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Brexit was always going to be economically harmful to both the UK and the EU. I voted Brexit because I objected to the EU on political and economic grounds. Bor

Brexit was always going to be economically harmful to both the UK and the EU. I voted Brexit because I objected to the EU on political and economic grounds. Boris's lot were the last people I wanted to take us out; but I didn't think we'd ever be given another chance to get out, and I figured we could recover, in about a decade, economically. If we stayed in, we'd never recover politically. I didn't know it would coincide with two other economic challenges: COVID, and Ukraine. Disentangling the effects of those three events is like trying to decode entrails; and anyway, I think "it's too early to say" (Chou Enlai). I have no Bregret.

borissk 4y ago
Sure, leaver's favorite excuse "Things got worse, but it's not because of Brexit". What positive things do you think came out of Brexit?
- skippyboxedhero 4y ago
  The "name positive things" argument is so abysmally weak. It almost always comes from people who didn't care about economics until Brexit, and now won't shut up about it...whilst being completely unaware of the lack of substance of their argument...they just read something on the BBC website written by a 21-year old politics grad (btw, this is the real issue with the UK, the Cabinet is one of the only places in British society where you actually have people who are up to the job...and I am not a Tory or Leave voter). The positive things are the things you see happening: financial deregulation, enterprise zones/freeports, greater political agency over economic decisions (this sounds soft, but the difference in spirit is huge...dirigiste corporatism is popular with the civil servant elite as in Brussels...voters here just don't like it), reorienting trade towards growing economies, can choose not to move closer to China/Russia, the list goes on and on. I will say this another way: if the UK didn't leave, would GDP have been higher? No. It wouldn't have been lower either. Brexit offers more opportunities in the future, it is up to govt to take them but by itself it has very little economic significance.
  - landoftheice 4y ago
    [dead]
  - Idiot_in_Vain 4y ago
    So financial deregulation is a positive development? Remember that next time the state has to take 50 or 100 billion dollar loan to save a greedy bank, that's too big to fail. No big deal, it will just cost a few percent higher taxes for a few decades.
    - skippyboxedhero 4y ago
      Financial deregulation did not cause the financial crisis in the UK. It was: corporate lending (which the FSA had full power over) and one bank doing a mega-merger (which the FSA had full power over). Insufficient regulation is the eternal excuse...it is like saying that your business failed because you can't beat your staff to force them to work more hours. No-one wants to talk about the fact that most regulators are idiots, and will fuck it up (which they have done post-GFC, we have given massive powers to the BoE and they have done nothing else but cause financial problems...but the media just wants to talk about "the bankers, the bonuses"). Either way, you are seeing the UK move very swiftly towards the heavy corporatist banking system in Europe which requires bailouts and subsidies every few years (you are complaining about the GFC, Europe has been doing GFC-size interventions to save their banking system every few years SINCE the GFC). Financial deregulation is the only way to stop this. It will be huge for growth because the UK's financial markets are ossifying heavily under current regs.
  - 123pie123 4y ago
    I think the only thing that is extremely absmally weak is your list of benefits? > financial deregulation, enterprise zones/freeports, greater political agency over economic decisions we cannot do deviate much from the norms any way, otherwise we'll lose access to the free market and where are all these new trade deals that are better than the EU's? Lets face it, the EU has been a massive misdirection for the tories and the propaganda papers to hide their huge failings let not talk about the massive f*k up of NI issue or the fact Scotland will try and get independance if given the chance, the massasive screw up to our miltary by coming out of Galilieo
- bmacho 4y ago
  > What positive things do you think came out of Brexit? They said it: they "objected to the EU on political and economic grounds" and now they are out of the EU. > Sure, leaver's favorite excuse "Things got worse, but it's not because of Brexit". That's not true, they said that they expected a short term economical decline: "and I figured we could recover, in about a decade, economically.". I wonder if chatGPT could remind you if you flood your favourite phrases on a comment that they don't hold.
  - Idiot_in_Vain 4y ago
    I wonder if ChatGPT is actually smarter than most leave voters...
- lmm 4y ago
  Less public money being spent on empty unused buildings in deprived regions. Less entrenched copyright laws, and an end to endless copyright extensions. Bankers no longer getting paid minimum salaries of at least 1/3 their bonus. Scottish rail nationalisation. No doubt the areas of politics you take an interest in are different from the ones I do, but in almost every area I saw policies that no-one wanted being forced through with the excuse that it was an EU requirement, and putting an end to that is enough to justify Brexit. Trust and accountability in the political system is priceless.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
bobmichael 4y ago
I'm curious what your objections to the EU are if you'd care to share?
- nonethewiser 4y ago
  Probably that the UK was in it. He cited fundamental facts about the EU.
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  OK. Politically, there are no shared constituencies. I don't mean in the sense of individual candidates; I mean there are no cross-border leaders or parties. We barely know the names of the party leaders in neighbouring countries. The EU is a treaty organisation, not a shared democracy. Policy initiatives come from the Commission, which is a collection of political has-beens, failed politicians that are of no further value in their own countries. The European Council is simply an ad-hoc gathering of representatives of the government of the day in their respective countries; as a body, it has no legityimacy whatsoever. The third leg of EU "democracy" is the EU Parliament. Apart from it's lack of electoral legitimacy, it was deliberately made feeble. It can't initiate legislation. Debates in the parliament chamber are so polite and decorous that it's impossible to stay awake - nobody listens to broadcasts of proceedings in the EU Parliament. The EU is very corrupt. To a large extent, that is because it is free from proper oversight; in theory, the Parliament is a constraint on the power of the executive (the Commission). In practise, the EU has exercised that power only once, when it became clear that roughly all Commissioners were corrupt. The only power they had was to sack the entire Commission, which they did. Once. And it didn't make much difference. The Parliament's powers have since been increased a little, I know. In theory, the EU has a border with common rules. In practice, that's not how it works; EU member nations just love it when the refugees they have admitted decide to leave for another European country, relying on Free Movement. They build fences to stop people entering, but not to stop people leaving. A number of very authoritarian countries from the East were admitted to the EU a couple of decades ago, and they are doing things like sacking judges that disagree with the government. The EU is doing nothing to prevent this kind of behaviour, although it is a violation of the treaties between member states. I don't want to be in a treaty organisation with racists and dictators. There; I hope that helps.
nonethewiser 4y ago
Thank you for providing a real pro Brexit perspective in these field of strawmen.
123pie123 4y ago
[flagged]
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  I have children, and grandchildren. I didn't want my grandchildren saddled with the EU. I've not folllowed your link, which presumably was intended to emphasise your insulting language. Learn to argue.
  - 123pie123 4y ago
    ok, search for "5 laws of stupidity" please explain any other words to describe someone who deliberately votes to screw up their own country for no benefits? or do you have any beneifts that Brexit has given? I've asked many people this and not recieved one that justifies the massive cluster f**
    - denton-scratch 4y ago
      Perhaps those "many people" chose not to bother answering someone who begins their question with "You are an idiot". I'm certainly not going to, but if you look for my other comments in this thread, you might find your answers. On the other hand, probably not; you appear to have a closed mind.
- jimmydorry 4y ago
  The costs are going up everywhere and many shops have runs of being empty of produce. In every other country that is not the UK, this is pinned on "supply chain disruption" or the war in Ukraine. If you haven't been watching closely for the last year, inflation is rocketing up globally. Those countries were not part of Brexit, hence why GP says it's impossible to disentangle the effects of COVID and Ukraine on any short-term macro-economic trend.
  - 123pie123 4y ago
    no, that's right wing propaganda to help you to cope try and look at the real figures outside daily express or daily mail It feels like the UK is following the Russian play book
z3c0 4y ago
> If we stayed in, we'd never recover politically. You lost me here. Recover from what, exactly? You've alluded to some problems here - which I'm happy to consider as valid - but you haven't described them as anything but "political" and "economic". Was Britain on some terrible downhill plummet in these areas?
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  Well, I'm a socialist. The EU has capitalism built into it's fabric; socialist policies are largely illegal, because of EU financial rules. For example, you can't nationalise things. It wans't a plummet; it's that the EU is designed to prevent certain kinds of political change, in particular changes that I want to see. By staying in the EU, we'd be accepting that we can't ever make those kinds of changes. I don't think we should make that kind of concession. That's the politics; as for the economics, I don't share the German view of how to manage the European economy. Germany dominates European banking and finance. I think European bankers have made some awful decisions in the last couple of decades, and we have been dragged along. I don't think Tory economics is any better; but we won't have neo-liberals running the UK forever.
  - z3c0 4y ago
    That puts things in a more clear context for me. Thank you for your reply.
ploppyploppy 4y ago
I second this. Zero regret. Leaving is heart surgery and within 10 years of officially leaving I don't think we'll be worse off.

borissk 4y ago

Sure, leaver's favorite excuse "Things got worse, but it's not because of Brexit". What positive things do you think came out of Brexit?

skippyboxedhero 4y ago
The "name positive things" argument is so abysmally weak. It almost always comes from people who didn't care about economics until Brexit, and now won't shut up about it...whilst being completely unaware of the lack of substance of their argument...they just read something on the BBC website written by a 21-year old politics grad (btw, this is the real issue with the UK, the Cabinet is one of the only places in British society where you actually have people who are up to the job...and I am not a Tory or Leave voter). The positive things are the things you see happening: financial deregulation, enterprise zones/freeports, greater political agency over economic decisions (this sounds soft, but the difference in spirit is huge...dirigiste corporatism is popular with the civil servant elite as in Brussels...voters here just don't like it), reorienting trade towards growing economies, can choose not to move closer to China/Russia, the list goes on and on. I will say this another way: if the UK didn't leave, would GDP have been higher? No. It wouldn't have been lower either. Brexit offers more opportunities in the future, it is up to govt to take them but by itself it has very little economic significance.
- landoftheice 4y ago
  [dead]
- Idiot_in_Vain 4y ago
  So financial deregulation is a positive development? Remember that next time the state has to take 50 or 100 billion dollar loan to save a greedy bank, that's too big to fail. No big deal, it will just cost a few percent higher taxes for a few decades.
  - skippyboxedhero 4y ago
    Financial deregulation did not cause the financial crisis in the UK. It was: corporate lending (which the FSA had full power over) and one bank doing a mega-merger (which the FSA had full power over). Insufficient regulation is the eternal excuse...it is like saying that your business failed because you can't beat your staff to force them to work more hours. No-one wants to talk about the fact that most regulators are idiots, and will fuck it up (which they have done post-GFC, we have given massive powers to the BoE and they have done nothing else but cause financial problems...but the media just wants to talk about "the bankers, the bonuses"). Either way, you are seeing the UK move very swiftly towards the heavy corporatist banking system in Europe which requires bailouts and subsidies every few years (you are complaining about the GFC, Europe has been doing GFC-size interventions to save their banking system every few years SINCE the GFC). Financial deregulation is the only way to stop this. It will be huge for growth because the UK's financial markets are ossifying heavily under current regs.
- 123pie123 4y ago
  I think the only thing that is extremely absmally weak is your list of benefits? > financial deregulation, enterprise zones/freeports, greater political agency over economic decisions we cannot do deviate much from the norms any way, otherwise we'll lose access to the free market and where are all these new trade deals that are better than the EU's? Lets face it, the EU has been a massive misdirection for the tories and the propaganda papers to hide their huge failings let not talk about the massive f*k up of NI issue or the fact Scotland will try and get independance if given the chance, the massasive screw up to our miltary by coming out of Galilieo
bmacho 4y ago
> What positive things do you think came out of Brexit? They said it: they "objected to the EU on political and economic grounds" and now they are out of the EU. > Sure, leaver's favorite excuse "Things got worse, but it's not because of Brexit". That's not true, they said that they expected a short term economical decline: "and I figured we could recover, in about a decade, economically.". I wonder if chatGPT could remind you if you flood your favourite phrases on a comment that they don't hold.
- Idiot_in_Vain 4y ago
  I wonder if ChatGPT is actually smarter than most leave voters...
lmm 4y ago
Less public money being spent on empty unused buildings in deprived regions. Less entrenched copyright laws, and an end to endless copyright extensions. Bankers no longer getting paid minimum salaries of at least 1/3 their bonus. Scottish rail nationalisation. No doubt the areas of politics you take an interest in are different from the ones I do, but in almost every area I saw policies that no-one wanted being forced through with the excuse that it was an EU requirement, and putting an end to that is enough to justify Brexit. Trust and accountability in the political system is priceless.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

bobmichael 4y ago

I'm curious what your objections to the EU are if you'd care to share?

nonethewiser 4y ago
Probably that the UK was in it. He cited fundamental facts about the EU.
denton-scratch 4y ago
OK. Politically, there are no shared constituencies. I don't mean in the sense of individual candidates; I mean there are no cross-border leaders or parties. We barely know the names of the party leaders in neighbouring countries. The EU is a treaty organisation, not a shared democracy. Policy initiatives come from the Commission, which is a collection of political has-beens, failed politicians that are of no further value in their own countries. The European Council is simply an ad-hoc gathering of representatives of the government of the day in their respective countries; as a body, it has no legityimacy whatsoever. The third leg of EU "democracy" is the EU Parliament. Apart from it's lack of electoral legitimacy, it was deliberately made feeble. It can't initiate legislation. Debates in the parliament chamber are so polite and decorous that it's impossible to stay awake - nobody listens to broadcasts of proceedings in the EU Parliament. The EU is very corrupt. To a large extent, that is because it is free from proper oversight; in theory, the Parliament is a constraint on the power of the executive (the Commission). In practise, the EU has exercised that power only once, when it became clear that roughly all Commissioners were corrupt. The only power they had was to sack the entire Commission, which they did. Once. And it didn't make much difference. The Parliament's powers have since been increased a little, I know. In theory, the EU has a border with common rules. In practice, that's not how it works; EU member nations just love it when the refugees they have admitted decide to leave for another European country, relying on Free Movement. They build fences to stop people entering, but not to stop people leaving. A number of very authoritarian countries from the East were admitted to the EU a couple of decades ago, and they are doing things like sacking judges that disagree with the government. The EU is doing nothing to prevent this kind of behaviour, although it is a violation of the treaties between member states. I don't want to be in a treaty organisation with racists and dictators. There; I hope that helps.

nonethewiser 4y ago

Thank you for providing a real pro Brexit perspective in these field of strawmen.

123pie123 4y ago

[flagged]

denton-scratch 4y ago
I have children, and grandchildren. I didn't want my grandchildren saddled with the EU. I've not folllowed your link, which presumably was intended to emphasise your insulting language. Learn to argue.
- 123pie123 4y ago
  ok, search for "5 laws of stupidity" please explain any other words to describe someone who deliberately votes to screw up their own country for no benefits? or do you have any beneifts that Brexit has given? I've asked many people this and not recieved one that justifies the massive cluster f**
  - denton-scratch 4y ago
    Perhaps those "many people" chose not to bother answering someone who begins their question with "You are an idiot". I'm certainly not going to, but if you look for my other comments in this thread, you might find your answers. On the other hand, probably not; you appear to have a closed mind.
jimmydorry 4y ago
The costs are going up everywhere and many shops have runs of being empty of produce. In every other country that is not the UK, this is pinned on "supply chain disruption" or the war in Ukraine. If you haven't been watching closely for the last year, inflation is rocketing up globally. Those countries were not part of Brexit, hence why GP says it's impossible to disentangle the effects of COVID and Ukraine on any short-term macro-economic trend.
- 123pie123 4y ago
  no, that's right wing propaganda to help you to cope try and look at the real figures outside daily express or daily mail It feels like the UK is following the Russian play book

z3c0 4y ago

> If we stayed in, we'd never recover politically. You lost me here. Recover from what, exactly? You've alluded to some problems here - which I'm happy to consider as valid - but you haven't described them as anything but "political" and "economic". Was Britain on some terrible downhill plummet in these areas?

denton-scratch 4y ago
Well, I'm a socialist. The EU has capitalism built into it's fabric; socialist policies are largely illegal, because of EU financial rules. For example, you can't nationalise things. It wans't a plummet; it's that the EU is designed to prevent certain kinds of political change, in particular changes that I want to see. By staying in the EU, we'd be accepting that we can't ever make those kinds of changes. I don't think we should make that kind of concession. That's the politics; as for the economics, I don't share the German view of how to manage the European economy. Germany dominates European banking and finance. I think European bankers have made some awful decisions in the last couple of decades, and we have been dragged along. I don't think Tory economics is any better; but we won't have neo-liberals running the UK forever.
- z3c0 4y ago
  That puts things in a more clear context for me. Thank you for your reply.

ploppyploppy 4y ago

I second this. Zero regret. Leaving is heart surgery and within 10 years of officially leaving I don't think we'll be worse off.