How do we resolve the Brexit mess?

west didsblue said:
I think the response to the Ukraine invasion showed that it’s primarily an economic union because in spite of the right words being spoken by the commission, the individual attitudes of Germany, France, Italy, Hungary etc had a much bigger impact than the much more positive and supportive approach that the commission tried and failed to gain a concerted approach with a single voice. Ironically it demonstrated that Brexiteers fears over the EU controlling individual countries freedom to do their own thing was miles from reality, and when push came to shove each country acted in what they perceived to be their own national interest. The additional irony is that Brexiteers then blamed the EU for not being supportive enough when it was some individual countries choosing not to pull their weight.
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The lack of support from the likes of Germany was because they were hamstrung by their own energy policy which put them in Putin's pocket. A fortuitous turn of events then that Putin decided to blow his own pipeline up and end this dependency - we can now probably expect more support from Germany.
 
Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese said:
The lack of support from the likes of Germany was because they were hamstrung by their own energy policy which put them in Putin's pocket. A fortuitous turn of events then that Putin decided to blow his own pipeline up and end this dependency - we can now probably expect more support from Germany.
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It’s incredible how they’ve turned that round. Yet another example of Putin catastrophically miscalculating.
 
west didsblue said:
I would say solving a problem with the date function on some 20th century computers is about as far from Brexit as planning a trip to the pub, and I say that as someone involved in the planning and implementation of solutions to potential Y2K problems in my industry.
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You appear to have a fundamental misconception as to what an analogy is and what it isn’t, where and when to use an analogy, and so on.

An analogy is where, for the purposes of explanation, you highlight an area of similarity - typically singular - between two often abstract matters. An analogy doesn’t have to be a full, factual comparison between the two matters, and neither does it imply a full equivalence between the two.

Henry Kissinger once made an analogy about bringing troops home from Vietnam and eating salted peanuts. Two very different matters. Forrest Gump did the same about life and a box of chocolates. I don’t think even Forrest Gump would believe that life is actually fully equivalent to a box of chocolates, and on the same basis there’s no reason to believe that someone making an analogy between Brexit and the Y2K bug implies that they see the two matters as fully equivalent.

The issue here is that Brexit has forced companies to spend sometimes millions individually - and billions collectively - in order to mitigate the impact of an event on their operations, and help ensure that they can continue to operate in their chosen markets. Financial services companies have in some cases set up subsidiaries in the EU, manufacturers may have to shift production capacity, importers will now have to hold higher stock levels and employ more people to deal with customs declarations. All well documented consequences of Brexit.

The analogy relates to the fact that this expenditure is from an economics perspective a sunk cost, in that it’s necessary to continue to operate in or enter a market, but it doesn’t actually boost the company’s productive potential. And of course there’s an opportunity cost to this expenditure, another basic concept. So the analogy with the Y2K bug is obviously valid - Y2K expenditure was actually a very good example of a sunk cost - even if this expenditure will continue for Brexit where it didn’t for Y2K.

Now I would hope that if Forrest Gump can properly understand the concept of an analogy, then you should be able to as well. Although I have to say that this confidence doesn’t extend to all the posters on this thread.
 
Brewster's millions said:
You appear to have a fundamental misconception as to what an analogy is and what it isn’t, where and when to use an analogy, and so on.

An analogy is where, for the purposes of explanation, you highlight an area of similarity - typically singular - between two often abstract matters. An analogy doesn’t have to be a full, factual comparison between the two matters, and neither does it imply a full equivalence between the two.

Henry Kissinger once made an analogy about bringing troops home from Vietnam and eating salted peanuts. Two very different matters. Forrest Gump did the same about life and a box of chocolates. I don’t think even Forrest Gump would believe that life is actually fully equivalent to a box of chocolates, and on the same basis there’s no reason to believe that someone making an analogy between Brexit and the Y2K bug implies that they see the two matters as fully equivalent.

The issue here is that Brexit has forced companies to spend sometimes millions individually - and billions collectively - in order to mitigate the impact of an event on their operations, and help ensure that they can continue to operate in their chosen markets. Financial services companies have in some cases set up subsidiaries in the EU, manufacturers may have to shift production capacity, importers will now have to hold higher stock levels and employ more people to deal with customs declarations. All well documented consequences of Brexit.

The analogy relates to the fact that this expenditure is from an economics perspective a sunk cost, in that it’s necessary to continue to operate in or enter a market, but it doesn’t actually boost the company’s productive potential. And of course there’s an opportunity cost to this expenditure, another basic concept. So the analogy with the Y2K bug is obviously valid - Y2K expenditure was actually a very good example of a sunk cost - even if this expenditure will continue for Brexit where it didn’t for Y2K.

Now I would hope that if Forrest Gump can properly understand the concept of an analogy, then you should be able to as well. Although I have to say that this confidence doesn’t extend to all the posters on this thread.
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Even the person who made the original silly comparison didn’t call it an analogy, just you. Now you’re going overboard to justify your nonsense. Give it up.

Thanks for the lecture though even though it was a piss poor explanation. An analogy is a comparison of different things to help explain one of them. Comparing Y2K with Brexit doesn’t help explain Brexit in the slightest. Saying that they both incurred sunk costs that were unrecoverable is about as useful in explaining Brexit as saying that unrecoverable money was spent buying useless PPE during the pandemic - in other words not helpful in the slightest. For an analogy to work it needs to be possible to take it to an analogous conclusion or even an analogous step on the way to a conclusion.
 
gordondaviesmoustache said:
I think you underestimate how reviled middle class metropolitan types are in towns like Grimsby, Hartlepool and Mansfield. In places like Manchester it’s slightly different because there is much more social and professional integration. Whilst many people from towns like Grimsby, Hartlepool and Mansfield might not deploy the term ‘metropolitan elite’ much of their frustration and anger is/was directed at that target, as when their towns have been in terminal decline for decades, and whilst we were part of the EU, London got bloated and to a significant extent on Russian laundered money.

Easy to see why they felt/feel the way they do. It’s a bit like the Hunger Games.

I think the factors you pointed to are also valid, but sticking two fingers up was definitely a large motivation for many.
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In fairness, your take is probably right in that the drivers informing the leave vote were more nuanced than those described in my post which was, in all honesty, a bit of a rant written out of some frustration. That frustration is largely borne out of a refusal by most of the media to acknowledge the plain fact that, while many of those voting to leave did so for perhaps the more 'understandable' reasons you describe, a significant number of others steadfastly refused to consider the self-harm it would cause them out of nothing more than crass stupidity and a blind willingness to align themselves with the populists and xenophobes so favoured by the Mail and Express.
 
Kippaxpete said:
In fairness, your take is probably right in that the drivers informing the leave vote were more nuanced than those described in my post which was, in all honesty, a bit of a rant written out of some frustration. That frustration is largely borne out of a refusal by most of the media to acknowledge the plain fact that, while many of those voting to leave did so for perhaps the more 'understandable' reasons you describe, a significant number of others steadfastly refused to consider the self-harm it would cause them out of nothing more than crass stupidity and a blind willingness to align themselves with the populists and xenophobes so favoured by the Mail and Express.
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Can’t argue with any of that, mate.
 
Brewster's millions said:
You appear to have a fundamental misconception as to what an analogy is and what it isn’t, where and when to use an analogy, and so on.

An analogy is where, for the purposes of explanation, you highlight an area of similarity - typically singular - between two often abstract matters. An analogy doesn’t have to be a full, factual comparison between the two matters, and neither does it imply a full equivalence between the two.

Henry Kissinger once made an analogy about bringing troops home from Vietnam and eating salted peanuts. Two very different matters. Forrest Gump did the same about life and a box of chocolates. I don’t think even Forrest Gump would believe that life is actually fully equivalent to a box of chocolates, and on the same basis there’s no reason to believe that someone making an analogy between Brexit and the Y2K bug implies that they see the two matters as fully equivalent.

The issue here is that Brexit has forced companies to spend sometimes millions individually - and billions collectively - in order to mitigate the impact of an event on their operations, and help ensure that they can continue to operate in their chosen markets. Financial services companies have in some cases set up subsidiaries in the EU, manufacturers may have to shift production capacity, importers will now have to hold higher stock levels and employ more people to deal with customs declarations. All well documented consequences of Brexit.

The analogy relates to the fact that this expenditure is from an economics perspective a sunk cost, in that it’s necessary to continue to operate in or enter a market, but it doesn’t actually boost the company’s productive potential. And of course there’s an opportunity cost to this expenditure, another basic concept. So the analogy with the Y2K bug is obviously valid - Y2K expenditure was actually a very good example of a sunk cost - even if this expenditure will continue for Brexit where it didn’t for Y2K.

Now I would hope that if Forrest Gump can properly understand the concept of an analogy, then you should be able to as well. Although I have to say that this confidence doesn’t extend to all the posters on this thread.
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So Brexit is crap.
 
The Leave vote was a sort of coalition of all sorts of views, some arguable, some shameful, but the people in charge of the Leave Campaign did not care why you voted their way as long as you did.

This is partly why people are so unhappy with the outcome and some say 'this is not the Brexit I voted for.' Sorry, but it is because effectively you gave the ERG free rein to dictate and they took it.

It's like having a referendum to have a monarchy (in principle) and then getting King John. It's no use then saying, this is not the king I voted for. Some of the voters were (frankly) naive, and seemed to think that membership of the EU was all that kept us from turning into Camelot. No wonder they are disillusioned!
 
bluethrunthru said:
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Reading some of the comments there, it served to remind me how we remainers (or ’remoaners’ in case you’d forgotten) are to blame for the dismal failure of all things brexit.
A timely reminder for all us smug ’I told you so‘ sorts that we must shoulder enormous blame for…..errr….pointing out the blindingly obvious stupidity of it.
 
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