"The question was never whether this would involve costs"
Brexit was sold as being positive for the economy. The proponents drove a bus around saying they would get 350 million back. It was largely advertised as a net positive for the economy
It was totally a rigged referendum, that bus hoarding propaganda somehow worked and the masses fell for the lies. But a great number didn't and it was barely lost by a few percentage points. David Cameron should have stayed and battled it out instead of resigning.
David Cameron may be the biggest idiot in almost 300 years of British Prime Ministers, and there's been a few beauties. He really could have done a better job with the whole referendum business. Up/Down only. No "by a majority of...". No requirement for a second referendum on the terms of the disengagement agreement. Asking him to stay around would have been like asking the driver that drove you over the cliff to drive you home. And then there was that other beauty, Boris!
This is incorrect, the official Vote Leave campaign focused very heavily on immigration and overall sovereignty. Remain was the campaign highlighting risks for the economy.
Of course the argument was made re: EU contributions staying "home" to be allocated domestically, but the economy was always shrugged away as a "necessary unknown to take back control"
Reading is hard I guess. I'm saying Brexit was not sold as being positive for the economy. Yes the bus probably existed, and as I said, the argument was made that the excess in EU contribution would be spent domestically instead. But improving the economy was not the main argument of the Leave. They always mostly acknowledged that it would be a bit unknown, but whatever happened would be worth it if it meant more sovereignty.
Sure, you could argue that they didn't mean it would be positive for the economy to save that money, but "we will save 350M/week" is what's on the buses and their website. Even if we assume the average voter clicks through here and reads everything point by point, or goes onto the website in the first place rather than by the headline, it is at the very least heavily implied... Otherwise what is the argument?
Brexit was absolutely sold as being positive for the economy. Trade deals were a huge part of the campaign - they said that the EU trade deals were bad since they all had to have concessions for France and Germany and the trade deals the UK could make on their own would bring more prosperity.
Here's Nigel Farage, at 6:53 AM the morning after Brexit passed, saying the claim on the bus was a "mistake" and they were never going to send that money to NHS.
“Probably”. Wow. Talk about self delusion and historical revisionism. You can’t bring yourself to admit the obvious reality that the Brexiteers were - to a man - self-serving, mendacious, con artists.
The EU has mildly outperformed the UK in overall economic growth by perhaps 1 percentage point over the last 5-6 years, i.e. ~7% vs ~6%. While of course both massively underperformed the USA.
It's hard to avoid concluding that the actual effects of Brexit have been smaller than this kind of analysis suggests, and while we squabble about such things our countries are missing opportunity after opportunity.
It's not all noise. Being able to live, work, or study anywhere in the Schengen zone has tremendous value. But it doesn't show up in GDP numbers. Brexit harmed the young people of UK, and they hate it.
Regarding the UK specifically, very few people chose to study in the EU when they could while many in the EU wanted to study in the UK. British unis are a huge asset to the country that also brings a lot of money from foreign students. Same for young people wanting to come work in UK/London.
Frankly, I think the "harm" done to young British people is vastly overblown and more symbolic than actual.
I don't know about that. Canada also tracked the UK more closely than the US and it was not involved in Brexit[1]. The US just did really well during this time.
If you compare UK to its equivalent developed countries (France, Germany, Italy, etc. ), without including the developing EU economies of Eastern Europe, you get that the UK’s GDP growth has outperformed the rest since brexit happened.
Have you a source? Using IMF data for GDP per capita PPP, the UK's growth has underperformed that of France, Spain and Italy over the last 10 years. In 2016 the UK's per-capita GDP in international dollars exceeded that of France by approx. $1600, estimates for 2026 are showing France being ahead by about $1000.
Many of the UK's post-Brexit trade deals have been the previous EU one with a slight tweak. Even the much touted US beef deal was built on an EU scheme and was rather minimal at that. It's not surprising then that the EU and UK are similar. The lack of UK growth over the EU is a big indictment of Brexit from an economic perspective.
The UK has done alright and London has continued to do very well. Considering that there wasn't, and essentially still isn't, any plans on how to make the most (or anything...) of Brexit, that's telling, IMHO.
There is no making "the most" out of Brexit the same way there isn't a way to make "the most" out of sawing your own leg off. It was completely unforced self-mutilation. The fact they're still hobbling on is commendable, but it's still much worse than they would've been off otherwise.
You may call it self-harm, but I think we need to consider Britain's relatively pragmatic / less than enthusiastic membership of the EU. For a start, Britain has a completely different legal system to the rest of Europe (common law vs. civil law). That was bound to create tensions.
I don't see how you can make such a binary claim - UK vs "the rest of Europe". Your map shows 6 broad categories of legal systems in use across Europe. Even if you put the 5 non-common law systems into one bucket, it still wouldn't make the UK unique as Ireland operates under common law.
- At previous gig relocation of manufacturing to the UK stopped because it would be impossible to operate there due to severe delays in procurement and long delays in securing appropriate visas for employees. Manufacturing sent to different country. (for many projects I work on 1-2 days delivery is the expected norm. With 3-5 days for "slow" shipping)
- Stopped buying from UK companies due a) many UK companies no longer shipping to EU, b) long delays when ordering something from the UK.
Of course, this is what it looks like from my perspective. That doesn't represent the totality. But in my work (which spans a few different sectors), the UK sort of became a black hole that we avoid if we can. Find different locations and sources for products, move on.
Except for Germany, which of the major countries are you referring to? Show me numbers.
It has been 10 years. How long do you think this should take? 20 years? And how long before the lost decade (or perhaps decades) have been made up for and the UK goes net positive? 30 years? 50? (The area below the curve is important. You learned about integrals in school, right?).
Trust me: nobody I talk to is interested in doing business with UK companies or in the UK if they can avoid it. Which makes me curious: who are these companies that have seen a boost in foreign trade?
Glad to see that people on hackernews know more about the costs of EU regulation than Jim Ratcliffe, James Dyson, Tim Martin etc.
Just look at the AI act, GDPR, and how the EU shot their tech sector in the foot with these.
If being in the EU was so great then why don't Norway or Switzerland join?
I am an EU citizen and it is extremely convenient in my personal life (common currency, no visas, my sim card works everywhere) but I'm also aware that the most effective governments are city states such as Singapore or heavily decentralized states like UAE, Switzerland, Denmark, even China and up until recently the US and UK. The EU creates far more regulations, red tape, and friction than the single market removes, and tying the fate of the UK to dying economies like Germany and France does no one any good.
> If being in the EU was so great then why don't Norway or Switzerland join?
I'm not an economist nor am I an European citizen, but both of those countries have very successful and wealthy economies. It doesn't seem necessary or advantageous for them to join the EU as, if anything, introducing a second currency and new laws that are tied to many other countries' prosperity would just risk destabilization. If the situation for either country changes in the future, it might make more sense for them to join at that point, but as of the moment they have no need or widespread desire to. Last I heard, Switzerland is even voting on whether to cap their population, which would prob not fly in the EU.
...heavily decentralized Switzerland...? What does this even mean? Care to explain, if there is anything to explain of course? And no-regulations Switzerland? I don't know the other countries but if at least one example is completely imaginary, the rest kinda lose their strength in my view.
It's almost like the academics who said that free-trade and globalization were net benefits to the economy were right, and then reversing globalization and shutting borders simply reverses those gains.
The interesting part is that while the benefits of globalization were not evenly distributed (part of the reason for the populist backlash against it), reversing it does not seem to benefit the people who were harmed by it. Maybe somebody who actually lives there can correct me, but the working class has seemingly not been lifted back into the middle class just because borders were closed. The factories have not come back. Instead it seems like capital owners benefitted most handsomely from globalization, and then de-globalization just entrenches their gains. And in terms of material gains and consumption, people just do without and all end up poorer.
Important lessons for America, which is about to embark on its own de-globalization adventure.
The idea that governments should get out of the way of free trade across borders, and that the policies they make only serve to make the economy less efficient. The backdrop for the economy should be the world, and not the nation. Within it, firms should feel free to transact with whoever gets the job done best.
That seems orthogonal to being part of a league of nations. In practice it should be easier to reduce regulation with increased sovereignty, but again there is no direct causation. The benefit of a league is collective bargaining, and potential efficiencies like standardization. The downsides are effectively the unintended consequences of that.
Are we pretending the US/NATO hasn't been interfering with the world's economy for the past decades? Or free trade here means the US being the sheriff of the world, forcing everyone else to use their currency, and bringing "freedom and democracy" to whoever thinks of challenging that?
There's plenty that the U.S. government does that it shouldn't do, and it's out of scope for this discussion.
When it comes to globalization, there is a legit role for hegemonic military power, and it's to keep trade lanes open. So for example, interdicting Somali pirates or Houthi rebels or keeping the Straight of Hormuz open would be legit uses of force. Sinking suspected drug boats in the Caribbean or imposing their own blockade would not be. Providing a stable currency is legit, using that currency to impose sanctions on countries or individuals that do things you do not like is not legit.
There is another conversation to be had about the use of power and how enforcing your ideals often comes into conflict with the values of your ideals themselves, but that is another conversation, not for this thread.
The US did not create a neutral global free market. It created and maintains a US-centered international order that is relatively open for trade when openness aligns with American strategic interests and becomes coercive when it does not.
> Providing a stable currency is legit
The US does not "provide" a stable currency, it outright forces everyone to use it.
> how enforcing your ideals often comes into conflict with the values of your ideals themselves
The US/NATO couldn't care less about enforcing their "ideals". This is all about economic gain. It is very odd how liberal ideals must be enforced upon Iran, but not upon Saudi Arabia, which is a US ally, no?
> but that is another conversation, not for this thread
So discussing the use of force in the global economy is not fit for a thread about free-trade?
I think in this context it would mean not stopping movement of labor to an extreme or having tariffs, but taxing the unequal gains and having social programs that help everyone keep up in an economy.
The US actually has enough weight as an economy to have some bargaining power at trade negotiations. Now, whether the negotiator is working in good faith or not is another matter, but if the US suddenly stopped doing business with an individual country, it would likely cause the other side at least some problems.
The UK does not have the weight the US does, and sanctioned itself from all of its largest trading partners in one stroke. If it wants back into the EU (which would likely be the smart thing to do), serious concessions will have to be made. Like, "How much do you really like the pound sterling?" concessions.
Also, Reform's gaining steam, so those concessions are unlikely to be given.
What America has done to its soft power, public image, national security and scientific research goes a bit beyond introduce a few semi-permanent non-tariff barriers to trade and lose some votes on some decision making bodies though. Though it's certainly done that too...
There's always been an undercurrent of contempt for the US, particularly from Europe. Even during the Clinton and Obama years. There's no satisfying that.
> There's always been an undercurrent of contempt for the US, particularly from Europe. Even during the Clinton and Obama years. There's no satisfying that.
Of course. But there's a difference between the sort of mild disdain tinged with envy you get from being the self-appointed "leader of the free world" and the reaction that electing a nakedly corrupt thundering moron who constantly belittles and threatens allies whilst kowtowing to a former superpower gets you.
(Of course, there are people that always regarded the US as actively hostile, but they tended to be rival superpowers, Global South socialist governments, Islamists and Western protest groups, not Western officials who might once have identified as strongly aligned with the US. And for the wider world, there's a difference between the longstanding view that many of the values the US preached were sanctimonious hokey and the increasing view that the values the US preaches are fundamentally opposed to stability and democracy)
Perhaps not yet, but we have at minimum 2 and a half years of the Trump Family Circus to contend with, and they've gotten a lot destroyed in what time they've had so far.
And, Trump isn't the real problem. Anti-intellectualism here has hit it's zenith. Fully a third of our country is so propagandized and media-illiterate that they can't really be said to share a reality with the rest of us anymore.
I don't know how we can fix this. Talk radio, Fox News, and social media may well have damaged our civil life beyond repair. And they're still doing it.
And largely owned by the same fucking people, to boot. Hey maybe letting like 30 people have as much money as some sovereign nations was a bad idea guys...
One can take some hope that Germany recovered from its descent into fascism. But that was in a time where there was no social media and other brainwashing technologies embedded into the population.
They also had 45 years of being split in half with one side being under a totalitarian government, and the other being partially administrated by three other countries with troops stationed there and the threat of thermonuclear war should ever the two sides get in a disagreement.
Also, many of the same ills that caused fascism the first time are starting to re-emerge. You can see this in the rise of AfD.
I think's actually worse than Brexit. The destruction of institutions and the industrial weaponization of partisanship has done significant damage. Add to that the tariff circus and the alienation of every single fucking foreign power with the lingering effect of demonstrating that long term trust is no longer possible.
We are on the cusp of a full fascist takeover and the only thing possibly preventing that is the incompetence and self-dealing at the top.
I expect to get downvoted by the partisans here, but I stand by my words and would love to be shown wrong with credible evidence, but that is extremely doubtful.
> A British poll shows that a new Brexit referendum would reverse the vote that led to Britain’s departure from the European Union a decade ago.
Fifty-two per cent of Britons think the UK should rejoin the EU, according to an Ipsos survey of 1,137 British adults conducted between May 14 and May 20.
I'm not as sure as you about the result, but I do agree that the campaigning would be absolutely awful to go through, and would reopen a lot of really deep wounds on all sides. It's all very well saying you'd like to rejoin when someone asks you on the street, but an entirely different thing if there was a months-long campaign to have to get through.
Not even that but one of the major issues with the first referendum was that Brexit was ill defined so the pro camp was able to promise basically anything as the final status and everyone had a different idea of what the actual outcome would be. Any vote without the actual final deal on the table or at least a guarantee that the final deal will get a vote will kind of inevitably lead to the same "wait I voted for that?!" that happened when the Real Brexit (tm) finally came out.
I'm almost certain that the final Brexit would not have been approved and pretty equally certain people would be vastly unhappy with the requirement to rejoin.
"Services firms, especially in regulated sectors, lost important market access rights. Free movement ended."
You mean Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson lied to the people?
I am ... shocked. Ok not really.
The strange thing is that Nigel keeps on lying - and people still (!!!) buy his lies. It is a fascinating case study. I concede that Nigel is good at rhetorics, but it also seems as if people want to be lied to. Otherwise they would have realised they were duped.
For the other EU member states, having UK no longer torpedo decisions, is actually great. The EU is way too huge anyway - and sadly, wants to expand more and more. That's also going to lead to a break up situation. And populists such as Nigel will take advantage of that (if the UK were in the EU).
"The question was never whether this would involve costs"
Brexit was sold as being positive for the economy. The proponents drove a bus around saying they would get 350 million back. It was largely advertised as a net positive for the economy
It was totally a rigged referendum, that bus hoarding propaganda somehow worked and the masses fell for the lies. But a great number didn't and it was barely lost by a few percentage points. David Cameron should have stayed and battled it out instead of resigning.
David Cameron may be the biggest idiot in almost 300 years of British Prime Ministers, and there's been a few beauties. He really could have done a better job with the whole referendum business. Up/Down only. No "by a majority of...". No requirement for a second referendum on the terms of the disengagement agreement. Asking him to stay around would have been like asking the driver that drove you over the cliff to drive you home. And then there was that other beauty, Boris!
It was sold as that but it was heavily xenophobia-coded
This is incorrect, the official Vote Leave campaign focused very heavily on immigration and overall sovereignty. Remain was the campaign highlighting risks for the economy.
Of course the argument was made re: EU contributions staying "home" to be allocated domestically, but the economy was always shrugged away as a "necessary unknown to take back control"
You're saying the bus didn't exist?
Reading is hard I guess. I'm saying Brexit was not sold as being positive for the economy. Yes the bus probably existed, and as I said, the argument was made that the excess in EU contribution would be spent domestically instead. But improving the economy was not the main argument of the Leave. They always mostly acknowledged that it would be a bit unknown, but whatever happened would be worth it if it meant more sovereignty.
Look at the very first point on the archived vote leave page: https://web.archive.org/web/20160620214900/http://www.votele...
Sure, you could argue that they didn't mean it would be positive for the economy to save that money, but "we will save 350M/week" is what's on the buses and their website. Even if we assume the average voter clicks through here and reads everything point by point, or goes onto the website in the first place rather than by the headline, it is at the very least heavily implied... Otherwise what is the argument?
Brexit was absolutely sold as being positive for the economy. Trade deals were a huge part of the campaign - they said that the EU trade deals were bad since they all had to have concessions for France and Germany and the trade deals the UK could make on their own would bring more prosperity.
"the bus probably existed" wtf... there are photos of it, which were plastered all over media at the time. there's no "probably" about it
Here's Nigel Farage, at 6:53 AM the morning after Brexit passed, saying the claim on the bus was a "mistake" and they were never going to send that money to NHS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSK0vVL2pg8
> Yes the bus probably existed
“Probably”. Wow. Talk about self delusion and historical revisionism. You can’t bring yourself to admit the obvious reality that the Brexiteers were - to a man - self-serving, mendacious, con artists.
The EU has mildly outperformed the UK in overall economic growth by perhaps 1 percentage point over the last 5-6 years, i.e. ~7% vs ~6%. While of course both massively underperformed the USA.
It's hard to avoid concluding that the actual effects of Brexit have been smaller than this kind of analysis suggests, and while we squabble about such things our countries are missing opportunity after opportunity.
Brexit harming the growth of both UK and EU is another perfectly valid interpretation of those numbers.
I'm sure there's a little truth to both, and noise from all kinds of other factors.
It's not all noise. Being able to live, work, or study anywhere in the Schengen zone has tremendous value. But it doesn't show up in GDP numbers. Brexit harmed the young people of UK, and they hate it.
Regarding the UK specifically, very few people chose to study in the EU when they could while many in the EU wanted to study in the UK. British unis are a huge asset to the country that also brings a lot of money from foreign students. Same for young people wanting to come work in UK/London.
Frankly, I think the "harm" done to young British people is vastly overblown and more symbolic than actual.
Young people voted against Brexit by 2 to 1. If anything they are more opposed now. Perhaps they know if they've been harmed or not.
I don't know about that. Canada also tracked the UK more closely than the US and it was not involved in Brexit[1]. The US just did really well during this time.
[1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?end=2024...
If you compare UK to its equivalent developed countries (France, Germany, Italy, etc. ), without including the developing EU economies of Eastern Europe, you get that the UK’s GDP growth has outperformed the rest since brexit happened.
Have you a source? Using IMF data for GDP per capita PPP, the UK's growth has underperformed that of France, Spain and Italy over the last 10 years. In 2016 the UK's per-capita GDP in international dollars exceeded that of France by approx. $1600, estimates for 2026 are showing France being ahead by about $1000.
you're going to have to quote sources and explain the math.
Many of the UK's post-Brexit trade deals have been the previous EU one with a slight tweak. Even the much touted US beef deal was built on an EU scheme and was rather minimal at that. It's not surprising then that the EU and UK are similar. The lack of UK growth over the EU is a big indictment of Brexit from an economic perspective.
The real delta is the delta between what was promised and what was delivered.
Pretending that the outcome wasn't so bad by moving the goalposts closer is, quite frankly, dishonest.
The UK has done alright and London has continued to do very well. Considering that there wasn't, and essentially still isn't, any plans on how to make the most (or anything...) of Brexit, that's telling, IMHO.
There is no making "the most" out of Brexit the same way there isn't a way to make "the most" out of sawing your own leg off. It was completely unforced self-mutilation. The fact they're still hobbling on is commendable, but it's still much worse than they would've been off otherwise.
You may call it self-harm, but I think we need to consider Britain's relatively pragmatic / less than enthusiastic membership of the EU. For a start, Britain has a completely different legal system to the rest of Europe (common law vs. civil law). That was bound to create tensions.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Legal_systems_in_Eur...
I don't see how you can make such a binary claim - UK vs "the rest of Europe". Your map shows 6 broad categories of legal systems in use across Europe. Even if you put the 5 non-common law systems into one bucket, it still wouldn't make the UK unique as Ireland operates under common law.
You are right, it is not binary in the way I wrote. I guess one difference between UK and Ireland is absence of a written constitution?
That isn't true, and a ridiculous take. There are pros and cons to both being in and out of the EU.
Well here is how it looks from my perspective:
- At previous gig relocation of manufacturing to the UK stopped because it would be impossible to operate there due to severe delays in procurement and long delays in securing appropriate visas for employees. Manufacturing sent to different country. (for many projects I work on 1-2 days delivery is the expected norm. With 3-5 days for "slow" shipping)
- Stopped buying from UK companies due a) many UK companies no longer shipping to EU, b) long delays when ordering something from the UK.
Of course, this is what it looks like from my perspective. That doesn't represent the totality. But in my work (which spans a few different sectors), the UK sort of became a black hole that we avoid if we can. Find different locations and sources for products, move on.
Noone buys Korean phones or cars or whatever because they are not in the EU... of course not.
The issue, and lack of plan to cope with, is that the change requires a (long?) period of deep reconfiguration.
But still, places like London, Cambridge, etc are doing incredibly well and better than on the continent...
Brexit hasn't been a fairytale but it hasn't been a catastrophe, either.
Except for Germany, which of the major countries are you referring to? Show me numbers.
It has been 10 years. How long do you think this should take? 20 years? And how long before the lost decade (or perhaps decades) have been made up for and the UK goes net positive? 30 years? 50? (The area below the curve is important. You learned about integrals in school, right?).
Trust me: nobody I talk to is interested in doing business with UK companies or in the UK if they can avoid it. Which makes me curious: who are these companies that have seen a boost in foreign trade?
Oh what are the pros again, I seem to have forgotten what the sunlit uplands were supposed to be like...?
[dead]
For comparison, Remain advocates predicted a fall in GDP of 3.6-6.0%:
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/brexit-would-put-our-...
So it seems like they have been spot on? TFA quotes the OBR as estimating a 4% negative impact and the CEFR estimate of -5.5% cumulative impact.
I should mention that the Remain advocate estimates of 3.6-6.0 were for a time frame of two years: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hm-treasury-analy...
Some would say Brexit - January 31, 2020 is the UK's independence day.
Glad to see that people on hackernews know more about the costs of EU regulation than Jim Ratcliffe, James Dyson, Tim Martin etc.
Just look at the AI act, GDPR, and how the EU shot their tech sector in the foot with these.
If being in the EU was so great then why don't Norway or Switzerland join?
I am an EU citizen and it is extremely convenient in my personal life (common currency, no visas, my sim card works everywhere) but I'm also aware that the most effective governments are city states such as Singapore or heavily decentralized states like UAE, Switzerland, Denmark, even China and up until recently the US and UK. The EU creates far more regulations, red tape, and friction than the single market removes, and tying the fate of the UK to dying economies like Germany and France does no one any good.
> If being in the EU was so great, then why don't Norway or Switzerland join?
https://www.ft.com/content/5c8a871f-9a49-45f4-9ac0-543a608a5...
https://archive.is/dCYJG
> If being in the EU was so great then why don't Norway or Switzerland join?
I'm not an economist nor am I an European citizen, but both of those countries have very successful and wealthy economies. It doesn't seem necessary or advantageous for them to join the EU as, if anything, introducing a second currency and new laws that are tied to many other countries' prosperity would just risk destabilization. If the situation for either country changes in the future, it might make more sense for them to join at that point, but as of the moment they have no need or widespread desire to. Last I heard, Switzerland is even voting on whether to cap their population, which would prob not fly in the EU.
...heavily decentralized Switzerland...? What does this even mean? Care to explain, if there is anything to explain of course? And no-regulations Switzerland? I don't know the other countries but if at least one example is completely imaginary, the rest kinda lose their strength in my view.
It's almost like the academics who said that free-trade and globalization were net benefits to the economy were right, and then reversing globalization and shutting borders simply reverses those gains.
The interesting part is that while the benefits of globalization were not evenly distributed (part of the reason for the populist backlash against it), reversing it does not seem to benefit the people who were harmed by it. Maybe somebody who actually lives there can correct me, but the working class has seemingly not been lifted back into the middle class just because borders were closed. The factories have not come back. Instead it seems like capital owners benefitted most handsomely from globalization, and then de-globalization just entrenches their gains. And in terms of material gains and consumption, people just do without and all end up poorer.
Important lessons for America, which is about to embark on its own de-globalization adventure.
The term globalization is doing a lot of work in this comment, what does it mean to you?
The idea that governments should get out of the way of free trade across borders, and that the policies they make only serve to make the economy less efficient. The backdrop for the economy should be the world, and not the nation. Within it, firms should feel free to transact with whoever gets the job done best.
That seems orthogonal to being part of a league of nations. In practice it should be easier to reduce regulation with increased sovereignty, but again there is no direct causation. The benefit of a league is collective bargaining, and potential efficiencies like standardization. The downsides are effectively the unintended consequences of that.
Are we pretending the US/NATO hasn't been interfering with the world's economy for the past decades? Or free trade here means the US being the sheriff of the world, forcing everyone else to use their currency, and bringing "freedom and democracy" to whoever thinks of challenging that?
There's plenty that the U.S. government does that it shouldn't do, and it's out of scope for this discussion.
When it comes to globalization, there is a legit role for hegemonic military power, and it's to keep trade lanes open. So for example, interdicting Somali pirates or Houthi rebels or keeping the Straight of Hormuz open would be legit uses of force. Sinking suspected drug boats in the Caribbean or imposing their own blockade would not be. Providing a stable currency is legit, using that currency to impose sanctions on countries or individuals that do things you do not like is not legit.
There is another conversation to be had about the use of power and how enforcing your ideals often comes into conflict with the values of your ideals themselves, but that is another conversation, not for this thread.
The US did not create a neutral global free market. It created and maintains a US-centered international order that is relatively open for trade when openness aligns with American strategic interests and becomes coercive when it does not.
> Providing a stable currency is legit
The US does not "provide" a stable currency, it outright forces everyone to use it.
> how enforcing your ideals often comes into conflict with the values of your ideals themselves
The US/NATO couldn't care less about enforcing their "ideals". This is all about economic gain. It is very odd how liberal ideals must be enforced upon Iran, but not upon Saudi Arabia, which is a US ally, no?
> but that is another conversation, not for this thread
So discussing the use of force in the global economy is not fit for a thread about free-trade?
I think in this context it would mean not stopping movement of labor to an extreme or having tariffs, but taxing the unequal gains and having social programs that help everyone keep up in an economy.
They evidently mean it as in the opposite of protectionism.
> reversing it does not seem to benefit the people who were harmed by it
Second and third laws of thermodynamics - our universe has no (macroscopic scale) reversible processes and every irreversible process causes losses
I like the first part of your username. Not so much the latter.
Just when the UK thought they had done the biggest self own in history, 'Merica says hold muh beer.
America can do anything the UK can do, but bigger and better!
Makes me think of Peter Tosh: "Anything you can do, I can do it better, I'm the toughest".
Anything you can do I can do better just makes me think of Annie Oakley https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO23WBji_Z0
I still wouldn't put it at the level of Brexit.
The US actually has enough weight as an economy to have some bargaining power at trade negotiations. Now, whether the negotiator is working in good faith or not is another matter, but if the US suddenly stopped doing business with an individual country, it would likely cause the other side at least some problems.
The UK does not have the weight the US does, and sanctioned itself from all of its largest trading partners in one stroke. If it wants back into the EU (which would likely be the smart thing to do), serious concessions will have to be made. Like, "How much do you really like the pound sterling?" concessions.
Also, Reform's gaining steam, so those concessions are unlikely to be given.
What America has done to its soft power, public image, national security and scientific research goes a bit beyond introduce a few semi-permanent non-tariff barriers to trade and lose some votes on some decision making bodies though. Though it's certainly done that too...
> soft power, public image
Yes and no.
There's always been an undercurrent of contempt for the US, particularly from Europe. Even during the Clinton and Obama years. There's no satisfying that.
> There's always been an undercurrent of contempt for the US, particularly from Europe. Even during the Clinton and Obama years. There's no satisfying that.
Of course. But there's a difference between the sort of mild disdain tinged with envy you get from being the self-appointed "leader of the free world" and the reaction that electing a nakedly corrupt thundering moron who constantly belittles and threatens allies whilst kowtowing to a former superpower gets you.
(Of course, there are people that always regarded the US as actively hostile, but they tended to be rival superpowers, Global South socialist governments, Islamists and Western protest groups, not Western officials who might once have identified as strongly aligned with the US. And for the wider world, there's a difference between the longstanding view that many of the values the US preached were sanctimonious hokey and the increasing view that the values the US preaches are fundamentally opposed to stability and democracy)
> I still wouldn't put it at the level of Brexit.
Perhaps not yet, but we have at minimum 2 and a half years of the Trump Family Circus to contend with, and they've gotten a lot destroyed in what time they've had so far.
And, Trump isn't the real problem. Anti-intellectualism here has hit it's zenith. Fully a third of our country is so propagandized and media-illiterate that they can't really be said to share a reality with the rest of us anymore.
I don't know how we can fix this. Talk radio, Fox News, and social media may well have damaged our civil life beyond repair. And they're still doing it.
Oh, they've got that there too. GB News, TikTok, all the rest.
And largely owned by the same fucking people, to boot. Hey maybe letting like 30 people have as much money as some sovereign nations was a bad idea guys...
One can take some hope that Germany recovered from its descent into fascism. But that was in a time where there was no social media and other brainwashing technologies embedded into the population.
My hopes are tempered, to say the least.
They also had 45 years of being split in half with one side being under a totalitarian government, and the other being partially administrated by three other countries with troops stationed there and the threat of thermonuclear war should ever the two sides get in a disagreement.
Also, many of the same ills that caused fascism the first time are starting to re-emerge. You can see this in the rise of AfD.
I think's actually worse than Brexit. The destruction of institutions and the industrial weaponization of partisanship has done significant damage. Add to that the tariff circus and the alienation of every single fucking foreign power with the lingering effect of demonstrating that long term trust is no longer possible.
We are on the cusp of a full fascist takeover and the only thing possibly preventing that is the incompetence and self-dealing at the top.
I expect to get downvoted by the partisans here, but I stand by my words and would love to be shown wrong with credible evidence, but that is extremely doubtful.
We miss you, British friends. Come back home! <3
In related news:
> A British poll shows that a new Brexit referendum would reverse the vote that led to Britain’s departure from the European Union a decade ago.
Fifty-two per cent of Britons think the UK should rejoin the EU, according to an Ipsos survey of 1,137 British adults conducted between May 14 and May 20.
https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/new-referendum-wou...
Also worth mentioning:
Poll Suggests Most Britons Oppose Giving Up Brexit Powers for Closer EU Ties
https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/2026-06-08/poll-suggest...
Well, those half are likely under the impression they can rewind things, but realistically that is not on the table.
If there were another vote, the media circus, and manipulation via social media would make sure we stay out.
I'm not as sure as you about the result, but I do agree that the campaigning would be absolutely awful to go through, and would reopen a lot of really deep wounds on all sides. It's all very well saying you'd like to rejoin when someone asks you on the street, but an entirely different thing if there was a months-long campaign to have to get through.
Not even that but one of the major issues with the first referendum was that Brexit was ill defined so the pro camp was able to promise basically anything as the final status and everyone had a different idea of what the actual outcome would be. Any vote without the actual final deal on the table or at least a guarantee that the final deal will get a vote will kind of inevitably lead to the same "wait I voted for that?!" that happened when the Real Brexit (tm) finally came out.
I'm almost certain that the final Brexit would not have been approved and pretty equally certain people would be vastly unhappy with the requirement to rejoin.
Considering how the EU and the UK have evolved, I suspect that today staying out of the EU would get more votes than Brexit did back in 2016.
The EU is not exactly doing much better. None of them truly ever recovered from 2008 or 2020. It is either stagnation or managed decline.
Spain and Poland seem to be doing quite well?
"Services firms, especially in regulated sectors, lost important market access rights. Free movement ended."
You mean Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson lied to the people?
I am ... shocked. Ok not really.
The strange thing is that Nigel keeps on lying - and people still (!!!) buy his lies. It is a fascinating case study. I concede that Nigel is good at rhetorics, but it also seems as if people want to be lied to. Otherwise they would have realised they were duped.
For the other EU member states, having UK no longer torpedo decisions, is actually great. The EU is way too huge anyway - and sadly, wants to expand more and more. That's also going to lead to a break up situation. And populists such as Nigel will take advantage of that (if the UK were in the EU).
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