Er, so the UK is leaving the EU.

[Eric]

Nobody wants to talk about this?! lol.

[Julius Seeker]

Yeah, I work with a lot of British people, and they are all very disappointed.
In the end though, as far as UK/Canadian relations go, this is probably a big plus for Canada.

I would guess the real story is the fact that all of Scotland voted to remain (and Northern Ireland did too), and Scotland independence from the UK has been another massive issue. People who donated millions against Scotish indipendence have now completely reversed their support, and now are pro-independence: JK Rowling for instance.

England took EU away from Scotland. That was a major selling point for the pro-UK side of the argument: they weren't fully ruled by England due to their membership with the EU - leaving the UK would also mean leaving the UK's special benefits. Now that's no longer a factor.

In short:
Scotland lost EU against their wishes.
England is the culprit who took EU from them.
Scotland has justification for a new referendum.
Scotland, will likely be voting to leave the UK in the near future.

Other negative effects for the UK,
Cameron resigned.
The pound collapsed - biggest plunge in history, and it went from a 20 year high to a 30 year low in one day. The UK economy officially slipped to third in Europe from second, now behind France.

[Eric]

[Julius Seeker]

As usual. Donald Trump is completely full of shit.


Here's Scotland's First Minister's earlier take on what would happen in Scotland if this exact scenario would occur


Here is her press conference today:

[ManaMan]

From what I understand this was mainly about immigration (not wanting it). Like I've been saying, tribalism is a powerful force.

[ManaMan]

Looks like Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland is pushing for Nothern Ireland to leave the UK and unite with the Republic Of Ireland.

As Seeker pointed out, Scottish nationalists are going to push for independence again.

David Cameron has stepped down.

[ManaMan]

Voting results

[kali o.]

This is a good thing. Not sure I agree with Mana, but I imagine immigration and the refugee nonsense played a small role.

[Eric]

Old folks wanted to leave, young folks wanted to stay.



Immigration was a pretty big factor





Cornwall voted 57%-43% to leave the EU, Crnwall receives £60 million a year from the EU. Cornwall voted to Leave. Cornwall demands to still receive £60 million a year (from an EU deal or the UK government). The height of stupidity basically.

[Replay]

Eric: Did you see the responses from the more vocal Remain-camp Scots on Trump's "going wild" quote?

Scotland is WAY Remain, it was almost a 2 to 1 vote for Remain there, so much so that Scotland may actually broach the issue of independence from *Britain* so that it can rejoin.

I like this one from a Scottish radio host, broadcaster and author...she's got moxie.



http://fusion.net/story/318640/delete-your-golf-course/
https://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/i-am-le ... .tszZ0yy9j

[Replay]

I'm in a curious place vis-a-vis it all.

A lot of the criticisms against the Brussels elite are very valid - to wit, they've done as most world leaders have since 2000 - focusing on pandering to megacorporations and the ultra-wealthy, leaving a lot of ordinary people in the dust, destroyed by socioeconomic changes and the ruthless efficiency of modern hypercapitalist, social-Darwinist thought - and putting up the Great Wall of Bilderberg around the world's real power and ability to affect change.

A lot of the criticisms against UKIP and the nativists are also very valid - to wit, they're the American Trumpists, many of them are virulently prejudiced against those different from them, and they aren't really any nicer than the Brussels bunch and don't seem any more likely to institute an economic regime of benefit to all - they don't care about the many, many Europeans living in Britain or the British abroad, or what this does to certain sectors that depend on international cooperation.

Foremost among them are universities and scientists, who are almost universally glum over losing $1b a year in EU funding they certainly won't get from UKIP, etc. - to me, that's the real tragedy of Brexit so far. A lot of young people are also very, very sad about it, particularly those with international ties or world-citizen leanings.

[Don]

I saw news saying Trump praised the Brexit and then blamed Obama for causing the Brexit. I mean, what the heck?

[Replay]

That being said, I think the EU has been a curious experiment, and I don't honestly know which camp I'm in ideologically - to me, the entire Greece issue would have been handled far better if Greece were not a EU member.

That's the best argument the Leavers have, to me - if Greece weren't in the EU, the powers that be would have had a hard time shafting them so fully, but at the same time, Greek society also *did* shaft itself on an unsustainable socialist fantasy that the rest of the Union ended up paying for. Had Greece been sovereign at the time, the internationalists would have been prevented from taking such full advantage of Greek mistakes to enrich themselves - and the cost of those same Greek mistakes would not have been borne on the backs of the average German or British taxpayer. The drachma would have had to carry the grand experiment of Greek pensioning on its own back, and to me, that's the way it should have been. I think a lot less people would have been hurt.

I'm definitely "Remain" in the sense that I think any country that removes itself from international thought is going to do what China did from 1500-1900, though - and destroy its ability to lead the world, stay important to history, and fall behind technologically and scientifically.

And I'm rather against the currently in-vogue notion that the only way for the world to save itself from globalism is to institute a new international-level nationalism based on being international assholes.

[Replay]

I saw news saying Trump praised the Brexit and then blamed Obama for causing the Brexit. I mean, what the heck?

There are things that never change man

[Don]

It's fine he blames Brexit on Obama but I thought Trump said it was a good thing that Brexit happened so wouldn't that make Obama a good guy?

I think the EU is something that works when you're in the good times and you can live with some freeloaders and everyone gets the benefit of free trade and whatever. When things get rough everyone ends up paying for the good times. We probably need something like robots doing most of our work to ensure that it'll usually be the good times instead of bad times for a concept like EU to work well, though if we have robots doing all our work it's probably going to be good times all the time anyway.

[Replay]

We have plenty of robots doing our work already.

They have taken lots and lots of jobs away from lower-middle-class workers.

That's part of what's fueling this anger.

A lower-middle-class, public-school-education-in-a-bad-neighborhood cashier who just lost their job and had to go on welfare or starve because a robot made by a giant corporation and now owned by his/her ex-employer took that job - that person is very willing to listen to what Trump or Nigel Farage has to say, and the usual rhetoric by nativists about how once all the immigrants go away, things will be golden again. That is not typically a historical reality very long, as this kind of up-the-locals attitude has played out throughout history when international leaders neglect society sufficiently. The violent, unfriendly nativist locals often do take over, but whether they are economic failures (Robespierre and much of the early French Revolution), economic successes (ironically enough, Nazi Germany, at least at first), or somewhere in the middle (Mao Zedong and early Communist China) - it generally ends in tears, war, or autocracy in the end. The hate in the society eats it alive.

Nazi Germany still stands as the scariest example, because they actually made their pro-German, slave-races economy *work* enough somehow to become such a major militarist power that it took most of the rest of the free world to stop them and the countries it subverted.

---------------------------------

You're picturing something like Zanarkand, man, with some kind of "robots do all the work, universal income system" model, where everyone can party all day because the robots take care of everything...the universal income system isn't there, nor is it unquestionably a good idea without debate, or possibly even a good idea at all. I mean, yes, FFX is fiction, but shit, look at that plotline. Scripted, or not, that's plausible.

The robots really can't take care of everything yet, nor should they probably - I mean, look at something like Mother Brain from Phantasy Star II as well, a plot point that's really relevant here if you played it. Power corrupts, and so does the influence of humankind's rampant emotionality and tendencies towards anger and hate. Power can corrupt a centralized robocracy as fully as a human society; we are making the things, after all, and teaching them how to think. Remember our discussion about Microsoft's Tay AI recently?

I don't think anyone wants her running our traffic system or crop waterers, at least until the "0 to neo-Nazi in 24 hours under the influence of too much humanity" problem is solved.

Things like that need debate. So far the roboticization of labor has *not* been economically a good thing for all but a handful of megacorporations that can afford the megaprices of a private army of labor robots.

[Don]

Whenever you've the bad times people will have issues with having to bail the poor out like the case in EU, especially across the country level (some countries need help more than others).

'Robots do everything' is just a way of saying we have incredible affluence. It doesn't have to be robots though that seems to be the most likely way it'll happen. With a world like that you won't have to worry about how to bail out the poor because there really wouldn't be the poor anymore. There are obviously possible issues in getting to such a world including whether it's even feasible in the first place.

[Replay]

As a world society, we do have incredible affluence. But it is very, very poorly distributed, and that is getting worse. The idea that "there won't be the poor anymore" runs contrary to historical evidence about the usual actions of both the poor and the rich in most societies.

The poorest of the poor are usually destitute due to a lack of skills development or useful work opportunities; the richest of the rich are in many cases rich because they take from others as an adjunct to their making - "Behind every great fortune, there is a great crime", after all.

Robots are not generally speaking going to change that unless all of society changes, as they are not something whose labor accrues for some kind of generalized benefit to society - they are considered property, usually of the rich, and so their labor will tend to cause greater inequality in much the way that slavery did, oddly enough.

[Replay]

Hoo boy! John Oliver hits Jon Stewart levels on the coverage of this one.

I've never seen him get so personally involved, nor indeed so pissed off - but on the other hand you'd kind of expect that, if his sympathies as possibly the world's most prominent British-American are with Remain.

And he dishes up some real mind food among the tirade, and slam-dunks it at the end. A must see in my opinion.

http://www.businessinsider.com/john-oli ... xit-2016-6

[Replay]

Thus far, there seem to be some separation pains, to put it mildly...

http://www.businessinsider.com/eu-refer ... ity-2016-6

All this in and of itself may or may not be indicative of deeper structural blues, but losses in so-called "paper wealth" that is easily convertible to currency, as most securities still are, have a very real economic effect. UK markets are getting clobbered and Cameron's resignation is producing a stunned chaos in British politics. (Imagine if a U.S. President just resigned one day.)

[kali o.]

Thus far, there seem to be some separation pains, to put it mildly...

http://www.businessinsider.com/eu-refer ... ity-2016-6

All this in and of itself may or may not be indicative of deeper structural blues, but losses in so-called "paper wealth" that is easily convertible to currency, as most securities still are, have a very real economic effect. UK markets are getting clobbered and Cameron's resignation is producing a stunned chaos in British politics. (Imagine if a U.S. President just resigned one day.)

Ya ummm, it little early for that 'chicken little, I told you' shit. Reminds me of Tessian's epic "Iraqi's toppling Saddam statues, America welcomed as heroes, Bush was right" post. That writer will likely be eating his words a year or two from now.

Brexit is, long term, only good for the UK. They dumped more money into the EU than they got out and took on a disproportional share of the burden...much like Germany....but Germany is part of the problem. Perfect storm from the Grexit debacle (Greece should have left the EU) and the Migrant crisis (including Turkey's shenanigans). As usual, doesn't hurt me much -- I had most of my money in Gold, primarily due to the Yen. Yay me.

[Replay]

Ya ummm, it little early for that 'chicken little, I told you' shit.

Take the dick out of your ass son. I'm neither Remain nor Leave in my sympathies. In fact, I'm slightly more pro-Brexit than anything - because I believe that a Grexit would have saved Greece a lot of hardship and speculation by scavengers after the various forces that tag-teamed on that disaster.

Doesn't that show how politics makes for strange alliances? I support the same outcome as you do; largely because I think it would give countries more leeway to protect themselves from - well, you.

Reminds me of Tessian's epic "Iraqi's toppling Saddam statues, America welcomed as heroes, Bush was right" post. That writer will likely be eating his words a year or two from now. Brexit is, long term, only good for the UK. They dumped more money into the EU than they got out and took on a disproportional share of the burden...much like Germany....but Germany is part of the problem.

Could be. Really depends on what they do with the sterling. £350m a week saved in EU fees and £250b in guarantees in temporary funding from the Bank of England is great...if it gets circulated in the economy. I think maybe you don't understand that in a macroeconomic sense, it matters not just that there is a lot more money, but that who it goes to matters a lot...if Boris Johnson takes over and just cuts a lot of cronyist deals to nativist businesspeople in the Trump mode, it could cause a lot of pain instead - look at the Atlantic City recession that Trump had a lot to do with when his takeover bid for the Taj Mahal failed.

And some sectors are going to hurt no matter what; the £1b a year in scientific grant funding lost from EU sources, for instance, will probably hurt a lot of the research sector.

Perfect storm from the Grexit debacle (Greece should have left the EU) and the Migrant crisis (including Turkey's shenanigans). As usual, doesn't hurt me much -- I had most of my money in Gold, primarily due to the Yen. Yay me.

Greece should have never been allowed to join in the first place, but we've been over this. That all worked out for you and your friends, right? "The world is so easy to manipulate" and all that?

[kali o.]

Take the dick out of your ass son. I'm neither Remain nor Leave in my sympathies. In fact, I'm slightly more pro-Brexit than anything - because I believe that a Grexit would have saved Greece a lot of hardship and speculation by scavengers after the various forces that tag-teamed on that disaster.

Easy there, slick...relax. I was referring to the article you linked (you did read it, ya?). I thought my use of "that writer" and other pronouns made it fairly clear, but I guess not.

[Replay]

I have indeed read the articles in question, and watched all of the Oliver video. I didn't see that author's tone as nearly so much the sky-is-falling, we-told-you-so tone as you may have, but there is that tone all over the media lately - so I get it, now that you've explained it.

I think that Oliver makes very good points about the fractures in the current Brexit landscape no matter what side someone is on, however.

Should the £350b/week saved from EU taxes go all to the NHS? Should it fund a broad base of British services instead? Should some of it be saved?

Did David Cameron realize that this vote could actually happen, or did he start it believing it was impossible - how does he feel about his choice to sponsor the vote? Did Boris Johnson actually *think* about any of this shit before he irrevocably altered the destiny and history of his nation and spearheaded a movement based around a vote he seems not to have believed he might actually win? The man is possibly going to be Britain's most powerful elected official soon, by all accounts - and he is looking positively nauseous. Never saw the like in my life. It really underscores to me differences in national politics, can you imagine any POTUS or Canadian Prime Minister just resigning the job like Cameron did or anyone who wouldn't be skipping with glee for the chance at the job instead of looking staggered like Johnson is?

Brexit may go well or poorly. But if it is handled by people who are not ready, it will go unbelievably poorly. Johnson looks for all the world to me like a man who has just ordered a 6-pound mince pie on a joke offered by a dive restaurant in an eating contest, and whose stomach is uttering whimpers at the thought of the gristle to get through when he realizes his friends (the country) are now going to insist he eat the entire thing.

[ManaMan]

Here's a good one from Vox: “Bracksies”: how Brexit could wind up not actually happening.

It's interesting because
1) Brexit hasn't happened yet. The UK needs to invoke EU article 50 and they haven't.
2) The referendum is non-binding. The government could just choose to ignore it and not leave.
3) Scotland, Northern Ireland, & Wales could potentially veto leaving and most likely will
4) An election pushing out the Conservatives could cause the UK to stay

[Replay]

Ah, but if they try to backpedal on the Brexit vote now, there will be civil unrest all over Britain.

To me, the worst thing about it all is the horrendous damage being done to immigrants in the UK. As predicted, the vote has enabled and emboldened a lot of racists, with the result being a 57% spike in hate crimes against minorities and immigrants since the vote:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho ... 06116.html

[Julius Seeker]

But Brexit is what plants crave.

[Eric]

UKIP leader Nigel Farage resigns rofl

These motherfuckers really didn't expect Leave to win did they? It's hilarious.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 18626.html

[Don]

I got the feeling some guys voted 'leave' to make a point because they figure it wouldn't pass anyway so they can express how they're outraged, except the leave vote won.

[Replay]

Not only did Farage resign, but Boris Johnson recused himself from running for Prime Minister. I guess I was right about that mince pie analogy. Also, British markets have been clobbered - the Finance Minister says that closing the national deficit is "no longer a priority" (translation: it's impossible) - and racist nonsense is taking place all over Britain, with that 57% hate crime spike now up to or above a full 100%.

It may indeed be too early to tell if Brexit bodes well or ill, but so far the Brexiteers are looking like a mutiny without a captain - no one sailing the boat with reefs all over the place.

Sad stuff. The racism really shows that sovereignty was never really the issue. It's very much about the fear and hatred of a lot of lower-middle-class white people displaced by globalization. I'm as fierce a critic of the sins of globalization as anyone, but a lot of these people are not out of work because they are hard workers displaced by cheap immigrant labor...a lot of them are out of work because they're nasty racist fuckin' people without a 21st-century skillset. And THAT problem is getting no better in the UK or America.

[ManaMan]

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/brexit ... al-n677241

The UK courts have stepped in and said that the referendum alone isn't enough due to the nature of the changes and that parliament must vote to leave.