10 ms·

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 s

by 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
UK most likely wont be able to negotiate similar terms with EU countries. France/Germany at least will be pissed with them and give UK terrible deals out of spite. I expect a lot of other EU countries to do the same. edit: Also I now have to buy my shit from France/Germany Amazon? (Or just have an English language Amazon for the continental Europe please...)
- UK-AL 10y ago
  Out of spite? Refusing to neogiate decent trade deals would mean tons of job losses for Germany and France.
  - jonknee 10y ago
    But even worse losses in the UK, a fact that every other negotiating partner knows. The rest of the EU has all the leverage.
    - UK-AL 10y ago
      Not really. Because it will be tit for tat strategy. In order to not get job losses, both have to cooperate
      - jonknee 10y ago
        You can bet that the big EU countries (Germany and France especially) are going to play hardball to make an example of someone who dares to quit the EU.
        UK-AL 10y ago
        Think that would politically difficult at the cost of many of jobs.
        generj 10y ago
        Not really. German politicians can just play up the betrayal card - UK leaving means the Germans are now left holding the bag even more for the EU. Germany has a strong economy and this will not affect its fundamentals that much.
gakada 10y ago
Single market. Despite some bigots who don't want Polish people existing near them, having free movement of people, goods, capital and all the rest of it is really good for the participant economies. Can you imagine if US citizens had to get a visa to move from New York to California?
- imsofuture 10y ago
  The US and the EU are really different entities.
  - guitarbill 10y ago
    A lot of the same principles at play though. Single currency. No visas. Same norms and industry standards to make "exporting" from e.g. California to Texas painless. Etc.
    - vsl 10y ago
      US: Same language, same culture, directly voted government and Senate that answers to the people. A standard democracy on both state and federal levels. EU: A mix of countries that don't share the language or the culture. Legislative body is not voted (Comission: bureaucrats in the literal sense of the word). The little bit of directly-voted part, European Parliament, has only limited power and is out of sight of the voters. There's no oversight, most people don't even have a chance to know what's cooking until it's the law and is too late to do anything about it. US-like federation of EU is not possibly for the lack of common language alone. Without it, there's no oversight. Without oversight, you get the current EU.
      - vidarh 10y ago
        > Same language, same culture, directly voted government and Senate that answers to the people. A standard democracy on both state and federal levels. All of which took about two hundred years to achieve. The starting point was a mix of languages, to the point it was not clear that English would become so dominant as it has become (and it's not clear it will remain so) and the majority of the adult population could not vote at all. The EU is at the point of trying to "work around" the type of problems the US had under the Articles of Confederation. A lot of the cumbersome messy structure of the EU basically comes down to not wanting to make those mistakes (leading e.g. Congress to vote for measures only for states to just ignore them and refuse to fund stuff they were against, with Congress having no means of enforcing decisions). It took a lot of time and problems before the US went fully federal. > US-like federation of EU is not possibly for the lack of common language alone. By that argument, the existence of the US is an impossibility. The US did not have a common language when it was first created. There are still millions of Americans that speak little English, though the proportion is much greater now tha it used to be.
bontoJR 10y ago
Because it's unknown and it's actually the same points that have been brought when Switzerland decided to stay outside. The arguments were: - We are going to be isolated - Our economy will crash - We will struggle to find high educated people - We will just disappear Now, after almost 25 years we can't say we did the wrong thing, but hey, UK is not Switzerland, it's a totally different economy which different proportions. I don't think this has to be considered totally bad, it's a sign something HAS to change, but now the brits have to work to make this happen in the very best way, it's an opportunity and a clear demonstration that the actual structure of the EU can't work on this way, this seems to be pretty clear. Only time will say if the decision was good or not, but which side is going to end this decision is up to the britains, they have to work hard and do it now to make this be a good thing, rather the beginning of the end, starting with keeping Scotland in the UK.
- danmaz74 10y ago
  But basically Switzerland is accepting lots of EU regulations - including free movement of people - in exchange for free trade. Accepting those regulations is exactly what the brexiters don't want. So, I doubt this will end up well.
dharma1 10y ago
A lot of businesses, including startups, will consider where they need to be based for access to a European single market. Until today that was likely to be London.
- jsn117 10y ago
  mostly Ireland for tax reasons
  - bengalister 10y ago
    I tend to agree with that also for US companies. Many US companies already have their European branch based in Ireland. It is closer to US and they share the same language. For middle eastern and Asian, they'll probably go to Germany.
- herbst 10y ago
  Estonia. All the benefits are with Estonia anyway, UK was just prefered because it sounds cheap at first. (IMO)
  - dharma1 10y ago
    I've got a lot of love for Estonia, but you cant really compare it to London
    - herbst 10y ago
      Depends about what we are talking about. Personally i would never consider actually moving to london, but a UK LLC is/was always a option. Therefore thats all i thought about. Local scene is surely a different topic.
edge17 10y ago
It's not just trade laws, there are also laws about employment across borders, taxation across borders, etc.
alkonaut 10y ago
They may be able to negotiate similar deals in the long term - but presumably those who voted to leave aren't going to accept the terms of those deals, such as free movement of people.
cromulent 10y ago
There are many ways to look at it. One way is that the old non-unified Europe used to fight a lot, and the smaller states could be preyed upon. The unified one doesn't have these issues. Therefore you could see the EU as a Good Thing (in fact they won a Nobel Peace Prize for this). Therefore anything in the opposite direction is bad. Of course, things are not that simple. In general, I think that society is slowly moving towards less borders and more global cooperation. I would be surprised if in a thousand years there are still 200 individual countries and governments. This step seems like a wrinkle in that trend.
- UK-AL 10y ago
  Globalism still means there could be countries. But borders will mean less.
- Vespasian 10y ago
  That is my greatest fear for the far future. That Europe starts on a path that will lead to wars within a few decade. Right now the European economic powerhouses are strong enough to thouroughly destroy the continent (winners and loosers alike) and probably a good deal of the worldwide economy. Whatever happens that fear must not become a reality.
sho_hn 10y ago
But how well does the UK do on democracy: Scottland and Northern Ireland will be removed from the EU against their will, by a narrow majority mostly built in Northern England. How does that actually get people a government closer to them? It seems much more sensible to remove the useless middle layer (i.e. the UK) and for everyone to collaborate in the EU. The EU being anti-democratic sounds like a case of "citation needed" for me. What major problems remain after the 2009 changes?
- hartator 10y ago
  We still don't vote for the executive branch.
  - chronid 10y ago
    The executive branch has to be approved by the EU parliament, so technically we do. Just not directly.
    - Findeton 10y ago
      The Eurogroup has the same legal status and regulations as a bunch of guys doing a meeting on a pub, yet, important decisions are made in the Eurogroup. Because of the Eurogroup having no law or regulation, you might be part of the EU but not get invited (ask Varoufakis/Greece).
      - chronid 10y ago
        Not after the Lisbon treaty, and they are closely related to the EU Council (the "other" chamber of the parliament) - particularly to the ECOFin (which is the subset of EU council members which adopted the Euro and where the policies are actually voted). Varoufakis left the Eurogroup, anyway, it's not like he was not invited. That said, I don't like it too. No real transparency or accountability is always bad. And I'm not saying the EU is perfect - far from it! - I'm just saying that where it's not perfect it is because it is a big compromise between people wanting a federation and people wanting to keep their power and an economic union.
riffraff 10y ago
you can't really negotiate trade tariffs without agreeing on consistent regulation (i.e. you won't be able to sell stuff which is illegal in the EU). So basically you end up in the same position, having to abide by EU regulation, but without having weight in the decisional process. It's silly, really. FWIW, there is a host of things where nothing will change, as most treaties don't get invalidated and the UK is still a member of the council of europe, EEA, EU customs union etc
- Scarblac 10y ago
  Didn't Cameron say that the referendum was for leaving both EU and EEA?
  - riffraff 10y ago
    did he? I don't live in the UK, but AFAIK the question was "remain in the EU". I assumed this was on purpose so it could be acted upon as "become norway" rather than "become ukraine".
    - Scarblac 10y ago
      I can't find the source, but as the Leave campaign has been stressing the importance of limiting immigration and doesn't want freedom of movement, it seems that they'd go for leaving the EEA as well as the EU. If they were to stay in the EEA, nothing about free movement would change.
    - selmat 10y ago
      http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/find-information-by-subject/elections-and-referendums/upcoming-elections-and-referendums/eu-referendum/eu-referendum-question-assessment http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/find-information-by-su...
atmosx 10y ago
> But won't the UK just be able to pretty quickly renegotiate basically similar terms again anyway? You seem to think that the EU is made of sensible people. It's not. Indeed, Brussels is at the very root of the problem. The terms they'll offer will be humiliating. I can assure you, that they'll be nothing that a UK gov can sign and we'll be displayed in a very, very public manner to make the Britons feel humiliated.
- atmosx 10y ago
  http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/24/europe-plunged-crisis-britain-votes-leave-eu-european-union http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/24/europe-plung...
tzs 10y ago
This comment [1] from /u/he3-1 on Reddit has some good reasons that many think this is bad: ---- begin quote ---- Economist here. This is what a recent poll of economists on this issue looks like [2], we have a pretty good idea of some of the things that come next and they are not good. There are four major areas of concern; • London is the financial center of the EU because the UK is both in the EU and is relatively friendly to financial services. Absent the UK having a regulatory treaty with the EU (which they can't without being part of the EU) financial services will be forced to move to the mainland. Even prior the vote there was work underway on this, the first movements will begin to occur in a couple of weeks. Several other sectors are similarly at risk. • When the UK leaves it has no trade treaties with any other country in the world. This means all British goods will incur new or higher tariffs in all trading partner countries, British goods become more expensive when compared to comparable goods produced elsewhere. There is not a magic button here, it typically takes decades to either create new treaties or join an existing one. • If the UK decides it wants access to the single market it also needs to adopt single market rules, effectively accepting all EU regulation but without having any voice in that regulation. That's assuming France & Germany don't just block UK access to the single market out of spite. • The UK no longer has visa free access to EU states and the same is true of the EU to the UK. There are enormous numbers of British ex-pats who live on the continent and enormous numbers of non-UK EU citizens who live in the UK. Even if the UK & EU manage to push through a very hasty set of reforms allowing those who have lived there for n years to remain we are still talking about pretty significant labor displacement & disruption. When every major central bank in the world have brought in extra staff and have prepared their emergency liquidity facilities you are going to have a bad day. I expect the pound to hit dollar equality tomorrow, its going to be the ERM disaster on steroids. ---- end quote ---- [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/4pkt3k/bbc_forecasts_uk_votes_to_leave_the_european_union/d4lu84e https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/4pkt3k/bbc_forec... [2] http://www.igmchicago.org/igm-economic-experts-panel/poll-results?SurveyID=SV_eFoTcGmOErkCztz http://www.igmchicago.org/igm-economic-experts-panel/poll-re...
mrb 10y ago
Being an EU member means free movement of capital, goods, and people. Trade deals cover "capital" and "goods", but usually not "people". So concretely speaking, labor costs will rise in the UK (due to a reduction of cheap workers immigrating from other EU countries to the UK) and the country will start experiencing a deficit of highly skilled workers¹ (due to educated workers not able to immigrate). ¹ Of all places, the HN community should be familiar with this issue, because it is often discussed in the context of the US ("startup visa", etc).
- darawk 10y ago
  But they can simply reestablish deals regarding people as well. Plenty of countries have deals regarding movement of people. And Switzerland even has a deal with the EU that allows the exact same movement of people as if they were a member.
  - Tomte 10y ago
    Yes, they can. Usually you're lucky if it only takes years to negotiate and finalize them. Decades are not unheard of.
vidarh 10y ago
> But won't the UK just be able to pretty quickly renegotiate basically similar terms again anyway? Probably. But the leavers don't want "basically similar terms". They want the trade benefits without "paying" with things like freedom of movement. The EU will never allow that, as if they let the UK pick and choose the part they like best, other countries will want special treatment too. The best the UK can hope for in order to get the same access to the EU market as before, is something like the EEA, which means accepting all the things the leave campaigners have wanted to get rid of, and get no say whatsoever, similar to Norway. In which case the UKs democratic deficit will have just widened even further.
- Chris2048 10y ago
  > But the leavers don't want "basically similar terms" Says who?
fscherer 10y ago
peace, one big market, free movement of people did provide some value.
thenomad 10y ago
I fact-checked this a while ago. The EU is arguably more democratic than the UK, and certainly it's very hard to show it's less so. https://medium.com/im-trying-to-fact-check-brexit/fact-check-is-the-eu-undemocratic-70bed70af7da#.1gzofrh6b https://medium.com/im-trying-to-fact-check-brexit/fact-check...
- darawk 10y ago
  While interesting, i'm not sure that argument is sound. The House of Lords is not the only, or even the most powerful, body involved in law making in the UK. The House of Commons, who is elected, actually proposes and passes laws. This is in contrast to the EU, where 'legislative initiative', IMO the most important power, is held by the unelected body - the commission / executive branch.
  - thenomad 10y ago
    That's a bit of a misunderstanding of the role of the Commission. The Parliament and even the people of Europe (via a petition) can ask the Commission to propose legislation, and in the case of the Parliament, it's widely considered that the Commission is compelled to do so. See http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/bibliotheque/briefing/2013/130619/LDM_BRI(2013)130619_REV2_EN.pdf http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/bibliotheque/briefing/... The Commission has only once ever in the history of the EU refused to produce legislative proposals after the Parliament asked them to do so, and the reason there was that existing laws already covered the case. So effectively the European Parliament has legislative initiative - it's just that the Commission is the group that drafts the detailed proposals, which are then debated and amended by the Parliament. As far as I can tell, the Commission takes the role of the Civil Service in the UK parliament to a large extent. (Also, I don't believe I argued in the article that the House Of Lords was the only part of the UK government. Obviously it is not.)
    - darawk 10y ago
      > Whilst this 'indirect' initiative right does not create an obligation on the Commission to propose the legislation requested, the Treaty of Lisbon codified the Commission's obligation to provide reasons for any refusal to follow a parliamentary initiative. Many argue in this context that Parliament could take the Commission to the Court of Justice of the EU if it fails to justify a negative decision. That's hardly the same thing as having the power to propose legislation on your own. All they are compelled to do is justify their refusal. Whether or not they have ever refused to do it in the past is also independent of who holds the actual power. > (Also, I don't believe I argued in the article that the House Of Lords was the only part of the UK government. Obviously it is not.) I didn't mean to imply that you did. My point is that the two roles seem to be reversed here, and that that is important. The EU parliament (democratic) holds roughly the power as the House of Lords (undemocratic), whereas the House of Commons (democratic) holds power equivalent to the European Commission (undemocratic). And that this makes the EU less of a democracy than the UK.
wobbleblob 10y ago
People like you are repeating that 'anti-democratic' mantra all the time, without really explaining what they mean. When politicians hear people say 'not democratic enough!', they think you mean 'more power to the EU parliament' (elected directly) and less to the European Commission (one member per member state, chosen by your own elected government), but that's not what they want, is it? What they really mean is they want it to be less democratic, because democracy makes it look like a state. So when people call it anti-democratic, what they really mean is they want to do away with the democratic elements altogether. The EU made it possible to drive from the Baltic to the Algarve without having to ask permission, without armed border guards searching your luggage... seven times! It made flying from Belgium to Italy as easy and pain free as flying from Atlanta to Pensacola. Why people reject the freedom to travel is beyond me. I loved every minute of it, while it lasted... It's not just open borders or free trade. It's about removing barriers and red tape hindering free travel and trade. It's about making sure that the car you bought in Estonia isn't stopped at he border in Spain because of different safety regulations, ending your trip to the Algarve in tears. It's about not getting in trouble because the food you bought in France on the way back doesn't meet the regulations in Austria. I'm old enough to remember the difference. You, I assume, are not. The EU has brought a massive amount of freedom. Actual freedom and freedom from red tape, but all people want to talk about is burocracy. This burocracy is working to straighten out the differences between countries that caused tons and tons red tape in the past. That's a lot of work, there were a lot of differences. People keep talking about a waste of money. The total budget of the EU was 143 billion euro in 2014, roughly comparable to the government budget of Finland (5 million people). To put that in perspective, the total federal budget of the US is something in the order of 4 trillion. It's really a budget price for something of such a massive scope. To the people trying to take this away: thanks a lot. Why they hate freedom, I'll never understand.
- darawk 10y ago
  I don't live in the UK, so I don't have a memory of either condition, except indirectly. The 'undemocratic' element, I suppose, is that the elected parliament of the EU appears to me to be its weakest component. The commission and the council seem notably more powerful and are both unelected (except quite indirectly). Now, I don't disagree with you that free travel, trade and relocation are good things. What I don't quite understand is why it was ever necessary to have a European Union in order to achieve that. It seems to me that this could have and should have been achieved without such a heavy-handed institution.
lukasm 10y ago
Negotiation Leverage. Not a fan of EU bureaucracy, but I think entity like this is a necessity. It's really hard to negotiate with a 10x actor like USA or China.

by darawk 10y ago

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

UK most likely wont be able to negotiate similar terms with EU countries. France/Germany at least will be pissed with them and give UK terrible deals out of spite. I expect a lot of other EU countries to do the same. edit: Also I now have to buy my shit from France/Germany Amazon? (Or just have an English language Amazon for the continental Europe please...)

UK-AL 10y ago
Out of spite? Refusing to neogiate decent trade deals would mean tons of job losses for Germany and France.
- jonknee 10y ago
  But even worse losses in the UK, a fact that every other negotiating partner knows. The rest of the EU has all the leverage.
  - UK-AL 10y ago
    Not really. Because it will be tit for tat strategy. In order to not get job losses, both have to cooperate
    - jonknee 10y ago
      You can bet that the big EU countries (Germany and France especially) are going to play hardball to make an example of someone who dares to quit the EU.
      - UK-AL 10y ago
        Think that would politically difficult at the cost of many of jobs.
        generj 10y ago
        Not really. German politicians can just play up the betrayal card - UK leaving means the Germans are now left holding the bag even more for the EU. Germany has a strong economy and this will not affect its fundamentals that much.

gakada 10y ago

Single market. Despite some bigots who don't want Polish people existing near them, having free movement of people, goods, capital and all the rest of it is really good for the participant economies. Can you imagine if US citizens had to get a visa to move from New York to California?

imsofuture 10y ago
The US and the EU are really different entities.
- guitarbill 10y ago
  A lot of the same principles at play though. Single currency. No visas. Same norms and industry standards to make "exporting" from e.g. California to Texas painless. Etc.
  - vsl 10y ago
    US: Same language, same culture, directly voted government and Senate that answers to the people. A standard democracy on both state and federal levels. EU: A mix of countries that don't share the language or the culture. Legislative body is not voted (Comission: bureaucrats in the literal sense of the word). The little bit of directly-voted part, European Parliament, has only limited power and is out of sight of the voters. There's no oversight, most people don't even have a chance to know what's cooking until it's the law and is too late to do anything about it. US-like federation of EU is not possibly for the lack of common language alone. Without it, there's no oversight. Without oversight, you get the current EU.
    - vidarh 10y ago
      > Same language, same culture, directly voted government and Senate that answers to the people. A standard democracy on both state and federal levels. All of which took about two hundred years to achieve. The starting point was a mix of languages, to the point it was not clear that English would become so dominant as it has become (and it's not clear it will remain so) and the majority of the adult population could not vote at all. The EU is at the point of trying to "work around" the type of problems the US had under the Articles of Confederation. A lot of the cumbersome messy structure of the EU basically comes down to not wanting to make those mistakes (leading e.g. Congress to vote for measures only for states to just ignore them and refuse to fund stuff they were against, with Congress having no means of enforcing decisions). It took a lot of time and problems before the US went fully federal. > US-like federation of EU is not possibly for the lack of common language alone. By that argument, the existence of the US is an impossibility. The US did not have a common language when it was first created. There are still millions of Americans that speak little English, though the proportion is much greater now tha it used to be.

bontoJR 10y ago

Because it's unknown and it's actually the same points that have been brought when Switzerland decided to stay outside. The arguments were: - We are going to be isolated - Our economy will crash - We will struggle to find high educated people - We will just disappear Now, after almost 25 years we can't say we did the wrong thing, but hey, UK is not Switzerland, it's a totally different economy which different proportions. I don't think this has to be considered totally bad, it's a sign something HAS to change, but now the brits have to work to make this happen in the very best way, it's an opportunity and a clear demonstration that the actual structure of the EU can't work on this way, this seems to be pretty clear. Only time will say if the decision was good or not, but which side is going to end this decision is up to the britains, they have to work hard and do it now to make this be a good thing, rather the beginning of the end, starting with keeping Scotland in the UK.

danmaz74 10y ago
But basically Switzerland is accepting lots of EU regulations - including free movement of people - in exchange for free trade. Accepting those regulations is exactly what the brexiters don't want. So, I doubt this will end up well.

dharma1 10y ago

A lot of businesses, including startups, will consider where they need to be based for access to a European single market. Until today that was likely to be London.

jsn117 10y ago
mostly Ireland for tax reasons
- bengalister 10y ago
  I tend to agree with that also for US companies. Many US companies already have their European branch based in Ireland. It is closer to US and they share the same language. For middle eastern and Asian, they'll probably go to Germany.
herbst 10y ago
Estonia. All the benefits are with Estonia anyway, UK was just prefered because it sounds cheap at first. (IMO)
- dharma1 10y ago
  I've got a lot of love for Estonia, but you cant really compare it to London
  - herbst 10y ago
    Depends about what we are talking about. Personally i would never consider actually moving to london, but a UK LLC is/was always a option. Therefore thats all i thought about. Local scene is surely a different topic.

edge17 10y ago

It's not just trade laws, there are also laws about employment across borders, taxation across borders, etc.

alkonaut 10y ago

They may be able to negotiate similar deals in the long term - but presumably those who voted to leave aren't going to accept the terms of those deals, such as free movement of people.

cromulent 10y ago

There are many ways to look at it. One way is that the old non-unified Europe used to fight a lot, and the smaller states could be preyed upon. The unified one doesn't have these issues. Therefore you could see the EU as a Good Thing (in fact they won a Nobel Peace Prize for this). Therefore anything in the opposite direction is bad. Of course, things are not that simple. In general, I think that society is slowly moving towards less borders and more global cooperation. I would be surprised if in a thousand years there are still 200 individual countries and governments. This step seems like a wrinkle in that trend.

UK-AL 10y ago
Globalism still means there could be countries. But borders will mean less.
Vespasian 10y ago
That is my greatest fear for the far future. That Europe starts on a path that will lead to wars within a few decade. Right now the European economic powerhouses are strong enough to thouroughly destroy the continent (winners and loosers alike) and probably a good deal of the worldwide economy. Whatever happens that fear must not become a reality.

sho_hn 10y ago

But how well does the UK do on democracy: Scottland and Northern Ireland will be removed from the EU against their will, by a narrow majority mostly built in Northern England. How does that actually get people a government closer to them? It seems much more sensible to remove the useless middle layer (i.e. the UK) and for everyone to collaborate in the EU. The EU being anti-democratic sounds like a case of "citation needed" for me. What major problems remain after the 2009 changes?

hartator 10y ago
We still don't vote for the executive branch.
- chronid 10y ago
  The executive branch has to be approved by the EU parliament, so technically we do. Just not directly.
  - Findeton 10y ago
    The Eurogroup has the same legal status and regulations as a bunch of guys doing a meeting on a pub, yet, important decisions are made in the Eurogroup. Because of the Eurogroup having no law or regulation, you might be part of the EU but not get invited (ask Varoufakis/Greece).
    - chronid 10y ago
      Not after the Lisbon treaty, and they are closely related to the EU Council (the "other" chamber of the parliament) - particularly to the ECOFin (which is the subset of EU council members which adopted the Euro and where the policies are actually voted). Varoufakis left the Eurogroup, anyway, it's not like he was not invited. That said, I don't like it too. No real transparency or accountability is always bad. And I'm not saying the EU is perfect - far from it! - I'm just saying that where it's not perfect it is because it is a big compromise between people wanting a federation and people wanting to keep their power and an economic union.

riffraff 10y ago

you can't really negotiate trade tariffs without agreeing on consistent regulation (i.e. you won't be able to sell stuff which is illegal in the EU). So basically you end up in the same position, having to abide by EU regulation, but without having weight in the decisional process. It's silly, really. FWIW, there is a host of things where nothing will change, as most treaties don't get invalidated and the UK is still a member of the council of europe, EEA, EU customs union etc

Scarblac 10y ago
Didn't Cameron say that the referendum was for leaving both EU and EEA?
- riffraff 10y ago
  did he? I don't live in the UK, but AFAIK the question was "remain in the EU". I assumed this was on purpose so it could be acted upon as "become norway" rather than "become ukraine".
  - Scarblac 10y ago
    I can't find the source, but as the Leave campaign has been stressing the importance of limiting immigration and doesn't want freedom of movement, it seems that they'd go for leaving the EEA as well as the EU. If they were to stay in the EEA, nothing about free movement would change.
  - selmat 10y ago
    http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/find-information-by-subject/elections-and-referendums/upcoming-elections-and-referendums/eu-referendum/eu-referendum-question-assessment http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/find-information-by-su...

atmosx 10y ago

> But won't the UK just be able to pretty quickly renegotiate basically similar terms again anyway? You seem to think that the EU is made of sensible people. It's not. Indeed, Brussels is at the very root of the problem. The terms they'll offer will be humiliating. I can assure you, that they'll be nothing that a UK gov can sign and we'll be displayed in a very, very public manner to make the Britons feel humiliated.

atmosx 10y ago
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/24/europe-plunged-crisis-britain-votes-leave-eu-european-union http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/24/europe-plung...

tzs 10y ago

This comment [1] from /u/he3-1 on Reddit has some good reasons that many think this is bad: ---- begin quote ---- Economist here. This is what a recent poll of economists on this issue looks like [2], we have a pretty good idea of some of the things that come next and they are not good. There are four major areas of concern; • London is the financial center of the EU because the UK is both in the EU and is relatively friendly to financial services. Absent the UK having a regulatory treaty with the EU (which they can't without being part of the EU) financial services will be forced to move to the mainland. Even prior the vote there was work underway on this, the first movements will begin to occur in a couple of weeks. Several other sectors are similarly at risk. • When the UK leaves it has no trade treaties with any other country in the world. This means all British goods will incur new or higher tariffs in all trading partner countries, British goods become more expensive when compared to comparable goods produced elsewhere. There is not a magic button here, it typically takes decades to either create new treaties or join an existing one. • If the UK decides it wants access to the single market it also needs to adopt single market rules, effectively accepting all EU regulation but without having any voice in that regulation. That's assuming France & Germany don't just block UK access to the single market out of spite. • The UK no longer has visa free access to EU states and the same is true of the EU to the UK. There are enormous numbers of British ex-pats who live on the continent and enormous numbers of non-UK EU citizens who live in the UK. Even if the UK & EU manage to push through a very hasty set of reforms allowing those who have lived there for n years to remain we are still talking about pretty significant labor displacement & disruption. When every major central bank in the world have brought in extra staff and have prepared their emergency liquidity facilities you are going to have a bad day. I expect the pound to hit dollar equality tomorrow, its going to be the ERM disaster on steroids. ---- end quote ---- [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/4pkt3k/bbc_forecasts_uk_votes_to_leave_the_european_union/d4lu84e https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/4pkt3k/bbc_forec... [2] http://www.igmchicago.org/igm-economic-experts-panel/poll-results?SurveyID=SV_eFoTcGmOErkCztz http://www.igmchicago.org/igm-economic-experts-panel/poll-re...

mrb 10y ago

Being an EU member means free movement of capital, goods, and people. Trade deals cover "capital" and "goods", but usually not "people". So concretely speaking, labor costs will rise in the UK (due to a reduction of cheap workers immigrating from other EU countries to the UK) and the country will start experiencing a deficit of highly skilled workers¹ (due to educated workers not able to immigrate). ¹ Of all places, the HN community should be familiar with this issue, because it is often discussed in the context of the US ("startup visa", etc).

darawk 10y ago
But they can simply reestablish deals regarding people as well. Plenty of countries have deals regarding movement of people. And Switzerland even has a deal with the EU that allows the exact same movement of people as if they were a member.
- Tomte 10y ago
  Yes, they can. Usually you're lucky if it only takes years to negotiate and finalize them. Decades are not unheard of.

vidarh 10y ago

> But won't the UK just be able to pretty quickly renegotiate basically similar terms again anyway? Probably. But the leavers don't want "basically similar terms". They want the trade benefits without "paying" with things like freedom of movement. The EU will never allow that, as if they let the UK pick and choose the part they like best, other countries will want special treatment too. The best the UK can hope for in order to get the same access to the EU market as before, is something like the EEA, which means accepting all the things the leave campaigners have wanted to get rid of, and get no say whatsoever, similar to Norway. In which case the UKs democratic deficit will have just widened even further.

Chris2048 10y ago
> But the leavers don't want "basically similar terms" Says who?

fscherer 10y ago

peace, one big market, free movement of people did provide some value.

thenomad 10y ago

I fact-checked this a while ago. The EU is arguably more democratic than the UK, and certainly it's very hard to show it's less so. https://medium.com/im-trying-to-fact-check-brexit/fact-check-is-the-eu-undemocratic-70bed70af7da#.1gzofrh6b https://medium.com/im-trying-to-fact-check-brexit/fact-check...

darawk 10y ago
While interesting, i'm not sure that argument is sound. The House of Lords is not the only, or even the most powerful, body involved in law making in the UK. The House of Commons, who is elected, actually proposes and passes laws. This is in contrast to the EU, where 'legislative initiative', IMO the most important power, is held by the unelected body - the commission / executive branch.
- thenomad 10y ago
  That's a bit of a misunderstanding of the role of the Commission. The Parliament and even the people of Europe (via a petition) can ask the Commission to propose legislation, and in the case of the Parliament, it's widely considered that the Commission is compelled to do so. See http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/bibliotheque/briefing/2013/130619/LDM_BRI(2013)130619_REV2_EN.pdf http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/bibliotheque/briefing/... The Commission has only once ever in the history of the EU refused to produce legislative proposals after the Parliament asked them to do so, and the reason there was that existing laws already covered the case. So effectively the European Parliament has legislative initiative - it's just that the Commission is the group that drafts the detailed proposals, which are then debated and amended by the Parliament. As far as I can tell, the Commission takes the role of the Civil Service in the UK parliament to a large extent. (Also, I don't believe I argued in the article that the House Of Lords was the only part of the UK government. Obviously it is not.)
  - darawk 10y ago
    > Whilst this 'indirect' initiative right does not create an obligation on the Commission to propose the legislation requested, the Treaty of Lisbon codified the Commission's obligation to provide reasons for any refusal to follow a parliamentary initiative. Many argue in this context that Parliament could take the Commission to the Court of Justice of the EU if it fails to justify a negative decision. That's hardly the same thing as having the power to propose legislation on your own. All they are compelled to do is justify their refusal. Whether or not they have ever refused to do it in the past is also independent of who holds the actual power. > (Also, I don't believe I argued in the article that the House Of Lords was the only part of the UK government. Obviously it is not.) I didn't mean to imply that you did. My point is that the two roles seem to be reversed here, and that that is important. The EU parliament (democratic) holds roughly the power as the House of Lords (undemocratic), whereas the House of Commons (democratic) holds power equivalent to the European Commission (undemocratic). And that this makes the EU less of a democracy than the UK.

wobbleblob 10y ago

People like you are repeating that 'anti-democratic' mantra all the time, without really explaining what they mean. When politicians hear people say 'not democratic enough!', they think you mean 'more power to the EU parliament' (elected directly) and less to the European Commission (one member per member state, chosen by your own elected government), but that's not what they want, is it? What they really mean is they want it to be less democratic, because democracy makes it look like a state. So when people call it anti-democratic, what they really mean is they want to do away with the democratic elements altogether. The EU made it possible to drive from the Baltic to the Algarve without having to ask permission, without armed border guards searching your luggage... seven times! It made flying from Belgium to Italy as easy and pain free as flying from Atlanta to Pensacola. Why people reject the freedom to travel is beyond me. I loved every minute of it, while it lasted... It's not just open borders or free trade. It's about removing barriers and red tape hindering free travel and trade. It's about making sure that the car you bought in Estonia isn't stopped at he border in Spain because of different safety regulations, ending your trip to the Algarve in tears. It's about not getting in trouble because the food you bought in France on the way back doesn't meet the regulations in Austria. I'm old enough to remember the difference. You, I assume, are not. The EU has brought a massive amount of freedom. Actual freedom and freedom from red tape, but all people want to talk about is burocracy. This burocracy is working to straighten out the differences between countries that caused tons and tons red tape in the past. That's a lot of work, there were a lot of differences. People keep talking about a waste of money. The total budget of the EU was 143 billion euro in 2014, roughly comparable to the government budget of Finland (5 million people). To put that in perspective, the total federal budget of the US is something in the order of 4 trillion. It's really a budget price for something of such a massive scope. To the people trying to take this away: thanks a lot. Why they hate freedom, I'll never understand.

darawk 10y ago
I don't live in the UK, so I don't have a memory of either condition, except indirectly. The 'undemocratic' element, I suppose, is that the elected parliament of the EU appears to me to be its weakest component. The commission and the council seem notably more powerful and are both unelected (except quite indirectly). Now, I don't disagree with you that free travel, trade and relocation are good things. What I don't quite understand is why it was ever necessary to have a European Union in order to achieve that. It seems to me that this could have and should have been achieved without such a heavy-handed institution.

lukasm 10y ago

Negotiation Leverage. Not a fan of EU bureaucracy, but I think entity like this is a necessity. It's really hard to negotiate with a 10x actor like USA or China.