13 ms·

Brexit one year on: so how’s it going?

58 points by DrNuke 5y ago

hereforphone 5y ago
The Guardian is considered significantly politically slanted, right? I don't know how Brexit is going but I'd like to look at several sources with several different world views before I come to a conclusion.
- sandbags 5y ago
  The Guardian is left-wing although the champagne socialists branch where the Daily Mirror is more the working class socialist paper. Check out the Tortoise or Byline Times articles on the subject if you want something more nuanced.
- DangitBobby 5y ago
  And it might take a bit longer than a year for the dust to settle. Rome wasn't built in a day, after all.
  - darthrupert 5y ago
    It was burned in a day though.
- KerrAvon 5y ago
  Center-left from a US perspective. But where will you find a right wing equivalent dealing in actual facts instead of isolationist fever dreams?
  - kergonath 5y ago
    Wouldn’t the Times fit more or less? Certainly, the Torygraph isn’t it.
    - robin_reala 5y ago
      FT is probably your best bet.
- fhsijrbrhfhdh 5y ago
- 1_player 5y ago
  That's the case for all news. But for Brexit specifically, you'd be hard pressed to find good news about Brexit even on Boris' side, given how it's turned out and what an absolute shit show the government has been the past two years. The Brexit minister just resigned, and he's replaced it with a muppet, mostly for political reasons than competence. Boris has become very unpopular for many reasons, Brexit one of them, and I bet he's not gonna be the head honcho of the Tory party for much longer. I hope Brexit becomes politically toxic it will become fashionable to rejoin the EU again but let me put down the hopium pipe first.
  - hardlianotion 5y ago
    Brexit is not even a reason Bojo is unpopular.
    - stevesimmons 5y ago
      The type of nonsensical Brexit that Boris negotiated can only be supported by Conservative politicians who ignore reality and are comfortable with lying as their basis for engaging with the rest of the country. The traditional, sensible Conservative MPs (Dominic Grieve etc) were forced out two years ago. The reason why Boris is unpopular now are exactly the reasons why Brexit is in a hole: lies, rules don't apply to us, mindless boosterism, no plans for governing just gaining power, incompetent delivery.
  - timellis-smith 5y ago
    This is perhaps an equivalent article https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/12/21/year-brexit-trade-deal-doom-mongers-got-wrong/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/12/21/year-brexit-... from the more pro Brexit side.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      I've read a few of his articles, they remind me of Fox News. Britain sailing on to renewed glory after shedding the shackles of the EU that only served to slow it down from its rightful ambitious path forward. Just one example: "It will take time, but with regulatory divergence the UK will steadily pull ahead of rivals such as France and Germany which you would normally expect to perform as well as, if not slightly better, than the UK. We will be more innovative, attract more capital, and our companies will seize markets more quickly, than they otherwise would have done. We have seen the United States do that in technology, and now Britain will be able to match it. That is a prize worth having, and it has been secured."
- viktorcode 5y ago
  To the left, right :) But if you are following unbiased analyses, say from foreign financial publications, they do agree on economic downside of Brexit.
darthrupert 5y ago
Kinda glad that UK tested these waters so us other EU countries don't have to. Too bad it made Europe weaker.
- danjac 5y ago
  It might well have made Europe stronger. UK was always the awkward odd man out that vetoed decisions left and right. I suspect that the UK will be back in the Single Market in all but name by the end of the decade, once there is a change of regime, the core Brexit demographic has passed away, and economic realities come home to roost.
  - akmarinov 5y ago
    I’m in the same boat, the path to federalization is a slight bit more clear now.
    - thechao 5y ago
      American: by Federalization, do you mean a single pan-EU govt? Is there a sunmary if the structure & power-sharing arrangement between the constituent states?
      - SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
        Some things are shared already: The Euro is common currency for key states, and borders are light-to-non-existent. Thea means that a lot of governance has to be shared. The lesson is that a single market isn't just about opening borders, it's about shared standards and practices that prevent a race to the bottom. A market is fundamentally a shared set of ground-rules. I'm sure that there are lessons to be learned from 2008 about making a shared currency and financial arrangement that works for both e.g. Germany and for Greece. Without the UK, "the awkward odd man out that consistently vetoed further integration" this trend is bound to continue and more things will become shared, in an "ever closer union".
    - akvadrako 5y ago
dash2 5y ago
Oooooooooooosh. NOT ON CHRISTMAS DAY, guys...
yakshaving_jgt 5y ago
Did the NHS get an extra £350mm per week? No. Did the country get richer? No. Are there fewer refugees? No. … Whoops.
- Proven 5y ago
  1) Did the NHS get less money? Probably not. 2) Did the country get less poor? Yes. 3) Do you mean migrants? Of course there aren't fewer of them, the EU is sending them to the UK as fast as they can. You need a better government, not membership in the EU.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    > Did the country get less poor? Yes. That's not the story as told by the various figures the government reports. > Do you mean migrants? Of course there aren't fewer of them, the EU is sending them to the UK as fast as they can. That is complete bullshit.
    - hardlianotion 5y ago
      The country is not poorer, and government figures support my claim.
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        Sure! https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59070020 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59070020
        hardlianotion 5y ago
        And I note that is not a rebuttal.
        jacquesm 5y ago
        Look, if you want to argue that the UK is wealthier post Brexit then that's fine with me but you are simply out of touch with reality, besides that if the Union fractures - and there is a fair chance that it will - then none of this is more than noise, the end result of that will be a massive financial loss. So you're welcome to your worldview but the reality is that the UK has just had one of the worst years in living memory and that the only dispute you might have is over how much of it is due to COVID-19 and how much due to Brexit. Since we have the rest of Europe as a baseline I don't think that that is undoable, and it doesn't look particularly good for the UK.
AutumnCurtain 5y ago
As both the economic and political gaps widen between the UK and Europe, I have to wonder whether the Brits would even be able to re-enter if they wanted to. Can any continental Europeans share their perspective on that prospect?
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Of course they could. If the UK falls apart Scotland will be welcome (likely over the protests of Spain but nothing that can't be bought off). The remainder will then follow bit by bit with England likely last. If the UK manages to hold together then it will be welcome to return but without the special exceptions that were made for it in the past. The good deal they had was squandered and the negotiation position of the EU has strengthened accordingly. Alternatively, the UK could conceivably try to get closer to the USA (not physically, obviously), but I doubt that would fly given the distance involved.
  - smackay 5y ago
    Scotland is a sovereign nation which is currently in a long term "marriage" with England through the Treaty of Union. It's not trying secede from the United Kingdom in as much as it's trying to get a divorce - not unlike Brexit. As a result while many people draw parallels with the situation in Catalonia it's not the same. The Spanish government has little to fear from the breakup of the United Kingdom and likely has much to gain. As member of the European Union Scotland has a lot of natural resources from fish to energy which would benefit other EU members.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      Yes, but politicians aren't always rational and the Spanish have already voiced their concerns about this. The funny thing (well, not really funny, but given the situation there is something that borders on humor) to me is that England is absolutely adamant that Scotland can't secede from the Union when that is exactly what they just forced Scotland to be a part of with the EU. It boggles the mind how they twist themselves into the weirdest illogical pretzels arguing that when Scotland voted to stay in the Union that vote was binding even post Brexit, as if the circumstances haven't materially changed. We'll see how that one ends. But eventually the only thing that matters is the economy and for now that doesn't look all that good for the UK, the sooner they turn around the better for everybody. But Europe is not going to push for this, it will have to come from inside for it to work.
jacquesm 5y ago
For now it is going mostly as predicted by the 'remain' camp, the 'leave' camp have a bit of a problem maintaining their credibility. I know quite a few people that moved out of the UK when this happened, including a number of Britons. It will be quite a ways downhill, there is a good chance that when the dust settles the UK itself will no longer exist. This will likely go into history as the biggest own goal there ever was, the UK had a pretty good deal compared to other countries in the EU and it wasn't enough. But no matter how strong your country is you can't compete with the negotiation power of a block of several hundred million people. Whether it will make the EU stronger or weaker in the long run is still up for grabs, there is plenty of force trying to fragment the EU, some of it financed from outside and so very hard to control. There are no easy solutions for all this, and COVID has made it all a lot worse than what it probably would have been without.
- einszwei 5y ago
  > there is a good chance that when the dust settles the UK itself will no longer exist. That is a very strong statement for a country which is still very influential
  - rusk 5y ago
    Influential and structurally resilient are not the same thing.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    There are plenty of stress fractures running through the UK, both on the Southern and the Northern side of it. If England and Wales (and maybe Northern Ireland) want to continue to call themselves the UK I don't think anybody would object. But make no mistake, this could easily cause significant damage well beyond the intended damage caused by Brexit alone.
  - maxwell86 5y ago
    UK is not one country, is a union of 4 countries. I suspect by the above what the OP means is that in the next round of elections, Scotland is probably going to split out from the UK and rejoin the EU, and then the shit will really hit the fan.
Overtonwindow 5y ago
Not anywhere nearly as bad as the remaining crowd made it out to be. At least according to economic and social data, things are actually going pretty well.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  You should definitely give us your sources for economic and social data then, everything I've seen so far indicates a slow trainwreck, not as bad as it could have been but certainly not 'actually going pretty well'.
  - hunterb123 5y ago
    You should definitely also provide sources and data for your assessment of it being a "trainwreck". You're doing the same thing you're criticizing, you just gave your opinion, no facts. > At least _according to economic and social data_, things are actually going _pretty well_. > _everything I've seen_ so far indicates a _slow trainwreck_ This happens a lot in this thread. Basically Yes-huh, Nuh-uh arguments. ~ Merry Christmas everyone, maybe a future rule of no political threads on this day.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      There is a nice linked article for your perusal.
      - hunterb123 5y ago
        Yes and they also say: > Disentangling precisely what has been caused by the pandemic and what is the result of Brexit is difficult. In no way do they do that. They are attributing Brexit as the cause without any proof. They only note the decrease, they don't link it to Brexit. You can't directly compare 2021 to pre-pandemic levels because economies were shut down. These decreases are caused by the pandemic, in no way does the article link Brexit to these numbersl
        5y ago
manishsharan 5y ago
As a long time subscriber of /r/LeopardsAteMyFace/, thank you Brexiteers for providing us our daily content.
123pie123 5y ago
I have yet to hear one financial benefit from Brexit or any other benefits really, unless you want a united Ireland or Scotish independance. fair few negatives. to name a few - increase friction in trade to business (extra paper work/ costs/ taxes/ delays at border) - loss of talent from EU - lack of miltary access to Galileo GPS, screwing up the latest weapons - fragmented internal UK market, NI under different rules - lack of influence and veto to new EU rules / regulations, so UK has no influence or say to the regulations to a part of its country (ie Northern Ireland)
- timellis-smith 5y ago
  Difficult to say whether these were because of Brexit but: Nissan has doubled down on Sunderland post Brexit Shell has closed its offices in Netherlands on favour of UK as has Unilever. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/iss-recommends-shareholders-support-shell-move-uk-2021-11-26/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/iss-recommends-share... https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/business/2021/nov/15/shell-move-hq-tax-netherlands-uk https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/business/20... https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2021/07/01/business/nissan-battery-factory-britain.amp.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2021/07/01/busi...
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Shell has only moved because they didn't want to pay dividend tax, and post Brexit the UK has decided that being a tax shelter for multi-nationals may not be the worst move. Whether that is true in the long term remains to be seen, the fact that Shell moves their head office may not be worth as much as losing the rest of the Euro clearing that is happening in London over the next decade or so.
dageshi 5y ago
To be perfectly frank, how well or bad brexit is going is pretty impossible to tell because Covid smashed through the middle of it and has probably had a more profound effect on day to day life than brexit would have had on most people.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  No, COVID just made a bad thing even worse.
  - dageshi 5y ago
    There's an awful lot of people looking from the outside of the UK in telling people that brexit is going terribly when honest to god nearly all focus in the UK has been on covid for 2 years with a short blip during when we actually left. Few people really talk about brexit anymore in the way we did in the years prior. It happened, the world didn't end, economic armageddon didn't occur, mostly people are over it and more concerned by covid as I said.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      Yes, COVID has served as a nice distraction and scapegoat. It couldn't have been timed better from that perspective, but the end result is that the UK now has two major challenges to deal with.
    - 1_player 5y ago
      Instant economic armageddon was just a rare possibility, but the impact on the economy is going to be felt over the next 2 decades, and it will be, in the Remainers' point of view, armageddon-sized but diluted over many years.
canjobear 5y ago
My experience is that people who supported Remain think it’s been a disaster and people who supported Leave think it’s fine or great. Are there any prominent voices who have changed their minds since the actual event?
- jacquesm 5y ago
  I don't think you will ever hear people in politics express the sentiment that they got something wrong. Their successors might. Remainers can't really regret their choice anyway.
errantmind 5y ago
As an outsider, I didn't really expect to see any 'improvement' without simultaneous economic and political reform. Simply pulling out of the EU without any other major changes didn't seem like enough to bring what supporters wanted.
viktorcode 5y ago
I've been watching Brexit as an outside observer. Curious thing that I noticed: after the Brexit referendum was won by the "leave" side and first months of political confusion in the UK followed, elsewhere in Europe anti-EU parties dropped in popularity among public. It's like Brexit served the EU by uniting its members.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
simonblack 5y ago
Oh, the sheer unadulterated Hubris of the Brexiteers. When I woke up the morning after the Vote in the UK, I fully expected the result to be 'Remain'. I was dumbfounded to hear that the result was to 'Leave'. I simply could not believe that people would be so dumb as to destroy their own futures. But for a lower-rank country where people still sing that horribly outdated "Rule Britannia, Britannia Rules the Waves" with no sense of incongruousness, what else would you expect?
drumhead 5y ago
To be honest the biggest problems have been labour shortages caused by the end of free movement. Certain sectors such as farming and hospitality have been hardest hit because of their reliance on cheap european labour. But really they'd known for 5 years that it was going to happen and they didnt do anything to mitigate it. Covid has made the situation worse with the limitations on movement, but they know the solution, pay more for staff, invest in machinery or go out of business. We had turned into a modern day version of Rome, with cheap EU labour being the equivalent of slave labour which made Rome work. Any recent unpopularity the government has experienced is more to do with having parties they had during lockdown than issues with Brexit. I dont think the current government has really done much to take advantage of the new freedoms we have so far. In terms of cheaper food for instance, we've just struck a free trade deal with Australia, from where we could have expected to buy a lot of cheap food, but to protect farmers the lower prices are being phased in over 15 years. As the EU are reluctant to strike a deal on Financial services the City is in a position to get rid of a lot of the more onerous financial regulations that had been introduced such as MFID for example. We can lower taxes and deregulate markets more quickly and aggresively than we currently have. I think Covid has had a lot to do with the slower pace though. The debt aquired from the various employment subsidy and industry support schemes had made the government more reluctant to go hard on the tax cutting. The problem with Brexit was that the leaders of the Campaign, Boris and Michael Gove werent really in favour of it, they just did it to bolster their support within the Conservative party, of which a majority was very hostile to the EU. They fully expected to lose, but they'd come out of it looking like they were the true defenders of the Eurosceptic faith.A the post referendum victory press conferenc, the pair of them looked absolutely devastated, like they'd accidently killed the family pet. They clearly didnt want to be there. I dont think we'll ever go back though, I think knowing that we'd have to accept schengen and free movement of people, a single currency, any further centralisation of power, and the rulings of European Court would put too many people off. I think a few years from now the idea of going back in will become unthinkable. The only reason most people wanted to stay was the visa free travel, but if the cost was uncontrolled immigration then no. Interestingly the EU seems to have become more unstable. The problems with Poland and Hungary their lack of respect for EU laws have shown how impotent the EU actually is in disciplining its own memebers. If they keep getting away with flouting the rules then other member states with dubious governments will try their luck. The finances are also become more contentious, the last budget barely got through. I cant see anyone leaving though whatever stories we may hear about a Polexit. The poorer countries have way to much to lose, in subsidies and trade to even think about it. The idea of free movement of people, which was what lost it for the remain camp, is now something that coming up for debate amongst the political classes. Michel Barnier in his failed run for candidacy for the French Presidential elections for the right made a freeze on free movement of Labour into France for 5 years one of his key pledges. So the sacred cows are starting to be questioned. Im honestly just glad we're out of it now. We dont have to worry about anything daft they might come up with over there. Our destiny is now ours again, we can be as flexible as we need to be to get things done. Time to start looking out again.

58 points by DrNuke 5y ago

The Guardian is considered significantly politically slanted, right? I don't know how Brexit is going but I'd like to look at several sources with several different world views before I come to a conclusion.

sandbags 5y ago
The Guardian is left-wing although the champagne socialists branch where the Daily Mirror is more the working class socialist paper. Check out the Tortoise or Byline Times articles on the subject if you want something more nuanced.
DangitBobby 5y ago
And it might take a bit longer than a year for the dust to settle. Rome wasn't built in a day, after all.
- darthrupert 5y ago
  It was burned in a day though.
KerrAvon 5y ago
Center-left from a US perspective. But where will you find a right wing equivalent dealing in actual facts instead of isolationist fever dreams?
- kergonath 5y ago
  Wouldn’t the Times fit more or less? Certainly, the Torygraph isn’t it.
  - robin_reala 5y ago
    FT is probably your best bet.
fhsijrbrhfhdh 5y ago
1_player 5y ago
That's the case for all news. But for Brexit specifically, you'd be hard pressed to find good news about Brexit even on Boris' side, given how it's turned out and what an absolute shit show the government has been the past two years. The Brexit minister just resigned, and he's replaced it with a muppet, mostly for political reasons than competence. Boris has become very unpopular for many reasons, Brexit one of them, and I bet he's not gonna be the head honcho of the Tory party for much longer. I hope Brexit becomes politically toxic it will become fashionable to rejoin the EU again but let me put down the hopium pipe first.
- hardlianotion 5y ago
  Brexit is not even a reason Bojo is unpopular.
  - stevesimmons 5y ago
    The type of nonsensical Brexit that Boris negotiated can only be supported by Conservative politicians who ignore reality and are comfortable with lying as their basis for engaging with the rest of the country. The traditional, sensible Conservative MPs (Dominic Grieve etc) were forced out two years ago. The reason why Boris is unpopular now are exactly the reasons why Brexit is in a hole: lies, rules don't apply to us, mindless boosterism, no plans for governing just gaining power, incompetent delivery.
- timellis-smith 5y ago
  This is perhaps an equivalent article https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/12/21/year-brexit-trade-deal-doom-mongers-got-wrong/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/12/21/year-brexit-... from the more pro Brexit side.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    I've read a few of his articles, they remind me of Fox News. Britain sailing on to renewed glory after shedding the shackles of the EU that only served to slow it down from its rightful ambitious path forward. Just one example: "It will take time, but with regulatory divergence the UK will steadily pull ahead of rivals such as France and Germany which you would normally expect to perform as well as, if not slightly better, than the UK. We will be more innovative, attract more capital, and our companies will seize markets more quickly, than they otherwise would have done. We have seen the United States do that in technology, and now Britain will be able to match it. That is a prize worth having, and it has been secured."
viktorcode 5y ago
To the left, right :) But if you are following unbiased analyses, say from foreign financial publications, they do agree on economic downside of Brexit.

darthrupert 5y ago

Kinda glad that UK tested these waters so us other EU countries don't have to. Too bad it made Europe weaker.

danjac 5y ago
It might well have made Europe stronger. UK was always the awkward odd man out that vetoed decisions left and right. I suspect that the UK will be back in the Single Market in all but name by the end of the decade, once there is a change of regime, the core Brexit demographic has passed away, and economic realities come home to roost.
- akmarinov 5y ago
  I’m in the same boat, the path to federalization is a slight bit more clear now.
  - thechao 5y ago
    American: by Federalization, do you mean a single pan-EU govt? Is there a sunmary if the structure & power-sharing arrangement between the constituent states?
    - SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
      Some things are shared already: The Euro is common currency for key states, and borders are light-to-non-existent. Thea means that a lot of governance has to be shared. The lesson is that a single market isn't just about opening borders, it's about shared standards and practices that prevent a race to the bottom. A market is fundamentally a shared set of ground-rules. I'm sure that there are lessons to be learned from 2008 about making a shared currency and financial arrangement that works for both e.g. Germany and for Greece. Without the UK, "the awkward odd man out that consistently vetoed further integration" this trend is bound to continue and more things will become shared, in an "ever closer union".
  - akvadrako 5y ago

dash2 5y ago

Oooooooooooosh. NOT ON CHRISTMAS DAY, guys...

yakshaving_jgt 5y ago

Did the NHS get an extra £350mm per week? No. Did the country get richer? No. Are there fewer refugees? No. … Whoops.

Proven 5y ago
1) Did the NHS get less money? Probably not. 2) Did the country get less poor? Yes. 3) Do you mean migrants? Of course there aren't fewer of them, the EU is sending them to the UK as fast as they can. You need a better government, not membership in the EU.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  > Did the country get less poor? Yes. That's not the story as told by the various figures the government reports. > Do you mean migrants? Of course there aren't fewer of them, the EU is sending them to the UK as fast as they can. That is complete bullshit.
  - hardlianotion 5y ago
    The country is not poorer, and government figures support my claim.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      Sure! https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59070020 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59070020
      - hardlianotion 5y ago
        And I note that is not a rebuttal.
        jacquesm 5y ago
        Look, if you want to argue that the UK is wealthier post Brexit then that's fine with me but you are simply out of touch with reality, besides that if the Union fractures - and there is a fair chance that it will - then none of this is more than noise, the end result of that will be a massive financial loss. So you're welcome to your worldview but the reality is that the UK has just had one of the worst years in living memory and that the only dispute you might have is over how much of it is due to COVID-19 and how much due to Brexit. Since we have the rest of Europe as a baseline I don't think that that is undoable, and it doesn't look particularly good for the UK.

AutumnCurtain 5y ago

As both the economic and political gaps widen between the UK and Europe, I have to wonder whether the Brits would even be able to re-enter if they wanted to. Can any continental Europeans share their perspective on that prospect?

jacquesm 5y ago
Of course they could. If the UK falls apart Scotland will be welcome (likely over the protests of Spain but nothing that can't be bought off). The remainder will then follow bit by bit with England likely last. If the UK manages to hold together then it will be welcome to return but without the special exceptions that were made for it in the past. The good deal they had was squandered and the negotiation position of the EU has strengthened accordingly. Alternatively, the UK could conceivably try to get closer to the USA (not physically, obviously), but I doubt that would fly given the distance involved.
- smackay 5y ago
  Scotland is a sovereign nation which is currently in a long term "marriage" with England through the Treaty of Union. It's not trying secede from the United Kingdom in as much as it's trying to get a divorce - not unlike Brexit. As a result while many people draw parallels with the situation in Catalonia it's not the same. The Spanish government has little to fear from the breakup of the United Kingdom and likely has much to gain. As member of the European Union Scotland has a lot of natural resources from fish to energy which would benefit other EU members.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Yes, but politicians aren't always rational and the Spanish have already voiced their concerns about this. The funny thing (well, not really funny, but given the situation there is something that borders on humor) to me is that England is absolutely adamant that Scotland can't secede from the Union when that is exactly what they just forced Scotland to be a part of with the EU. It boggles the mind how they twist themselves into the weirdest illogical pretzels arguing that when Scotland voted to stay in the Union that vote was binding even post Brexit, as if the circumstances haven't materially changed. We'll see how that one ends. But eventually the only thing that matters is the economy and for now that doesn't look all that good for the UK, the sooner they turn around the better for everybody. But Europe is not going to push for this, it will have to come from inside for it to work.

jacquesm 5y ago

For now it is going mostly as predicted by the 'remain' camp, the 'leave' camp have a bit of a problem maintaining their credibility. I know quite a few people that moved out of the UK when this happened, including a number of Britons. It will be quite a ways downhill, there is a good chance that when the dust settles the UK itself will no longer exist. This will likely go into history as the biggest own goal there ever was, the UK had a pretty good deal compared to other countries in the EU and it wasn't enough. But no matter how strong your country is you can't compete with the negotiation power of a block of several hundred million people. Whether it will make the EU stronger or weaker in the long run is still up for grabs, there is plenty of force trying to fragment the EU, some of it financed from outside and so very hard to control. There are no easy solutions for all this, and COVID has made it all a lot worse than what it probably would have been without.

einszwei 5y ago
> there is a good chance that when the dust settles the UK itself will no longer exist. That is a very strong statement for a country which is still very influential
- rusk 5y ago
  Influential and structurally resilient are not the same thing.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  There are plenty of stress fractures running through the UK, both on the Southern and the Northern side of it. If England and Wales (and maybe Northern Ireland) want to continue to call themselves the UK I don't think anybody would object. But make no mistake, this could easily cause significant damage well beyond the intended damage caused by Brexit alone.
- maxwell86 5y ago
  UK is not one country, is a union of 4 countries. I suspect by the above what the OP means is that in the next round of elections, Scotland is probably going to split out from the UK and rejoin the EU, and then the shit will really hit the fan.

Overtonwindow 5y ago

Not anywhere nearly as bad as the remaining crowd made it out to be. At least according to economic and social data, things are actually going pretty well.

jacquesm 5y ago
You should definitely give us your sources for economic and social data then, everything I've seen so far indicates a slow trainwreck, not as bad as it could have been but certainly not 'actually going pretty well'.
- hunterb123 5y ago
  You should definitely also provide sources and data for your assessment of it being a "trainwreck". You're doing the same thing you're criticizing, you just gave your opinion, no facts. > At least _according to economic and social data_, things are actually going _pretty well_. > _everything I've seen_ so far indicates a _slow trainwreck_ This happens a lot in this thread. Basically Yes-huh, Nuh-uh arguments. ~ Merry Christmas everyone, maybe a future rule of no political threads on this day.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    There is a nice linked article for your perusal.
    - hunterb123 5y ago
      Yes and they also say: > Disentangling precisely what has been caused by the pandemic and what is the result of Brexit is difficult. In no way do they do that. They are attributing Brexit as the cause without any proof. They only note the decrease, they don't link it to Brexit. You can't directly compare 2021 to pre-pandemic levels because economies were shut down. These decreases are caused by the pandemic, in no way does the article link Brexit to these numbersl
      - 5y ago

manishsharan 5y ago

As a long time subscriber of /r/LeopardsAteMyFace/, thank you Brexiteers for providing us our daily content.

123pie123 5y ago

I have yet to hear one financial benefit from Brexit or any other benefits really, unless you want a united Ireland or Scotish independance. fair few negatives. to name a few - increase friction in trade to business (extra paper work/ costs/ taxes/ delays at border) - loss of talent from EU - lack of miltary access to Galileo GPS, screwing up the latest weapons - fragmented internal UK market, NI under different rules - lack of influence and veto to new EU rules / regulations, so UK has no influence or say to the regulations to a part of its country (ie Northern Ireland)

timellis-smith 5y ago
Difficult to say whether these were because of Brexit but: Nissan has doubled down on Sunderland post Brexit Shell has closed its offices in Netherlands on favour of UK as has Unilever. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/iss-recommends-shareholders-support-shell-move-uk-2021-11-26/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/iss-recommends-share... https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/business/2021/nov/15/shell-move-hq-tax-netherlands-uk https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/business/20... https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2021/07/01/business/nissan-battery-factory-britain.amp.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2021/07/01/busi...
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Shell has only moved because they didn't want to pay dividend tax, and post Brexit the UK has decided that being a tax shelter for multi-nationals may not be the worst move. Whether that is true in the long term remains to be seen, the fact that Shell moves their head office may not be worth as much as losing the rest of the Euro clearing that is happening in London over the next decade or so.

dageshi 5y ago

To be perfectly frank, how well or bad brexit is going is pretty impossible to tell because Covid smashed through the middle of it and has probably had a more profound effect on day to day life than brexit would have had on most people.

jacquesm 5y ago
No, COVID just made a bad thing even worse.
- dageshi 5y ago
  There's an awful lot of people looking from the outside of the UK in telling people that brexit is going terribly when honest to god nearly all focus in the UK has been on covid for 2 years with a short blip during when we actually left. Few people really talk about brexit anymore in the way we did in the years prior. It happened, the world didn't end, economic armageddon didn't occur, mostly people are over it and more concerned by covid as I said.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Yes, COVID has served as a nice distraction and scapegoat. It couldn't have been timed better from that perspective, but the end result is that the UK now has two major challenges to deal with.
  - 1_player 5y ago
    Instant economic armageddon was just a rare possibility, but the impact on the economy is going to be felt over the next 2 decades, and it will be, in the Remainers' point of view, armageddon-sized but diluted over many years.

canjobear 5y ago

My experience is that people who supported Remain think it’s been a disaster and people who supported Leave think it’s fine or great. Are there any prominent voices who have changed their minds since the actual event?

jacquesm 5y ago
I don't think you will ever hear people in politics express the sentiment that they got something wrong. Their successors might. Remainers can't really regret their choice anyway.

errantmind 5y ago

As an outsider, I didn't really expect to see any 'improvement' without simultaneous economic and political reform. Simply pulling out of the EU without any other major changes didn't seem like enough to bring what supporters wanted.

viktorcode 5y ago

I've been watching Brexit as an outside observer. Curious thing that I noticed: after the Brexit referendum was won by the "leave" side and first months of political confusion in the UK followed, elsewhere in Europe anti-EU parties dropped in popularity among public. It's like Brexit served the EU by uniting its members.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

simonblack 5y ago

Oh, the sheer unadulterated Hubris of the Brexiteers. When I woke up the morning after the Vote in the UK, I fully expected the result to be 'Remain'. I was dumbfounded to hear that the result was to 'Leave'. I simply could not believe that people would be so dumb as to destroy their own futures. But for a lower-rank country where people still sing that horribly outdated "Rule Britannia, Britannia Rules the Waves" with no sense of incongruousness, what else would you expect?

drumhead 5y ago

To be honest the biggest problems have been labour shortages caused by the end of free movement. Certain sectors such as farming and hospitality have been hardest hit because of their reliance on cheap european labour. But really they'd known for 5 years that it was going to happen and they didnt do anything to mitigate it. Covid has made the situation worse with the limitations on movement, but they know the solution, pay more for staff, invest in machinery or go out of business. We had turned into a modern day version of Rome, with cheap EU labour being the equivalent of slave labour which made Rome work. Any recent unpopularity the government has experienced is more to do with having parties they had during lockdown than issues with Brexit. I dont think the current government has really done much to take advantage of the new freedoms we have so far. In terms of cheaper food for instance, we've just struck a free trade deal with Australia, from where we could have expected to buy a lot of cheap food, but to protect farmers the lower prices are being phased in over 15 years. As the EU are reluctant to strike a deal on Financial services the City is in a position to get rid of a lot of the more onerous financial regulations that had been introduced such as MFID for example. We can lower taxes and deregulate markets more quickly and aggresively than we currently have. I think Covid has had a lot to do with the slower pace though. The debt aquired from the various employment subsidy and industry support schemes had made the government more reluctant to go hard on the tax cutting. The problem with Brexit was that the leaders of the Campaign, Boris and Michael Gove werent really in favour of it, they just did it to bolster their support within the Conservative party, of which a majority was very hostile to the EU. They fully expected to lose, but they'd come out of it looking like they were the true defenders of the Eurosceptic faith.A the post referendum victory press conferenc, the pair of them looked absolutely devastated, like they'd accidently killed the family pet. They clearly didnt want to be there. I dont think we'll ever go back though, I think knowing that we'd have to accept schengen and free movement of people, a single currency, any further centralisation of power, and the rulings of European Court would put too many people off. I think a few years from now the idea of going back in will become unthinkable. The only reason most people wanted to stay was the visa free travel, but if the cost was uncontrolled immigration then no. Interestingly the EU seems to have become more unstable. The problems with Poland and Hungary their lack of respect for EU laws have shown how impotent the EU actually is in disciplining its own memebers. If they keep getting away with flouting the rules then other member states with dubious governments will try their luck. The finances are also become more contentious, the last budget barely got through. I cant see anyone leaving though whatever stories we may hear about a Polexit. The poorer countries have way to much to lose, in subsidies and trade to even think about it. The idea of free movement of people, which was what lost it for the remain camp, is now something that coming up for debate amongst the political classes. Michel Barnier in his failed run for candidacy for the French Presidential elections for the right made a freeze on free movement of Labour into France for 5 years one of his key pledges. So the sacred cows are starting to be questioned. Im honestly just glad we're out of it now. We dont have to worry about anything daft they might come up with over there. Our destiny is now ours again, we can be as flexible as we need to be to get things done. Time to start looking out again.