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I don't think that there are any winners in Brexit. It corrupted the British politics and EU lost UK, besides the economical impact. Barriers on trade and trav

by mrtksn 4y ago

I don't think that there are any winners in Brexit. It corrupted the British politics and EU lost UK, besides the economical impact. Barriers on trade and travel were raised without purpose other than having barriers. Even the brexiteers lost their mojo as their purpose of existence disappeared and a particularly incompetent and toxic breed of politicians dominated the political discussions. Those too lost by getting exposed for what they are, destroying the support for legitimate position which those were pretending to stand for. Absolutely no winners. Any perceived winners are temporary simply because you don't have anything to win by destroying your tight and fruitful relationship with your closest neighbours and you can't move somewhere else.

Sebguer 4y ago
Yeah, the article despite its title, doesn't really paint 'EU' as winning, except insofar as they've likely succeeded in discouraging anyone else from exiting the union.
- rich_sasha 4y ago
  In the UK, there was a bit of a "we're abandoning a sinking ship, now EU gonna suffer" mood. In that sense, EU kind of prevailed. But yes, not really better off.
ttul 4y ago
It’s small beer by comparison, but I’m similar fashion, British Columbians booted out an efficient and wonderful value added tax called the HST because an aging provincial politician engaged his base of mostly conservative low-information voters against it, claiming baselessly that it killed jobs. Democracies for some reason seem to shoot themselves in the foot periodically when a popular idea takes hold despite rational arguments against it. If you can come up with a good sounding idea that is devoid of facts, dumb citizens will gleefully support it.
- deepsun 4y ago
  Democracy is a bad form of government, especially for more complex questions as you presented. Unfortunately, that's still the best form of government we've discovered that far (besides theoretical naive ones like communism or libertarianism).
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    So Two cheers for Democracy: one because it admits variety and two because it permits criticism. Two cheers are quite enough: there is no occasion to give three. Only Love the Beloved Republic deserves that. — EM Forster
  - danans 4y ago
    > that's still the best form of government we've discovered that far (besides theoretical naive ones like communism or libertarianism). Libertarianism and communism may be naive, but as I understand it, they aren't forms of government, as in "providing a framework for governance". Democracy, authoritarianism, fascism, monarchy, oligarchy, anarchy - those are all forms of government.
- doctor_eval 4y ago
  > conservative low-information voters this is a terrific turn of phrase. thanks.
  - red-iron-pine 4y ago
    there are liberal low-info voters, and high-info voters of both sides. plus don't conflate low info to == low intelligence. low info is as much about attention and willingness to delve into policies as it is about sharpness. your Stanford STEM grad working 60 hours a week doesn't have time to dig deep into anything outside of some casual reddit or wired or HN browsing, and efforts to convey expectations via simple things like screenshoting someone else's tweets work very well.
    - doctor_eval 4y ago
paulmd 4y ago
> I don't think that there are any winners in Brexit. ... Absolutely no winners. Russia, of course. Their investments in Murdoch media and other hyperpartisan media and disinformation-warfare techniques have paid massive dividends - the US is the most hyper-polarized it's been since the civil war, the UK has been pulled out of the EU fold are both massive successes. Australia and Canada and several other countries are dealing with similar polarization - although of course not Murdoch media in Canada, but it's not a coincidence that the other three are all Murdoch strongholds. Not a coincidence the NRA got busted for funnelling russian money into US politics and working hand-in-glove with russian intelligence operators, and I don't think they're the only one, not even close. Just as the republican majority leader noted in 2017 - there's probably even a few specific congresspeople and other powerful politicians on the Russian payroll. Throw in a few shells for plausible deniability and it's all for sale. The performative theatrics around ukraine have certainly been interesting and I don't think it's all just ritual opposition to whatever the party in power is doing either. The politicians McCarthy identified have been particularly outspoken too. As they say: "Lock it up, no leaks, that's how we know we're family here."
- notahacker 4y ago
  Russia seems to have indirectly lost out from its leader convincing himself he's a political mastermind who can get other countries to dance to his tune too... (and as far as Brexit goes they undoubtedly funnelled a lot of money to certain campaigns, but Mail/Murdoch coverage of the EU in the UK was just as hysterical in the 1990s when Russia was a non factor)
- borissk 4y ago
  Think you need to separate between Russia and the Putin regime. Putin and his friends/oligarchs/corrupted officials/KGB agents have kept the regular russians very very poor. What does a regular russian citizen gain from increased corruption in EU - that used to be Russia's biggest trading partner? Or from a potential civil war in US, that is the source of most progress and new technology in the world?
  - thrill 4y ago
eldaisfish 4y ago
You’re absolutely right. There are no winners with Brexit although there are significant losses to both sides. The EU lost the one true global city it had - london. I’m certain there will be several claims from Europeans about how Frankfurt or Paris or Amsterdam can supplant it but all that is just hopes and dreams. London is the only true global city apart from New York and there is just no competition. This is a major loss for the EU as London was an excellent gateway to European markets. On the flip side, the UK remains a global power with significant influence although Brexit was a needless shot in the foot. This is something that a lot of Europeans forget in their attempt to paint Brexit as a disaster - something it definitely is. The UK is a diminished power, but still a power.
- maximinus_thrax 4y ago
  I wanted to nitpick your statement about 'true global cities' but I did some research and found https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization_and_World_Cities_Research_Network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization_and_World_Cities... TIL
  - archagon 4y ago
    I mean, Paris in Alpha+ is close enough, I think.
    - asdadsdad 4y ago
      Paris is very "french". London is global, like nyc. And even I'd wager London is a tad more global than nyc
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
borissk 4y ago
When UK was a member of EU it stopped any further development of it. It was against all proposals for tighter military, political and economic integration of the member states. Now that UK is out it gives EU a chance to get closer to a real state and to better compete with US and China. In 10 or 20 years when most of the leave voters die out and a new generation of politicians grows up it's completely possible for UK to re-join the EU.
- Silhouette 4y ago
  In 10 or 20 years when most of the leave voters die out and a new generation of politicians grows up It will be interesting to see if that new generation stick to their current political beliefs in 10 or 20 years. The older generation who were most heavily in favour of Brexit were the same younger generation who voted for the EU's predecessor at the previous referendum a few decades earlier. A person's political views can change over time. And of course so can both the UK and the EU. On the other hand the traditional patterns of individual political evolution and voting behaviour in British politics haven't really held recently and no-one seems to know why yet. So we shouldn't assume that younger voters who skew pro-EU at present will turn into older voters who skew the other way in a decade or two.
- xiphias2 4y ago
  I wish you were right, but EU's share of world GDP is just shrinking every year (both before and after Brexit) because of all the great social structure that give people a peaceful life. As an example GDPR is great for protecting privacy, but makes data mining for businesses really hard. Great for people, but on the long term these protections can weaken the economy which makes EU more and more vulnerable to outside control. At the same time it's not a new thing: it's happening gradually over the last few hundreds of years.
  - joseftexas 4y ago
    Without cheap Russian oil+gas and worldwide dedollarisation with rise of BRICS, EU will turn into just another Sri Lanka worth of GDP in coming 50 years. In my 30 years kf investment portfolios, EU portions had shrink so fast. You can see their footballs revenue shrinking, persistent high unemployment, lack innovations in tech sectors, insurance especially maritime market share erodes fastest this year. Asians influx (especially Chinese and Indians) had been eclipse by middle east and Afticans. You know how industrious amd rich the Chinese and Indians. Doing business is just not worth it in EU. The cost on average is about 20-50% higher than anywhere in the world and that was before losing Russian oil+gas (now is closer to 100% and still rising).
gotoeleven 4y ago
Does not having to run your laws past an outside, unaccountable authority not count as a win of any kind? Yah there are economic costs to brexit but surely self-determination has some value right?
- 123pie123 4y ago
  yes and we get to pick other temporary dictators who want to give knighthoods to their dads!! amongst other abuses of their powers
- mrtksn 4y ago
  Not at all because it’s a fallacy. EU is not some 3rd party, it’s made up of its members and having your laws aligned to EU laws mean your laws are aligned to the laws laws created by you. EU is not some Belgian club you subscribe to, Brussels is just a location for meeting with your partners. People who make the EU laws were British, among others. EU is useful when you want to have interoperability and resolve conflicts before they happen. So essentially, if you like to have flying cars that can travel across all the Europe, your people posted in Brussels come to agreement with the others on the flux capacitor fuel types and pass an EU law. Then your people at home pass a domestic law that follows the EU law and you end up with standardized flux capacitor fuels. As a result being in EU gives you the say on what suits you so the EU law be designed that way. When out of the EU, EU does it’s own thing and if you like to sell flying cars to EU, you need to comply to their flux capacitor requirements anyway(AKA Brussels effect). That’s why Brexit made trade with EU so bureaucratic.
  - lmm 4y ago
    That's how it was presented to the British public though. "Oh, the EU wants us to do this, our hands are tied, we can't do anything". No system with a smidgeon of accountability to the British public would ever have kept disgraced former disgraced former MP Peter Mandelson in a position of power.
    - ttepasse 4y ago
      Mandelson was nominated by the Government of the United Kingdom to be EU Commissioner, as part of the first Barroso Commission. Presumably the nominating HM Government is not accountable to the British Public.
crispinb 4y ago
I don't think that's right. Everythign in the EU is moving much faster now the UK is out. Losing the 2nd/3rd (depending on year & measurement approach) largest EU economy seems like an obvious loss. But with money comes power, and the UK always used its power to try to stop anything happening. It's a shame the UK was dominated by its most intransigently sclerotic constituent nation. Scotland and Wales could both have been effective and useful EU members (and, who knows, may yet become so). England was never going to be, and the EU is undoubtedly better off without it.
yieldcrv 4y ago
How did the EU lose anything? They get to impose modern requirements when pieces of the UK want to rejoin The UK wasnt part of the monetary union and all I guess is that some import export duties have to be reimplemented and now counted differently.
- CalChris 4y ago
  The EU losing the UK is like NATO losing France. France was an original founding member of NATO but partially withdrew in 1966 for reasons not unlike the UK leaving the EU, populist nationalism. They returned 43 years later. My guess is that Scotland will leave the UK and join the EU. Maybe in 50 years a rump England will apply to re-join.
- mrtksn 4y ago
  UK is a cultural superpower with a global city where the lingua franca is the native thong. UK leaving EU is a significant loss for EU. UK leaving the EU is like losing your USB-C port.
  - yieldcrv 4y ago
    The analogy is lost on me and you still didn't explain what the EU lost EU citizens can still get to London, UK citizens can still go on holiday in Europe work visas are needed for more now
  - red-iron-pine 4y ago
    Was a cultural superpower. 100 years ago India was speaking british english, but now they're speaking american english, and watching american movies.
mzs 4y ago
NI, possibly - only time will tell though.
hardlianotion 4y ago
It didn't corrupt UK politics so much as clearly demonstrate the levels to which it had sunk.
eointierney 4y ago
While Brexit is quite comprehensively idiotic there are winners: pretty much everyone now sees how dumb it is to leave the world's largest trading bloc in an bad-mannered huff and wreak yet untold havoc on your own economy just because you chose to agree with the bilious rhetoric of perfidious over-rich clowns. It also served to provide an excellent stress-test of the EU bureaucracy, helping to increase coordination pretty much everywhere. It looks like it will further serve to provide yet another stimulus to the subjects of the UK to modernise their systems, which is very long overdue.

by mrtksn 4y ago

Sebguer 4y ago

Yeah, the article despite its title, doesn't really paint 'EU' as winning, except insofar as they've likely succeeded in discouraging anyone else from exiting the union.

rich_sasha 4y ago
In the UK, there was a bit of a "we're abandoning a sinking ship, now EU gonna suffer" mood. In that sense, EU kind of prevailed. But yes, not really better off.

ttul 4y ago

It’s small beer by comparison, but I’m similar fashion, British Columbians booted out an efficient and wonderful value added tax called the HST because an aging provincial politician engaged his base of mostly conservative low-information voters against it, claiming baselessly that it killed jobs. Democracies for some reason seem to shoot themselves in the foot periodically when a popular idea takes hold despite rational arguments against it. If you can come up with a good sounding idea that is devoid of facts, dumb citizens will gleefully support it.

deepsun 4y ago
Democracy is a bad form of government, especially for more complex questions as you presented. Unfortunately, that's still the best form of government we've discovered that far (besides theoretical naive ones like communism or libertarianism).
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  So Two cheers for Democracy: one because it admits variety and two because it permits criticism. Two cheers are quite enough: there is no occasion to give three. Only Love the Beloved Republic deserves that. — EM Forster
- danans 4y ago
  > that's still the best form of government we've discovered that far (besides theoretical naive ones like communism or libertarianism). Libertarianism and communism may be naive, but as I understand it, they aren't forms of government, as in "providing a framework for governance". Democracy, authoritarianism, fascism, monarchy, oligarchy, anarchy - those are all forms of government.
doctor_eval 4y ago
> conservative low-information voters this is a terrific turn of phrase. thanks.
- red-iron-pine 4y ago
  there are liberal low-info voters, and high-info voters of both sides. plus don't conflate low info to == low intelligence. low info is as much about attention and willingness to delve into policies as it is about sharpness. your Stanford STEM grad working 60 hours a week doesn't have time to dig deep into anything outside of some casual reddit or wired or HN browsing, and efforts to convey expectations via simple things like screenshoting someone else's tweets work very well.
  - doctor_eval 4y ago

paulmd 4y ago

> I don't think that there are any winners in Brexit. ... Absolutely no winners. Russia, of course. Their investments in Murdoch media and other hyperpartisan media and disinformation-warfare techniques have paid massive dividends - the US is the most hyper-polarized it's been since the civil war, the UK has been pulled out of the EU fold are both massive successes. Australia and Canada and several other countries are dealing with similar polarization - although of course not Murdoch media in Canada, but it's not a coincidence that the other three are all Murdoch strongholds. Not a coincidence the NRA got busted for funnelling russian money into US politics and working hand-in-glove with russian intelligence operators, and I don't think they're the only one, not even close. Just as the republican majority leader noted in 2017 - there's probably even a few specific congresspeople and other powerful politicians on the Russian payroll. Throw in a few shells for plausible deniability and it's all for sale. The performative theatrics around ukraine have certainly been interesting and I don't think it's all just ritual opposition to whatever the party in power is doing either. The politicians McCarthy identified have been particularly outspoken too. As they say: "Lock it up, no leaks, that's how we know we're family here."

notahacker 4y ago
Russia seems to have indirectly lost out from its leader convincing himself he's a political mastermind who can get other countries to dance to his tune too... (and as far as Brexit goes they undoubtedly funnelled a lot of money to certain campaigns, but Mail/Murdoch coverage of the EU in the UK was just as hysterical in the 1990s when Russia was a non factor)
borissk 4y ago
Think you need to separate between Russia and the Putin regime. Putin and his friends/oligarchs/corrupted officials/KGB agents have kept the regular russians very very poor. What does a regular russian citizen gain from increased corruption in EU - that used to be Russia's biggest trading partner? Or from a potential civil war in US, that is the source of most progress and new technology in the world?
- thrill 4y ago

eldaisfish 4y ago

You’re absolutely right. There are no winners with Brexit although there are significant losses to both sides. The EU lost the one true global city it had - london. I’m certain there will be several claims from Europeans about how Frankfurt or Paris or Amsterdam can supplant it but all that is just hopes and dreams. London is the only true global city apart from New York and there is just no competition. This is a major loss for the EU as London was an excellent gateway to European markets. On the flip side, the UK remains a global power with significant influence although Brexit was a needless shot in the foot. This is something that a lot of Europeans forget in their attempt to paint Brexit as a disaster - something it definitely is. The UK is a diminished power, but still a power.

maximinus_thrax 4y ago
I wanted to nitpick your statement about 'true global cities' but I did some research and found https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization_and_World_Cities_Research_Network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization_and_World_Cities... TIL
- archagon 4y ago
  I mean, Paris in Alpha+ is close enough, I think.
  - asdadsdad 4y ago
    Paris is very "french". London is global, like nyc. And even I'd wager London is a tad more global than nyc
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

borissk 4y ago

When UK was a member of EU it stopped any further development of it. It was against all proposals for tighter military, political and economic integration of the member states. Now that UK is out it gives EU a chance to get closer to a real state and to better compete with US and China. In 10 or 20 years when most of the leave voters die out and a new generation of politicians grows up it's completely possible for UK to re-join the EU.

Silhouette 4y ago
In 10 or 20 years when most of the leave voters die out and a new generation of politicians grows up It will be interesting to see if that new generation stick to their current political beliefs in 10 or 20 years. The older generation who were most heavily in favour of Brexit were the same younger generation who voted for the EU's predecessor at the previous referendum a few decades earlier. A person's political views can change over time. And of course so can both the UK and the EU. On the other hand the traditional patterns of individual political evolution and voting behaviour in British politics haven't really held recently and no-one seems to know why yet. So we shouldn't assume that younger voters who skew pro-EU at present will turn into older voters who skew the other way in a decade or two.
xiphias2 4y ago
I wish you were right, but EU's share of world GDP is just shrinking every year (both before and after Brexit) because of all the great social structure that give people a peaceful life. As an example GDPR is great for protecting privacy, but makes data mining for businesses really hard. Great for people, but on the long term these protections can weaken the economy which makes EU more and more vulnerable to outside control. At the same time it's not a new thing: it's happening gradually over the last few hundreds of years.
- joseftexas 4y ago
  Without cheap Russian oil+gas and worldwide dedollarisation with rise of BRICS, EU will turn into just another Sri Lanka worth of GDP in coming 50 years. In my 30 years kf investment portfolios, EU portions had shrink so fast. You can see their footballs revenue shrinking, persistent high unemployment, lack innovations in tech sectors, insurance especially maritime market share erodes fastest this year. Asians influx (especially Chinese and Indians) had been eclipse by middle east and Afticans. You know how industrious amd rich the Chinese and Indians. Doing business is just not worth it in EU. The cost on average is about 20-50% higher than anywhere in the world and that was before losing Russian oil+gas (now is closer to 100% and still rising).

gotoeleven 4y ago

Does not having to run your laws past an outside, unaccountable authority not count as a win of any kind? Yah there are economic costs to brexit but surely self-determination has some value right?

123pie123 4y ago
yes and we get to pick other temporary dictators who want to give knighthoods to their dads!! amongst other abuses of their powers
mrtksn 4y ago
Not at all because it’s a fallacy. EU is not some 3rd party, it’s made up of its members and having your laws aligned to EU laws mean your laws are aligned to the laws laws created by you. EU is not some Belgian club you subscribe to, Brussels is just a location for meeting with your partners. People who make the EU laws were British, among others. EU is useful when you want to have interoperability and resolve conflicts before they happen. So essentially, if you like to have flying cars that can travel across all the Europe, your people posted in Brussels come to agreement with the others on the flux capacitor fuel types and pass an EU law. Then your people at home pass a domestic law that follows the EU law and you end up with standardized flux capacitor fuels. As a result being in EU gives you the say on what suits you so the EU law be designed that way. When out of the EU, EU does it’s own thing and if you like to sell flying cars to EU, you need to comply to their flux capacitor requirements anyway(AKA Brussels effect). That’s why Brexit made trade with EU so bureaucratic.
- lmm 4y ago
  That's how it was presented to the British public though. "Oh, the EU wants us to do this, our hands are tied, we can't do anything". No system with a smidgeon of accountability to the British public would ever have kept disgraced former disgraced former MP Peter Mandelson in a position of power.
  - ttepasse 4y ago
    Mandelson was nominated by the Government of the United Kingdom to be EU Commissioner, as part of the first Barroso Commission. Presumably the nominating HM Government is not accountable to the British Public.

crispinb 4y ago

I don't think that's right. Everythign in the EU is moving much faster now the UK is out. Losing the 2nd/3rd (depending on year & measurement approach) largest EU economy seems like an obvious loss. But with money comes power, and the UK always used its power to try to stop anything happening. It's a shame the UK was dominated by its most intransigently sclerotic constituent nation. Scotland and Wales could both have been effective and useful EU members (and, who knows, may yet become so). England was never going to be, and the EU is undoubtedly better off without it.

yieldcrv 4y ago

How did the EU lose anything? They get to impose modern requirements when pieces of the UK want to rejoin The UK wasnt part of the monetary union and all I guess is that some import export duties have to be reimplemented and now counted differently.

CalChris 4y ago
The EU losing the UK is like NATO losing France. France was an original founding member of NATO but partially withdrew in 1966 for reasons not unlike the UK leaving the EU, populist nationalism. They returned 43 years later. My guess is that Scotland will leave the UK and join the EU. Maybe in 50 years a rump England will apply to re-join.
mrtksn 4y ago
UK is a cultural superpower with a global city where the lingua franca is the native thong. UK leaving EU is a significant loss for EU. UK leaving the EU is like losing your USB-C port.
- yieldcrv 4y ago
  The analogy is lost on me and you still didn't explain what the EU lost EU citizens can still get to London, UK citizens can still go on holiday in Europe work visas are needed for more now
- red-iron-pine 4y ago
  Was a cultural superpower. 100 years ago India was speaking british english, but now they're speaking american english, and watching american movies.

mzs 4y ago

NI, possibly - only time will tell though.

hardlianotion 4y ago

It didn't corrupt UK politics so much as clearly demonstrate the levels to which it had sunk.

eointierney 4y ago

While Brexit is quite comprehensively idiotic there are winners: pretty much everyone now sees how dumb it is to leave the world's largest trading bloc in an bad-mannered huff and wreak yet untold havoc on your own economy just because you chose to agree with the bilious rhetoric of perfidious over-rich clowns. It also served to provide an excellent stress-test of the EU bureaucracy, helping to increase coordination pretty much everywhere. It looks like it will further serve to provide yet another stimulus to the subjects of the UK to modernise their systems, which is very long overdue.