Is anyone but me watching EU Referendum?

[Kaymyth she/her]

8 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

2) I expect both sides of the argument to have wildly exaggerated on the consequences of the vote. Britain will likely lose a few % of GDP over the next few years, but the world will mostly go on as it did. Proponents of this or that cause have always claimed apocalypse if votes won't go their way, but I've never seen it actually happen.

It won't be catastrophic, I don't think, but there definitely will be economic repercussions from this.  This will ripple into the US economy, but how much exactly isn't known yet.

Edited June 24, 2016 by Kaymyth

[Quiver he/him]

As someone born, raised and living in Northern Ireland, I am...frustrated. I think Britain made the wrong choice; the fact that their choice drags Northern Ireland -who, again, voted in the opposite direction- along with them makes it worse.

So...Yes. Damnation.I don't like this decision. 

[Arraenae]

My brother and I thought Britain would vote to stay. He said the betting odds were about 3 to 1. Looks like we've been proved wrong.

[Young Bard he/him]

Note: I express some strong feeling in here. I don't wish to cause offence to anyone who supports the Brexit. If you have a problem with something I say here, just mention it or PM me and I'll rephrase the offending parts.

I was also expecting Britain to stay, and was very surprised (and somewhat disappointed) they left. Economically, I have no idea about how this will play out, but I don't like the political implications. Particularly since the leave parties main arguments seem to suggest that the EU is somehow manipulating Britain to do something it couldn't otherwise. The thing is, that actually isn't possible. Britain, and every other country in the EU, has state sovereignty. Basically, no-one can tell them what to do. At best, they can encourage Britain on policy, or, failing that, they can attempt an embargo on trade with Britain, but that's about it. In particular, worker's rights were raised as something that the EU supposedly helped to lower. The thing is, Britain could have chosen not to sign or negotiate with that deal if they chose. Or, they could have done the same thing on their own. The EU didn't really do that much to cause it.

In addition, a large number of votes for leaving seem to have come out of bigotry and hate towards foreigners. There is a stigma that somehow, without 'foreigners' in the country, a lot of societies problems will be fixed. It's the foreigners that are holding the UK away from a magical land of sunshine and rainbows where everyone has access to everything they could possibly want. It's the foreigners that are stealing British jobs. It's the foreigners that are interfering on British territory. The thing is, it's not true. There are at least as many British people working abroad in Europe then there are Europeans working in Britain. And, what makes a German, or a Belgian, or a Norwegian any better or worse then a United Kingdom citizen? Why do the UK somehow think themselves above 'the other'. Now, this taps into something I have against patriotism and nationalism, which frankly, I consider to be outdated concepts which we could do better without.

Then, there are the implications just inside Britain. The one good thing that might come of this is possibly Scottish Independence (a large part of the campaign against it last time was cherry-picked - they chose the reports that said leaving the UK would be bad for Scotland, where other reports actually showed the opposite - Scotland was capable of using it's resources for financial success, and England, losing those resources would be worse off. But other effects I'm less optimistic about. I'm not sure if this has been brought up, but the concept of a Boris Johnson Government just frightens me. Also, I really want Jeremy Corbyn to remain as the Labour Party leader, which is looking doubtful at the minute.

[Mestiv he/him]

After seeing the statistic on how votes were divided by age:

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

37 minutes ago, Mestiv said:

After seeing the statistic on how votes were divided by age:

You could replace "Brexit" with almost any recent vote in any country and its still be accurate.

[Orlok Tsubodai]

@The Young Bard, whilst I absolutely do not want to end up in an argument with you, some of the statements you made aren't entirely accurate. On sovereignty, whilst Britain technically did retain sovereignty, it was only in the sense that it could withdraw from the EU if it chose to do so, and only after that regain control of laws. The EU, rather than merely encouraging Britain, did have the power and legal authority to make laws that parliament had no way of refusing.

If parliament choose to try to intervene, it could be taken to court in Europe, and the trade sanctions you allude to had the potential to be hugely crippling - essentially, within the EU the UK has no ability to assert it's sovereignty on issues we'd given up our veto on.

Whilst I do agree with you that it is very sad that immigration led to votes to leave, and think that much of UKIPs rhetoric on the subject has been dangerous, it isn't true that 'at least as many British citizens live in Europe as the reverse' - 3 million EU citizens live in Britain, whilst 1.3 million British citizens live in Europe. 

Whilst immigration has hugely positive impacts on the UK's cultural diversity, and clearly benefits the UK's economy, it does out significant pressure on the UK's public services, which are facing pressure as the government seeks to balance the budget, and on the housing stock - contributing to meteoric increases in house prices well above wage levels. 

 

On Scotland, I doubt that another independence refendum is likely. Whilst Sturgeon is certainly taking advantage of the situation for political gain, Scotland has never been more economically vulnerable. The EU has confirmed that Scotland would join the back of the queue for membership - and indeed Spain may well veto membership to deter Catalonian independence, whilst the economic plans for independence made in 2014 were predicated on oil prices at $100 a barrel - prices are now around $50 a barrel, and hugely unlikely to increase in the foreseeable future.

Consequently, Scotland would be left without a currency, unable to borrow unless at crippling rates, and with no choice but to cut public services to terrifying levels in order to stay afloat.

[STINK he/him]

10 hours ago, Mestiv said:

After seeing the statistic on how votes were divided by age:

I don't have any statistics with me right now, cause I never have anything on me when I write a post, but I'm pretty sure that I've read on multiple websites/subreddits/reddit threads in a single subreddit that the amount of 25 year olds and under that actually voted was quite low for the amount of people in that age range complaining about old people having a say.

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

I was fairly undecided on the issue (most if not all of my family voted Leave) and I really couldn't do much halfway across the world. The one thing that really grieves me is that it turned into an us v them scenario, and the hatred - that no doubt was underlying anyway - has just erupted to the surface and people feel as if they can be absolute cremlings to both nationals and immigrant nationals. I see all these posts of 'make Britain great again' and all I can think of is swapping Britain with America and you have Trump.

It is true, Odium reigns...

[king of nowhere]

Nobody else commented on how farage admitted just the day after the vote that they intentionally spread lies to get people to vote for leave? That alone should be enough to remove him from politics and call for a new vote. I mean, if I was a british who voted leave, I would call it a fraud and ask for my vote to be nullified.

At least we italians don't have to feel bad about berlusconi anymore. He was using his political position to embezzle billions and get aquitted, but at least he wasn't causing strife with old allies. And while he was lying all the time, he was skilled enough that he always avoided admitting it. Farage should have taken his example: instead of answering the questions, he should have complained about communists and changed the topic.

[Young Bard he/him]

16 hours ago, OrlokTsubodai said:

@The Young Bard, ...

whilst I absolutely do not want to end up in an argument with you, some of the statements you made aren't entirely accurate. On sovereignty, whilst Britain technically did retain sovereignty, it was only in the sense that it could withdraw from the EU if it chose to do so, and only after that regain control of laws. The EU, rather than merely encouraging Britain, did have the power and legal authority to make laws that parliament had no way of refusing.

If parliament choose to try to intervene, it could be taken to court in Europe, and the trade sanctions you allude to had the potential to be hugely crippling - essentially, within the EU the UK has no ability to assert it's sovereignty on issues we'd given up our veto on.

Whilst I do agree with you that it is very sad that immigration led to votes to leave, and think that much of UKIPs rhetoric on the subject has been dangerous, it isn't true that 'at least as many British citizens live in Europe as the reverse' - 3 million EU citizens live in Britain, whilst 1.3 million British citizens live in Europe. 

Whilst immigration has hugely positive impacts on the UK's cultural diversity, and clearly benefits the UK's economy, it does out significant pressure on the UK's public services, which are facing pressure as the government seeks to balance the budget, and on the housing stock - contributing to meteoric increases in house prices well above wage levels. 

 

On Scotland, I doubt that another independence refendum is likely. Whilst Sturgeon is certainly taking advantage of the situation for political gain, Scotland has never been more economically vulnerable. The EU has confirmed that Scotland would join the back of the queue for membership - and indeed Spain may well veto membership to deter Catalonian independence, whilst the economic plans for independence made in 2014 were predicated on oil prices at $100 a barrel - prices are now around $50 a barrel, and hugely unlikely to increase in the foreseeable future.

Consequently, Scotland would be left without a currency, unable to borrow unless at crippling rates, and with no choice but to cut public services to terrifying levels in order to stay afloat.

The way I understood it - I could be wrong, as I haven't studied this extensively - the UK can't be 'forced' into anything unless they become a signatory to the initial legislation, and attempt to ratify it. In this way, Britain has been able to avoid becoming part of the principle of the Schengen Area for years, because they declined to sign the initial document or to ratify it, and opted out instead. If they had signed it, and then changed their minds and decided they weren't too keen on the idea, then and only then could they have been taken to the EU Court (which happened a few times when they wanted to sign a document to save face and then attempt to slip it under the rug and forget about it without legislating it.)

Your argument about the economic side of leaving the EU, I find... flawed. Britain will still attempt to balance the budget, regardless of whether or not they are in the EU. In fact, not being in the EU will make it harder to get back into surplus, as you yourself acknowledge that the EU "clearly benefit's the UK's economy". In the wake of the Brexit decision, several major companies in London have started making plans to shift a lot of their work supply to Paris, and the stockmarket has been going haywire internationally. So, I fail to see how the EU could possibly be made accountable for Britain's economic status, or how leaving the EU will somehow improve it.

Also, the housing prices are part of a global trend, not something native to Britain or the EU. So again, the 'Leave' campaign is supporting an idealistic, rather than realistic, representation of how an EU-Free Britain would effect the economy.

With the numbers you specified on the number of British immigrants in the EU v. the reverse, apparently, I did get the statistics wrong on that. I withdraw that particular argument.

With the Scottish referendum, it all depends on how much stock you place in economic reports (if you'll pardon the pun). The thing is, numbers can be manipulated expertly by people who know what they're doing to represent basically anything they want it to say. For example, in one local incident for me, the state government is attempting to amalgamate local councils. They hired a company called KPMG to show the economic benefits. The local councils then hired the same company to show that local council amalgamations would be bad for the economy. KPMG issued 2 reports, each contradicting the other. Here's a source, if you don't believe me. Remember, I'm using this example because they both came from the same company within a month of each other. Now take into account that any number of companies predict estimates, and you realize how impossible it becomes to actually determine any sort of solid economic prediction data.

In short, do I think it's possible, even probably, that there might be a hit to the Scottish economy in the even of a split? Yes, I do, especially in the short term. However, I also believe that the case for exactly how damaging a split would be for Scotland to be overstated.

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

The EU now have 1GB free XD

[Mestiv he/him]

10 hours ago, STINK said:

I don't have any statistics with me right now, cause I never have anything on me when I write a post, but I'm pretty sure that I've read on multiple websites/subreddits/reddit threads in a single subreddit that the amount of 25 year olds and under that actually voted was quite low for the amount of people in that age range complaining about old people having a say.

I have no doubt that the young ones didn't go to vote as much as older citizens :/ It's unfortunately common nowadays that the right-wing, conservative voters are more willing to cast votes than the liberative ones  Last presidential elections in Poland were won by current president, because supporters of the former one were too lazy to go and vote :/ or believed, that their single vote won't make a change etc.

[Orlok Tsubodai]

5 hours ago, The Young Bard said:

The way I understood it - I could be wrong, as I haven't studied this extensively - the UK can't be 'forced' into anything unless they become a signatory to the initial legislation, and attempt to ratify it. In this way, Britain has been able to avoid becoming part of the principle of the Schengen Area for years, because they declined to sign the initial document or to ratify it, and opted out instead. If they had signed it, and then changed their minds and decided they weren't too keen on the idea, then and only then could they have been taken to the EU Court (which happened a few times when they wanted to sign a document to save face and then attempt to slip it under the rug and forget about it without legislating it.)

Here, I'm afraid, you conflate EU law and EU treaties. You're quite right in understanding that the UK cannot be forced into signing an EU treaty, and that the treaty does not apply unless ratified. EU laws work very differently. Once a treaty has been signed, giving power to the EU on certain issues, the member states must abide by all future laws made by the European Commission in these areas without any further influence or right to refusal, and can be taken to court by the EU for failing to abide by them. In this way, huge swathes of leglisation is now created and implemented by the European Commision without parliament having any voice on the laws, and with the EU laws having supremacy over UK law.

Your argument about the economic side of leaving the EU, I find... flawed. Britain will still attempt to balance the budget, regardless of whether or not they are in the EU. In fact, not being in the EU will make it harder to get back into surplus, as you yourself acknowledge that the EU "clearly benefit's the UK's economy". In the wake of the Brexit decision, several major companies in London have started making plans to shift a lot of their work supply to Paris, and the stockmarket has been going haywire internationally. So, I fail to see how the EU could possibly be made accountable for Britain's economic status, or how leaving the EU will somehow improve it.

You misinterpret me. I did not argue that leaving the EU would benefit Britain's economy. To argue that would be ridiculous. What I said was that pressure on public services might be reduced. This has nothing to do with economic benefits of leaving the EU, but rather the fact that with reduced immigration, there will be less demand for the public services, with less additional capacity being required each year to meet the growing population.

Also, the housing prices are part of a global trend, not something native to Britain or the EU. So again, the 'Leave' campaign is supporting an idealistic, rather than realistic, representation of how an EU-Free Britain would effect the economy. 

House prices, as with anything, are determined by demand and supply. Although the supply of housing increases year on year, as new houses are built, it does not do so at a fast enough rate to meet the growing demand. The growing demand is caused, in no small part, by population growth. Leaving the EU, and reducing immigration will in turn reduce demand for housing, and so alleviate to some degree the imbalance between demand and supply, reducing the price increases.

On Scotland, you argue that we cannot trust economic forecasts, because of the variability of data. There are a number of issues with your argument, though. The first of these is your source. KPMG is one of the 'Big Four' professional services firms, with a revenue of nearly $25bn last year, and ~175,000 employees. It is not unusual for any of the Big Four to be contracted onto a project in differing capacities. The two reports would very likely have been created by different teams working entirely independently of each other.

More significantly, though, cherry-picking a single example of where there may be an issue with statistics, and extrapolating from that that all economic predictions are useless is wholly wrong. 

As a matter of fact, the statistics I gave earlier were taken from the Scottish government's own plans for independence - they themselves published economic plans predicated on $100 a barrel oil and EU membership. With $50 a barrel oil, and no certain membership, declaring the plans published to be unworkable is entirely fair - and has been supported by bodies including the ONS.

Yes. Numbers can be manipulated to show things. But when the overwhelming majority of economic bodies are in agreement, it's highly likely that their predictions have not all been manipulated, and we can attach a significant degree of credibility to their evaluations.

[Kobold King he/him]

From a meme site:

[Pestis the Spider she/her]

As a Pole living currently in Scotland I am totally freaked out by the results of the referendum. If they actually go out of the EU (so far the UK government only says not too rush things, lol) it's all going to turn into one big mess. Even if Scotland votes to leave the UK, and then the EU actually takes Scotland back, it's still not going to be any better for next 10 years or so. And I have a lot of important stuff to do with my life over next 10 years, so I have no time for waiting until UK gets itself back in shape. 

I have 2 years left at my uni to get Bachelor's degree. I'll finish that, hopefully before UK leaves EU for good and then I move out to do my Masters somewhere else. Preferably to Switzerland, because there is nothing ever going on in Switzerland. I already started to learn German, and I need to save some money, because Switzerland is more expensive than Scotland. I'm serious. I always dreamt about moving to Switzerland anyway. O.o

[Kaymyth she/her]

4 hours ago, Pestis the Spider said:

As a Pole living currently in Scotland I am totally freaked out by the results of the referendum. If they actually go out of the EU (so far the UK government only says not too rush things, lol) it's all going to turn into one big mess. Even if Scotland votes to leave the UK, and then the EU actually takes Scotland back, it's still not going to be any better for next 10 years or so. And I have a lot of important stuff to do with my life over next 10 years, so I have no time for waiting until UK gets itself back in shape. 

I have 2 years left at my uni to get Bachelor's degree. I'll finish that, hopefully before UK leaves EU for good and then I move out to do my Masters somewhere else. Preferably to Switzerland, because there is nothing ever going on in Switzerland. I already started to learn German, and I need to save some money, because Switzerland is more expensive than Scotland. I'm serious. I always dreamt about moving to Switzerland anyway. O.o

It would take 2 years for the UK to disentangle from the EU, so I think you're OK there.  And that's counting from when they serve notice, which hasn't happened yet because Parliament has to actually do something to make it happen.  This is gonna move at the speed of politics, which is sloooowwww.

[Pestis the Spider she/her]

Yeah, I know there are about 2 years. But the value of the pound has already dropped dead. The mess has already started, even though article 50 has not even been invoked yet. I also just read that now German ppl want to do DEXIT. God, EU is falling apart, it's time to run. 

[Mestiv he/him]

1 hour ago, Pestis the Spider said:

Yeah, I know there are about 2 years. But the value of the pound has already dropped dead. The mess has already started, even though article 50 has not even been invoked yet. I also just read that now German ppl want to do DEXIT. God, EU is falling apart, it's time to run. 

Come back to Poland! We have... we have... mm... churches?

[Pestis the Spider she/her]

5 minutes ago, Mestiv said:

Come back to Poland! We have... we have... mm... churches?

If only I could find a decent university and an actual employment with a degree in Biotechnology, then I would. But these two things are hard to find in Poland, unfortunately. :/

[king of nowhere]

1 hour ago, Pestis the Spider said:

Yeah, I know there are about 2 years. But the value of the pound has already dropped dead. The mess has already started, even though article 50 has not even been invoked yet. I also just read that now German ppl want to do DEXIT. God, EU is falling apart, it's time to run. 

I haven't heard about germany wanting to leave.  Bur for sure, in spain the party that was for leaving lost a lot of votes in the elections that were held a few days after brexit, and that can hardly be a coincidence. As I said, maybe seeing UK facing economic problems because of brexit will make other european countries less likely to leave.

In fact, according to a poll over a million people who voted for "leave" regretted it. I wouldn't be surprised if in a few more years UK asks to rejoin.

Edited June 29, 2016 by king of nowhere

[Pestis the Spider she/her]

Just now, king of nowhere said:

I haven't heard about germany wanting to leave.  Bur for sure, in spain the party that was for leaving lost a lot of votes in the elections that were held a few days after brexit, and that can hardly be a coincidence. As I said, maybe seeing UK facing economic problems because of brexit will make other european countries less likely to leave.

In fact, according to a poll over a million people who voted for "leave" regretted it. I wouldn't be surprised if in a few more years UK asks to rejoin.

I don't mean that Germany wants to leave as a whole. I meant that suddenly a lot of people living in Germany started to say that they also want to leave. 

Well, the difference between number of people voting "leave" and voting "remain" was about a 1mln people. So if about 1 mln "leave" voters regrets their decision, then oh well...

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

I'm hoping to either emigrate to Oz or NZ, kiwis <3