In all the talk and words about the UK Brexit vote last Thursday, a regular line is that the Leave side has been “misled”, and doesn’t know what it is doing, and it is going to have buyer’s remorse, etc, etc. Who knows, maybe that criticism is apt. However, it is a bit rich for those who, for example, favoured the creation of the European single currency, as many pro-Remainers did (they might hope we’d forget) to claim that those who wish to leave an entity with pretensions to be a superstate are not thinking of the risks. That is a bit rich.
The launch of the single currency is arguably one of the riskiest, most hubristic transnational projects of recent decades, and I still see very little sign of contrition for rolling out a new form of fiat money without creating the economic and political architecture to deal with life inside a one-size-fits-all interest rate.
One reason why remaining EU states are scared of what has happened is the fear that a eurozone member state, envious of how the UK has just voted, might have similar ideas.
The answer of the E.U. elite (such as the Chancellor of Germany) is that the “process of integration” will proceed.
They assume (and it just assumption) that European (and world) statist “integration” is a Good Thing (TM).
No “set backs” will deter them.
They will not stop because they are fanatics.
I understand them because I am also a fanatic – I am just on the other side.
By the way, that petition for a second referundum is mostly full of spambot entries:
http://heatst.com/uk/exclusive-brexit-2nd-referendum-petition-a-4-chan-prank-bbc-report-it-as-real/
I think the European Union just died, but hasn’t realised yet. Think Wile E. Coyote running off a cliff. Britain was the first to look down, and deploy its Acme parachute.
The coyote always comes back! Watch out! (And buy shares in Acme- that coyote has lots of money.)
The EU is no more necessary than was Yugoslavia.
The “remorseful leavers” meme is a myth. Born on Twitter, expanded in the echo chamber and released to the wild. The second referendum petition is also a colossal fraud.
One thing this Referendum has exposed is who are the democrats, and who are the embryonic fascists.
‘Regrexit’ is total BS. ComRes have done a poll for The Daily Mirror and found that only 1% of Leave voters are unhappy with the result:
http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/sunday-mirror-post-referendum-poll/
I am surprised not to read about the idea that Remain voters were misinformed and did not really understand the problems of the EU. I find many do not understand the depth of the sovereignty problem — such as the ability of the European Court of Justice to overrule laws passed by Parliament. Also, many seem unaware of the EU’s extraordinary failure to negotiate proper free trade deals with other major markets. They also do not consider that the idea of trade within the single market is not “free” — if it is dependent on free movement of labour, then it is not “free”. And so on, etc…
I’m wondering how many Lithuanians who were around in 1990 when they declared independence from the USSR are looking at the pathetic half of the British population who are scared and panicked and wonder how the hell we ever had an empire.
That would be the other half of the population, Tim.
Snide, that’s true enough!
There is some suggestion that the EU Referendum result was too small to be binding. As a contribution (refutation) of that, I have the following argument.
In our House of Commons, there are 649 voting MPs. If there were a vote that split 51.9%/48.1%, this would be (rounding to whole votes) 337 against 312: a majority of 25.
In the HoC, a majority of 25 is not viewed as marginal. It is 3.85% of the 649.
Best regards
>I’m wondering how many Lithuanians who were around in 1990 when they declared independence from the USSR are looking at the pathetic half of the British population who are scared and panicked and wonder how the hell we ever had an empire.
The crybabies don’t see the EU as like the USSR. They see it as more like Shangri-La, a fabled utopian dreamland that they have suddenly been cast out of.
But you do wonder how we ever had an empire with people as stupid as that around.
Well, you’ve got to get your cannon-fodder from somewhere haven’t you?
No, but seriously. Things like property qualifications used to prevent the righteously ignorant from getting the vote and we’ve gone to hell in a hand-basket since universal suffrage was introduced.
I still think that there should be a net-contribution qualification for voting (i.e. you have to be a net contributor of taxes after welfare, schooling costs, etc.), this would stop those who are recipients of welfare from voting for more taxpayer largess to come their way.
JG – unfortunately, a net-contribution qualification such as you propose would have resulted in a different Brexit referendum result, given the relatively impoverished, non-metropolitan situation enjoyed by a large number of Brexiteers.
@Bod – I was actually referring to matters other than BRExit, which I acknowledge is dreadfully gauche of me, but there you go.
There was a time when Free Trade meant exactly that an Britain ruled the waves because of it, buying and selling to and from anyone and anywhere.
BREexit is a new dawn and a dagger in the chest to the monolithic, unelected and unaccountable European Union alas I fear it has not killed it outright, but where we lead, others will follow – out the door.
Sic transit gloria mundi
Well, one of those “risks” has actually come to pass: Standard & Poors has dropped the UK’s credit rating by two notches. (WSJ link; sorry about the paywall.) This is an interesting development. The fact that it was an actual ratings drop, and not just a “watch with a negative outlook” (as Moody’s did) long before there has been the first hint at what the separation terms might be, or even the delivery of an Article 50 notice, shows that this was a purely political decision. Nearly the whole of the international finance community was against Brexit, and S&P is in the belly of that beast, so this is just pandering to its masters. But it will have real-world implications for Great Britain, as its financing costs go up.
Yes, I think it’s a political decision. Hopefully when things calm down and the tranzis realize that they can’t stop this, and they need to make it work, they’ll raise it again.