*** OFFICIAL BREXIT SUNLIT UPLANDS and #MEGA THREAD ***

[OngBonga]

Did you really? Did you understand what a no-deal would entail (be honest)?

I understood that it would mean potential tariffs, and understood that it would require an economic adaptation, which may well have come with a period of economic downturn. Of course I didn't expect such a economic shock to coincide with a pandemic, which will cause a much larger economic shock than anything Brexit could do.

and possibility of secession of Scotland and NI from the UK all together

If and when this happens, the same people who are screaming at people for saying "sovereignty" will be making the same arguments, only avoiding use of that word. People will scream that Scotland has a right to self determination (which they do), while ignoring that this very right to self determination is precisely why we voted to leave the EU.

The EU is a superstate. Whether you acknowledge that or not will not change my mind. I do not want the UK to be a member of a larger superstate. Just like many Scots don't want to be in the UK, because England dominates their interests. In the EU, the collective interests of others (primarily France and Germany) dominate our interests.

I understand why Scotland wants to leave. They want to run their own affairs without the English meddling. Devolution has allowed them to be able to do so to a reasonably large scale, but ultimately they can be overruled, and things like foreign policy and economic policy are dominated by Westminster, ie England.

And if you mention fish, Stilton cheese, the German car industry, or the EU Imperial Army again I am going to stop taking you seriously at all.

These seem to be things you think about more than I do. These are small parts of an economy. As for the "Imperial Army", they have talked about it, which is enough for me to be happy I grabbed the one chance I'll ever have.



This is Merkel, not some random EU nobody. This is one of the most powerful people in the world. When Merkel is saying that they should have an army, believe that it's on their agenda. Whether it'll happen or not will largely depend on how strongly the public oppose it, but they clearly want it.

How big such an army would be, and if it replaces armies of nation states or simply compliment them, I can't possibly know. A peacekeeping force isn't a scary idea, but we already have one... the UN. So what's the point? Why are they even considering it?

In 2016 this was a conspiracy theory, the ramblings of paranoia. In 2018 it's being promoted by Merkel.

And how much national misery and for how long will it take for you to be convinced that perhaps the outcome of that democratic result is worth revisiting?

It'll be almost impossible to even measure the economic impact, since it will be dwarfed by covid. The next decade will be very difficult for most countries. So idk. I don't think we can even begin to have the conversation seriously until 2030. Before then it's just unhelpful noise. It's not like they'd let us back in next year if we begged them.

[Poopadoop]

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[Poopadoop]

I understood that it would mean potential tariffs, and understood that it would require an economic adaptation, which may well have come with a period of economic downturn. Of course I didn't expect such a economic shock to coincide with a pandemic, which will cause a much larger economic shock than anything Brexit could do.

Arguing that Brexit is not as bad as a pandemic is super weak.

We've never been short of food because of covid. I'd much rather run out of asswipe knowing more will be in the stores in a couple of weeks than run out of fresh fruit and veg and be relying on Boris to get his thumb out to fix it.

The pandemic was also unavoidable. A no-deal Brexit was avoidable.

If and when this happens, the same people who are screaming at people for saying "sovereignty" will be making the same arguments, only avoiding use of that word. People will scream that Scotland has a right to self determination (which they do), while ignoring that this very right to self determination is precisely why we voted to leave the EU.

That wasn't my point, whether people have a right to leave the UK or not. We both agree they do. Who cares what other people say? The point is the smaller we get the weaker and more isolated we become.

In the EU, the collective interests of others (primarily France and Germany) dominate our interests.

This might be a valid point, except that their economic interests (which they mainly promote by pooling their power thru membership in a protectionist trading bloc which at the same time allows free trade among its members) are pretty much identical to ours. Certainly enough so that leaving the EU will punish our interests more than theirs.

Disagreements over minor issues like fishing rights are petty compared to the overall benefits, like being able to sell our fish in the EU, not to mention our cars and financial services.

It'll be almost impossible to even measure the economic impact, since it will be dwarfed by covid. The next decade will be very difficult for most countries. So idk. I don't think we can even begin to have the conversation seriously until 2030. Before then it's just unhelpful noise. It's not like they'd let us back in next year if we begged them.

The covid shock will be short term, no-one expects a great depression to result. Once the vaccine is widely distributed things will pretty much go back to pre-covid days, with a few exceptions.

I think a safe comparison would be to measure our economic performance compared to other countries that have suffered similarly due to covid, starting from 2021 forwards. If we subtract the difference, it will be fairly easy how much worse things are because of Brexit than they otherwise would have been. Of course, the average person won't be able to grasp this, and I have virtually no hope that a convinced Brexiter will accept any arguments along these lines no matter how strong the evidence is. They will just stick their fingers in their ears and shout #MEGA.