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I can't decide if Brexit is good or bad for the UK. On the one hand, there's the common market and freedom of movement. On the other there's Germany's dominance

I can't decide if Brexit is good or bad for the UK. On the one hand, there's the common market and freedom of movement. On the other there's Germany's dominance and lots of fragile banks. What would be worse, losing access to the free market or being around if the banks fail? Or would being outside the market make a difference if Deutsche Bank failed?

isostatic 9y ago
The UK isn't part of the euro, it will be just as badly affected by a collapse in european banks as our trade will still remain with europe
nkkollaw 9y ago
Bad. If anything because they'll have to rewrite thousands of laws and procedures that came from the EU times, and deal with the caos that that will cause. That only will cost so much money (and pain) that it would justify staying in the EU. Then, of course there are companies that have left and that will leave, highly-skilled workflow for London that will be harder to get, etc. They have to negotiate with the EU so that they're not completely cut out of commerce, with nothing to offer in exchange and therefore no negotiating power. It's old people in the country that have decided this, based on their ignorance on the matter and lies spread before the vote. Funny enough, it's them who mainly benefit from European aid. Pretty sad, really (I'm Italian, just talking based on what I've read and a handful of friends who live in London).
- spiralx 9y ago
  > If anything because they'll have to rewrite thousands of laws and procedures that came from the EU times, and deal with the caos that that will cause. That only would justify stay in the EU. No, we'll keep most of those laws, because in order to trade with the EU we'd have to comply with them anyway. We just lose any ability to control them.
- cmdkeen 9y ago
  While I appreciate Brexit hasn't happened yet there's little to no evidence yet of any exodus of highly skilled workforces. London remains an incredibly attractive destination for inflows of both investment, workers and tourists. Will some companies leave, no doubt, however the high profile mass departure of European HQs and banks has yet to bear out. To the OP, and going back to the article, a major issue is that of services, our major export. The EU does not have a single market in services, and has shown little interest in progressing it. It isn't so much Deutsche Bank as the mittelstand that demonstrates that the EU as a whole favours particular economic systems. Italy is a prime example of a sclerotic services sector that their own government has failed to reform, despite the EU being willing and able to influence the appointment of Mario Monti it isn't willing to impose a free market in service in the same way it has for goods - and stand up to blatant protectionism.
  - DanBC 9y ago
    > there's little to no evidence yet of any exodus of highly skilled workforces The NHS has plenty of evidence that EU workers (doctors, nurses, allied health professionals -- all skilled staff, all hard to replace from UK recruits) are leaving, and that's despite the clear assurances given by SoS Health that EU NHS staff are guaranteed to be allowed to stay. EDIT: the guarantee of being allowed to stay was provided rather late, so many people left before it was given, but they're still leaving.
    - ljf 9y ago
      Indeed, here are two articles for those that are downvoting. Brexit: One in five EU doctors make plans to leave NHS because of withdrawal - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/brexit-nhs-doctors-leave-eu-uk-health-service-latest-germany-spain-australia-a8053011.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/brexit-nhs-doctors-... European nurses and midwives leaving UK in droves since Brexit vote - https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/nov/02/european-nurses-midwives-leaving-uk-nhs-brexit-vote https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/nov/02/european-nur...
      - DanBC 9y ago
- mkohlmyr 9y ago
  Your first argument boils down to "it's difficult to leave so why bother". That's an objectively terrible reason to stay, no matter your political affiliation or feelings about the EU. As far as the "old people did this to us" meme. The 75% of young people who purportedly are so strongly against brexit probably should have bothered to vote if they wanted that outcome. Additionally, there are other factors than just age that correspond to voting outcome. E.g. degree education, having a passport, income level. And if we afford those people a bit of empathy rather than casting them all as gullible fools or bad people, we might consider that they actually stand to benefit far less (or have plausible reasons to feel this way) from the EU than someone (such as the average HN reader) who has the privilege to e.g. be choosy about employment opportunities, be able to afford educating themselves, be able to afford to travel at will. In any case there are many reasons to feel ambivalent about the EU. I do, and I've taken every opportunity that membership has afforded me. I still don't like how (or by whom) it is run or how expansive its powers have become over time.
  - b5 9y ago
    And if we afford those people a bit of empathy rather than casting them all as gullible fools or bad people, we might consider that they actually stand to benefit far less (or have plausible reasons to feel this way) from the EU than someone (such as the average HN reader) who has the privilege to e.g. be choosy about employment opportunities, be able to afford educating themselves, be able to afford to travel at will. Thank you for writing your comment, and for this part in general. I voted 'Remain' but I couldn't agree more with what you wrote -- the backlash against those who voted 'Leave' has been appalling. With just a little bit more compassion, willingness to listen, and understanding, the division between both sides could possibly be healed. We seem further than ever from that, and the likelihood diminishes every day.
    - nkkollaw 9y ago
      Rationally, I agree with you. But if I went with my guts, from the little I know it was old people selling/ruining young people's life. I'd be pretty pissed off, too.
  - 9y ago
- hacker_9 9y ago
  Most of what you wrote is mis-information, for example it is written in the Repeal Bill [1] that all existing EU legislation will be copied across into domestic UK law to ensure a smooth transition on the day after Brexit. Trade wise, there will be bumps, but it is mutually beneficial to both us and the EU to keep trading as much as possible the same as it is now. The only benefactors from making trading more difficult are the EU politicians who want to 'make an example of the UK' (Michel Barnier words). Also these 'old people' were there when the UK voted to join the EU in 1975. So if they want out, then maybe they are seeing something you are not. [1] https://services.parliament.uk/bills/2017-19/europeanunionwithdrawal.html https://services.parliament.uk/bills/2017-19/europeanunionwi...
  - AstralStorm 9y ago
    It won't be kept up to date for sure. Plus the law will definitely change all arbitration clauses from ECJ to British version.
  - moomin 9y ago
    That's hugely misleading. It's one of those things that sounds reasonable if you're not a lawyer, but a lawyer will have questions: 1) Will cases be decided according to the same principles as currently? (No, the bill specifically strikes out specific principles, including the animal rights one.) 2) What will the status of existing EU case law be? (Unclear.) 3) What will the status of post-exit EU case law be? (Unclear.) In other words, it'll be similar, but different enough that it's going to cause problems.
- crdoconnor 9y ago
  More than chaos I'm worried that it's going to be used as an excuse to ram through a lot of unpopular and horrible reforms 'under the radar'. Maybe NHS sell offs or a tax hike on "people who work" similar to recent Trump one. You could practically see the Tories salivating when they mulled over the great repeal bill. There are some positives - bringing the pound down is good for manufacturing output and employment. This is especially good for some of the more neglected areas of the UK. Of course, that will only give Londoners more reason to despise them - it's probably going to be worst for the London economy. >It's old people in the country that have decided this Actually that's not really true: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/10/brexit-cry-financial-pain-not-influence-old.html https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/10/brexit-cry-financial... Just going to point out here that Brexit appears to be the ultimate in identitarian politics and that identitarian politics is all about divide and conquer and leave it at that.
- marrs 9y ago
  If anything because they'll have to rewrite thousands of laws and procedures that came from the EU times, and deal with the caos that that will cause. I've never understood this argument. Surely all you have to do is write a law that says: in the absence of British law, default to EU legislation. That's the essence of the great repeal bill, is it not? They have to negotiate with the EU so that they're not completely cut out of commerce, with nothing to offer in exchange and therefore no negotiating power. Uhm, there is the little matter of the ~£60 billion shortfall that the EU has to find from somewhere. It's old people in the country that have decided this, based on their ignorance on the matter... What makes you so sure that old people are more ignorant than young people? I think you'll find that it usually works the other way round. I'm Italian, just talking based on what I've read and a handful of friends who live in London Take what you hear from London with a massive pinch of salt. The EU has done very well for Londoners, thank you very much, and they aren't very happy about the fact that the rest of the population of the UK have just made their comfortable futures a lot less certain. Consequently, the rhetoric aimed at the other side comes with more than a little hyperbole.
  - EliRivers 9y ago
    Law is not a functional programming language, in which we insert facts, turn a handle and get an answer. The law is essentially what you can successfully argue, bolstered by existing law and case history and all the rest of it. "in the absence of British law, default to EU legislation" would by no means be any kind of clarity, and I would anticipate such a thing would give years and even decades of discussion and argument in the various legal forums and courts to interpret that in all the various permutations and possibilities.
  - sornars 9y ago
    I've never understood this argument. Surely all you have to do is write a law that says: in the absence of British law, default to EU legislation. That's the essence of the great repeal bill, is it not? My understanding of one of the big issues with defaulting to EU law is that disputes under EU law are settled by the ECJ and EU regulatory bodies (which are governed by ECJ rulings). This is not suitable for post-Brexit Britain's red lines. Accommodating this requires revisiting and rewriting the law to use British equivalents and I suspect this is a more time consuming process than a simple find-replace job. This is also why Theresa May plans to use the 'Henry VIII clauses'[1] which allows the Government to amend laws (in this case, the Great Repeal Bill) without further scrutiny from parliament. This is potentially problematic as those amendments can include pretty much anything. [1] https://www.parliament.uk/site-information/glossary/henry-viii-clauses/ https://www.parliament.uk/site-information/glossary/henry-vi...
the_mitsuhiko 9y ago
Not sure how being outside the EU would help the UK against "Germany's dominance" Surely out of the EU means by definition that the UK has less control over Germany?
- nkkollaw 9y ago
  Sure, but Germany will have less control over the UK. From what I can tell and have read Germany has huge influence on pretty much every country besides Poland and--perhaps--Hungary (I live in Poland, not sure about Hungary actually). Poland definitely thinks about its own citizens _first_, and _then_ at what's good for the EU, which is after all what politicians have been elected to do. I'm Italian and Italy is a mess in part because of having no balls to stand up for what Italians would need. Totally different story in Poland, from what I can tell from living here.
  - tonyedgecombe 9y ago
    Germany doesn't have much influence over the UK, largely because the UK isn't in the Euro.
  - romland 9y ago
    Are you suggesting that Poland and Hungary are leechers?
    - nkkollaw 9y ago
      > Are you suggesting that Poland and Hungary are leechers? No, are you? I'm suggesting what I wrote in my comment.
    - Tomte 9y ago
      No, they are autocratic regimes, well on their way to full dictatorship within a few generations of "presidents".
      - nkkollaw 9y ago
pjc50 9y ago
There are few "firewalls" between financial markets, there's one market and it's global. If there's another bank crisis, it's going to happen everywhere. Iceland was particularly badly hit and is not actually in the EU. Let's not forget that the last crisis started in the "Anglosphere" (Lehman, RBS, Northern Rock, Anglo-Irish etc) and spread elsewhere!
ben_w 9y ago
I thought London was supposed to be one of the major banking centres of Europe? So if the banks are fragile, the UK is just as exposed in that regards, or perhaps more exposed as it will no longer be (as?) able to ask the ECB for assistance?
- tonyedgecombe 9y ago
  The UK isn't in the Euro so the ECB doesn't really matter to the UK.
  - ben_w 9y ago
    Noted. I kinda assumed ECB was for all EU states, not just for all Eurozone states.
djsumdog 9y ago
I thnk Brexit is a good thing .. for the EU. The UK has refused to adopt the Euro. The GBP is totally overvalued. The UK/Ireland have no plans to join the Shengen zone (which is a good thing for American backpackers I'll admit, as when you're 90 days in the EU run out, you can stay in the UK for 120, until the reset period). Politically, the UK is more closely aligned to US foreign policy (that of war mongering) than the EU. With such a long transition period, I'm guess most UK citizens living/working in Europe have hopefully started work visa application processes, in case the EU parliament decides to not allow a bi-lateral work agreement.
- JohnStrange 9y ago
  I believe Brexit is a loose-loose deal. It's bad for the UK because it causes a lot of complications without producing real benefits. Basically, the UK will loose lot of political influence and control while having to abide to the EU's trade rules anyway. It's bad for the EU, because the union may loose cohesion, as it may turn out that the UK is doing not so bad after all and local anti-European socialist and nationalist movements will capitalize on that a bit, because the EU looses influence on the US without the UK, and because the UK provided a counter-balance to the axis France-Germany and now smaller countries fear that the EU will move forward faster than they wish for. My prediction is that the net result will make everyone a little worse off in 10-20 years from now than if the UK had stayed in the EU, but the effect will not be very noticeable and overall hard to quantify.
marrs 9y ago
Losing access to the free market would be fine if we gain access to the global market, at least in the medium to long term. The ability to drop tariffs on imports would be a big deal even in the short term. In reality, though, I don't see us leaving the trappings of the EU with this current govt: we'll just lose our seat at the table (to coin a phrase). This was never going to be quick, though: the Brexit issue will be at the centre of politics for at least a generation. I'm actually more interested in how this has shone a light on the issue of the slow erosion of our sovereignty and our traditional British liberal values. On this point I agree with the author that the younger generation seem to be far more ambivalent about freedom of speech, democracy, et al. to the point that they seem to be actively suspicious of it. The severity of this division has been a bit of a shock, but I'd rather we deal with it now than not at all, especially when Trump shows us that the alternative could have been to vote in a radical populist party instead, which would have had far more power than Trump has.
- Angostura 9y ago
  > the younger generation seem to be far more ambivalent about freedom of speech, democracy, et al. to the point that they seem to be actively suspicious of it. Oddly enough, I suspect that the younger generation probably think that about the Daily Mail reading older generation.
- pjc50 9y ago
  > the ability to drop tariffs on imports would be a big deal even in the short term That is, the benefit is the ability to replace British-made goods with cheaper foreign imports? I'm just saying because normally people make the argument the other way round.
  - marrs 9y ago
    Exactly so. Well, British and European goods.
- ddalex 9y ago
  > slow erosion of our sovereignty What exactly are changes in the UK's sovereignity?
Symmetry 9y ago
Germany's dominance mostly just hurts countries that have to depend on the Euro, so not the UK. They experienced a little bit of the Eurozone's double dip recession brought on by premature tightening in 2011 but that was mostly a matter of trade exposure which isn't something that can change just by leaving the EU. And since the whole reason for the UK's trouble then was getting less trade from Europe then abandoning that trade altogether would be strictly worse.
alkonaut 9y ago
I live in Sweden and never even thought about how Germany "dominates". Is it just because I come from a much smaller country with much smaller population and therefore much smaller expectations about what we can accomplish on the world stage? Or is it because our views align much better with those of Germany, so we are part of the same "bloc" in EU politics whereas the UK would want to pull in another direction but can't?
- adventured 9y ago
  If you go back a few years, there was a large hysteria across much of the Eurozone about German domination of the bloc. Magazine cover after magazine cover painting them in terrible light, including some going so far as to reference back to Nazi times. That coincided with the post effects of the great recession, when Germany essentially refused to allow more liberal central bank posturing and action to try to follow the more aggressive US Fed lead on how to properly respond to the terrible recession and the financial system consequences. Germany wanted a very restrictive, conservative approach. There was a split at that point between the members that were suffering and Germany which was in mostly solid shape (the peak of the Greek disaster was also near a peak of the anti-German sentiment). The US recovery took root relatively quickly, after about a year, thanks in part to the Fed taking aggressive action to stabilize the banks and financial system (the US would have seen Citi, Bank of America, etc. all collapse otherwise; those banks are now extremely healthy and printing massive profits again). It was only when the ECB finally copied the Fed's approach that the broad EU and Eurozone economies began to rapidly recover (and for those already in good shape, it has pushed them into something closer to economic boom). You can look at a chart of EU or Eurozone economic growth, you'll see a nasty double recessionary dip around 2011-2012. After that, the ECB finally began to shift its behavior and do what they should have done years prior, which has led to a sustained recovery in most parts of the EU since then (you see it in meaningfully increased growth rates, from Finland finally recovering after a disastrous 8-10 years, to Spain and Portugal finally seeing serious improvement, to German growth picking up, to French unemployment finally declining significantly, etc).
  - alkonaut 9y ago
    > there was a large hysteria across much of the Eurozone about German domination of the bloc. Magazine cover after magazine cover painting them in terrible light, including some going so far as to reference back to Nazi times. I try to keep up with politics and news and saw none of this (I watch foreign TV but don't read foreign newspapers a lot). So I don't think there has been a lot of painting germany as a bad guy in Swedish media, no. Why that is, I can only speculate. Would be interesting to hear if the same is true in e.g. Denmark, Finland. > That coincided with the post effects of the great recession, when Germany essentially refused to allow more liberal central bank posturing and action to try to follow the Fed lead on how to properly respond to the terrible recession and the financial system consequences If the 2008 recession was behind it, Sweden recovered very quickly and wasn't as hard hit (Partly because we weren't as influenced by ECB interest rate politics). Perhaps that is also a reason.

isostatic 9y ago

The UK isn't part of the euro, it will be just as badly affected by a collapse in european banks as our trade will still remain with europe

nkkollaw 9y ago

Bad. If anything because they'll have to rewrite thousands of laws and procedures that came from the EU times, and deal with the caos that that will cause. That only will cost so much money (and pain) that it would justify staying in the EU. Then, of course there are companies that have left and that will leave, highly-skilled workflow for London that will be harder to get, etc. They have to negotiate with the EU so that they're not completely cut out of commerce, with nothing to offer in exchange and therefore no negotiating power. It's old people in the country that have decided this, based on their ignorance on the matter and lies spread before the vote. Funny enough, it's them who mainly benefit from European aid. Pretty sad, really (I'm Italian, just talking based on what I've read and a handful of friends who live in London).

spiralx 9y ago
> If anything because they'll have to rewrite thousands of laws and procedures that came from the EU times, and deal with the caos that that will cause. That only would justify stay in the EU. No, we'll keep most of those laws, because in order to trade with the EU we'd have to comply with them anyway. We just lose any ability to control them.
cmdkeen 9y ago
While I appreciate Brexit hasn't happened yet there's little to no evidence yet of any exodus of highly skilled workforces. London remains an incredibly attractive destination for inflows of both investment, workers and tourists. Will some companies leave, no doubt, however the high profile mass departure of European HQs and banks has yet to bear out. To the OP, and going back to the article, a major issue is that of services, our major export. The EU does not have a single market in services, and has shown little interest in progressing it. It isn't so much Deutsche Bank as the mittelstand that demonstrates that the EU as a whole favours particular economic systems. Italy is a prime example of a sclerotic services sector that their own government has failed to reform, despite the EU being willing and able to influence the appointment of Mario Monti it isn't willing to impose a free market in service in the same way it has for goods - and stand up to blatant protectionism.
- DanBC 9y ago
  > there's little to no evidence yet of any exodus of highly skilled workforces The NHS has plenty of evidence that EU workers (doctors, nurses, allied health professionals -- all skilled staff, all hard to replace from UK recruits) are leaving, and that's despite the clear assurances given by SoS Health that EU NHS staff are guaranteed to be allowed to stay. EDIT: the guarantee of being allowed to stay was provided rather late, so many people left before it was given, but they're still leaving.
  - ljf 9y ago
    Indeed, here are two articles for those that are downvoting. Brexit: One in five EU doctors make plans to leave NHS because of withdrawal - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/brexit-nhs-doctors-leave-eu-uk-health-service-latest-germany-spain-australia-a8053011.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/brexit-nhs-doctors-... European nurses and midwives leaving UK in droves since Brexit vote - https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/nov/02/european-nurses-midwives-leaving-uk-nhs-brexit-vote https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/nov/02/european-nur...
    - DanBC 9y ago
mkohlmyr 9y ago
Your first argument boils down to "it's difficult to leave so why bother". That's an objectively terrible reason to stay, no matter your political affiliation or feelings about the EU. As far as the "old people did this to us" meme. The 75% of young people who purportedly are so strongly against brexit probably should have bothered to vote if they wanted that outcome. Additionally, there are other factors than just age that correspond to voting outcome. E.g. degree education, having a passport, income level. And if we afford those people a bit of empathy rather than casting them all as gullible fools or bad people, we might consider that they actually stand to benefit far less (or have plausible reasons to feel this way) from the EU than someone (such as the average HN reader) who has the privilege to e.g. be choosy about employment opportunities, be able to afford educating themselves, be able to afford to travel at will. In any case there are many reasons to feel ambivalent about the EU. I do, and I've taken every opportunity that membership has afforded me. I still don't like how (or by whom) it is run or how expansive its powers have become over time.
- b5 9y ago
  And if we afford those people a bit of empathy rather than casting them all as gullible fools or bad people, we might consider that they actually stand to benefit far less (or have plausible reasons to feel this way) from the EU than someone (such as the average HN reader) who has the privilege to e.g. be choosy about employment opportunities, be able to afford educating themselves, be able to afford to travel at will. Thank you for writing your comment, and for this part in general. I voted 'Remain' but I couldn't agree more with what you wrote -- the backlash against those who voted 'Leave' has been appalling. With just a little bit more compassion, willingness to listen, and understanding, the division between both sides could possibly be healed. We seem further than ever from that, and the likelihood diminishes every day.
  - nkkollaw 9y ago
    Rationally, I agree with you. But if I went with my guts, from the little I know it was old people selling/ruining young people's life. I'd be pretty pissed off, too.
- 9y ago
hacker_9 9y ago
Most of what you wrote is mis-information, for example it is written in the Repeal Bill [1] that all existing EU legislation will be copied across into domestic UK law to ensure a smooth transition on the day after Brexit. Trade wise, there will be bumps, but it is mutually beneficial to both us and the EU to keep trading as much as possible the same as it is now. The only benefactors from making trading more difficult are the EU politicians who want to 'make an example of the UK' (Michel Barnier words). Also these 'old people' were there when the UK voted to join the EU in 1975. So if they want out, then maybe they are seeing something you are not. [1] https://services.parliament.uk/bills/2017-19/europeanunionwithdrawal.html https://services.parliament.uk/bills/2017-19/europeanunionwi...
- AstralStorm 9y ago
  It won't be kept up to date for sure. Plus the law will definitely change all arbitration clauses from ECJ to British version.
- moomin 9y ago
  That's hugely misleading. It's one of those things that sounds reasonable if you're not a lawyer, but a lawyer will have questions: 1) Will cases be decided according to the same principles as currently? (No, the bill specifically strikes out specific principles, including the animal rights one.) 2) What will the status of existing EU case law be? (Unclear.) 3) What will the status of post-exit EU case law be? (Unclear.) In other words, it'll be similar, but different enough that it's going to cause problems.
crdoconnor 9y ago
More than chaos I'm worried that it's going to be used as an excuse to ram through a lot of unpopular and horrible reforms 'under the radar'. Maybe NHS sell offs or a tax hike on "people who work" similar to recent Trump one. You could practically see the Tories salivating when they mulled over the great repeal bill. There are some positives - bringing the pound down is good for manufacturing output and employment. This is especially good for some of the more neglected areas of the UK. Of course, that will only give Londoners more reason to despise them - it's probably going to be worst for the London economy. >It's old people in the country that have decided this Actually that's not really true: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/10/brexit-cry-financial-pain-not-influence-old.html https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/10/brexit-cry-financial... Just going to point out here that Brexit appears to be the ultimate in identitarian politics and that identitarian politics is all about divide and conquer and leave it at that.
marrs 9y ago
If anything because they'll have to rewrite thousands of laws and procedures that came from the EU times, and deal with the caos that that will cause. I've never understood this argument. Surely all you have to do is write a law that says: in the absence of British law, default to EU legislation. That's the essence of the great repeal bill, is it not? They have to negotiate with the EU so that they're not completely cut out of commerce, with nothing to offer in exchange and therefore no negotiating power. Uhm, there is the little matter of the ~£60 billion shortfall that the EU has to find from somewhere. It's old people in the country that have decided this, based on their ignorance on the matter... What makes you so sure that old people are more ignorant than young people? I think you'll find that it usually works the other way round. I'm Italian, just talking based on what I've read and a handful of friends who live in London Take what you hear from London with a massive pinch of salt. The EU has done very well for Londoners, thank you very much, and they aren't very happy about the fact that the rest of the population of the UK have just made their comfortable futures a lot less certain. Consequently, the rhetoric aimed at the other side comes with more than a little hyperbole.
- EliRivers 9y ago
  Law is not a functional programming language, in which we insert facts, turn a handle and get an answer. The law is essentially what you can successfully argue, bolstered by existing law and case history and all the rest of it. "in the absence of British law, default to EU legislation" would by no means be any kind of clarity, and I would anticipate such a thing would give years and even decades of discussion and argument in the various legal forums and courts to interpret that in all the various permutations and possibilities.
- sornars 9y ago
  I've never understood this argument. Surely all you have to do is write a law that says: in the absence of British law, default to EU legislation. That's the essence of the great repeal bill, is it not? My understanding of one of the big issues with defaulting to EU law is that disputes under EU law are settled by the ECJ and EU regulatory bodies (which are governed by ECJ rulings). This is not suitable for post-Brexit Britain's red lines. Accommodating this requires revisiting and rewriting the law to use British equivalents and I suspect this is a more time consuming process than a simple find-replace job. This is also why Theresa May plans to use the 'Henry VIII clauses'[1] which allows the Government to amend laws (in this case, the Great Repeal Bill) without further scrutiny from parliament. This is potentially problematic as those amendments can include pretty much anything. [1] https://www.parliament.uk/site-information/glossary/henry-viii-clauses/ https://www.parliament.uk/site-information/glossary/henry-vi...

the_mitsuhiko 9y ago

Not sure how being outside the EU would help the UK against "Germany's dominance" Surely out of the EU means by definition that the UK has less control over Germany?

nkkollaw 9y ago
Sure, but Germany will have less control over the UK. From what I can tell and have read Germany has huge influence on pretty much every country besides Poland and--perhaps--Hungary (I live in Poland, not sure about Hungary actually). Poland definitely thinks about its own citizens _first_, and _then_ at what's good for the EU, which is after all what politicians have been elected to do. I'm Italian and Italy is a mess in part because of having no balls to stand up for what Italians would need. Totally different story in Poland, from what I can tell from living here.
- tonyedgecombe 9y ago
  Germany doesn't have much influence over the UK, largely because the UK isn't in the Euro.
- romland 9y ago
  Are you suggesting that Poland and Hungary are leechers?
  - nkkollaw 9y ago
    > Are you suggesting that Poland and Hungary are leechers? No, are you? I'm suggesting what I wrote in my comment.
  - Tomte 9y ago
    No, they are autocratic regimes, well on their way to full dictatorship within a few generations of "presidents".
    - nkkollaw 9y ago

pjc50 9y ago

There are few "firewalls" between financial markets, there's one market and it's global. If there's another bank crisis, it's going to happen everywhere. Iceland was particularly badly hit and is not actually in the EU. Let's not forget that the last crisis started in the "Anglosphere" (Lehman, RBS, Northern Rock, Anglo-Irish etc) and spread elsewhere!

ben_w 9y ago

I thought London was supposed to be one of the major banking centres of Europe? So if the banks are fragile, the UK is just as exposed in that regards, or perhaps more exposed as it will no longer be (as?) able to ask the ECB for assistance?

tonyedgecombe 9y ago
The UK isn't in the Euro so the ECB doesn't really matter to the UK.
- ben_w 9y ago
  Noted. I kinda assumed ECB was for all EU states, not just for all Eurozone states.

djsumdog 9y ago

I thnk Brexit is a good thing .. for the EU. The UK has refused to adopt the Euro. The GBP is totally overvalued. The UK/Ireland have no plans to join the Shengen zone (which is a good thing for American backpackers I'll admit, as when you're 90 days in the EU run out, you can stay in the UK for 120, until the reset period). Politically, the UK is more closely aligned to US foreign policy (that of war mongering) than the EU. With such a long transition period, I'm guess most UK citizens living/working in Europe have hopefully started work visa application processes, in case the EU parliament decides to not allow a bi-lateral work agreement.

JohnStrange 9y ago
I believe Brexit is a loose-loose deal. It's bad for the UK because it causes a lot of complications without producing real benefits. Basically, the UK will loose lot of political influence and control while having to abide to the EU's trade rules anyway. It's bad for the EU, because the union may loose cohesion, as it may turn out that the UK is doing not so bad after all and local anti-European socialist and nationalist movements will capitalize on that a bit, because the EU looses influence on the US without the UK, and because the UK provided a counter-balance to the axis France-Germany and now smaller countries fear that the EU will move forward faster than they wish for. My prediction is that the net result will make everyone a little worse off in 10-20 years from now than if the UK had stayed in the EU, but the effect will not be very noticeable and overall hard to quantify.

marrs 9y ago

Losing access to the free market would be fine if we gain access to the global market, at least in the medium to long term. The ability to drop tariffs on imports would be a big deal even in the short term. In reality, though, I don't see us leaving the trappings of the EU with this current govt: we'll just lose our seat at the table (to coin a phrase). This was never going to be quick, though: the Brexit issue will be at the centre of politics for at least a generation. I'm actually more interested in how this has shone a light on the issue of the slow erosion of our sovereignty and our traditional British liberal values. On this point I agree with the author that the younger generation seem to be far more ambivalent about freedom of speech, democracy, et al. to the point that they seem to be actively suspicious of it. The severity of this division has been a bit of a shock, but I'd rather we deal with it now than not at all, especially when Trump shows us that the alternative could have been to vote in a radical populist party instead, which would have had far more power than Trump has.

Angostura 9y ago
> the younger generation seem to be far more ambivalent about freedom of speech, democracy, et al. to the point that they seem to be actively suspicious of it. Oddly enough, I suspect that the younger generation probably think that about the Daily Mail reading older generation.
pjc50 9y ago
> the ability to drop tariffs on imports would be a big deal even in the short term That is, the benefit is the ability to replace British-made goods with cheaper foreign imports? I'm just saying because normally people make the argument the other way round.
- marrs 9y ago
  Exactly so. Well, British and European goods.
ddalex 9y ago
> slow erosion of our sovereignty What exactly are changes in the UK's sovereignity?

Symmetry 9y ago

Germany's dominance mostly just hurts countries that have to depend on the Euro, so not the UK. They experienced a little bit of the Eurozone's double dip recession brought on by premature tightening in 2011 but that was mostly a matter of trade exposure which isn't something that can change just by leaving the EU. And since the whole reason for the UK's trouble then was getting less trade from Europe then abandoning that trade altogether would be strictly worse.

alkonaut 9y ago

I live in Sweden and never even thought about how Germany "dominates". Is it just because I come from a much smaller country with much smaller population and therefore much smaller expectations about what we can accomplish on the world stage? Or is it because our views align much better with those of Germany, so we are part of the same "bloc" in EU politics whereas the UK would want to pull in another direction but can't?

adventured 9y ago
If you go back a few years, there was a large hysteria across much of the Eurozone about German domination of the bloc. Magazine cover after magazine cover painting them in terrible light, including some going so far as to reference back to Nazi times. That coincided with the post effects of the great recession, when Germany essentially refused to allow more liberal central bank posturing and action to try to follow the more aggressive US Fed lead on how to properly respond to the terrible recession and the financial system consequences. Germany wanted a very restrictive, conservative approach. There was a split at that point between the members that were suffering and Germany which was in mostly solid shape (the peak of the Greek disaster was also near a peak of the anti-German sentiment). The US recovery took root relatively quickly, after about a year, thanks in part to the Fed taking aggressive action to stabilize the banks and financial system (the US would have seen Citi, Bank of America, etc. all collapse otherwise; those banks are now extremely healthy and printing massive profits again). It was only when the ECB finally copied the Fed's approach that the broad EU and Eurozone economies began to rapidly recover (and for those already in good shape, it has pushed them into something closer to economic boom). You can look at a chart of EU or Eurozone economic growth, you'll see a nasty double recessionary dip around 2011-2012. After that, the ECB finally began to shift its behavior and do what they should have done years prior, which has led to a sustained recovery in most parts of the EU since then (you see it in meaningfully increased growth rates, from Finland finally recovering after a disastrous 8-10 years, to Spain and Portugal finally seeing serious improvement, to German growth picking up, to French unemployment finally declining significantly, etc).
- alkonaut 9y ago
  > there was a large hysteria across much of the Eurozone about German domination of the bloc. Magazine cover after magazine cover painting them in terrible light, including some going so far as to reference back to Nazi times. I try to keep up with politics and news and saw none of this (I watch foreign TV but don't read foreign newspapers a lot). So I don't think there has been a lot of painting germany as a bad guy in Swedish media, no. Why that is, I can only speculate. Would be interesting to hear if the same is true in e.g. Denmark, Finland. > That coincided with the post effects of the great recession, when Germany essentially refused to allow more liberal central bank posturing and action to try to follow the Fed lead on how to properly respond to the terrible recession and the financial system consequences If the 2008 recession was behind it, Sweden recovered very quickly and wasn't as hard hit (Partly because we weren't as influenced by ECB interest rate politics). Perhaps that is also a reason.