4 ms·

Not British but asking, is there anyone in the U.K. defending Brexit at this point? I mean it sounds like we're just debating how bad it was, not whether it was

Not British but asking, is there anyone in the U.K. defending Brexit at this point? I mean it sounds like we're just debating how bad it was, not whether it was bad.

spacebanana7 1y ago
The only upside is that we can buy BYD cars with fewer tariffs.
Doches 1y ago
Reform UK is still technically defending Brexit; they've just switched to the no-true-Scotsman argument that real Brexit was never delivered and that they're the ones that can make good on the promises from the referendum. Which is horseshit, obviously.
7952 1y ago
People will defend the idea of Brexit but condemn the implementation. And people avoid debating it directly anyway.
- Cthulhu_ 1y ago
  They would've been better off if they could have set up an agreement with the EU, but they didn't get one that satisfied all parties - plus they had a weak negotiating position.
  - Normal_gaussian 1y ago
    It was particularly weakened by obvious issues with the UK's political leadership - the EU knew that the UK didn't know what it really wanted and didn't have negotiators with the mandate to get it.
nailer 1y ago
[flagged]
- dekken_ 1y ago
  > it allowed the UK to control its own migration policy. UK is still in the ECHR, so, not really, not yet
  - dlahoda 1y ago
    old contract, uk known to commit to its past commitments.
  - nailer 1y ago
    That’s true. Labour opposes leaving. But their leader has near record low approval rating so that may not mean anything.
- Nextgrid 1y ago
  > allowed the UK to control its own migration policy Has that helped? Seems like they traded-off Eastern European migrants (who all fled during the pandemic because life in their own country is now much better than in the UK) for Middle Eastern migrants who have nothing to lose and for whom this disaster of a country is still an upgrade over what they had before.
  - nailer 1y ago
    Leaving the EU is required but not sufficient to fix UK migration.
- troupo 1y ago
  > and it allowed the UK to control its own migration policy. As in: Brits found out that they need to queue like the rest of the world to get into the EU and migration from the EU decreased. However, net migration to the UK has increased since Brexit.
- gpderetta 1y ago
  yet non-EU immigration vastly increased after brexit.
- skeletal88 1y ago
richrichardsson 1y ago
What a lot of the pro-Brexit crowd finally admitted is that Brexit was always going to be a bitter pill to swallow and they knew it. Conveniently none of them wanted to say that in the lead up to the vote. 5 years ago when they began admitting this, they claimed it was going to be a 10 year process before the "benefits" of Brexit can be felt. Here we are. I guess Brexit benefits will be like Fusion Energy or Full-Self-Driving; always a few years into the future.
- dlahoda 1y ago
  let meet here and discuss status of eu newfascism in 5 years. uk will not be part of it.
  - gpderetta 1y ago
    indeed, with Mr Brexit on track to become next PM, UK will have its own brand of it.
  - pjc50 1y ago
    No, the UK will have its own indigenous fascism with a little Union Jack printed on it.
  - retsibsi 1y ago
    > eu newfascism What do you mean by this, concretely? Or in other words, if we check back in 5 years, what would cause you to say 'yeah I was wrong, eu newfascism {doesn't exist || hasn't progressed as badly as I expected}'? edit: to the downvoters, what do you object to here?? I'm trying to pin down the meaning of the parent comment, because without some kind of definition, a phrase like 'eu newfascism' is all heat and no light. My 'in other words...' framing was not based on the assumption that the parent commenter will be proven wrong; I'm just asking 'what would it take to falsify this?'
  - blipvert 1y ago
    Ahem, in 5 years Nigel Farage will have persuaded the idiots to willingly up their human rights, as enshrined in the ECHR. Churchill’s great achievement to prevent the horrors of the Nazi regime happening again. Let’s see how that work out.
reedf1 1y ago
It is completely verboten for the political class to mention Brexit or its reversal.
anovikov 1y ago
It seems to have become a taboo topic. There are too many people who voted for it and now realise it has been a mistake and want to forget about it, anyone who reminds them, will be seen negatively. It also can't be reversed anyway so there's no upside in this discussion - reversing means becoming "just one" of the EU states because the Union has been explicit that they won't allow any perks, not even keeping the pound - which is just too much for public to stomach.
basisword 1y ago
The people who voted for Brexit have moved on to the next stupid bogeyman. In a few years we'll see the fruits of that with Reform in power demolishing what's left of the Uk economy. And still, the masses won't learn.
- FridayoLeary 1y ago
  What are we supposed to learn? That the Tories are rubbish and Labour are even worse?
  - pjc50 1y ago
    The real driver of all of this is the press. There's a lot of immigrant-blaming propaganda that diverts attention from real issues.
    - benmmurphy 1y ago
      if the government wasn't incompetent in how they are handling certain immigration issues the anti-immigration parties would not have any momentum. for some bizarre reason the government is pursuing a course of action that is poisoning the well when it comes to immigration in the UK. i think immigration can bring a lot of benefits to the UK but by bringing in poor performing migrants into the UK it can end up turning the public against all immigration.
      - basisword 1y ago
        The anti-immigration parties have made immigration the cause of all our problems when it's the cause of practically none of them. Now the government are wasting time appeasing idiots who believe everything they read on X instead of actually focussing the real problems in the country. Anyone that believes Nigel Farage can come up with a functional plan to solve a single fucking problem is in for a surprise if he's ever in power. Unfortunately it shouldn't be a surprise because the last time they backed him it was a disaster too.
jaccola 1y ago
Yes. Many people still support it. Even if Brexit is objectively bad this is self-evidently obvious, people are very bad at changing their minds and lots of people voted for it. Maybe over half would now vote to remain, but most pundits thought this would be the case before 2015, so who can say for certain (e.g. Nigel Farage is more popular than ever and he is Mr Brexit). It is way too early to judge the success or failure of leaving the EU, and part of it will be down to chance. There are also intangible reasons (e.g. feeling of national identity, distaste for bureaucracy) people voted leave and, while I don't think they make up for the loss, I don't think they should be poo-pooed. I personally would have liked to remain in the EU but I don't think the EU is obviously good, or leaving the EU is obviously a terrible idea.
- nprateem 1y ago
  Unless you obviously want to benefit by eg retiring/ moving there.
StopDisinfo910 1y ago
Purely from a sovereignty points of view, it makes a lot of sense if you think your country being independent is important. From an economic point of view, it will probably never make sense because the UK was shielded from most of the EU most stupid decisions through carve out. They were out the disastrous currency union. They were not fully in Schengen. They had a lot of leeway with regulations. Coming back would probably be a mistake however. They would most likely be forced to join the eurozone.
- jjbinx007 1y ago
  The "sovereignty" argument is a bit misleading though. It's basically regulatory alignment.
  - StopDisinfo910 1y ago
    You can write it without the quotes you know, it's an actual word. I think it's a real argument personnally and the heart of the issue. That was the main question of the Brexit referundum: do you want to be a part of this pan-European union of people and surrender some of your country power to this union? You can argue that the subsequent trade agreement and the alignment that followed have reintroduced some of the same constraints, which is true, but practically and conceptually speaking it is a very different kind of situation.
    - jjbinx007 11mo ago
      Regulatory alignment is very different to "surrendering some of your country's power". You've proved my point.
FridayoLeary 1y ago
The EU is undemocratic, horribly mismanaged and reduces sovreignty. The feeling is we were putting in more then we were getting out. Now i can't accuse the Brexit negotiators of acting with competence. Neither can i claim that it has brought any short to medium term benefits. But the situation wasn't great either way. The referendum was a choice between a bad option (remaining) and an even worse option.
- joshuaissac 1y ago
  > The EU is undemocratic EU Members of Parliament for the UK were elected via proportional representation, whereas Westminster MPs are elected via the comparatively undemocratic first-past-the-post system, where a party with 14% of the national vote gets just 1% of the seats in Parliament (Reform UK, GE 2024), and one with 34% of the vote gets 63% of the seats (Labour, GE2024). https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c886pl6ldy9o https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c886pl6ldy9o
  - StopDisinfo910 1y ago
    While I broadly agree on this specific point, there is a lot to be said about the overall democratic legitimacy of the EU. The constitution was rejected by referundum by at least two members states before being plainly reintroduced as a treaty and summarily imposed. Parliament has no power of initiative. Commissionners appointments are frankly opaque when it comes to how portfolios are handed out. Then, you have the way the eurozone is structure. It's literally a prison. The treaties don't provide an orderly way out of and TARGET 2 ensures that leaving means complete economic chaos so countries are basically stuck. This situation has been used in the past to justify bludgeoning a population into obedience and impose extrem austerity to protect rich members unwise creditors. Brexit was only possible because of the pound sterling and that's not a possibility the union extends to new comers.
- surgical_fire 1y ago
  > The EU is undemocratic, Elaborate how exactly it is undemocratic. I always ask imbeciles that repeat this bullshit, and they can never articulate this point. They either never reply or change the subject. Typically they gesture at the EU commission being unelected, but they ignore that the commissioners are nominated by each member state (and all member states are supposedly democracies. And I say supposedly because Hungary exists). The nominees then have to be approved by the EU parliament (which is elected). Saying that EU is undemocratic is like saying that a country with a prime minister is undemocratic because he was not directly voted for. Which is not an argument that can be taken seriously. And I say this as someone that dislikes that EU commission is appointed by the member states government. The problem with this is that it mixes internal politics with EU politics - for example, in national elections I may vote for parties based on national issues, but I would vote for a different party in an explicit EU election.
krona 1y ago
Nobody I know of who voted for Brexit did it because they thought it would make the country (or themselves) any richer or poorer.
- skeletal88 1y ago
  Why did they vote for it?
  - tonyedgecombe 1y ago
    Xenophobia.
  - nprateem 1y ago
    For some it was a protest vote. And some people are idiots.
  - graemep 1y ago
    Its mostly a matter of identity. Do you feel European or British? Its much like any secessionist movement. This partly explains the high ethnic minority vote for Brexit, because its hard to feel European if you are not of European origin. It is also a matter of class identity. Being a remainer is a lot posher than being a leaver.
    - surgical_fire 1y ago
      This is so weird. I live in EU, but I am not originally from Europe. I have a EU citizenship at this point though. That said, I am staunchly pro EU, and would always vote for further integration. In truth, I even think that EU federalization would be a good idea. I have no idea why immigrants of all people would have a nationalistic stance on this.
      - graemep 1y ago
        > That said, I am staunchly pro EU, and would always vote for further integration. In truth, I even think that EU federalization would be a good idea. It is necessary. Having a common currency without a common budget has been a disaster. > I have no idea why immigrants of all people would have a nationalistic stance on this. How is it a nationalistic stance? You are preferring one identity over another - either way is just as nationalistic. Immigrants from outside the EU do not like immigrants from the EU being given preference from their countries of origin, often places with strong historical links to Britain, where English is widely spoken, etc.
Peanuts99 1y ago
Not really, but I'll take every opportunity I can to complain about it's impacts.
blipvert 1y ago
“There was a better Brexit, but it goes to a different school” is the mentality. Sophistry incarnate, that bunch.
Delphiza 1y ago
I think that a lot of people will still support Brexit. Leaving the EU allows a (future) government to do a lot of stupid things. Throwing out good fiscal policy, eroding human rights, aggressively stopping boats or changing migration rules, reversing climate change regulation. A lot of people believe, or will be led to believe (because previous governments were hamstrung by the EU), that those stupid ideas are actually quite good ideas. Brexit was necessary for those ideas to be implemented. An individual's view on whether those ideas are good or not will correlate with their continued support of Brexit.
greener_grass 1y ago
There are. The rhetorical strategy is to argue that Brexit was a good idea, but it has not been implemented properly. Look for the phrases "Brexit means Brexit" and "proper Brexit".
- JKCalhoun 1y ago
  Sounds similar to the things I hear about Communism. It's purportedly the best system… just that no one yet has done it right.
graemep 1y ago
I do defend it, no point here because I always just get downvoted and people cannot grasp the points made because they do not want to. Compare how the UK has done since 2016 compared to either the government forecasts of what would happen in the event of a Brexit vote, or to the other big western European economies and you can see the problems. The fact that one estimate is double another gives you a clue to how uncertain these estimates are.
michaelbuckbee 1y ago
The poll mentioned in the article has 56% of respondents saying that Brexit was a bad idea, so roughly half seem ok with it.
ed_voc 1y ago
I didn’t vote in the referendum and I’m fairly apathetic about Brexit. I wouldn’t dispute that there are downsides, but I do see the positive as no longer being part of an institution many British people consider deeply problematic. -Commission’s monopoly on legislative initiative -Technocratic “fast-tracking” of democracy via trilogues. -cult-like mentality around ever-closer union making devolution unthinkable within the commission. -Commission’s direct funding of media and its proposed expansion of the Media+ budget give it the ability to spend money directly promoting the narratives and priorities it wants to see amplified. -Legislative attrition; passing legislation not through genuine consensus, but through persistence — re-proposing it until the Commission secures its preferred outcome. As we’re currently seeing with the chat control proposal The way the EU has behaved in defense negotiations has further solidified my thoughts on this. Tying fishing rights to defense cooperation[0] then after the UK made concessions demanding billions with no say on how the money will be spent. [0] https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-eu-defense-pact-really-does-depend-on-fish-european-minister-warns/ https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-eu-defense-pact-really-do...

Not British but asking, is there anyone in the U.K. defending Brexit at this point? I mean it sounds like we're just debating how bad it was, not whether it was bad.

spacebanana7 1y ago

The only upside is that we can buy BYD cars with fewer tariffs.

Doches 1y ago

Reform UK is still technically defending Brexit; they've just switched to the no-true-Scotsman argument that real Brexit was never delivered and that they're the ones that can make good on the promises from the referendum. Which is horseshit, obviously.

7952 1y ago

People will defend the idea of Brexit but condemn the implementation. And people avoid debating it directly anyway.

Cthulhu_ 1y ago
They would've been better off if they could have set up an agreement with the EU, but they didn't get one that satisfied all parties - plus they had a weak negotiating position.
- Normal_gaussian 1y ago
  It was particularly weakened by obvious issues with the UK's political leadership - the EU knew that the UK didn't know what it really wanted and didn't have negotiators with the mandate to get it.

nailer 1y ago

[flagged]

dekken_ 1y ago
> it allowed the UK to control its own migration policy. UK is still in the ECHR, so, not really, not yet
- dlahoda 1y ago
  old contract, uk known to commit to its past commitments.
- nailer 1y ago
  That’s true. Labour opposes leaving. But their leader has near record low approval rating so that may not mean anything.
Nextgrid 1y ago
> allowed the UK to control its own migration policy Has that helped? Seems like they traded-off Eastern European migrants (who all fled during the pandemic because life in their own country is now much better than in the UK) for Middle Eastern migrants who have nothing to lose and for whom this disaster of a country is still an upgrade over what they had before.
- nailer 1y ago
  Leaving the EU is required but not sufficient to fix UK migration.
troupo 1y ago
> and it allowed the UK to control its own migration policy. As in: Brits found out that they need to queue like the rest of the world to get into the EU and migration from the EU decreased. However, net migration to the UK has increased since Brexit.
gpderetta 1y ago
yet non-EU immigration vastly increased after brexit.
skeletal88 1y ago

richrichardsson 1y ago

What a lot of the pro-Brexit crowd finally admitted is that Brexit was always going to be a bitter pill to swallow and they knew it. Conveniently none of them wanted to say that in the lead up to the vote. 5 years ago when they began admitting this, they claimed it was going to be a 10 year process before the "benefits" of Brexit can be felt. Here we are. I guess Brexit benefits will be like Fusion Energy or Full-Self-Driving; always a few years into the future.

dlahoda 1y ago
let meet here and discuss status of eu newfascism in 5 years. uk will not be part of it.
- gpderetta 1y ago
  indeed, with Mr Brexit on track to become next PM, UK will have its own brand of it.
- pjc50 1y ago
  No, the UK will have its own indigenous fascism with a little Union Jack printed on it.
- retsibsi 1y ago
  > eu newfascism What do you mean by this, concretely? Or in other words, if we check back in 5 years, what would cause you to say 'yeah I was wrong, eu newfascism {doesn't exist || hasn't progressed as badly as I expected}'? edit: to the downvoters, what do you object to here?? I'm trying to pin down the meaning of the parent comment, because without some kind of definition, a phrase like 'eu newfascism' is all heat and no light. My 'in other words...' framing was not based on the assumption that the parent commenter will be proven wrong; I'm just asking 'what would it take to falsify this?'
- blipvert 1y ago
  Ahem, in 5 years Nigel Farage will have persuaded the idiots to willingly up their human rights, as enshrined in the ECHR. Churchill’s great achievement to prevent the horrors of the Nazi regime happening again. Let’s see how that work out.

reedf1 1y ago

It is completely verboten for the political class to mention Brexit or its reversal.

anovikov 1y ago

It seems to have become a taboo topic. There are too many people who voted for it and now realise it has been a mistake and want to forget about it, anyone who reminds them, will be seen negatively. It also can't be reversed anyway so there's no upside in this discussion - reversing means becoming "just one" of the EU states because the Union has been explicit that they won't allow any perks, not even keeping the pound - which is just too much for public to stomach.

basisword 1y ago

The people who voted for Brexit have moved on to the next stupid bogeyman. In a few years we'll see the fruits of that with Reform in power demolishing what's left of the Uk economy. And still, the masses won't learn.

FridayoLeary 1y ago
What are we supposed to learn? That the Tories are rubbish and Labour are even worse?
- pjc50 1y ago
  The real driver of all of this is the press. There's a lot of immigrant-blaming propaganda that diverts attention from real issues.
  - benmmurphy 1y ago
    if the government wasn't incompetent in how they are handling certain immigration issues the anti-immigration parties would not have any momentum. for some bizarre reason the government is pursuing a course of action that is poisoning the well when it comes to immigration in the UK. i think immigration can bring a lot of benefits to the UK but by bringing in poor performing migrants into the UK it can end up turning the public against all immigration.
    - basisword 1y ago
      The anti-immigration parties have made immigration the cause of all our problems when it's the cause of practically none of them. Now the government are wasting time appeasing idiots who believe everything they read on X instead of actually focussing the real problems in the country. Anyone that believes Nigel Farage can come up with a functional plan to solve a single fucking problem is in for a surprise if he's ever in power. Unfortunately it shouldn't be a surprise because the last time they backed him it was a disaster too.

jaccola 1y ago

Yes. Many people still support it. Even if Brexit is objectively bad this is self-evidently obvious, people are very bad at changing their minds and lots of people voted for it. Maybe over half would now vote to remain, but most pundits thought this would be the case before 2015, so who can say for certain (e.g. Nigel Farage is more popular than ever and he is Mr Brexit). It is way too early to judge the success or failure of leaving the EU, and part of it will be down to chance. There are also intangible reasons (e.g. feeling of national identity, distaste for bureaucracy) people voted leave and, while I don't think they make up for the loss, I don't think they should be poo-pooed. I personally would have liked to remain in the EU but I don't think the EU is obviously good, or leaving the EU is obviously a terrible idea.

nprateem 1y ago
Unless you obviously want to benefit by eg retiring/ moving there.

StopDisinfo910 1y ago

Purely from a sovereignty points of view, it makes a lot of sense if you think your country being independent is important. From an economic point of view, it will probably never make sense because the UK was shielded from most of the EU most stupid decisions through carve out. They were out the disastrous currency union. They were not fully in Schengen. They had a lot of leeway with regulations. Coming back would probably be a mistake however. They would most likely be forced to join the eurozone.

jjbinx007 1y ago
The "sovereignty" argument is a bit misleading though. It's basically regulatory alignment.
- StopDisinfo910 1y ago
  You can write it without the quotes you know, it's an actual word. I think it's a real argument personnally and the heart of the issue. That was the main question of the Brexit referundum: do you want to be a part of this pan-European union of people and surrender some of your country power to this union? You can argue that the subsequent trade agreement and the alignment that followed have reintroduced some of the same constraints, which is true, but practically and conceptually speaking it is a very different kind of situation.
  - jjbinx007 11mo ago
    Regulatory alignment is very different to "surrendering some of your country's power". You've proved my point.

FridayoLeary 1y ago

The EU is undemocratic, horribly mismanaged and reduces sovreignty. The feeling is we were putting in more then we were getting out. Now i can't accuse the Brexit negotiators of acting with competence. Neither can i claim that it has brought any short to medium term benefits. But the situation wasn't great either way. The referendum was a choice between a bad option (remaining) and an even worse option.

joshuaissac 1y ago
> The EU is undemocratic EU Members of Parliament for the UK were elected via proportional representation, whereas Westminster MPs are elected via the comparatively undemocratic first-past-the-post system, where a party with 14% of the national vote gets just 1% of the seats in Parliament (Reform UK, GE 2024), and one with 34% of the vote gets 63% of the seats (Labour, GE2024). https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c886pl6ldy9o https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c886pl6ldy9o
- StopDisinfo910 1y ago
  While I broadly agree on this specific point, there is a lot to be said about the overall democratic legitimacy of the EU. The constitution was rejected by referundum by at least two members states before being plainly reintroduced as a treaty and summarily imposed. Parliament has no power of initiative. Commissionners appointments are frankly opaque when it comes to how portfolios are handed out. Then, you have the way the eurozone is structure. It's literally a prison. The treaties don't provide an orderly way out of and TARGET 2 ensures that leaving means complete economic chaos so countries are basically stuck. This situation has been used in the past to justify bludgeoning a population into obedience and impose extrem austerity to protect rich members unwise creditors. Brexit was only possible because of the pound sterling and that's not a possibility the union extends to new comers.
surgical_fire 1y ago
> The EU is undemocratic, Elaborate how exactly it is undemocratic. I always ask imbeciles that repeat this bullshit, and they can never articulate this point. They either never reply or change the subject. Typically they gesture at the EU commission being unelected, but they ignore that the commissioners are nominated by each member state (and all member states are supposedly democracies. And I say supposedly because Hungary exists). The nominees then have to be approved by the EU parliament (which is elected). Saying that EU is undemocratic is like saying that a country with a prime minister is undemocratic because he was not directly voted for. Which is not an argument that can be taken seriously. And I say this as someone that dislikes that EU commission is appointed by the member states government. The problem with this is that it mixes internal politics with EU politics - for example, in national elections I may vote for parties based on national issues, but I would vote for a different party in an explicit EU election.

krona 1y ago

Nobody I know of who voted for Brexit did it because they thought it would make the country (or themselves) any richer or poorer.

skeletal88 1y ago
Why did they vote for it?
- tonyedgecombe 1y ago
  Xenophobia.
- nprateem 1y ago
  For some it was a protest vote. And some people are idiots.
- graemep 1y ago
  Its mostly a matter of identity. Do you feel European or British? Its much like any secessionist movement. This partly explains the high ethnic minority vote for Brexit, because its hard to feel European if you are not of European origin. It is also a matter of class identity. Being a remainer is a lot posher than being a leaver.
  - surgical_fire 1y ago
    This is so weird. I live in EU, but I am not originally from Europe. I have a EU citizenship at this point though. That said, I am staunchly pro EU, and would always vote for further integration. In truth, I even think that EU federalization would be a good idea. I have no idea why immigrants of all people would have a nationalistic stance on this.
    - graemep 1y ago
      > That said, I am staunchly pro EU, and would always vote for further integration. In truth, I even think that EU federalization would be a good idea. It is necessary. Having a common currency without a common budget has been a disaster. > I have no idea why immigrants of all people would have a nationalistic stance on this. How is it a nationalistic stance? You are preferring one identity over another - either way is just as nationalistic. Immigrants from outside the EU do not like immigrants from the EU being given preference from their countries of origin, often places with strong historical links to Britain, where English is widely spoken, etc.

Peanuts99 1y ago

Not really, but I'll take every opportunity I can to complain about it's impacts.

blipvert 1y ago

“There was a better Brexit, but it goes to a different school” is the mentality. Sophistry incarnate, that bunch.

Delphiza 1y ago

I think that a lot of people will still support Brexit. Leaving the EU allows a (future) government to do a lot of stupid things. Throwing out good fiscal policy, eroding human rights, aggressively stopping boats or changing migration rules, reversing climate change regulation. A lot of people believe, or will be led to believe (because previous governments were hamstrung by the EU), that those stupid ideas are actually quite good ideas. Brexit was necessary for those ideas to be implemented. An individual's view on whether those ideas are good or not will correlate with their continued support of Brexit.

greener_grass 1y ago

There are. The rhetorical strategy is to argue that Brexit was a good idea, but it has not been implemented properly. Look for the phrases "Brexit means Brexit" and "proper Brexit".

JKCalhoun 1y ago
Sounds similar to the things I hear about Communism. It's purportedly the best system… just that no one yet has done it right.

graemep 1y ago

I do defend it, no point here because I always just get downvoted and people cannot grasp the points made because they do not want to. Compare how the UK has done since 2016 compared to either the government forecasts of what would happen in the event of a Brexit vote, or to the other big western European economies and you can see the problems. The fact that one estimate is double another gives you a clue to how uncertain these estimates are.

michaelbuckbee 1y ago

The poll mentioned in the article has 56% of respondents saying that Brexit was a bad idea, so roughly half seem ok with it.

ed_voc 1y ago

I didn’t vote in the referendum and I’m fairly apathetic about Brexit. I wouldn’t dispute that there are downsides, but I do see the positive as no longer being part of an institution many British people consider deeply problematic. -Commission’s monopoly on legislative initiative -Technocratic “fast-tracking” of democracy via trilogues. -cult-like mentality around ever-closer union making devolution unthinkable within the commission. -Commission’s direct funding of media and its proposed expansion of the Media+ budget give it the ability to spend money directly promoting the narratives and priorities it wants to see amplified. -Legislative attrition; passing legislation not through genuine consensus, but through persistence — re-proposing it until the Commission secures its preferred outcome. As we’re currently seeing with the chat control proposal The way the EU has behaved in defense negotiations has further solidified my thoughts on this. Tying fishing rights to defense cooperation[0] then after the UK made concessions demanding billions with no say on how the money will be spent. [0] https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-eu-defense-pact-really-does-depend-on-fish-european-minister-warns/ https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-eu-defense-pact-really-do...