
I set up the petition for London's independence. Here's how it would work - sirteno
http://littleatoms.com/london-independence
======
mike_hearn
This is some twisted logic if I ever saw it.

"Leave campaign have no plan". Yes, they do, their plan is to re-assert border
controls and negotiate the best deal with the EU possible from that starting
point. You may not _like_ such a plan, but it is one.

The fact that the contents of such a deal are unknown is entirely due to the
fact that the EU refused to discuss or even contemplate any alternative to the
status quo. If anyone was idiotic enough to actually try this idea, they'd
simply hit the same problem: the EU would not talk to them, and they'd be left
campaigning with no plan.

So if your criticism is based on "out voters don't know what they were voting
for" then well done, you'd put yourself in exactly the same boat.

Moreover, the same sort of anti-EU feeling that drove Brexit is not isolated
to the UK. It's rising all over Europe. What makes this guy think the EU will
actually even exist five years from now, let alone be something actually
desirable to be a part of?

In 2017 there are four votes that could potentially damage the EU, this is
coming on the heels of a vote in Austria where the "Austria first"
presidential candidate lost by just a few thousand votes.

[https://medium.com/@octskyward/ok-what-
now-e3f64d38f7](https://medium.com/@octskyward/ok-what-now-e3f64d38f7)

~~~
gutnor
"The Leave campaign has no plan" comes from the aftermath of the vote. There
has been a serious lack of leadership from the Leave captain, and a lot of
backtracking on promises.

I was expecting Boris or Farage setup a great press conference telling us what
they were going to do starting by requiring Cameron resignation, appointing
guy X and Y, start a task force to do Z. A message for the market. Even banter
like saying they would ask all the European in the UK to register somewhere,
tightening the border controls, suspend the naturalisation or permanent
residency demand coming from European people, ...

It does not matter about the content, as you said, I would probably not have
liked it or found it reasonable. But at least it looks like the guys were a
bit prepared to win, that they had put some thought in at least maintaining
the appearance that they would push for the stuff they promised or for
something.

~~~
jackgavigan
_> "The Leave campaign has no plan" comes from the aftermath of the vote._

Specifically, this report on Sky News:
[https://youtu.be/2Gybrn6XLh0](https://youtu.be/2Gybrn6XLh0)

------
w_t_payne
Prior to the current wild swings in the currency markets, the price of the UK
pound was always pushed up by the intensity of the economic activity in the
City of London.

This screwed the rest of the country over by preventing a proper devaluation
of the currency; making industrial exports overly expensive, and generally
destroying the competitiveness of UK industry.

(Of course, the generally shit state of UK management didn't help much
either).

The mispriced pound killed jobs and generally contributed to the economic
malaise and sense of exclusion which helped to produce the resentment which
produced this referendum result.

As the situation stands, the plummeting pound is going to help this a bit, but
only to the extent to which the electorate have shot the financial sector in
the head, and forced it to be exported to the Eurozone.

As I see it, a (very very limited) form of Londipendence may be our best bet
at preventing the flight of jobs and financial services revenue whilst
decoupling the pound from the deleterious effects of an economy overly skewed
towards London and overly skewed towards financial services.

We'd get a more well-rounded economy, and we'd keep the financial services
jobs and expertise in London.

Far from radical, I think its' the closest thing that we've currently got to a
win-win situation.

~~~
WildUtah
Why would you want to keep the financial services jobs? The finance sector
ruins whatever country it's located in and corrupts the local politics.

The best result for England of a generally deplorable Brexit would be the
complete exile of the City to the continent.

~~~
w_t_payne
Well, if you could send it into semi-exile but keep the tax receipts? Seems
like something that's worth exploring, anyhow ...

------
haakon
It's an interesting idea to entertain, if outlandish. See
[http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/the-city-states-of-
europe](http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/the-city-states-of-europe) (HN
discussion at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11192948](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11192948)):

> "The 21st century will not be dominated by America or China, Brazil or
> India, but by the city," writes Parag Khanna (1). The author of several
> books on global strategy, Khanna argues that (some) cities, as islands of
> good governance in an increasingly unstable world, will become the
> cornerstone of a new world order.

> That new world order won't be a "global village" of nation states, for
> globalisation is corroding national sovereignty. Rather, it will be a loose
> network of semi-independent city states, perhaps resembling the Hanseatic
> League and other medieval trading alliances.

~~~
svieira
This is almost the exact premise of _The Napoleon of Notting Hill_ by G. K.
Chesterton [1]

It's set in 1984 (predating Orwell's use of the same date) and considers the
breakup of London into city-states each based on a particular borough. It's a
very short book, but well worth the read.

[1]:
[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20058](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20058)

------
oldmanjay
If there's one thing I've learned from this debacle, it's that in 2016, people
firmly believe being an asshole is the best way to conduct politics.

~~~
raverbashing
Well, it seems to be working

------
throwaway987611
> We all knew that a Brexit vote would unleash forces we didn’t understand – a
> series of rolling crises in high finance, macro-economics, politics and
> diplomacy

I find things like this shocking. That most of these articles are just
shooting from the hip.

When Cameron first floated the idea of the Brexit. He did so, consulting all
the civil servants in the country. You know, the ones who actually run the
country and know exactly what needs to done should a leave vote happen.

There is no scrambling around, there is no forces we don't understand, there
is no crises in high finance, politics or diplomacy.

This is a country that had it's own empire and had 200 civil servants to run
India.

I constantly laugh at postings here that Germany is going to take Finance and
the Tech center from London and that the UK Economy is going to collapse.

The UK did just fine outside of the europe before the EU turned into the EU.
It will do FINE just outside of the EU.

What a lot of people need to remember. Is what Germany is going to do now. How
will it AFFORD the monies that the UK was paying. The German people are the
ones who are going to foot that bill.

Also, Hollande is on shaky ground. Le Penn may win and therefore will most
certainly want her own Frexit vote.

Merkle, is on shaky ground, she's up for re-election next year? What if she
loses?

Yeah, interesting times ahead. But in some respects. The UK may actually be
doing better.

Watch this space.

~~~
mike_hearn
Hollande is on way worse than shaky ground. It's hard to see how he could ever
get reelected now, he may not even bother running.

I've written a blog post on the upcoming votes in 2017 that could, if they go
the "wrong" way, completely wreck the EU or at least radically change the
negotiating outlook:

[https://medium.com/@octskyward/ok-what-
now-e3f64d38f7](https://medium.com/@octskyward/ok-what-now-e3f64d38f7)

I am finding it very entertaining how people who see themselves as
cosmopolitan, worldly and intellectual so drastically fail to pay attention to
what's going on elsewhere.

The EU is a disaster zone. It's run by an alcoholic who has turned up to
summit wasted and then literally slapped world leaders in the face. Faced with
the worst blow the EU has ever faced he gave a press conference in which he
answered only two questions, to the second of which he simply said "no" and
then walked out. The president of the EU Parliament said he thought the UK was
"holding the continent to ransom because of an internal fight in the Tory
party" AFTER the vote took place.

The people arguing that they need to secede from the UK in order to rejoin the
EU, don't seem to have noticed that the EU is rapidly becoming a basket case
that is seeing radically anti-EU politicians topping the polls in major,
important economies ... whilst its leaders submerge themselves in denial.

~~~
realusername
The situation in France is way worse that what can be seen in the media, 3
months of major strikes with even petrol shortage in half of the country, the
president has only 13% support, the lowest of the 5th republic. They even had
gunshots on the main building of the party.

The socialist party (equivalent of UK's labour) is dead as dead and I expect
it to break into pieces as people are going to create new left parties. On the
left side, the far left is almost guarantee to win. On the right side, the
party is weak and polluted by internal fights and if they choose the wrong
candidate, they are also dead.

The country is the most anti-EU country in Europe, even more than the UK, only
Greece is toping France on that aspect. Although it's not for the same reasons
as the UK.

The next election, only in April is going to be pretty intense.

------
anexprogrammer
Welcome to democracy, serves you right. I'd have much preferred remain to win
too. It's hurting my northern wallet too.

One vote goes against him and he's throwing toys out of his pram. Perhaps he
should consider that the people who mainly triggered the exit have had a
powerful rejection of their worldview, _by London and Westminster,_ since the
1980s.

If the smug liberals had funded appropriate redevelopment for regions losing
ship building, steel, coal or what have you, this mess could have been easily
avoided.

I'm surprised it took 40 years of ignoring the issue for the mice to roar.

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
I would replace your use of "democracy" with "unfettered capitalism". Allowing
the rich and powerful to continuously claim a larger share of the economic pie
pits the rest against each other for scraps.

I'm not sure the problem is those "smug liberals," but rather the conservative
factions in Britain and abroad who would rather perpetuate a humanity at war
with itself for their own profits rather than accept a slightly lower standard
of living in return for a stable and satisfied populace which sees the greedy
mismanagement of the global elite and concludes the only people they can trust
are dangerous demagogues who would sooner smash a system to the ground than
attempt to fix what the poor and angry perceive as poverty and hopelessness by
design.

------
esharte
If London was as smugly left wing as he the author thinks it is then it would
not have voted Boris Johnson as mayor for two terms. The same Boris Johnson
that was the head of the Leave campaign.

~~~
hx87
London is libertarian, or old school liberal, not left-wing, and Boris Johnson
did just fine as an old school liberal mayor before he started agitating for
Brexit.

~~~
noobermin
At least amongst some libertarians I know in the US, Brexit is definitely
favorable to them. Is it a different brand of libertarianism?

~~~
hx87
It's a branch of libertarianism that believes that if laws and regulations
must exist, they should be implemented at the highest possible level in order
to ensure consistency and insulation from provincial arbitrariness.

~~~
sbmassey
The sort of 'libertarianism' that would advocate a world wide state than? To
me that looks more like the ultimate in repression than in anything you might
call liberty.

~~~
hx87
Exactly that sort of libertarianism. According to such a view, a world wide
state would be less oppressive than a nation state because the center wouldn't
have the sort of local knowledge to make repression truly effective, it
wouldn't have the petty and internecine struggles that make local politics
nasty, and it would have to fight through all the intermediate layers of
administration in order to implement repressive policies. Because of this
reason, small political units such as North Korea and Eritrea can be more
oppressive than large ones such as Russia or China could ever hope to be, and
most oppression in the United States takes place at the local rather than
national level (e.g. excessive incarceration, civil forfeiture).

TL;DR: neighborhood bullies are far worse than the average dictator.

~~~
sbmassey
So from their perspective, the amount of repression one gets in a Soviet
Russia or China is acceptable, and scaling it up to be worldwide could be
considered libertarian? Or do they believe there is some way of stopping the
worst people rising to the top in a worldwide government that doesn't exist at
the Russia/China scale?

~~~
hx87
From their perspective, a cosmopolitan USSR or China would be more libertarian
than a national USSR or China, if only because their leaders, no matter how
authoritarian they might be, would have a harder time utilizing the local-
level knowledge that makes repression effective. They would have to deal with
a wider variety of interests whose support they would need to stay in power,
which further dilutes their power. In addition, citizens would have more
options to play different levels of government against each other; if the
state-level government is becoming too oppressive, one can always appear to
the supranational government, as Europeans do to the ECHR or ICJ, or as
southerners did to the Eisenhower administration in the 1950s.

In short, no dictator can oppress me like my family and neighbors can, which
is why any dictatorship with a drop of wisdom would try to co-opt them.

~~~
sbmassey
I fail to see how a worldwide China has any less local knowledge than a China
sized one - it is not even a factor of 10 difference in population. Also, a
cursory look at history would suggest that dictators have a lot more power to
oppress you than your family and neighbours. I assume you are misrepresenting
the ideology due to lack of space - are there any books/tracts/thinkers you
can point me at with more detailed descriptions of it? Thanks.

------
wrong_variable
I think Scotland leaving would make it more likely.

Scotland has a population of only 5 million people - and London will soon have
double of that.

Also London's economy would boast in a massive way since 97% of its income
goes to Westminster unlike New York, the mayor of London needs to actively
lobby for things London needs. ( this is outside the boost provided by things
like staying in the EU ).

Its also more practical - its far easier to secure London's borders then it is
to secure all of UK's ( nothing stopping people from Spain riding up Cornwell
in a boat )

Westminister could relocate to Sunderland since it would be the new heartland.

~~~
lhnz
Will it matter to Scotland's goal of joining the EU after getting independence
from the UK that they would have the worst deficit in the OECD [0] and have,
in the past, only been a net contributor to the UK economy in three of the
last fifteen years [1]?

It seems to me that the EU might require Scotland to make huge cuts to public
spending. Would Scotland's independence be worth more to them than say free
university tuition? I guess the SNP would avoid making cuts to certain
nationally loved items, but something would surely have to give; either they
would get higher taxes, or public spending would have to fall.

Of course, the EU might agree to let them remain and also allow them their
deficit, but there looks to be an increasing strain on the EU's richest
members, so who knows whether that would be allowed.

[0] [http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/03/if-scotland-had-gone-
in...](http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/03/if-scotland-had-gone-independent-
today-it-would-be-facing-sado-austerity/)

[1] [http://chokkablog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/simple-
summary.html](http://chokkablog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/simple-summary.html)

~~~
dragonwriter
> Will it matter to Scotland's goal of joining the EU after getting
> independence from the UK that they would have the worst deficit in the
> developing world

You probably intended to say "developed" instead of "developing", but the link
actually says worst in the OECD, which is not equivalent to the developed
world (though most OECD members are in the developed world, lots of the
developed world is not in the OECD.)

~~~
lhnz
You are correct - I was trying to avoid the acronym and ended up completely
bodging the meaning; I modified my comment in response.

------
marcoperaza
I have never seen so many loud sore losers after an election in my life. The
globalist establishment has shown nothing but total contempt for people who
don't share their world view. I hate to be the bearer of bad news[1], but
you're not changing anyone's mind. Everytime I see the WaPo or the Guardian
push the false narrative of Leavers all being ignorant racists that have
brought doom to Britain, the more happy I am that they won, the more
optimistic I am about their future. Every time you try to usurp the will of
the people, they become stronger against you. The people will have their way
and the British people have a track record of success.

[1] Who am I kidding, I love it.

~~~
vkou
> I have never seen so many loud sore losers after an election in my life.

In some parts of the world, sore losers after an election start civil wars.

------
lujim
> I’m a smug, bourgeois liberal who lives in North London – so the result felt
> like a powerful rejection of my entire worldview.

This sentence said just about everything I needed to know about the author.
Being smug isn't a badge of honor, and describing oneself as 'smug' is as much
of a red flag as a date that shows up late and describes themselves as 'A
jealous person' or 'high maintenance'. They believe that they are so special
and unique that annoying behavior is actually endearing. Heaven forbid
something happens that shakes his worldview.

Edit: Apparently it's ironic humor. This isn't the first or last time I've
underestimated just how subtle British humor can be.

~~~
infinity0
You're missing some context. Much of the Leave campaign has been appealing to
workers by labelling more wealthy socialists as "smug superior intellectual
upper-middle class Guardian readers" etc [1]. The author is just parodying
that, he's not actually proud of being smug.

[1]
[http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44970.htm](http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44970.htm)

