
Petition for London independence signed by thousands after Brexit vote - programLyrique
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36620401
======
TorKlingberg
Not going to happen, but I can see the sentiment.

The Brexit vote was basically rural England telling London to shove it. "You
wanted to be a cosmopolitan world city, but if us old people in the county
don't like what we see, you can't have it."

As an analogy, imagine if the people in California that voted for Proposition
8 got really upset about the Supreme Court overruling them, and didn't like
all the non-native Californians immigrating to SF and LA, so they voted to
secede.

~~~
detritus
Laterally, imagine a city over the horizon somewhere that doesn't give a hoot
about your existence and is increasingly made up of people not from your own
country, yet dictates ever-more fundamentally how you should live your life.
Imagine that city is then in turn dictated-to by an even higher echelon of
governing who you not only didn't empower to have a say in your affairs, but
who don't even speak your own language or live in your country.

Don't get me wrong, I live in London, and I didnt vote 'Leave' but I can fully
understand the frustrations of a domestic populace whose voice in their own
country is ever increasingly marginalised.

Britain isn't the US - we're not (and I apologise in advance to the
indigineous 'Indian' populations of North America) an 'immigrant country',
despite what some people might suggest when they mention a few thousand
Hugenots popping over for a few decades, hundreds of years ago.

It's not in our culture so therefore who is right to say it should be?

~~~
djsumdog
I also don't agree with this whole "It's the racist people in the country who
voted cause they hate refugees" perspective either.

The UK has been bad for the EU in general. Don't get me wrong, the EU has its
share of supporting wars, supporting the US (and hence more wars), but the UK
is a huge piece of that. It's part of the five eyes and the hegemony.

The GPB has been horribly overvalued for years. It's bullshit the UK gets so
much leverage in the EU, yet they refuse to adopt the currency and refuse to
be part of the Schengen Area (which combined with their high GPB value ensures
they make a shit-ton off long term backpackers; most countries get 120 days of
tourism in the UK, but only 90 per 180 in the Schengen Area).

It's a two year exit process. I'm sure the UK will make new work/visa
agreements so many living abroad can still do so (and if not, well you have 2
years to see if you can get a visa), but I don't see it being reverse. It was
a voter initiative. That's not something you can neg on.

Scotland has talked about independence and it's often been viewed in the same
light as the UK leaving the EU. But now that the later has been shown as
possible, maybe it's time to finally break up this weird not-really-a-country
country.

------
howlingfantods
It seems like there's a large possibility that this will be the beginning of
the dismantling of the UK. Scotland is likely to have a second independence
referendum and Sinn Fein is calling for a referendum for Northern Ireland to
unify with Ireland. London seceding, however, seems unlikely.

~~~
nextos
I think Brexit supporters are not aware of the consequences of their vote.

UK had a pretty good deal with EU. Now, securing a trade deal similar to that
of Norway will require also accepting freedom of movement, whose termination
was one of the main arguments used by Brexit campaigners.

The science & tech sector is gonna get hit badly. Some of my British
colleagues here in Cambridge are very upset and considering to move out. For
young progressive people, it's pretty dramatic to see a big regression in your
own country I guess. The Guardian is registering some of their opinions, and
they are pretty heart-breaking:

[http://the75percent.tumblr.com/](http://the75percent.tumblr.com/)

I imagine the finance sector, which fuels most London economy will get a big
hit too.

Also, I have a hard time understanding how Brexit voters, who have a vision of
a strong UK, did not factor in a more than likely split-up with Scotland after
this.

Very disturbing. It seems overly easy to trick masses into acting
irrationally.

~~~
billyjobob
Most of those posts seem to be from kids in their 20s. I'm sure they think
they know what they're talking about but the reality is I wouldn't trust a 20
year old to wipe his ass properly let alone decide what is best for the future
of the country.

~~~
Zenst
The people who voted out were mostly the children who's parents voted into
this EU, well an entuirly different beast and indeed much changed and not as
many feel for the good.

Also many who voted remain wanted the EU to reform and people have been hoping
for that for decades and nothing improved alas.

Now they have an opportunity to listen to the people instead of dismissing
those who do not fully agree with them and step away from this label and
dismissal of issues.

~~~
billyjobob
UK joined the EU in 1993. There was no referendum on that. If there had been,
people would have voted to continue in the ECC but not to join the EU.

~~~
Zenst
1975 was last time we had a say in this matter

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/6/news...](http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/6/newsid_2499000/2499297.stm)

------
smoyer
"We need to break free of the dead weight"

You also need to look at how they became dead weight and why they feel
differently - I'm going to project a bit but I'm guessing they'd say that
Londoners were out of touch with the rest of the country. It's a shame that
the ruling elites have become so good at disenfranchising their constituents.

Let's take the idea of an independent London to a humorous conclusion. I'm
imagining the rest of the country building a "Trump Wall" around London to
keep the undesirable elitists contained in their fancy playground. Then heavy
tariffs on imports and exports on trade. Those who live outside London but
provide the rudimentary services will dramatically increase their prices (you
still can't make due in London without four maids and a cook!) which will,
combined with tarriffs/taxes levied by the non-Londoners will improve the GDP
of the rest of the country dramatically.

So in the end, those who voted to leave the EU because they weren't benefiting
from the economy between the UK and the EU will start benefiting - the
Londoners will have no choice but to share. And that's all the proletariat
wanted to begin with.

~~~
Anderkent
> Those who live outside London but provide the rudimentary services will
> dramatically increase their prices (you still can't make due in London
> without four maids and a cook!)

You what?

Okay, first of all, define the area of london. I think if London seceded
pretty much every satellite town that mostly lives from business with London
would go with it. So hopefully people who work in london wouldn't have to go
through the wall.

London is already responsible for a huge portion of the taxes that UK
collects; if the mechanism of collection is changed to tarriffs instead it
would hardly matter. And the rest of the UK would still ahve to compete with
the EU providers in that, so they couldn't be that prescriptive. (Assuming of
course london gets to keep its airports)

Those who voted leave weren't voting for economical reasons; they were voting
out of protest, against their own interest.

------
Zenst
I live in London, this is silly and seeing so many remain/pro-eu people chuck
toys out of prams and be frankly akin to upset children being told no you can
not stay up past 9pm as it is a school night, play out in many forms.

Still, more people voted to leave the EU than voted for the current
government, so can see how some things are viewed by the loosing side and some
people sore losers would be putting it mildly.

~~~
Analemma_
Explain to me why London's clearly expressed democratic desire to stay is less
valid than the overall nation's vote to leave (especially when the margin in
London was much larger than for the nation overall). This is the problem with
direct referendums, and why this Brexit vote should never have happened: as
soon as you say that "we need direct democracy so the people can have a
voice", smaller geographic areas which hold the opposite view have equally
valid claims.

(EDIT: a lot of my replies seem to be missing the point. I mean why is
London's desire less valid _philosophically_ , not legally. Obviously London
could not legally depart without a vote in Parliament, but if Londoners
clearly express their desire to leave the UK and the UK doesn't let them,
well, that seems awfully antithetical to the direct democracy that the
Brexiters say they want)

~~~
robotresearcher
Because London isn't a sovereign nation.

~~~
lmm
Nor is Scotland or Northern Ireland, but they're talking about independence.

~~~
robotresearcher
These are completely different cases.

Scotland has been its own traditional country for a very long time, and the
union with England was formed when the King of Scotland became also King of
England and not the other way around.

Northern Ireland is the vestige of a brutal occupation of Ireland by England.
The Catholic population traditionally loyal to Ireland now outnumbers the UK-
supporting Protestants.

London has never been a country. This is obviously a protest demonstration and
not a serious proposition.

~~~
deadfish
Not strictly true. The 'City of London' (not to be confused with London) is
and has always been its own country.

Whilst the argument is for all of London to be independent. It would surely be
possible for the 'City of London' to remain in the EU.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London)

~~~
robotresearcher
The City of London, as shown in that link, is a city and COUNTY in England,
and not a country. That 'r' makes a difference.

------
sjclemmy
The problem with England / Britain / UK is representation. Every time we make
any big political decision 50% of the electorate is marginalised and ignored
for 5 years. We need a better system, one where representation is
proportional.

~~~
jerf
"We need a better system, one where representation is proportional."

Well, keep seceding from things and you'll get there.

Back in the 1990s, a lot of technoutopians thought that in the future,
polities would tend to break into smaller pieces naturally. Computers would
tend to reduce the scales necessary to make services work, by lowering the
number of administrative personnel needed. Big government has had a pretty
good run in the past 20 years and people forgot about the idea, but maybe that
was just a big government bubble.

Silicon Valley makes a lot of money on disintermediation. Who's to say
government itself isn't something that can and should be disintermediated?

I think people subconsciously assume that if the system holds together,
_their_ side will naturally win out, due to sheer rightness. (And won't it be
fun to rub your power in the loser's face?) One of the things Brexit ought to
be doing to a lot of HN posters here is reminding them quite concretely that
that is not true. You may just bind everything and everybody into one big
polity, only for it at the last moment to be taken over by the very people you
didn't like. It's all fun and games to increase Federal power and jurisdiction
over a lot of life to show those racist everything-phobic bumpkins in the
flyover states how they are supposed to live life... then you wake up one day
and the entire apparatus is at Trump's fingertips. Maybe building that big
apparatus wasn't as good an idea as it seemed at the time. Maybe we'd all be
better off leaving each other alone a bit more.

~~~
RickHull
I'm reminded of Gerald Gaus' _On The Difficult Virtue of Minding One 's Own
Business_[0]

0\. [http://www.gaus.biz/scrooge.pdf](http://www.gaus.biz/scrooge.pdf)

------
andy_ppp
I would actually be in favour of this but we'll almost certainly not get the
choice.

Much like the London Mayoral Election it would probably include European Union
Citizens in the vote to leave England so I'd say it has a fairly good chance
of passing should Sadiq Khan decide a vote were sensible.

As another commenter said, there is no sensible way to organise society
through direct democracy because of bad decision making on behalf of the
electorate, but once pandoras box is opened it becomes hard to say no.

~~~
redtuesday
I actually like the direct democracy system switzerland has. A poster on
neogaf made a good comment about it:

 _" As a Swiss citizen and, thus, a strong believer in the merits of direct
democracy, I have to respectfully disagree :-) Elements of direct democracy
can work very well, 'if' (and that's a pretty significant if) there are
appropriate institutional safeguards in place and there is an actual lived
culture of regular direct democratic political participation (as in
Switzerland where we vote four times a year on numerous important and less
important issues both on the communal, the state and the federal level).

However, calling one-off referendums on momentous issues that severely affect
the course of an entire nation in a representative democracy is, indeed,
bullshit if you ask me. I mean, we're seeing the results right now. [1]

Several things in fact:

\- We have proportional representation, which insures that the constitution of
our parliament actually reflects the will of the voting populace (but that's
true of most representative democracies as well, of course; I know that the UK
with its FPtP system is a special case in that regard).

\- There is no oppositional party system. No party has an absolute majority in
parliament (as in the UK) and there are also no formal coalitions among
parties (as, for example, in Germany). Individual bills are drafted and passed
as a result of compromises among several parties.

\- Same goes for the executive branch. Our government is a directorate of
seven ministers elected from the country's four largest parties. We don't have
a PM calling the shots and setting the agenda, but a committee of politicians
with different ideas and ideologies being bound to constructively work
together and compromise to actually get things done.

\- All this means that bills passing through parliament are usually rather
moderate compromises that already have the support of several parties. Swiss
parliament procedures are usually very slow because of that whole "finding
compromises" thing, but it also means less "scattershot politics". When a bill
passes, it usually means that it's here to stay and won't be rescinded by a
different government just a few years down the line.

\- Furthermore, politicians are fully aware that controversial bills will
ultimately have to pass a people's referendum. This means that they tend not
to come up with proposals that go too far or are too radical, because radical
(far-left or far-right) bills usually don't stand a chance in a referendum.

\- With regards to people's initiatives, they're quite rare to actually pass,
because you don't just have to carry the majority of the voting populace but
of the Cantons (states) as well.

\- Also, people's initiatives can only be proposed on a constitutional level.
That means that if an initiative passes, it is up to the government and/or
parliament to actually implement this and come up with the actual laws.
Usually, this means that radical proposals put forward through people's
initiatives are, if they actually manage to pass a vote, toned down
significantly the parliamentary procedure that follows.

That's just a very rough outline of what I meant by "institutional
safeguards". I'm not saying that it's perfect (nothing is), but considering
the sheer amount of issues that we have the privilege to vote on each year, I
think it's safe to say that the system works out very well in >90% of the
cases. As I said, however, all of this is deeply ingrained in the structure
and everyday reality of our political system, so it's a different beast to a
purely representative democracy doing a one-off referendum on a momentous
issue."_ [2]

[1]
[http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=208220412&postcou...](http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=208220412&postcount=4315)

[2]
[http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=208223523&postcou...](http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=208223523&postcount=4625)

~~~
Anderkent
Swiss democracy has similar issues though. In 2014 they made pretty much the
same mistake EU is making now; decided to move away from free movement in
europe, without quite realising that this core principle of the EU is tied to
all the trade deals, and cannot be refused on its own. The consequences
haven't fully been worked out yet; but it seems like the same problem.

------
carsongross
I have absolutely no problem with this idea.

Europe once had free cities. Why not again?

~~~
gardano
That was my first thought too. A return to nation-states a la ancient Greece.

------
100k
UK votes to leave EU. Scotland and London viving to leave UK to stay in EU.
Anyone else feel like they're living in a Ken MacLeod novel?

~~~
sp332
It sounds like Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. Various corporations and
residential enclaves carve out tiny sovereign chunks of the landscape and
negotiate trade and travel between themselves.

~~~
100k
Yeah.

In The Star Faction, the UK has devolved into a bunch of autonomous
microstates, which the government in exile is trying to reunite.

------
pskocik
Technology may well bring about a collapse of democracy as we know it. No
longer are the mediocre and the below mediocre insulated from actual decision
making for reasons of impracticability. In this day and age, letting everyone
vote o anything is quite realistic and as democratic as it gets.

------
billyjobob
Go ahead London, become independent. The City makes more profit than the rest
of the country, so you don't need them, do you? Then see how much the UK
starts charging you for the food/water/power/transport/infrastructure it
provides that you rely on to exist.

~~~
k__
They could probably migrate much of this by becoming a tax-haven.

------
BuckRogers
The UK move is interesting. On London, of course the do-well Londoners want to
be a part of the EU system. They're doing well under it all. But what's done
is done.

From what I can see, the real focus should have been, long ago, making sure
ALL of Britain was doing well. Not just London. That ship has sailed and now
the UK will have to come together and ensure mutual prosperity or risk further
divide.

On Scotland, it seems to me that Scotland already got their vote. I can't see
the UK allowing another one. There may be a SNP staged vote, but it won't have
any teeth without it coming from Downing St. So I'm dismissive of the Scottish
indie idea at this point. It just didn't pan out. Anyone who wants that, needs
to at minimum, wait until oil prices rise again. But I don't see any of it
happening.

Scotland's chance may have already been spent but Northern Ireland is in the
best position of anyone. They're in the best position of all the UK
'principalities' to barter the best economic deal between either the UK or
Ireland/EU. They can basically become the New Scotland and do what Scotland
was doing, pre-Scottish independence vote. The SNP made a big mistake pushing
for their vote before the EU-UK referendum.

I expect Wales and England (outside of London) are pretty content with the
outcome of the vote. They had the most to gain. Though I don't think NI and
Scotland are going to lose economic power with an independent UK, if they
don't start revolting.

Interesting how it all turned out, because this time London was in agreement
with the UK states on the periphery. It was Wales and England who wanted out,
and I think this was rational and the right move from a working man's
standpoint. The EU from what I've seen (I've lived and worked in the EU) is
mostly beneficial the elites and people doing well. Most of my friends in
France and other EU countries curse the EU a bit. It's not just the Brits who
are upset with the undemocratic system the EU put into place or the policies.

I watched all the Scottish independence debates with Alex Salmond vs Alistair
Darling and was letdown by Salmond's general performance. Also recently
watched the Brexit 'documentary' and was not impressed with the arguments put
in place there. Especially the comparison to Switzerland which is the wrong
example, for many reasons that I won't go into here. The UK may become a
Norway of sorts but not a Switzerland. Honestly, not sure I'd want to become a
Switzerland given how they make a lot of their money.

~~~
lucozade
> The UK move is interesting

Completely with you up to this point.

> On Scotland, it seems to me that Scotland already got their vote

100% agree. If we hadn't just voted to leave the EU. There is every chance
that a second referendum will have a significant backing in Scotland now. The
last one died mostly from an economic argument. We've just royally blown that
as the line "England can't be trusted with the economy" will have more than
enough evidence regardless of the oil price. My guess is that it'll all come
down to the EU's reaction. In the first ref they were against a break up so
they said it would be difficult to re-join. If they spin that around and
welcome Scotland, which is a very real possibility, then I think they'll go
independent.

> Northern Ireland is in the best position of anyone

Indeed. But they'll not be a New Scotland. Scotland's pretty prosperous
nowadays. NI not so much. But the EU is good at throwing cash at small nations
so if they vote to leave the UK, and can stay in the EU, they'll be fine.
Well, assuming that it doesn't re-ignite the Troubles, of course, which is a
not insignificant risk if there's a strong push for a united Ireland.

> I expect Wales and England ... had the most to gain

Really? What I don't get is why the rural parts of England voted out.
Westminster really couldn't give a shit about them. As far as I can tell, the
whole economies of East Anglia and Wales are based on EU subsidies. I could
understand (though not agree with) an immigration argument for cities but they
all voted to stay except Birmingham.

> The UK may become a Norway

I sincerely hope not. It's got a much smaller economy that's really quite
reliant on oil (though they're working on that). Fortunately we have a fairly
large economy although it's centred on services so it's going to get a
pummeling for a while. Hopefully we'll only regress about 5 years and not take
a lot more than 10 years to make it back up.

> of course the do-well Londoners want to be a part of the EU system

This'll be me in case it wasn't clear from the rant. What's not massively
clear though is, while a lot of England and Wales was doing badly in the EU,
what is it about leaving that will turn, say Doncaster, into Croesusville?

~~~
dragonwriter
> What I don't get is why the rural parts of England voted out. Westminster
> really couldn't give a shit about them.

As a distant observer, it seems to me that the second sentence is the
resolution to the problem posted in the first: Westminster clearly wanted a
"Remain" result, Westminster is seen as being unresponsive to the needs of the
group in question, so there was a reaction against Westminster and in favor of
groups challenging the consensus there.

Now, it may not be rational to expect that the result of that would be a
change in government that would result in Westminster caring, but voting is
often emotional and not always rational.

~~~
lucozade
See all this would make sense if the vote to leave was a vote against the
Westminster hegemony. But it was the exact opposite. It was a vote to
concentrate power in Westminster. It may have the effect of giving more power
to Scotland and NI but not to Wales or the bulk of England

~~~
dragonwriter
Sure, if you view things as being about Westminster as an institution
independent of the present factions in power (not just the majority forming
the government, but the dominant factions in both major parties.)

OTOH, if you see it as about "Westminster" as the an institutional consensus
that unites the notionally opposing major parties, then its easy to see the
Brexit as a vote against that consensus and for a radical realignment of
power, not just in terms of dominance between the existing parties but in
terms of the divisions around which major policy debate and partisan divides
should be structured.

------
alansmitheebk
What the hell is wrong with you people? Stop behaving like petulant children.
This isn't just a protest vote. It has real consequences. Even if you don't
care that you are fucking up your own economy can you at least be mindful that
your stupidity is fucking up the global economy?

I thought we Americans were the dumb dumbs...

------
return0
The best case for UK unity is to join the US.

~~~
k__
lol, wat, should the UK send their unemployed to the US, so they build "the
wall" for them? ;)

------
known
An Independent Nation should not have more than 2 million citizens
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_interdependence](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_interdependence)

------
lettergram
Yeah.. I don't see this happening.

------
nikolay
And rename it to New Pakistan?

------
draw_down
Leaving the EU is bad, but leaving the UK would be good. Alright.

~~~
sildur
Remaining in the EU is bad, but remaining in the UK would be good. Alright.

------
aphextron
I get that Brexit is an important topic. But can we keep politics out of HN?
This place is the last bastion of sane, intelligent discourse I've found on
the internet.

~~~
mac01021
Politics is a subject about which it is useful to have sane, intelligent
discourse, no?

~~~
davidw
Sane, intelligent discourse and politics are not a stable combination.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6120530](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6120530)

~~~
aphextron
Exactly. I fell in love with this site because it seems to have some kind of
magical force field against the insanity that is internet discussion. I really
hope that never changes.

