It's casting **** in all directions into a world fall of fans. The time to worry and do something is before the **** is thrown, not after it starts hitting the fans.

brexit is such a huge political mistake in my bire. Not just for the British but for Europe and the world. If the world world rise of nationalism and the far right continues (not inevitable but a serious danger), the history books will have brexit as one of the key moments in the European chapter.


Plus free movement, coming together as one equal group of people etc etc was really nice.

Its a weird debate when an apparent apocalypse is happening to a narrow group of wealthy remainers, but everyone else is looking on baffled by the ridiculousness of it all, with growing wages and record low unemployment.

A bottom line is that if it is -so- apocalyptic to exit now, it indicates that it still needed doing before that got even worse, because there is no precedent for humans to ever have run central planning so large successfully, and exiting later after more integration has to be even more apocalyptic.

You've already been corrected on your crap, without reply I should add.

Another bull****ter. At this point it's just blatant lies from these ****s. No idea how it's acceptable discourse.

It's funny that the amount of people reported on that lolpeoplesvote march is almost the exact number needed where, if they had all made a positive case to remain in the EU rather than focussing on potential negative effects if we leave to just one person, and then got them to vote the other way, they'd have won. Where were you in 2016?

Wealthy people tend to be the most mobile and least impacted by something like Brexit. The bankers and consultants will just go to Amsterdam.

That's meaningless bollocks, like every argument on the fascist side.

I'm somewhat bigger and meaner than that, I'm afraid.

Everyone who knows anything about the EU is sceptical about it. It's sluggish and complacent and it's got a top-down element that needs sorting. It's just a hell of a lot better than the Balkanised fascist alternative.

What a great event. Positive, humorous and we never say die.

Too much truth in that.

We all have to learn to fight for what we want before it goes wrong.

So opposing a non democratic organisation that's driven to centralize and control is a fascist act, is it?
Calm down, Private Frazer

57 on Red is more Jerzei Balowski than Rik

I get more a nutter in the park vibe.

or...

Well when it all goes pear-shaped - and I see no evidence that it isn't already - it's more along the lines of

If there is another referendum with 'Remain' on the card, how will know what we are voting for? Will it be explained how the EU will operate through an Italian default and euro->lira switch. Will a manifesto on federalisation be published? Will we know about all the politically-biased regulatory overreach that is on the table?

Or would remaining be a leap into the dark / off a cliff / crashing-back-in?

Remaining is not the same as being a non-member wanting to join.

And to the issues the EU has maybe we should just try and make a bigger effort to reform it to how we'd like it to be rather than the half-hearted sniping that we seem to constantly engage in.

People have been pushing for reform for years. The pressure to federalise is way too strong in the gravytrain nonelected part of the EU (the really big part)

Essentially the now EU project doesn't have gov't and opposition, it has elected by democracy part and nonelected rest, and nonelected rest are constantly pushing the elected part to fulfill its own agenda, and successfully bamboozling the elected part to sign stuff that fulfills the non electeds own agenda, which they then claim everyone signed up for so can never ever be undone by any democratic process without going through massive hoops.

Reform? you're kidding yourself.

IIRR Cameron tried moving heaven and earth to stop that ridiculous Spitzenkandidat process that got Juncker in. If such a stupid process can't be stopped cos 'EU sez no', then genuine reform is just a pipe dream for the deluded.

See the crumbs that Cameron was offered when he was asking for changes (and he really wasn't asking for much), even though they knew there was an imminent referendum about a heavyweight member leaving. If they won't consider reform then, when exactly do you think they'd consider reform? (and not just lip service to it)

As usual you're contradicting yourself if you believe what you say about the inevitability of an EU crash due to Italian debt.

Of course reform will take precedence over that option.

In what ways?

Is the impact of a governance failure worse for new members or old members?

After joining or not leaving, what is it about the future day to day operations that makes you think that that major strategic weaknesses of the EU are shielded from old members but not from new members?

It seems to me that analysing remaining differently from joining is status quo bias and sunk cost fallacy, are there any big reasons why it is not?

This is not an instance of sunk cost fallacy. A bias towards the status quo is completely rational if transitioning to other states is very costly.

The issue here is very similar to the Scottish Independece referendum where those advocating leaving can sell a completely false dream with no basis in reality and those advocating remain are basically selling the idea of things continuing as they are, which isn't a very sexy sell at all. That means the remain campaign has to point out the flaws/lies being promised by leavers, which they will then inveitably go on to label 'project fear'.

That's just the nature of such referendums and it's the difficulty for any campaign that advocates the remain case.

The costs and benefits of remaining and the costs and benefits of leaving are both clearly ambiguous.

Obviously if the net EV of one option was clearly better than the other, then choosing it wouldn't be a bias. That's not the case here.

Given remaining is a 'step into the dark' just like leaving, preferring it because the act of commission of leaving is more scary than the omission of remaining is a cowardly status-quo bias, right?

Aside from any intellectual reasoning, I just don't want to be part of a culture / team who wants to be subordinate to a foreign leadership just because they are terrified of losing a point or two of GDP (not utility) rather then govern themselves on a global playing field.

How can remainers campaign for signing up to such a disappointing narrative of no ambition and no self-confidence? That's their key political problem, IMO.

When remaining is 'continue to be governed by an external entity' I think describing it as 'continue as you are' is a bit of a misrepresentarion unless every one is clear on what 'as you are' means. Frankly 'as you are' means continue to cede powers to the EU project year on year.

One of the reasons I support Scottish independence. Seems completely rational and an idea whose time has come.

The only difference is Scotland is gradually getting more powers to govern self compared to now, and all the EU member states are gradually getting less.

Alex, from a purely intellectual angle:
State A gives you x/h.
State B gives you y/h.

Payouts of A/B randomly fluctuate over time, independent from each other, say +/-1% per h. You can switch between states at any time, but transitioning costs 10000*(x+y).

Do you believe that always switching immediately to the highest payout is the optimal strategy here, or would you need to consider the large transition cost and only switch if the gap becomes sufficiently wide?

Choosing to remain is not the same as choosing to join b/c one incurs transition costs while the other doesn't.

Yes that example's fine in which case I'd agree.

Personally I think the NPV of the long term cost of remaining (even of a federal EU existing) exceeds almost any transition cost.

The pedantic point that irks me more is characterising leaving as stepping into a the dark, when we have no certainty about what remaining looks like, the forecast was grim, and remainers did not know what they were voting for!

Again, how is this idiot getting away with this crap? They're all the ****ing same with the willful ignorance on display for all to see.

As you all know, I'm not the sharpest but even I know remaining as is = veto stays (this isn't nothing). New member = suck it up. Jfc.

You are aware lots of veto power already gone, and more goes each year?

It never goes the other way

And I believe new members get same veto rights as old