
UK firms 'near point of no return' - okket
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-45931537
======
switch007
The UK is an odd place at the moment. Brexit is almost too toxic to bring up
in discussion: I think it's safer to discuss religion.

I personally feel like a passenger on a train that has a 50/50 chance of
derailing. I didn't choose to get on this train, and my time remaining to get
off is running out very quickly. But I can't just get off because I have lots
and lots of baggage. I can't hear the screaming in the driver's cab. Maybe
there is no driver. All the posh people in 1st class keep going in to the cab
to argue and decide my fate. All the other passengers are just drinking tea
and enjoying the views of ye olde England.

~~~
tvanantwerp
I'd say I'm riding a very similar train in America, if only we invested in
such things.

~~~
awakeasleep
It can certainly feel like that, but after looking into Brexit, I think we
(USA) have things MUCH better.

As much as Trump is loose cannon, our trade was based on the USA being the
'importer of last resort' and many of the changes we're making are not THAT
extreme compared to history, or compared to other developed nation's existing
rules. Plus _we are the ones choosing to make these changes_.

With Brexit, GB has failed to make any sort of deal or even seemingly
understand their negotiating position. The 'deal' they're eventually going to
receive is 'having EU non-member rules forced upon them'.

Furthermore, even if the USA did the same thing and pulled out of all treaties
instantaneously with no forethought or negotiation, we're a big enough economy
that other countries would be forced to negotiate. Check out the comparison of
US and UK economies. [http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/United-
King...](http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/United-
Kingdom/United-States/Economy)

~~~
NeedMoreTea
The diplomats and Foreign Office well understood the negotiating position, and
probable consequences. Which is why a selection of senior figures have
resigned over the last two years. Just one example:
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-
politics-38498839](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38498839)

Britain _appears_ to have gone with the intent of negotiating by political
dogma.

~~~
dorchadas
Yep. It's actually one of the main reasons I haven't applied to the Foreign
Service. I think working as an FSO would be super neat and interesting,
despite what all it entails, but I couldn't sign up to do it knowing what
would likely be coming.

------
jf-
The most likely outcome, in my opinion, is a no deal Brexit. That has been the
most likely outcome for several months.

There has only been the illusion of progress in the talks. Really things are
in largely the same state they’ve been in since January.

The Northern Ireland border issue has not been solved, because it is
effectively impossible to solve. The EU wants Northern Ireland to remain in
the customs union to prevent a border on the island of Ireland, however the UK
conservative government depend on the DUP, who are opposed, for support and
will not agree. The EU will not consider any deal that introduces a border.
There is no compromise position here, either one side backs down or there is
no deal.

Also the conservatives have floated the idea of a “Canada+++” free trade deal,
which to my knowledge has never been offered by the EU, as it would include
services and thus be too close to the single market, rendering it meaningless.
Even if the NI border issue were to disappear overnight, the substance of a
deal still appears to be unagreed.

The deadline of March next year is fast approaching and any extension to the
current negotiation period will need to be passed by the EU. If it comes to
that, some EU government will likely derail the extension process and it won’t
happen. Then everyone will shout “But we couldn’t possibly have seen this
coming!”, even though you could see it months ago, as the UK hurtles towards
no deal Brexit with no means of stopping.

~~~
mpweiher
> The EU wants Northern Ireland to remain in the customs union to prevent a
> border on the island of Ireland,

Ireland and Northern Ireland desperately want to prevent a hard border in
order to maintain the hard-won peace and prevent the return of the bloodshed
that drenched the island (and the rest of the UK). Ireland being in the EU,
the EU has put its weight behind Ireland. That's how amplification of
international clout/power through shared institution works.

In fact, the UK government also claims to want to prevent a hard border, yet
has provided no way of actually doing so except "magically it won't be there",
and the only practical solution (discounting magic) is for NI to remain in the
CU and SM. That has been clear from the start.

~~~
dorchadas
The problem is the DUP. May requires their support in Parliament, and I'm not
entirely sure what the DUP wants is what's best to avoid reigniting the
Troubles. I know my friends in both Ireland and Northern Ireland (Protestant
and Catholic) were very much of the opinion that May was making a deal with
the devil, and that it wasn't going to be good for the Good Friday Agreement.

~~~
Piskvorrr
Given the religious connotations, my hat is off to you for an excellent pun!

(Even though the actual circumstances are dire.)

------
mmastrac
Brexit always struck me as a frustrated response that would have been more
valuable symbolically than something to actually follow through on. If they
could just reframe it as "sure people are frustrated, let's try to address
that" it would be far more valuable than attempting to leave.

The whole last few years remind me of an 80s movie where a teen threatens to
run away and the parents let them go through the motions before they realize
how screwed they'll be on their own.

~~~
claydavisss
So, basically ignore the result if you don't like it?

The Bolsheviks also gave fair elections a shot....one shot....one and done.

~~~
twtw
Yes, as it was a nonbinding referendum to see if there was support for leaving
the EU, come up with a report showing some numbers that indicate the estimated
impact and run the whole thing again.

~~~
claydavisss
and if Stay wins, of course the result will be treated as Final?

~~~
twtw
If a future referendum indicated that there was no longer support for leaving
the EU, then yes, the government would not be in a position where it needed to
take further action - call that "treating it as final" if you wish. Of course,
in the future it could be reevaluated, using the same approach that led to the
2016 referendum to leave the EU.

Heck, we have confirmation dialogs when you close a word document - I don't
understand the opposition to having an "are you sure you want to quit?" for
brexit.

Brexit is a pretty major decision, and it's not unreasonable to me to require
that the majority that voted for it is in fact stable and consistent via
holding a second vote. If the second vote does not indicate that a majority
supports leaving, that seems like an indication that it was a fantastic idea
to hold a second referendum.

------
jimnotgym
I agree that this is crippling the UK and will for some time yet. However, I
come to HN to get away from it.

~~~
throwaway8689
This submission has been flagged. Perhaps because it's not really pertinent to
HN?

------
raverbashing
Well, what did they expect?

This is sounding ever more like the Quebec referendum, they didn't separate in
the end, but the damage was done.

I'm in favour of letting them eat their cake and enjoy a complete separation.

~~~
Lio
Who’s “they” in this scenario?

I know it’s easy to pretend that Brexit got a massive majority but really it
didn’t. It was just 52-48%.

A large number of us didn’t vote for it and still don’t want Brrexit.

~~~
raverbashing
The leavers, who think untangling a web of commercial, legal and financial
connections (which a lot of them depend on - I can't wait to see the face of
the farmers when their EU subsidies stop coming) is as easy as unplugging
their kettle.

~~~
BozeWolf
Do not be so so harsh on the people who wanted the brexit. They have made a
mistake, probably. Some of them realize that.

As a pro eu person from nl(if that even exists) i would prefer not to give uk
a hard time to come back on their decision. And even íf they really quit: we
still have to work together. It is in interest of all of us to have the uk
with us. It is just impossible to negotiate for brexit and cherry pick all the
good parts of the eu, while not doing something in return. They will end up
with a eu type of deal, with a few minor things stripped off. Or a hard
brexit, which may not even happen.

It is a shitty situation, which starts to affect my life as well. I have some
stocks on a company “degiro” which has its license in the uk. This is a
problem because i am unsure what is going to happen. I moved my investments to
a broker with dutch bank accounts and licenses.

~~~
matthewmacleod
That's the ideal outcome. The problem is that rhetoric in the UK has shifted
away from "Leave the EU in a structured manner with most of the bits intact"
to "full-scale immediate departure with no planning for the future". That's
going to be a medium-term disaster.

Honestly the problem isn't Brexit itself. I don't agree with that policy, but
it's possible to see how it could be executed in a constructive and honest
fashion. If we were able to accept that there are benefits to EU membership,
but that we were willing to give those up in exchange for theoretically
greater sovereignty, the situation would be better. If we were working towards
a scenario that was minimally damaging, while importantly being honest about
the tradeoffs, then the country would make some progress.

Instead we have an absolute catastrophe of untruth circulating. Large parts of
the party of government appear to be aiming for a no-deal, cliff-edge event,
claiming that everything will be fine. A huge share of the population seem to
think that "no deal" means "status quo" instead of "immediate large-scale
problems".

I don't know how we deal with that. We're genuinely in the time of post-facts,
post-truth politics, and I don't know that we currently have the tools to fix
that.

------
DrNuke
The hostile behaviour introjected by common, good-natured people towards
outsiders of any sort is more frightening, though. It is actually self-
preservation in this new dystopian environment but it seems mind poisoning or
zombification to the receiving parties of that hostility.

------
DanielBMarkham
I have absolutely no opinion on Brexit. It would be amazing to me beyond
rational belief if the first attempt at a European government wasn't severely
flawed. Maybe it's great, maybe it's awful, but to nail the first time?
Probably not.

Having said that, I have no clue about when you should jump ship or hang on.
Additionally, these are not the issues of my country. So even if I had an
opinion, I'd just shut up about it.

With that prefix, the Brexit _discussion_ is about as whacked as any public
discussion that I've witnessed online. You can see from the HN comments that
there's a ton of emotion around this thing.

I don't think it belongs on HN. And I've been deleting political leaders as
fast as they appear in my Twitter feed telling me to feel one way or another
about it.

I love talking with fellow nerds about things that are contentious that we can
reach some agreement on, even if it's just to agree to disagree. This doesn't
look like one of those things. This looks like something that no matter what
you say, people are going to be upset about it.

~~~
DrNuke
Much appreciated, thanks, but point is we do not live in a bubble and I am not
sure Nerdistan would be a nicer country to live.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I agree. That's why it's important to talk about....the things we can talk
about.

A friend of mine is visiting Europe. As a yank, he also doesn't have a strong
opinion. His first night there, he was asked about Brexit.

He said something like "I don't know. Why not leave if you want to?" thinking
that if people had voted for it, even the people against it would see how it
looked from far away.

They did not. Instead he lost some friends that night, and it completely
blindsided him.

Nobody wants to live in a bubble, but if the group is incapable of reasonable
discussion, call it out. Let's move on. Just saying it's important isn't going
to change the emotional dynamics. In fact, it'll probably just make them
worse. The reason people can't discuss it reasonably is because they think
it's so bloody important.

------
bduerst
Why was this flagged?

~~~
lorenzhs
Probably because the comments are a dumpster fire and triggered the flame-war
detector.

~~~
jf-
They don’t look like much of a dumpster fire to me.

------
coldtea
It's hard to make someone on HN understand why someone would ever want a
Brexit.

As the 10%-ers, their livelihood depends on them not understanding it - and
their social circles can only consider the people who do unwashed masses and
scum.

~~~
emerged
It's a bizarre thing, this and the polarized US, as someone who's lived back
and forth between the Midwest and California for decades. Both perspectives
have genuine value, but both have this ridiculous sense that they hold the
Truth.

~~~
dorchadas
And neither of them are likely to look at long term consequences. Well, one
side is, but they often don't factor the other group into their long term
consequence outlook, whereas I'm convinced the one side doesn't think of
anything long-term. I'm a solidly progressive person teaching in solidly Trump
country (like, my state was basically called _before_ the election was even
over), and that's just been my experience. But, I went to school in a very
progressive school, and it was the same -- they never considered rural or Blue
Collar America in their long-term consequence planning, apart from "oh, we can
give them this to support them, etc." Wasn't much discussion on how it would
affect them individually and, even if they were able to live comfortably, how
it would affect them culturally (having a job and providing for your family is
what makes you a man, etc)

~~~
coldtea
> _they never considered rural or Blue Collar America in their long-term
> consequence planning_

Yes, from all I've read and seen it's a case of "millions out of jobs,
devastated? tough luck, they need to embrace change, the future's is for those
that adapt, etc..." \-- all the while those saying it benefit from the current
economy and so have no experience whatsoever with "adapting" themselves (and
if they were on the other end would be crying like little babies).

------
kmlx
every crisis is an opportunity if you know how to exploit it.

------
interfixus
The sky is falling! The UK may be headed for disaster status as seen in basket
cases like Switzerland, Norway, Iceland.

Except of course that's not going to happen. Nobody's going to leave anything
after all, as per a well-known line from a well-known Eagles song, about the
feasibility of check-out.

------
joejerryronnie
The day after Brexit will be like Neo waking up from the Matrix. Yes, there
will be pain and things may not seem quite as bright as they did under the
yoke of the EU - but they will finally be free of the oppressive regime of
Germany, France, and the EU bureaucrats. The UK should have the chance to
drive their own destiny.

The EU was a great and prosperous (for some) experiment but it has outlived
its usefulness for all but the elites desperately clinging to power. It's only
a matter of time until another major country exits, then the balkans, then the
south. The UK should rip the band-aid off now and focus on their core
strengths of Finance and Tech, work to build out domestic manufacturing and
agriculture capabilities, and establish trade agreements with key partners.

The UK will come out stronger and more globally competitive in the end.

~~~
Piskvorrr
Perhaps w/o Scotland though. After all, if the British may leave the
oppressive yoke of Brussels, doesn't the same hold true of Scottish leaving
the oppressive yoke of London? "But...but...but...how would they DARE!!! Of
course they mayn't!", I keep hearing from the English. "But isn't the
situation symmetric? Of course we may!", I keep hearing from the Scots.

~~~
joejerryronnie
I support Scottish independence as well.

