[lil_cain]

> The fact that other countries manage to be outside the EU and do just fine.

This is the wrong way of thinking about things. Yes, other countries manage to be outside the EU, and do fine (albeit, at least in Europe, most of those doing fine have close links to the EU). But, those countries don't start from a position of being tightly integrated into the European economic system.

[pjc50]

Indeed. You can have computers running Linux and computers running Windows. What you can't do is just come into work one day, reformat the Active Directory server and boot into RedHat, and declare all the problems to have been solved. Which is the problem we're facing: no transition planning, because there's no realistic discussion of even what the objectives are, let alone the consequential tradeoffs.

[ThomPete]

Neither is the UK.

I grew up in Denmark who also aren't fully members of the EU either. Every time we voted it was claimed to be the end of the world. It turned out to be just fine in fact mostly better than had we joined.

So I am pretty immune to these the sky is falling claims. The UK is an important country in the world, they will do just fine.

[pjc50]

> Denmark who also aren't fully members of the EU either

False since 1973. http://um.dk/en/foreign-policy/denmark-in-the-eu/

[hirundo]

It's complicated. See the Edinburgh Agreement of 1992:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_Agreement_(1992)

Given that it's not unreasonable to see Denmark as an "active" but not "full" EU member.

[pjc50]

By those metrics the UK isn't a full member either, since we have derivations - and Denmark is in Schengen!

[ThomPete]

That's the point.

If we were full members we would have the EURO and no derivations.

The fact that the UK has kept their own currency is itself making it less of a headache to untangle from the EU.