Per wrote: ↑Thu Aug 22, 2019 12:21 pm
1) The main focus has been on leaving being economic suicide, or at least economic self injury behaviour. Economic growth will suffer, and especially if the UK leaves without a deal. At least 60% of UK trade is with the EU. In a no deal situation, all companies relying on imports and all companies that have a substantial part of their income from exports will suffer greatly, as it could take weeks or months before things start to function, and even then far less smoothly than before. Negotiating a trade deal with the EU may take years, and until that deal is finalized, the UK will have to do business with Europe on WTO terms, which will increase costs greatly. If they leave under the deal May negotiated, they will more or less remain in the single market until the new deal has been agreed upon, so it would soften the blow substantially, but at the moment it seems they are headed for a no deal scenario.
Exactly. Trade becomes a little more expensive, particularly in the short term. Far from end of times scenario. And a small price for sovereignty, particularly where EU long-term scenario is no nation-state and remote government with minimal local responsiveness.
UK will likely shift its trade focus if favorable deals can't be made; won't be 60% of UK trade in that scenario.
Per wrote: ↑Thu Aug 22, 2019 12:21 pm2) The Irish border. At present there is no visible border, and many farmers have fields that extend across the border.
Are you suggesting they build a wall? Countries can determine how they want to have and patrol a border. Its the price of being a nation. Somehow Canada and the United States manage it....
Per wrote: ↑Thu Aug 22, 2019 12:21 pmWith both parts of the island being within the EU, people can come and go as they please, and the violence has subsided.
Descriptive, descriptive, non-causal.
Per wrote: ↑Thu Aug 22, 2019 12:21 pmMost people feel like the island is united, even though the Northern tip technically belongs to the UK.
United? Really? The absence of war does not mean the state of brotherhood. That Northern Ireland is part of the UK is not a "technicality." Lots and lots and lots of bloodshed over that one....
Per wrote: ↑Thu Aug 22, 2019 12:21 pmThe deal on the table includes a backstop that means the UK will remain in the single market until a solution has been found that allows them to leave the market without creating a hard border between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland. If they leave without a deal, the border on Ireland becomes the outer border of the EU, and all goods and all people crossing that border must be checked. A return to fences, walls, watch towers and border control will also mean a return to attacks on these structures by the IRA, who want to see a reunited Ireland. This will almost certainly lead to bloodshed, and it will definitely mess up the lives of many Irish.
"Allowed" to not have a physical barrier? By whom? If a nation is sovereign, it chooses its border policy. They aren't free; its part of the price of being a nation. That border policy is dictated by the EU for EU members is both a feature and a bug; that it might portend to dictate border policy of a non-member state is (1) non-binding and (2) at a minimum, an aggressive presumption.
Nations choose to check goods and people as their national policy provides.
If Ireland
has to do things because of EU rules that results in bloodshed, perhaps the EU should reconsider those rules and weigh the harm of black market trade and movement of peoples vs. the value of maintaining peace. I am not saying that there aren't increased risks to increased violence with any destabilization, but nothing Ireland, the EU, or the UK does is automatic or required. These are political questions, and decisions made one day can be changed the next (democratic responsiveness and all). Until you lose sovereignty, that is.
But the bottom line is that neighboring nations have been dealing with these kinds of problems as long as there have been nations. How they deal with it will be messy at times, imperfect, come with a cost -- as it always does -- but c'mon, it is only new (or renewed) to these entities, not novel.
Per wrote: ↑Thu Aug 22, 2019 12:21 pm3) The leave campaign broke the financing rules of the referendum, spending far more they were allowed to, and knowingly lied about several aspects of Brexit. If the referendum had been binding, the courts would almost certainly have declared it invalid, but since a referendum, under British law, is not binding but only advisory, It cannot be declared invalid, and since the major parties had promised to adher to it, the very fact that it isn’t binding has made it binding despite the winning side having been found in a court of law to be in violation of the election rules.
Let me translate what you are saying: People spent too much money or raised too much money in an effort to have a robust dialogue about the most pressing political issue in the UK, probably Europe, and possibly the West. They shouldn't be allowed to do that! The marketplace of ideas is so broken that it isn't enough to counter a lie with truth in the public marketplace of ideas. People are too stupid for that! People can't be trusted to separate the wheat from chaff! People can't be trusted with self-determination in this crazy world where people have different opinions and sometimes even lie! We need our betters to adjudicate good speech from bad, and if bad speech was there, it is better to invalidate an election because we will presume that lies are like maggots that have eaten their way into the brains of these rubes that will believe anything (i.e., aren't really worthy of political citizenship).
You might have guessed, I am nonplussed by this complaint....
Per wrote: ↑Thu Aug 22, 2019 12:21 pm
Possibly, but not certainly. More people in Scotland voted to remain in the EU than to remain in the UK, and in the independence referendum, one of the strongest arguments for remaining in the UK was that they otherwise would be forced to leave the EU. Now the opposite is true. If they leave the UK, they could rejoin the EU. Likewise, a poll earlier this year showed that under current circumstances only some 30% of Northern Irish favour reunification with the Republic, but in the case of a no deal Brexit, that figure rises to just over 50%. In the terms of the Good Friday peace agreement it says that if any time polls show a majority of Northern Irish in favour of reunification, a referendum must be held. Thus it is quite possible that Brexit could lead to the dissolving of the United Kingdom, leaving England and Wales to fend for themselves.
Descriptively, I am not surprised that political sovereign entities which are comprised of amalgams of different nations are more likely to see minority nations/political geographies choose Europe over being a part of that nation. Being a minority in an entity that lacks a majority may appear better than being a minority in an entity that has a majority, particularly where there is a wash in terms of the benefits of consolidation. So the Scottish might find being part of the EU is better than being part of the UK if given the choice. But I am agnostic about what the Scots decide to do in this scenario. Why would you care? Because of another series of inefficiencies?
I think the majority of English
do care about the integrity of the UK. But if they had to make a choice, I bet the leavers value the political sovereignty of the United Kingdom minus whoever chooses to leave (even is that ends up being only England and Wales) over a united United Kingdom that is well down the path of being Europe's vassal state.
Per wrote: ↑Thu Aug 22, 2019 12:21 pm In the mean time consumer prices in the UK will soar and some products may disappear from shelves altogether or become scarce. Some 75% of medical supplies in the UK are imported from the EU. People with chronic diseases are already stockpiling Mëds to be prepared.
Temporary stuff -- all of which misses the rub. In the United States, we have unbelievable product distribution networks. Shortages are almost non-existent -- so long as there are buyers and the market is not one in which suppliers manipulate markets to create shortages to charge premiums (like, say, really cool shoes). Of course we are largely free market, which means that you have to pay for what you buy (including to a large degree health care, one of our more regulated markets). If I offered the people of Sweden access to everything that rich Americans have access to at the price of Swedish sovereignty, would the Swedes accept the offer? No, and not because Swedish markets are also pretty damn good at getting people what they need. My guess is that Greenland markets are not so plentiful, and the Danes won't make the deal.
(The last bit is a joke. But its not. Some things are more important than economic convenience and efficiency. Including political self-determination.)