Is Britain about to leave the EU?

[Phrossack]

I didn't say that. The reason that the result of the referendum should be carried out is that to do otherwise would be utterly untrustworthy and would cause even more political chaos. It should be because the alternative is worse. It should not be to teach people a lesson, especially when those who are being punished are, in many cases, not those who did something wrong.

So on one hand, there's the action that prevents political chaos, protects trustworthiness, and respects the outcome of a democratic referendum. On the other hand, there's the action that lets the world know the costs of giving the right what they want.

But they're the same exact action--leaving the EU in accordance with the results of the referendum. You may with good reason object to the way I phrased it, but as long as you're in favor, however reluctantly, of respecting the referendum result, then we're in agreement on what should be done.

The reason I want the UK to leave now isn't mostly about my schadenfreude over seeing the right panic at the realization that they're the dog that caught the car. It's that everything I've seen so far indicates that this will be a century of increased nationalism, isolationism, mistrust, bigotry, and climate catastrophe, and that right-wing, nationalistic parties across the world are doing their best to make sure that's the outcome, whether they realize it or not. Unless the world nips this threat in the bud by rejecting these sorts of politics as soon as possible, I worry my fears will come true. If Johnson, Farage, and the UKIPers are allowed to monumentally fail in front of everyone, it would dampen enthusiasm for the likes of Trump, AdF, and FN, and keeping them from power by utterly discrediting their ideas will go a long way towards preventing a reversion to the nightmare of 20th-century nationalistic insanity.

 

[Lexicus]

Interesting
So that is how EU POOREST country managed to join the Euro. Greece was only copying what Belgium and France did except, Greece did just slightly cheat, it made up numbers from thin air.
My point is EU has no way to enforce Fiscal discipline and thus the EU is like a Paper Tiger

Greece was only doing what made sense for it to do. If you want to blame someone for Greece being allowed into the club, again, blame the bloody core countries that let Greece in despite obviously knowing it had falsified its financials.

Meanwhile your WSJ article is full of the usual economically illiterate nonsense. The idea of 'fiscal rectitude' is hilarious to me. This is a moral fixation on balanced budgets, that has nothing whatever to do with economic reality.
Part of the reason the EU is failing is because it doesn't allow member states to deal with real problems like unemployment, preferring instead to focus on the false 'problem' of budget deficits.
And there is of course an 'enforcement mechanism' built into the very machinery of the Euro. Euros can only come from the ECB...which means the bankers directly run the show.
The irony of course is that Greece paid accountants from Goldman to fudge its numbers...

 

[Dachs]

But they're the same exact action--leaving the EU in accordance with the results of the referendum. You may with good reason object to the way I phrased it, but as long as you're in favor, however reluctantly, of respecting the referendum result, then we're in agreement on what should be done.

The entire reason I posted was to object to the way you phrased it, because that matters. That other stuff is window dressing.

 

[Akka]

Is there anything legally binding about the referendum? I was under the impression that the polits could ignore it if they wanted to.

That precisely what we're afraid of. The referendum isn't LEGALLY binding, but it's just lawyer's trick to make the distinction at this point, especially considering the whole populist mantra about the EU "not being democratic". You don't play with fire with nationwide consultation, it's politics, not a Civ game.

As much as it could perhaps be technically possible for the UK to backpedal on the wave of Regrexit and claim the vote was only consultative, it would damage beyond repair the credibility (and as such the viability) of both UK politician careers (which I don't give a [poop] about) AND the EU (which I *do* care about).

And as usual it would be for the UK to just have its cake and eat it too when it comes to the EU, I'm not keen on destroying the Union to save the hide of the troublemaker who is always pissing in the common soup.

 

[Phrossack]

The entire reason I posted was to object to the way you phrased it, because that matters. That other stuff is window dressing.

No, the phrasing doesn't matter; what matters is the substance. Respecting the wishes of the electorate, allowing Farage and friends to discredit their dangerous ideology--it does not matter in the least what some American calls it, it's the same exact thing with the same exact results regardless of the terms I use to describe it. It might matter what Cameron calls it, but you're the only one who cares what I call it. And you care far more about what I call it than you do about the actual effects of the potential failure of Brexit, for some odd reason.

 

[sophie]

No, the phrasing doesn't matter; what matters is the substance. Respecting the wishes of the electorate, allowing Farage and friends to discredit their dangerous ideology--it does not matter in the least what some American calls it, it's the same exact thing with the same exact results regardless of the terms I use to describe it. It might matter what Cameron calls it, but you're the only one who cares what I call it.

So, uh, what's the point of any of this then?

 

[Phrossack]

So, uh, what's the point of any of this then?

The point of what? Do you mean the point of me expressing my hope that the future failure of Brexit will harm the ideology that spawned it and make for a better future? Well, I was expressing my opinion on a discussion forum, of course, and raising a point that hadn't been raised before.

But if you mean the point of Dachs chiding me for having a contrary opinion? Why he did not explain why on earth my terminology mattered but the future political ramifications of Brexit didn't? Or why you appeared for the sole purpose of dismissing my opinion?

I really don't know, you tell me.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Greece was only doing what made sense for it to do. If you want to blame someone for Greece being allowed into the club, again, blame the bloody core countries that let Greece in despite obviously knowing it had falsified its financials.

Meanwhile your WSJ article is full of the usual economically illiterate nonsense. The idea of 'fiscal rectitude' is hilarious to me. This is a moral fixation on balanced budgets, that has nothing whatever to do with economic reality.
Part of the reason the EU is failing is because it doesn't allow member states to deal with real problems like unemployment, preferring instead to focus on the false 'problem' of budget deficits.
And there is of course an 'enforcement mechanism' built into the very machinery of the Euro. Euros can only come from the ECB...which means the bankers directly run the show.
The irony of course is that Greece paid accountants from Goldman to fudge its numbers...

Interesting so the EZ was establish specifically for low inflation rates, and the entire ECB policy for to maintain inflation. All EZ countries can borrow from the ECB to print as many Euros as they want provided they produce collateral. It was never designed to be able to handle such an economic crisis, it was designed to prevent an economic crisis.

As for having the poorest EU country join the EZ, it looks like it was a political decision by France and Italy. Because they wanted to weaken Germany fiscal control of the EZ
(well that worked out well )

The treaty led to the creation of the euro. One of the obligations of the treaty for the members was to keep "sound fiscal policies, with debt limited to 60% of GDP and annual deficits no greater than 3% of GDP."[4]

The treaty also created what was commonly referred to as the pillar structure of the European Union

The treaty established the three pillars of the European Union—one supranational pillar created from three European Communities (which included the European Community (EC), the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Atomic Energy Community), the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) pillar, and the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) pillar.

All three pillars were the extensions of existing policy structures

The creation of the pillar system was the result of the desire by many member states to extend the European Economic Community to the areas of foreign policy, military, criminal justice, and judicial cooperation. This desire was set off against the misgivings of other member states, notably the United Kingdom, over adding areas which they considered to be too sensitive to be managed by the supra-national mechanisms of the European Economic Community. The agreed compromise was that instead of renaming the European Economic Community as the European Union

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maastricht_Treaty

.

The European Central Bank (ECB) is the central bank for the euro and administers monetary policy of the Eurozone, which consists of 19 EU member states and is one of the largest currency areas in the world. It is one of the world's most important central banks and is one of the seven institutions of the European Union (EU) listed in the Treaty on European Union (TEU). The capital stock of the bank is owned by the central banks of all 28 EU member states

The Governing Council confirmed this definition in May 2003 following a thorough evaluation of the ECB's monetary policy strategy. On that occasion, the Governing Council clarified that “in the pursuit of price stability, it aims to maintain inflation rates below, but close to, 2% over the medium term”

exclusive right to authorise the issuance of euro banknotes. Member states can issue euro coins, but the amount must be authorised by the ECB beforehand (upon the introduction of the euro, the ECB also had exclusive right to issue coins).[20] The ECB shall also collect statistical information to fulfil the tasks of the European System of Central Banks, and contribute to financial stability and supervision.

The banks in effect borrow cash and must pay it back; the short durations allow interest rates to be adjusted continually. When the repo notes come due the participating banks bid again. An increase in the quantity of notes offered at auction allows an increase in liquidity in the economy. A decrease has the contrary effect. The contracts are carried on the asset side of the European Central Bank's balance sheet and the resulting deposits in member banks are carried as a liability. In layman terms, the liability of the central bank is money, and an increase in deposits in member banks, carried as a liability by the central bank, means that more money has been put into the economy.[a]

To qualify for participation in the auctions, banks must be able to offer proof of appropriate collateral in the form of loans to other entities. These can be the public debt of member states, but a fairly wide range of private banking securities are also accepted.[22] The fairly stringent membership requirements for the European Union, especially with regard to sovereign debt as a percentage of each member state's gross domestic product, are designed to insure that assets offered to the bank as collateral are, at least in theory, all equally good, and all equally protected from the risk of inflation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Central_Bank

From a national point of view, Greece's participation in EMU was primarily a political objective, similar to its earlier membership in the EEC

EMU has been, for the most part, a political project. The political impetus came mainly from France and Italy, two countries that wanted to eliminate the dependence of their economic policies on the policy of the Bundesbank.17 They also sought the stronger integration of post-unification Germany into the European structures. However, the desired currency area deviated to a great extent from the model of an optimal currency area18 for many reasons, mainly because it encompassed countries with different structures and different competitive capabilities.

based on the traditional German culture of monetary stability (Stabilitätskultur). Countries with divergent cultures, such as Greece, would have to adapt or experience a major disruption. Economic pragmatism advocated a deferral of EU membership for those countries that had weak economic structures, an inflationary culture and an inclination to act upon the demands of organised interest groups. This contradiction explains, to a large extent, both the ill-considered and hasty integration of Greece into EMU and its unceasing divergence from the fundamentals.

http://archive.intereconomics.eu/ye...e-euro-the-chronicle-of-an-expected-collapse/

Nevertheless, Greece became the 10th member of what was then known as the European Economic Community in 1981. Greece butted heads with Brussels throughout much of the 1980s, but, by the 1990s, the Greek political class had made gaining access to the European monetary union a priority. And, ostensibly, the government began bringing down both inflation and deficits in an effort to satisfy the Maastricht Treaty, which acted as the blueprint for the single currency union.

Greek borrowing costs plummeted. Adoption of the stable currency, backed by the European Central Bank, installed confidence—and frankly overconfidence—in financial markets. Investors seemed to discard any concerns about the Greek economy, as well as the country’s shaky credit history.

a new Greek government revealed that the country’s penchant for tinkering with economic statistics had flared up again, saying that the deficit was actually 12.6% in 2009, far worse than the 6% of GDP that had been previously announced. Suddenly, investors began to think that Greece was not as creditworthy as Germany. which sent the interest rates on Greek bonds soaring in 2010. The euro crisis had arrived.

http://qz.com/440058/the-complete-history-of-the-greek-debt-drama-in-charts/

 

[Verbose]

Greece was only doing what made sense for it to do. If you want to blame someone for Greece being allowed into the club, again, blame the bloody core countries that let Greece in despite obviously knowing it had falsified its financials.

Meanwhile your WSJ article is full of the usual economically illiterate nonsense. The idea of 'fiscal rectitude' is hilarious to me. This is a moral fixation on balanced budgets, that has nothing whatever to do with economic reality.
Part of the reason the EU is failing is because it doesn't allow member states to deal with real problems like unemployment, preferring instead to focus on the false 'problem' of budget deficits.
And there is of course an 'enforcement mechanism' built into the very machinery of the Euro. Euros can only come from the ECB...which means the bankers directly run the show.
The irony of course is that Greece paid accountants from Goldman to fudge its numbers...

The very real Greek problem wasn't the debt itself, it was the total lack of trust in any Greek ability to service that debt. If it would have been reasonable expected to be able to, then no one else would have needed to get involved. And even then possibly Greeks would have been allowed to tank, leave the Euro etc., had it not been for the rather stark prospects of contagion to other parts of the Eurozone, that it would not have been able to live down even if a Greek implosion had been permitted.

That's the alternative everyone would be looking at. Of course, it would have been better if the Eurozone had put a huge effort into shoring up and restructuring its banking sector, and allowd Greece to default and leave the Euro, whether it might have liked to or not. It's just that there was even less structures in place to handle an concerted Eurozone-wide action of that magnitude, compared to keeping Greece afloat and kicking the can down the road. I.e. it's highly questionable if it could even have been tried.

The problem with the EU isn't how strong it is, but how dangerously weak it is. At least considering the amount of trust that it being put into it in relation to the dearth of actual investment in making it work better.

 

[aelf]

What they were arguing for was that the UK government should step into replace those EU funds with funds from the UK's Treasury.. Which is entirely possible and reasonable, because the UK Treasury was paying into the EU more than the EU was distributing back to the UK. The UK can easily keep paying whatever subsidies were in place, whether for regions, research, education, fisheries, farming, and anything else. And still have plenty of money to spare from its old EU budget.

They are calling on a pro-austerity Tory government to give them subsidies like the evil liberal EU did.

I'm certainly not alone in thinking that it's a bit of a stretch:

The grand bard of Cornwall, “Dr Folk” Merv Davey, said he was devastated by the result and did not buy the argument that the Westminster government would make sure Cornwall did not lose out. “They have never been bothered about Cornwall,” he said.

Link

 

[Atticus]

Funny how those pieces started popping up now. A cynical person might think someone in a news agency decided that the time was right to push them onto the international press...

There really isn't a thing a cynical person might not think.

Also, the truthfulness, relevance and timing of the news doesn't require that racism were the prime motor of brexit. It's enough that it was one motivation among others. It would be at least as silly to claim that there aren't racists in UK and that they wouldn't vote for brexit as it is to say that there are absolutely no rational reasons to vote for it.

 

[sophie]

The point of what? Do you mean the point of me expressing my hope that the future failure of Brexit will harm the ideology that spawned it and make for a better future? Well, I was expressing my opinion on a discussion forum, of course, and raising a point that hadn't been raised before.

The point of anybody here talking about anything, seeing as how none of our opinions matter or will affect anything anyway.

 

[Verbose]

The point of anybody here talking about anything, seeing as how none of our opinions matter or will affect anything anyway.

Really?

Unless you're British and just voted on this "Brexit"-thing then...

Frankly, it's one of these self-fulfilling prophesies that seem popular these days — that voting doesn't matter, and it's all decided already etc. Leads to all kinds of protesting votes, since it matters none anyway.

If I allow myself a positive phantasy, about "Brexit", just MAYBE the object lesson of it might lead to a reinvigoration of participatory democratic processes in the rest of Europe? It would be very helpful if it did. Since the "Brexit" referendum outcome does demonstrate that, yes, votes do matter, instead of everyone engaging in the fantasy that they don't, and you can vote any old how, no matter how absurd the alternative, since all it can do is express displeasure, while faceless men in dark rooms decide everything...

 

[EnglishEdward]

My point was specific to the UK government's responsibilities in Northern Ireland. It's a party to a delicate peace treaty that relies on the EU to resolve the essential identity crisis of the conflict by rendering British and Irish identities and links as a non zero sum thing. That's all massively at risk now.

The UK is a post-conflict state. It is a signatory to agreements trying to keep it that way. For the UK government to so casually risk the Good Friday Agreement like this was very irresponsible. Disarmament was completed less than a decade ago!

I get that English nationalists *don't care* about Ireland but I just think maintaining peace and avoiding renewed conflict are way more important than holding a referendum that ultimately amounts to complaining about taxes. And really the fact that there are more English people than Northern Irish people doesn't necessarily make English grievances more important when in Northern Ireland the issues at stake can tend to kill people.

It makes no sense for the people of the UK to be denied
the right to hold a referendum on self determination
merely because the Irish do not agree with themselves.

It would be a victory for sectarianism and terrorism to let the
fear of it, preclude us from exercising the democratic process.

 

[Bootstoots]

Brexit is a great win for democracy. I don't think it was a good call and would personally have voted to remain. But it showed explicitly and for the first time in a large Western country in recent memory that the new populist movement cannot be ignored. The people had their way, even though their way was (IMO) the wrong one.

The new populists are rather frightening given the sorts of people that they attract, but this is a function of the collapse of the labor movement across the Western world and the transformation of the center-left parties into neoliberal ones. This directly resulted in the stagnation or decline of the prospects of working-to-lower-middle class people throughout the Western world, as they were made to compete against people who were willing to accept much less for the same labor. The existence of a vast number of desperately poor people in the world was used to undermine the fortunes of people who were working under decent conditions, with most of the resulting profit going to the rich in the Western world and the new rich in the developing world. Combine that with a multicultural doctrine, and the result will be a great increase in racism.

The thing I'm most frightened about is that most leftists, even the ones who pretend to be radical, seem to fall in line with the global political and economic elites whenever an important decision is being made, and they seem content to ignore or ridicule the legitimate (and otherwise) concerns of most of the working and middle classes. This is pushing them into the hands of the right-wing populists, who are on the rise across the West. If we actually want not to end up with pseudo-fascists in charge, we'd listen to their grievances and try to address them. But the left isn't going to do this, and we really are going to end up with a variety of far-right governments across the Western world in the next decade or two.

 

[Old Hippy]

It makes no sense for the people of the UK to be denied
the right to hold a referendum on self determination
merely because the Irish do not agree with themselves.

It would be a victory for sectarianism and terrorism to let the
fear of it, preclude us from exercising the democratic process.

and to exercise that democratic process you really need to let Scotland and NI stay in the EU that what self determination is they have made their wishes known.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Brexit is a great win for democracy. I don't think it was a good call and would personally have voted to remain. But it showed explicitly and for the first time in a large Western country in recent memory that the new populist movement cannot be ignored. The people had their way, even though their way was (IMO) the wrong one.

The new populists are rather frightening given the sorts of people that they attract, but this is a function of the collapse of the labor movement across the Western world and the transformation of the center-left parties into neoliberal ones. This directly resulted in the stagnation or decline of the prospects of working-to-lower-middle class people throughout the Western world, as they were made to compete against people who were willing to accept much less for the same labor. The existence of a vast number of desperately poor people in the world was used to undermine the fortunes of people who were working under decent conditions, with most of the resulting profit going to the rich in the Western world and the new rich in the developing world. Combine that with a multicultural doctrine, and the result will be a great increase in racism.

The thing I'm most frightened about is that most leftists, even the ones who pretend to be radical, seem to fall in line with the global political and economic elites whenever an important decision is being made, and they seem content to ignore or ridicule the legitimate (and otherwise) concerns of most of the working and middle classes. This is pushing them into the hands of the right-wing populists, who are on the rise across the West. If we actually want not to end up with pseudo-fascists in charge, we'd listen to their grievances and try to address them. But the left isn't going to do this, and we really are going to end up with a variety of far-right governments across the Western world in the next decade or two.

This is a well thought out summary.

However the position does vary from country to country. I am not convinced the
UK populists will evolve into fascists and hope that the left will move away from its
ineffective internationalism back to its local community base where it started from.

 

[sherbz]

More than likely, your investment will rebound in the future so unless you are about ready to retire or planned to use that money in the next 90-180 days, you will be fine. Part of owning stocks is riding the values up and down. If a bouncy ride is unacceptable to you, then go with another form of investment.

The truth is it locks me into a job i was intending to leave in the near future. Now i cannot. Unless i want to lose a whole fist of money.

 

[sherbz]

Well that's a really nice and balanced viewpoint you have. Jesus.

Its about as balanced as the reason why many old people voted leave: "GET THEM IMMIGRANTS OUT"

 

[Flying Pig]

Brexit is a great win for democracy. I don't think it was a good call and would personally have voted to remain. But it showed explicitly and for the first time in a large Western country in recent memory that the new populist movement cannot be ignored. The people had their way, even though their way was (IMO) the wrong one.

The new populists are rather frightening given the sorts of people that they attract, but this is a function of the collapse of the labor movement across the Western world and the transformation of the center-left parties into neoliberal ones. This directly resulted in the stagnation or decline of the prospects of working-to-lower-middle class people throughout the Western world, as they were made to compete against people who were willing to accept much less for the same labor. The existence of a vast number of desperately poor people in the world was used to undermine the fortunes of people who were working under decent conditions, with most of the resulting profit going to the rich in the Western world and the new rich in the developing world. Combine that with a multicultural doctrine, and the result will be a great increase in racism.

The thing I'm most frightened about is that most leftists, even the ones who pretend to be radical, seem to fall in line with the global political and economic elites whenever an important decision is being made, and they seem content to ignore or ridicule the legitimate (and otherwise) concerns of most of the working and middle classes. This is pushing them into the hands of the right-wing populists, who are on the rise across the West. If we actually want not to end up with pseudo-fascists in charge, we'd listen to their grievances and try to address them. But the left isn't going to do this, and we really are going to end up with a variety of far-right governments across the Western world in the next decade or two.

This is an excellent post and I agree with all of it - I only wish we didn't have to be the canary in the coalmine for it!