[HN Gopher] After seven years of Brexit talks, Europe has emerge...
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After seven years of Brexit talks, Europe has emerged as the clear
winner
Author : MoSattler
Score : 68 points
Date : 2023-03-07 21:20 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.economist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.economist.com)
| [deleted]
| hawk_ wrote:
| A body got its arm severed. Yes the body will do better than the
| severed arm but not exactly a "clear winner".
| worksonmine wrote:
| There is for those who want to scare others from following. If
| the EU was fine without GB there wouldn't be so much gloating.
| gigel82 wrote:
| Eh, more like an inflamed appendix being removed; sure, you'll
| be in the hospital for a couple of days (and medicate for pain
| for a few weeks) but then you'll be fine with just a scar to
| remind you.
| epistasis wrote:
| I don't think the EU is nearly as bad off as having lost an
| arm... and in the situations where there's a zero sum choice,
| for example a corporation choosing a single EU headquarters,
| the remaining countries are slightly better off.
|
| And for that matter, the UK is slightly better off than a
| severed limb.
|
| Still, I love the vividness of this analogy and will probably
| steal it from you...
| steve76 wrote:
| [dead]
| julienchastang wrote:
| Without even knowing much about trade or economics, this
| conclusion seemed inevitable from the start. The primary trading
| partner of the UK is obviously going to be the EU due to
| geographic proximity. Yet, the UK no longer has a seat at the
| table and thus must negotiate from a much weaker position being
| outside the EU block. How could this history have played out
| otherwise?
| Deukhoofd wrote:
| Not just that, but a country divided against itself was set
| against a group of countries completely determined to protect
| their own interests. Britain couldn't win, as Britain didn't
| have any idea what it actually wanted, and was constantly
| fighting itself to figure that out.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| There could in theory have been a sane outcome where the UK
| "left" the EU, respecting the vote, but remained as close as
| Switzerland and Norway, and still had access to the single
| market.
|
| But any politician sensible and capable enough of achieving
| that would have been against Brexit in the first place, and
| would have to deal with the sniping of idiots that were for
| Brexit and promising the moon on a stick.
| narag wrote:
| (From a few Mm) I remember them saying that EU was a big-
| government ballast, so reducing expenses and bureaucracy they
| could have a much agile and vibrant economy.
|
| But is that what they did?
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Brexit wasn't about improving the economy.
| epistasis wrote:
| It was falsely sold to the populace as improving the economy,
| NHS, etc., so in the sense that it's about anything at all,
| improving the economy has to be considered.
| aborsy wrote:
| EU is clearly worse off too.
| pc_edwin wrote:
| It's premature to declare a victor, and typically in such cases,
| it's not a matter of winning or losing but rather of losing more
| or less.
|
| Additionally, COVID and Ukraine have caused significant
| disruptions that put a stop to the entire process.
|
| In my view, we'll need to wait until the end of the decade, at a
| minimum, to determine whether remaining in the EU or striking out
| on one's own was the correct decision.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Why a decade? I would say at least 30 years. Never mind the
| fact that not all goals were economic and some were achieved
| instantly.
| rgve wrote:
| [flagged]
| simlevesque wrote:
| > Hacker News Guidelines
|
| > What to Submit
|
| > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting.
| That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to
| reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that
| gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| rgve wrote:
| [flagged]
| DocTomoe wrote:
| hacker _s_ , not one particular hacker, like you.
|
| You would be surprised how many of us are interested in in-
| depth political analysis. It's like reading Perl code, only
| more arcane.
| davidktr wrote:
| The Brits tryed to hack the world order but failed miserably
| thanks to Brussel's strong firewall.
| MoSattler wrote:
| https://archive.ph/BBH9k
| mrtksn wrote:
| 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.
| ttul wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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
| doctor_eval wrote:
| > conservative low-information voters
|
| this is a terrific turn of phrase. thanks.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| >If you can come up with a good sounding idea that is devoid
| of facts, dumb citizens will gleefully support it.
|
| You can also apply the same thinking to "rational", fact-
| based ideas held by intellectuals.
|
| Sometimes they backfire in horrific ways and you need the
| truck drivers of the world to keep you in line.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| "The best argument against Democracy is a five-minute
| conversation with the average voter."
|
| -- Winston Churchill (probably not, actually, but it's
| usually attributed to him)
|
| Or just read any poli-sci research concerning voters. It's
| basically all horrifying and/or depressing.
| ghufran_syed wrote:
| is there such a thing as "liberal low-information voters" and
| if so, what bad policies were enacted as a result of such
| voters? Or is this just a high-brow way of saying "the people
| who disagree with us are stupid"?
| abraae wrote:
| Democracies are weird. Many of the most primal problems of
| mankind are solved. The rule of law is (in theory) impartial,
| citizens have property rights, etc. etc. There is free press.
|
| Most people living in democracies don't really understand -
| or just don't think about - how good they have it. At the
| same time, the human brain is wired to react strongly to
| outrage. Living the sweet life in a democracy, and with less
| valid things to outrage about, the brain is vulnerable to
| outrage exploitation about manufactured controversies, like
| who must bake a cake for who, or whether this statue or that
| should be allowed to stand in the park. Social media
| hostility and polarisation flourish.
|
| But when the chips are down and democracy itself is at stake,
| people wake up and start thinking more rationally about the
| things that really matter.
|
| Case in point from a news article this morning - Ukraine is
| normalising LGBTQ attitudes rapidly because suddenly their
| democracy is at risk. And suddenly it seems more sensible to
| have your LGBTQ neighbour alongside you in the trenches
| rather than hating on them because of your weird religious
| hangups or whatever
| (https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/03/07/russias-
| wa...).
|
| So perhaps democracy does indeed shoot itself in the foot,
| but perhaps also the system can be self-balancing when things
| finally go off the rails or a threat from outside arrives.
| paulmd wrote:
| > 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.
| notahacker wrote:
| 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)
| eldaisfish wrote:
| 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.
| borissk wrote:
| 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.
| Sebguer wrote:
| 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.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Very light on details. Reads like a puff piece.
| bagels wrote:
| I think Europe's adversaries are the real winners.
| ttul wrote:
| On the other hand, I think Brexit taught all the other euro
| countries that leaving is perilous and best avoided. Putin may
| have scored a Pyrrhic victory here.
| ortusdux wrote:
| It's disturbing how cheap it is to destabilize another country
| these days.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| It is always cheaper to damage something than to build it.
| nness wrote:
| The poor timing of Covid will probably forever obscure just how
| much self-inflicted economic damage the UK did to itself, but
| seeing it unfold for the last 5 years, its obvious as layman that
| the UK's global stagnation has only really started.
| [deleted]
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