uk-eu-referendum-sadiq-khan-boris-johnson-a7100601.html http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-latest-london-ind...
• 75dvtwin 10y ago
  I think it is a great day for the power of direct democracy, individual impact, and subsequent accountability for ones voting decisions. The old England introduced to the world of kings & dictators, the Habeas Corpus and Magna Carta. Now, the UK of 2016 had shown that the voters -- can take the decision power back. The so called 'representative democracy' is no longer representative, it is, instead -- a 'Placebo' democracy. Where the voters are mislead to think that their opinion matters. And it is the 'leavers' people of UK, the voters who are described on this forum as the 'old and un-educated' -- are the first in Europe, to recognize that they were sold a Placebo-democracy. The vote to leave is the first chapter in the modern's world Magna Carta. And I congratulate the people of UK.
• nec4b 10y ago
  Congratulations to British people for their courage and determination. It amazing how much primitivism and hate on a forum of the self called "elite" and the "intellectuals" who cannot stand that someone could think differently about their grandiose ideas.
• pcvarmint 10y ago
  I consider this a good development. Anytime a sovereign group of individuals declares independence from a larger group, which inevitably has different interests, it's a good thing. I don't know why there's so much despair over this. Yes, surely there are short-term negative effects, whether in the loss of EU privileges, or the temporary losses in currency values, but in the long-term, there's more independence and self-sufficiency. A larger body of government isn't smarter; in fact, it is more detached from local concerns, and less able to react to them in a timely fashion. We should celebrate the Brexit, just as we should celebrate any and all declarations of independence from larger bodies of governance.