7 ms·

> and we are still in the EU Ben, I hope you do realize your premise changes in roughly ~10 weeks, unless something extraordinary happens. Theresa is determin

by kuhhk 8y ago

> and we are still in the EU Ben, I hope you do realize your premise changes in roughly ~10 weeks, unless something extraordinary happens. Theresa is determined to leave..

fullshark 8y ago
Seems like the "elites" are holding out hope for something extraordinary to me, like a second referendum. Brexit being as painful as possible is a means to achieve said goal.
benmmurphy 8y ago
I actually think this is unlikely. I actually I hope it happens because I think the EU is a long term con. Basically the EU is holding free trade as a hostage. Free trade offers great benefits but the EU as an institution can continue to force a greater political union on the countries forming the union even if this political union is not to the benefit of these countries. We are seeing it right now with the Brexit negotiations. There are two clear paths that solve the Irish issue but neither of them are possible because it would destroy the EU as an institution. Solution 1) Split the tariff union and the political union. The UK joins the tariff union. I honestly think most leave voters would be happy with the compromise of losing control over tariffs if they retain control over everything else. However, this basically destroys the EU as a political union because the EU as political union only exists because of the benefits of free trade and if every country can defect and maintain free trade they will. Solution 2) The EU offers a free trade area between the EU and the UK. This has some negative consequences for the EU and the UK in that they are restricted in the way in which they can increase tariffs from before the agreement to post the agreement. Again I think most leave voters would be happy with this trade off. Also, this restriction should not be a big deal for the EU. However, from the point of view of the EU as institution this is very bad because the UK is basically enjoying the benefits of free trade without the political union. If the UK is able to do this then all the other countries who do not benefit from the political union will want to do it and the political union will collapse. The EU is a big problem for the UK going forward because they can keep demanding a closer and closer political union and use the threat of the UK losing free trade to make this possible. At what point should the UK walk away from the EU? I think it is better to rip off the band-aid now. And just to add. Most economists believe free trade is beneficial to all parties. So why are the UK and the EU not able to agree on a WTO free trade area deal which would solve the Irish issue and presumably benefit both the EU and the UK in a post-brexit world? Surely, this is a win-win outcome unless you are trying to punish someone for taking a branch in the game tree you don't want them to. The reason I think it is unlikely that the UK will leave the EU with a hard brexit is because it doesn't seem like the government has taken reasonable steps in order to maximise the benefit for this course of action. Surely, if you considered a hard brexit an option you would be actively negotiating bilateral and free trade agreements with other countries. I understand if you were resource strapped this might not be something you would pursue but the UK government is not resource strapped and it would seem to make sense to pursue these deals even if there was like a 10% chance of a hard brexit. May and her government are probably massively incompetent but it is hard to believe that they are that incompetent. I suspect either May or her bureaucracy believe the Britain's interests are best served staying in the EU and they are trying to engineer the situation to maximise the chance of this happening.
- throw564d 8y ago
  I think the UK's mistake is not realising the EU is run by power drunk ideologues.
- toyg 8y ago
  I stopped reading once you made a distinction between “tariffs” and “politics”: you don’t have one without the other. You have a common market only if you can agree common rules, and you agree common rules with shared political institutions. You cannot buy chlorine-washed chicken in the EU because EU countries agreed that, in order to be able to freely trade chicken in the union, chicken should have certain qualities - qualities defined through a political process. The EU is simply a place where all the stuff that used to get done with slow and opaque bilateral treaties or with wars, now gets done mostly in the open, faster and more democratically than before. It doesn’t “hold free trade hostage”, it’s actually the opposite: it takes free trade to its eventual consequences. Everything is free to trade, all the time; but to do that, we must agree on common standards to make, sell, buy, and consume all stuff - it wouldn’t be fair competition, otherwise, right? So we built a process to write these rules together. Once we have rules, we need ways to enforce them and amend them - which happen to be useful to also sort out other pesky issues like borders and to foster collaboration in various endeavours. And if all products and services can be freely moved across the market, why shouldn’t people be allowed to do the same? That’s the EU, in a nutshell; built on and for commerce. Trying to unpick trade from the rule-writing is nonsensical.
- votepaunchy 8y ago
  > Surely, if you considered a hard brexit an option you would be actively negotiating bilateral and free trade agreements with other countries. Britain cannot negotiate new trade agreements until they have actually departed the EU.
zozbot123 8y ago
> Theresa is determined to leave. And rightly so, given the referendum outcome. However, she and the EU have a common incentive to kick the can down the road for quite a while and preserve some possibility (however small) of getting to something other than hard Brexit. It's not going to be over in 10 weeks.

by kuhhk 8y ago

> and we are still in the EU Ben, I hope you do realize your premise changes in roughly ~10 weeks, unless something extraordinary happens. Theresa is determined to leave..

fullshark 8y ago

Seems like the "elites" are holding out hope for something extraordinary to me, like a second referendum. Brexit being as painful as possible is a means to achieve said goal.

benmmurphy 8y ago

I actually think this is unlikely. I actually I hope it happens because I think the EU is a long term con. Basically the EU is holding free trade as a hostage. Free trade offers great benefits but the EU as an institution can continue to force a greater political union on the countries forming the union even if this political union is not to the benefit of these countries. We are seeing it right now with the Brexit negotiations. There are two clear paths that solve the Irish issue but neither of them are possible because it would destroy the EU as an institution. Solution 1) Split the tariff union and the political union. The UK joins the tariff union. I honestly think most leave voters would be happy with the compromise of losing control over tariffs if they retain control over everything else. However, this basically destroys the EU as a political union because the EU as political union only exists because of the benefits of free trade and if every country can defect and maintain free trade they will. Solution 2) The EU offers a free trade area between the EU and the UK. This has some negative consequences for the EU and the UK in that they are restricted in the way in which they can increase tariffs from before the agreement to post the agreement. Again I think most leave voters would be happy with this trade off. Also, this restriction should not be a big deal for the EU. However, from the point of view of the EU as institution this is very bad because the UK is basically enjoying the benefits of free trade without the political union. If the UK is able to do this then all the other countries who do not benefit from the political union will want to do it and the political union will collapse. The EU is a big problem for the UK going forward because they can keep demanding a closer and closer political union and use the threat of the UK losing free trade to make this possible. At what point should the UK walk away from the EU? I think it is better to rip off the band-aid now. And just to add. Most economists believe free trade is beneficial to all parties. So why are the UK and the EU not able to agree on a WTO free trade area deal which would solve the Irish issue and presumably benefit both the EU and the UK in a post-brexit world? Surely, this is a win-win outcome unless you are trying to punish someone for taking a branch in the game tree you don't want them to. The reason I think it is unlikely that the UK will leave the EU with a hard brexit is because it doesn't seem like the government has taken reasonable steps in order to maximise the benefit for this course of action. Surely, if you considered a hard brexit an option you would be actively negotiating bilateral and free trade agreements with other countries. I understand if you were resource strapped this might not be something you would pursue but the UK government is not resource strapped and it would seem to make sense to pursue these deals even if there was like a 10% chance of a hard brexit. May and her government are probably massively incompetent but it is hard to believe that they are that incompetent. I suspect either May or her bureaucracy believe the Britain's interests are best served staying in the EU and they are trying to engineer the situation to maximise the chance of this happening.

throw564d 8y ago
I think the UK's mistake is not realising the EU is run by power drunk ideologues.
toyg 8y ago
I stopped reading once you made a distinction between “tariffs” and “politics”: you don’t have one without the other. You have a common market only if you can agree common rules, and you agree common rules with shared political institutions. You cannot buy chlorine-washed chicken in the EU because EU countries agreed that, in order to be able to freely trade chicken in the union, chicken should have certain qualities - qualities defined through a political process. The EU is simply a place where all the stuff that used to get done with slow and opaque bilateral treaties or with wars, now gets done mostly in the open, faster and more democratically than before. It doesn’t “hold free trade hostage”, it’s actually the opposite: it takes free trade to its eventual consequences. Everything is free to trade, all the time; but to do that, we must agree on common standards to make, sell, buy, and consume all stuff - it wouldn’t be fair competition, otherwise, right? So we built a process to write these rules together. Once we have rules, we need ways to enforce them and amend them - which happen to be useful to also sort out other pesky issues like borders and to foster collaboration in various endeavours. And if all products and services can be freely moved across the market, why shouldn’t people be allowed to do the same? That’s the EU, in a nutshell; built on and for commerce. Trying to unpick trade from the rule-writing is nonsensical.
votepaunchy 8y ago
> Surely, if you considered a hard brexit an option you would be actively negotiating bilateral and free trade agreements with other countries. Britain cannot negotiate new trade agreements until they have actually departed the EU.

zozbot123 8y ago

> Theresa is determined to leave. And rightly so, given the referendum outcome. However, she and the EU have a common incentive to kick the can down the road for quite a while and preserve some possibility (however small) of getting to something other than hard Brexit. It's not going to be over in 10 weeks.