[orph4nus]

I don't understand how they can still go through with this. As far as I've been following the analytics, news and coverage on this, the outcomes for UK are only negative. Can please someone enlighten me the good outcomes that will come out of this? Or is this really just about pride and stupidity?

[Brendinooo]

Which outcomes - economic?

I'm not from the UK, but my impression was that for many it wasn't about economic optimization, it was also about the notion of freedom - being less intertwined with the EU (and thus its regulations, economics, security concerns, etc.). Immigration was probably an issue as well.

If freedom was the issue, you get the freedom and work out the consequences later. Some people would rather feel like their nation has more control over their destiny, even if that destiny isn't as comfortable as it could have been under someone else's control.

I would also contend that as long as Brexit hasn't happened, there are plenty of forces that would want to keep the status quo and would therefore try to project as much negativity as possible.

Also, I'm not an economist, futurist, or a stockbroker (so one can correct me if I'm wrong), but humans aren't always great at predicting things in these areas. So it's not fair to assume that there is no positive outcome.

[pavlov]

...it was also about the notion of freedom - being less intertwined with the EU (and thus its regulations, economics, security concerns, etc.)

That is an illusory kind of freedom because you can't turn the clock back. Reducing trade with the EU would be a loss for everyone. If the UK breaks from EU norms and enacts its own regulatory frameworks, that just means more overhead for companies that want to operate there... And so on.

The English habit of blaming Europe for regulations has always puzzled me, because pre-EU Britain was in many ways a bureaucrats' paradise. The number of civil servants peaked in the mid-1970s and has been declining since.

From what I've heard, just getting a telephone line in '70s England could be a nightmare. There's a lot of things that are so much better today thanks to a pan-European competitive environment and free trade. Imagine if Britain had created its own mobile phone standard instead of going with the European GSM. That would have been more "independent", but to no benefit at all.

A lot of things post-Brexit will end up like that: it's just easiest for everyone if Britain tags along with the EU standards rather than reinvents the wheel -- only Britain won't have a say in the processes anymore.

[moomin]

This is a funny one. The economic argument was principally a Remain argument, and was for the most part ignored. I think this was for two reasons 1) there's plenty of people who just didn't buy it, there was enough smoke thrown for many believe it wasn't settled, but I think more powerfully 2) a lot of people don't really think their economic well-being is linked to the country's economic well-being. In particular, there's a belief that a worse economy will principally affect London. (Sadly, it appears the opposite is the case.)

Anecdotally, I've spoken to a number of Leavers who talk about taking back control (most of them also believe immigration is a problem). They tend to be working class and feel that the government doesn't listen to them. I really seriously doubt this vote will make a blind bit of difference on that front.

[icc97]

It's still my feeling the underlying powerful reason for people voting for Brexit was immigration.

The rest was just a smokescreen to pretend like that wasn't their only reason.

[pja]

According to Dominic Cummings (who ran Vote Leave) it was absolutely the case that immigration was the No 1 driver for the vote to leave the EU. So much so that they had to explicitly set aside 15 minutes at the beginning of every focus group to let people rant about immigration before they could get them to move on to anything else at all.

Anecdotally, this is also what my parents found on the doorstep.

[ionised]

The sad fact there being that immigration being an issue rather than a net benefit itself was a distraction perpetuated by the Murdoch press.

Fear of 'the other' is a timeless scapegoating tactic when you really want to distract people from the real causes of their problems.

In the case of the UK those problems are entrenched and systemic classism and privilege, a financial services industry rife with fraud and cowboy behaviour and our own sycophantic career politicians that compared to the EU, have done very little for the working poor and other disadvantaged demographics in society.

[pjc50]

Lead Leave campaigner Dominic Cummings has a (long) article on this in which he claims that the "£350m for the NHS" statement was the core of the campaign after extensive focus-grouping:

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/01/dominic-cummings-brexi...

(We really need a good word for "forward-looking statements that are really unlikely to be true"; not quite lies, but very highly misleading. If Brexit was a form of insurance it would be the mis-selling scandal of the century.)

[Balgair]

I think we can all see what is happening: the Bulkhead-ing of nations. Yes, Brexit may be freedomcentric, or boomer-centric, or racist, or whatever. But the trend is a larger one that is happening across the west and the 'developed' world in general. Nations are responding to the changing world (AI, the coming CRISPR revolution, IoT doomsdays, etc, and climate-change taking the lion's share) by closing themselves down to globalization and immigration and trying to bulkhead their people against the waves of change. I am on the fence as to if it will 'work' as a method. Maybe for some countries it will, maybe not for others or smaller groups of others. But I think we can all see it starting to happen in many countries.

[1337biz]

To be honest I never understood that responsibility argument. In my worldview, countries have to take responsibility for the externalities they produce. Meaning for example environment destruction is an issue that needs global attention.

But citizens of countries are adults and have to live with the consequences of their dealing. When a country is poor it is not the responsibility of other country to feed it but of the people to change their government.

[Balgair]

Because most people, when they look at a starving child in a warzone and was forced into child-soliderdom, respond with compassion for that other human. Not by berating their parents for not taking 'responsibility' and allowing a tyrannical warlord to slaughter said parents for being from a different tribe of some sort or another.

[corney91]

Politics. Pride and stupidity are better names for it though.

The two objectives the government are aiming to please "the will of the people" with are limiting immigration from the EU and to regain sovereignty.

The deceit is that immigration provides more benefits to the UK than costs (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/nov/05/eu-migrants-...) and our parliament is already sovereign (the ironic proof being that they're the ones deciding we're leaving the EU).

[TheOtherHobbes]

There's a solid base of racist idiots in the UK - proud "patriots" who don't understand how to invest in the future, but do understand tribal flag waving and imperial nostalgia.

They think politics is a football match. Their team won the match and now they're oh so happy.

May is playing to that base. But she's using them to pursue far-right extremist Tory policy - which means the end of the welfare state, the end of affordable public health insurance, the end of free education, and so on.

A small cabal of business insiders, including not a few US corporations, stand to profit mightily from all this, even though it will leave most of the population in permanent financial insecurity and/or catastrophic debt.

Of course it's nonsense, and will turn the UK into some kind of fascist North Korea for a decade or so.

The EU is the only organisation that has some interest, no matter how patchy (sorry Greece...), in maintaining humane government and corporate oversight across most of the region.

With the EU out of the picture, the radical neoliberalisation of England can proceed at full speed. (Scotland will probably leave, Ireland will turn back into a mess, Wales is making noises about leaving, so is London, and so to a much lesser extent are some of the regions.)

Most of the people who voted for Brexit will be horribly damaged by this, but by the time they realise they've been conned it will be too late.

[blibble]

> There's a solid base of racist idiots in the UK - proud "patriots" who don't understand how to invest in the future, but do understand tribal flag waving and imperial nostalgia.

I've lived in the UK 30 years and I've never heard any nostalgia for the empire at all

> But she's using them to pursue far-right extremist Tory policy - which means the end of the welfare state, the end of affordable public health insurance, the end of free education, and so on

I must have missed these parts of the tory manifesto, can you point out where any of these things are promised, or being acted upon?

> Wales is making noises about leaving, so is London

both completely unrealistic

this sort of hysteria helps no-one, and only undermines any genuine points you may have

[corford]

>I've lived in the UK 30 years and I've never heard any nostalgia for the empire at all

Which bit of the UK were you living in?

[abritinthebay]

> I've lived in the UK 30 years and I've never heard any nostalgia for the empire at all

Was it under a rock? Because I lived the first 26 years of my life in the U.K. and practically every conversation around patriotism was a bunch of faded empire nostalgia.

Hell, the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony contained a lot of it.

[mdekkers]

I've lived in the UK 30 years and I've never heard any nostalgia for the empire at all

I have lived there for ten, and heard it all the time.

[rwmj]

In a decade many of the people who voted for it will be literally dead. It was mainly carried by an older generation on "triple-locked" pensions who will suffer relatively little from it financially.

[UK-AL]

Honestly, I would not say the EU is good at corporate oversight. They refuse have their accounts audited, tons of other stuff normally considered good governance.

[TheOtherHobbes]

The EU is the only organisation that has taken on Microsoft, Google, and Apple, among others - and won.

It's a world leader in environmental standards, and some countries - like Germany - are working towards moving to an economy that runs exclusively on renewables.

You're certainly not going to find that kind of resistance in any of the Anglo countries.

[blibble]

you are completely ignoring the collaboration of the Commission with Volkswagen on their diesel emissions fraud, which has resulted in the early deaths of thousands of people

Microsoft bundling a media player is nothing in comparison

of course, MS, Google and Apple are American firms, while VW is German

[Oletros]

> you are completely ignoring the collaboration of the Commission with Volkswagen on their diesel emissions fraud

What collaboration? Do you have links? I really ignore it.

[Oletros]

Can you give us a source for your claim that EU accounts are not audited?

[MagnumOpus]

Of course they are audited, every year. [1] And they are found to be fair and accurate as far as the EU can control it. Issues and corruption happen when the member states are responsible to distribute money - a lot of them seem to be less honest than the Eurocrats.

[1] https://fullfact.org/europe/did-auditors-sign-eu-budget/

[nikon]

> Ireland will turn back into a mess

didn't know Ireland was in the UK?

[KuiN]

It obviously isn't. But what the border between the Republic and the North looks like post-Brexit is not at all clear. The constitutional upheaval of Brexit will significantly affect all of the devolved nations (including NI) and their relationships with their neighbours.

[naaaaak]

> There's a solid base of racist idiots in the UK - proud "patriots" who don't understand how to invest in the future, but do understand tribal flag waving and imperial nostalgia.

As opossed to the tribal flag waving from the bureaucrats in Brussels and those they've brainwashed into supporting them?

[timthelion]

Honestly, this is an insane viewpoint. Brussels is the most diverse city I have ever visited, to and to call the EU tribal could not be farther from the truth. You could call them globalist, overreaching, megalomaniac, pendantic, kafka-esque, pompus, shallow, form-over-function. But tribal is just wrong.

[a_name]

a comment from the article

>It would if the report was comprehensive. It isn't. It ignored housing benefit in private rentals. Housing benefit budget is £25b per year.

>It doesn't look at child benefit or break down tax credits.

>It doesn't include costs of increased school places (£5 billion additional allocated for this) nor health costs.

>The data is does use is not comprehensive from govt departments but a survey. Fact is we don't know all the costs as many are not recorded.

using the Guardian to back up a left leaning idea is like quoting The Daily Mail to back up a right leaning idea.

[corford]

The joke of it is, Cameron called the foolish referendum in a misguided attempt to silence the Europe-sceptics within his party once and for all (which every Tory leader since Thatcher has unsuccessfully tried to do).

Those same sceptics are now running government policy and wont be satisfied with anything short of a full, hard separation from Europe. They've waited 30+ years for this and are hell-bent on finally achieving it, rest of the country be damned.

It's going to be a long, sad car crash and, with no effective domestic political opposition in sight, I hope Europe has the balls to make it as difficult for us as possible. The faster the country hits rock bottom the faster we can have a wholesale purge of the UK political class and start again.

[cmdkeen]

The Lib Dems had an EU referendum in their 2010 manifesto - it is part of what became the "referendum lock" in the European Union Act of 2011. The UK was going to hold a referendum at some point. Cameron thought he could win it, got poor advice during the renegotiation and from his pollster during the campaign. The country got to have its debate - both sides making some wild claims - and came to a decision which is still bearing up in the polls.

[corford]

It's bearing up in the polls because nothing visible has happened yet (apart from Sterling's slide). This is peak UK. I think 10 years from now it will be hard to find anyone that openly admits to having voted leave (much like you can't find many these days who admit they were ok with the Iraq war).

Re: Lib Dem referendum - I think you're referring to the pledge they made in 2008 when the Lisbon treaty was being ratified (saying if there was ever another massive treaty change the country should have a referendum, presumably rather that than block the other 27 states from adopting the treaty if that's what they wanted) or the 2010 manifesto point about a referendum on joining the Euro. Neither of them are mad and the first one would likely never have happened.

See:

http://www.libdemvoice.org/the-surprising-truth-about-that-l...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/15/how-much-of...

[louthy]

> I don't understand how they can still go through with this.

Because there was a referendum where a majority decided it was what they wanted. The Government is hell bent on doing it for ideological reasons. The Opposition believe they are following the 'will of the people'. It's a shit state of affairs, but I don't see how it can be averted now, unless there is enough political pressure over the next two years to hold a referendum on the final deal.

[orph4nus]

I understand why people voted on the referendum, and I was following that live as well. But back then people were less informed. But now, months later, people are (/should be) much better informed about all the bad consequences that come out of this. So while I might understand why politicians go through with this, what I don't understand is why people don't change their minds and put pressure on the politicians to stop this shit deal. Because really, I don't believe Europe will give them anything nice they are hoping for. The UK politicians even admit that they didn't do any financial forecast, and that the probability is very high they won't get any deal... This stuff really blows my mind...

[zigzigzag]

Polling shows people's opinions are stable. More information isn't changing people's minds.

You are making some big assumptions about why people voted. For instance, you're assuming that because one or two people made some claims, everyone believed them and voted accordingly.

Speaking for myself, I expect there to be no deal at all between the EU and UK, I expected that before I voted out, I expect it to be very tough for everyone including Europeans, and I still support Brexit and want it to occur as quickly as possible. "More information" about how little the EU cares about cooperation with the UK obviously isn't going to change my mind at all.

I think you'll find many voters are like that: they aren't changing their minds because they didn't base their opinion on the things you believe they did to start with.

[TheOtherHobbes]

You're wrong on both counts. Firstly, many voters believed they were voting for more money for the NHS and to give Cameron a poke in the eye. There was actually no such thing as a "Brexit vote" - it was a popularity poll, not a vote on any specific policy. And policy-minded people were reassured that we wouldn't be leaving the single market - which was a complete lie, of course.

Secondly, it won't be tough for Europe, either financially or politically. Politically there was a vague and ridiculous notion that other EU nations would take the UK's lead and leave too. That's not just not happening, the "reverse domino effect" means that federalisation is likely to accelerate now.

Financially, the UK is something like 9% of the rest of the EU's export market. Even if all of that trade disappeared overnight a good part of it will be replaced by businesses leaving the UK for the mainland.

Europe is 43% of the UK's export market, and the UK is a net importer. So it really can't afford to lose that trade. Most of its exports are services which will - again - be moving to the mainland.

The bottom line is that Brexit will bankrupt the UK. Unless someone discovers an asteroid made of solid gold and stolen bitcoins under London, there is no other possible outcome.

I mean that literally. There is no possible way the UK - or England as we should start calling it - can turn into some kind of dynamo of international trade. We don't make enough, we don't invent enough, and none of the things we're actually good at - law, management, fintech, technology, pharma, art and culture - are being helped by Brexit in any way.

So the absolute best that will happen is a massive drop in living standards for most of the population.

The worst is Zimbabwe-style hyper-inflation and dictatorship.

Either way, it's a suicide note.

[zenkat]

Given that you expected it to be "very tough for everyone" before the vote, care to elucidate why you think this is the proper policy choice?

[pjc50]

> I expect it to be very tough for everyone including Europeans

So, how many of the UK's ~3m resident Europeans do you expect to be leave, and how many to be deported? How do you expect that to work out? What do you expect couples who suddenly have no right to reside in the same country to do?

[corobo]

Polling where? I've not been invited to vote in a poll

[vixen99]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/17/brexit-important-...

'Scots vote to remain in the UK by 55 per cent to 45 per cent' and 'Sixty per cent of respondents agreed that Britain’s EU departure mattered more than stopping the UK’s break-up, while just 27 per cent disagreed.'

[AndrewDucker]

If the Conservatives don't go ahead with it then they risk their supporters leaving to UKIP, and a government formed by 52% of the population voting for the only party that will fulfil the results of the referendum.

Even a 15% swing from Conservative to UKIP would destroy most of the party, due to the awfulness of the FPTP voting system.

And the Conservative leadership won't risk that.

[naaaaak]

> As far as I've been following the analytics, news and coverage on this, the outcomes for UK are only negative.

Most news is pure propaganda. All of the so-called "news" (BBC, etc.) has a vested interest in keeping the status quo. They've tried to brainwash people how Brexit would instantly collapse the econ (didn't happen, did it) and they are continuing that route.

Don't fall for their lies. More self-control is not pride and stupidity.

[atirip]

> They've tried to brainwash people how Brexit would instantly collapse the econ (didn't happen, did it)

I may be just silly, but Brexit hasn't happened yet.

[gadders]

Yeah, you get this a lot:

Bad thing happens = THIS IS BECAUSE OF BREXIT

Good thing happens = BREXIT HASN'T HAPPENED YET

[ionised]

Workes the other way too, I've been seeing it a lot;

Bad thing happens = THIS IS BECAUSE OF WE HAVEN'T LEFT THE EU

Good thing happens = THIS IS BECAUSE WE ARE LEAVING THE EU

[imron]

Confirmation bias.

[naaaaak]

They implied the mere vote for it would collapse things.

[gadders]

Since the announcement of the referendum result, all the "Project Fear" predictions that the Remain Campaign said would happen immediately after a leave vote have not come to pass. The UK economy is performing better than most of Europe, and after the Brexit vote several major corporations have chosen to invest in Britain.

The EU was asked to reform to accommodate those nations that don't want ever closer union and to become part of a European super-state, but they chose not to change.

[Angostura]

Basically, politicians are locked in. If they try to stall or halt the exit process they get accused of being anti-democratic, going against the will of the people. Therefore though many of them knows it will likely be disastrous they are nonetheless doing what the people told them to do.

[naaaaak]

> they are nonetheless doing what the people told them to do

We call that a functioning democracy. The EU is the opposite of that.

EU: "You have to accept our way, even if you don't want it and it's bad for your country. It's for the good of our global group."

[lovich]

If you keep following that logic then the UK isn't being democratic either. Its bad for our province, its bad for our neighborhood, its bad for our street, its bad for our house, its bad for me, but you still have to follow it. The line has to be drawn somewhere when there is a government.

Drawing the line at a country level as opposed to an international level is a perfectly valid opinion to have, but I don't think its right to call the UK a functioning democracy and the EU the opposite

[Angostura]

To me it just sounds like you don't like the Commission much. When you say 'the EU' most of the direction is set by the elected ministers of the member states.

[Flimm]

Where are you getting that quote?

[ionised]

A functioning democracy also requires an educated and well-informed populace.

The UK absolutely does not hve that.

[mathw]

"The people" did not tell them to do this. It's not like it was unanimous.

48% of those who voted voted to Remain 52% of those who voted voted to Leave 28% of the electorate didn't bother to vote

But "the will of the people", "the people have spoken". A good few million didn't bother to say anything at all (I do not find myself thinking generously of this at all, it was the most important vote most of us will ever see), and the gap between leave and remain is a hardly-unanimous 4%. If this was representative, nearly half the MPs should be arguing against leaving the EU.

But as you say, few MPs want to say it because they're terrified they're going to lose their jobs next election.

[hyperdunc]

One good reason to leave is that the EU is undemocratic.

However, reforming the EU political structure would be preferable to leaving.

[cmdkeen]

Well they didn't want to reform when we said we were having a referendum. Previously when other countries voted against the EU Constitution it was repackaged as the Lisbon Treaty and lo and behold didn't require votes. Now we have EU leaders saying they want to hurt the UK so much that no-one else will want to leave - despite the constituent members making very different noises.

The EU is fundamentally irreformable to reduce its power, it is the modern embodiment of Whig history - the view that progress is inevitable towards every greater liberty and enlightenment. This is the sort of attitude that leads to things like Greece being allowed to join the Euro when it was patently unready to do so.

One of the things you need to remember about the older people who tended to vote Leave is that they either voted in or remember the circumstances of the initial EU referendum in the UK. They remember what the UK joined and how it was presented to the UK. Other European countries with a much more recent history of revolution or dictatorship might want to remove power away from themselves, that is a view that is much more at odds with how Britain perceives itself.

[agd]

The EU can reform, but not in the way the UK wants. The direction of the EU is towards more integration, more centralised decision making. The UK wanted less integration and more devolved decision making. There was only one viable solution in the long run.

[catdog]

I would not go that far as to call it undemocratic. Sure there are some deficiencies and the democratic legitimation of some political organs is clearly a bit too indirect but as you said that can be reformed (it actually had improved already over the years). The biggest problem is that the public generally does not care much about EU law making despite the importance of the decisions made there. Only if something bad pops up the finger is pointed at the "evil EU" afterwards, ironically often by the same government which pushed that "bad" legislation forward in the first place.

[merraksh]

The EU has a parliament with members from all EU states. Can you specify in what sense the EU is undemocratic?

[agd]

Only the (unelected) commission can propose new legislation. This is quite different from how most (all?) western democracies work.

[corford]

Straight from Wikipedia:

The Commission operates as a cabinet government, with 28 members of the Commission (informally known as "commissioners"). There is one member per member state, but members are bound by their oath of office to represent the general interest of the EU as a whole rather than their home state.[3] One of the 28 is the Commission President (currently Jean-Claude Juncker) proposed by the European Council and elected by the European Parliament. The Council of the European Union then nominates the other 27 members of the Commission in agreement with the nominated President, and the 28 members as a single body are then subject to a vote of approval by the European Parliament. The current Commission is the Juncker Commission, which took office in late 2014.

[michaelbrooks]

I think it's about pride. We had a petition which had over 100,000 signatures in which forced them to reconsider, but parliament said that they can't go against what the people have voted for.

[imron]

> which had over 100,000 signatures

I'm not from the UK and neither for or against Brexit, but what good is a petition with 100,000 signatures when they'd just had a referendum with 17.4 million people voting 'leave'. [0]

Considering most of the signatures would have been people who voted to 'remain', in what world does it make sense for a 100,000 signature petition to overturn a referendum with a 1.3 million vote difference?

Even assuming those 100,000 signatures were all from former 'leave' voters switching sides, it would only change the result to be 17.3 million vs 16.2 million. A difference of 1.1 million.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brexit#Referendum_result

[laurent123456]

The petition actually had over 4 millions signatures - the fact that it had more than 100,000 only meant that the parliament was forced to consider the issue for debate [0]. They did so and considered that the result of the referendum was valid and that there shouldn't be a second one.

[0] https://petition.parliament.uk/help

[imron]

Thanks for the clarification.

I don't think there's any other conclusion the UK parliament could have come to without destroying faith in the democratic process.

[UK-AL]

There was also petition to ignore that petition which also had 100000+ signatures.

[london888]

There is no upside, it's a self-inflicted wound that will cost all of us £millions in the decades to come.

Those who voted for Brexit (including 2 in my family) didn't think it through.

[user5994461]

>>> As far as I've been following the analytics, news and coverage on this, the outcomes for UK are only negative.

As far as I'm following the media. All the companies I worked with stopped recruiting and some even shut down their London offices entirely.

Meanwhile, work as usual at the same places. If only we had a law department to sue them and get these fake news removed.

[rmc]

"Less foreigners" To some that's the point.