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
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"
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?
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.
I'm sure there's a little truth to both, and noise from all kinds of other factors.
Frankly, I think the "harm" done to young British people is vastly overblown and more symbolic than actual.
[1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?end=2024...
Pretending that the outcome wasn't so bad by moving the goalposts closer is, quite frankly, dishonest.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Legal_systems_in_Eur...
- 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.
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.
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?
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/brexit-would-put-our-...
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.
Second and third laws of thermodynamics - our universe has no (macroscopic scale) reversible processes and every irreversible process causes losses
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.
> 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?
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.
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...
Poll Suggests Most Britons Oppose Giving Up Brexit Powers for Closer EU Ties
https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/2026-06-08/poll-suggest...
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.
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.
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.
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.
My hopes are tempered, to say the least.
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.
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.
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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