The European parliament is elected.
Huh?
The polls had been close the whole way. The betting markets didn’t believe the polls and gave “remain” a 75% probability, but the polls pretty consistently had said too close to call.
Meanwhile … markets imploding? S&P500 is only down a bit under 3% today. Off less than 1% for the month. FTSE 100 ended down just over 3% apparently, up for the week, and pretty flat for the month.
Pretty mild as far as implosions go.
The FTSE 250, considered more a UK company specific market index, is down more, 7.3% at close, and the pound is significantly off.
Sure seems like the market is betting right off that this will hurt the U.K. economy moderately, but not so much a risk of E.U., let alone global, contagion.
I’m surprised that people are surprised for the opposite reason: the polls seemed to be right, to me, suggesting a very close call. Read post #2 in this thread. Some of those polls had Brexit winning. Even the predictive betting markets had Remain only at 75%. One in four isn’t exactly long odds or anything. Why people were treating it as a done deal for Remain is beyond me.
ETA: DSeid beat me to many of my same points while I was typing away.
(post shortened)
Soross and Murdochs will still make money because they know the rules. They may even have influenced the creation of the rules.
The political leaders, the party leaders, ignored the will of the voters. They believed that they knew better what the voters wanted. They assumed that the voters would simply do what politicians, party bosses, and celebrities tell them to do. They guessed wrong.
It seems to me that the voters have lost faith in, or simply don’t believe, what the politicians, and media outlets have been feeding them. I blame the politicians and media outlets for destroying their own credibility.
I wonder which EU member will be the next to leave the EU. I’m hearing that Spain and France are consider a similar vote but I don’t speak French or Spanish.
On the other hand, the League of Nations was a failure but the UN that replaced it has had a long run.
I said that an 18th century Virginian could have said that, not that they did. I’d bet your average 18th century Virginian would have been flabbergasted at the amount of sovereignty that would be ultimately ceded to the federal government.
As to your second point, in which “all of the states joined in mutual protection and for economic benefit”, that would seem to describe both the U.S. and the EU. The part about “those who chose not to join would be tariffed as foreign powers” sounds like it will shortly describe the UK.
When the United States was established under the Articles of Confederation, there is no way that any of the States thought they were signing up to be “ruled” by Washington. As I posted above, the Congress under the AoC did not even have the power of taxation.
Exactly.
Learning one of our languages for a start. Many, of course do, but many, especially seasonal workers, do not.
And it was done civilly. A clear sign of integrating.
It is always possible, but in this case, I think not.
post deleted.
I did not support Scottish independence because of the potential costs of leaving the EU, but if they want to go and join the EU I would support it.
Of course you’re confused, it’s obvious that I was referring to the late 18th century when the United States of America was created. There was no European parliament in the 18th century.
The 13 former colonies didn’t consent to be governed by Toronto in Canada or Mexico City in ah… I don’t remember where Mexico City was located.
The U.S.A. was created when the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1789. It was understood at the time that the 13 former colonies were transferring some of their sovereign power to a central government. So yes, the ratifying states were aware that they would be “ruled” (to some extent) by their elected representatives in Washington. The former colonies also retained rights and responsibilities to govern themselves.
This is completely incorrect. The current federal government of the United States of America can be dated back to the ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1789, but the USA had existed at that point for some 13 years.
The USA was established via the Declaration of Independence in 1776, and the first federal government was established under the Articles of Confederation which was drafted in 1776-77, sent to the States for ratification in late 1777, and ratified by all thirteen States in 1781.
The Declaration of Independence starts off as the “The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America.” Note that “united” was not even capitalized, nor was it evident that this was a title as opposed to a simple description. The AoC is more clear: it states that “The stile of this confederacy shall be ‘The United States of America.’”
My point throughout this thread is that when the individual American States first created a federal government under the AoC, they actually gave up very little of their sovereignty. It was only after being in a confederation of states for a decade (and realizing that the AoC had serious problems) that further sovereignty was handed over to the federal government with the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. The subsequent 200+ years of history have continued that trend.
But when the USA was first established in 1776, it is clear that the individual States maintained virtually all of their sovereignty. Indeed, the first provisional government of the USA was the Continental Congress, which was almost powerless. Even after the Articles of Confederation were ratified in 1781, the federal government did not even have the power to levy taxes, and had no authority to regulate either foreign trade or interstate commerce. Instead, the federal government could only request funds from the individual States (which the States often failed to meet in full), and the individual States maintained control over their own trade policies.
The early USA was structured as a confederation of individual nation-states. Even after the establishment of the U.S. Constitution, it would be decades before there was a true national identity. Going into the Civil War some 80 years later, loyalty was first to one’s State, while loyalty to the Union was a distant second (as exemplified by the actions of men such as Robert E. Lee).
There are a lot of parallels between the sovereignty concerns today of the individual nation-states that make up the EU, and the similar sovereignty concerns of the individual nation-states that made up the early United States of America.
The BBC have some very interesting graphs here. EU referendum: The result in maps and charts - BBC News
Of particular interest to me are the graphs of voting percentages. They seem to show that in Scotland, many areas voted 40% or more to leave.
I feel sick. My country is doomed. And my new baby is going to have no safety net. I can’t afford to care for it.
What is this, Quartz? Some bits voted of Scotland voted remain a bit less than other places did? The remain vote was overwhelming in Scotland, dude.
MC, your new baby is going to be just fine, you’re a good dad
Of particular interest to me is that younger voters overwhelmingly voted “remain” (ranging from 52% in the 35 to 44 yo group up to 73% in the 18 to 24 yo group) and as in the U.S. they are a sizable cohort, yet “remain” lost.
Why?
Yup, the younger adult cohorts will be most impacted by this decision, knew what they believed was the better choice, but did not come out to vote anywhere as much as the older voters did.
Maybe they did not think their votes mattered, maybe they were turned off by both campaigns and the process overall, maybe they just had something else they preferred doing that day. But it seems clear that if turnout was as good among younger voters as it was among older ones “remain” would have won handily.
And it is not like the risk of this was not known. Warnings were given.
They are numerous voters and they had an overwhelming preference. But younger voters’ opinions and preferences don’t count when they don’t vote in sizable numbers.
Any relevance to elections here in the U.S.? … Nah.
I wonder if they’d still call it the United Kingdom if only England and perhaps Northern Ireland remained?
I’ll admit I don’t know many of the nuances of this situation but my not-super-informed self could see Scotland bolting the UK for the EU in the not so distant future. I would not be surprised if perhaps Wales jumped as well. As for Northern Ireland, who knows? Be quite a thing if they melded back into the R of I… but that’s gotta have like a minus 3% chance of happening.
I guess it’s been quite a while since The Sun Never Set on the British Empire. My how times change. Soon, instead of being the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, might it end up as the United Counties of England and Sealand?
To me, as an American,* that* is an example of the Brexit vote foreshadowing the Trump vote that really terrifies me.
[476,635 American voters]
“Haha, hee-hee, ho-ho!!! My vote doesn’t matter anyway and there’s no way in hell Trump could actually win… I think I’ll have a little fun and lodge a tiny little protest vote for The Wee-Fingered One!! What could possibly go wrong?”
[/476,635 American voters]
I hadn’t thought about people here in the States actually doing that but… Egads! Now that you brought it up this is going to haunt me til Election Day!
I worry about this, too, especially when you have disengaged, silly, low-information voters who don’t really care about the issues, but vote simply to stir up shit or for the entertainment value, especially when the alternative vote is perceived to be mundane or boring.
So in the UK, you end up with the most popular choice for a £200 million polar research vessel as “Boaty McBoatface.” :rolleyes:
And the exciting “Leave” choice beats out the sane, sensible, but boring choice of “Remain.”
And in November here in the U.S., some voters will inevitably pick the “exciting” choice of Trump over the sane, sensible, but perceived-to-be boring choice of Hillary Clinton. And if we don’t get a high enough turnout of sane voters, he could actually become our next President. :eek: [Just writing about the possibility of Trump getting elected makes me physically ill.]
US voter apathy is one of the highest in the developed world. It should be no surprise to anyone. That plus humorously ironic protest vote for Trump is going to put the guy in office.