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Every conversation we've had about the EU for the last five years or so. The entire world has been talking about the relative lack of wisdom of trying to hold the entire EU to one currency for a long time, financial mismanagement, Germany strong-arming Greece into plans not good for them while Greece holds the threat of leaving over the entire EU to get better deals, and all sorts of such financial issues for a long time now. Speculations that the EU was on the path to a breakup have been rampant for years, even before immigration issues were being discussed. Only now that the breakup might actually be happening is it a total surprise to everyone.

(I'm surprised more people aren't celebrating Brexit. Before Brexit, the EU had all kinds of problems. Now suddenly they've all been solved, apparently. The selfless sacrifice of the UK should be celebrated by the EU, since apparently all the bad stuff is going to happen to the UK, alone. That's the problem with the "turn up the heat" approach to making people do things in politics; it may make people more likely to do things, but not necessarily the things you wanted.)



Before Brexit, the EU had all kinds of problems. Now suddenly they've all been solved, apparently

Of course they haven't. But they're either problems which would exist without the EU (Syrian refugees) or problems of the Eurozone (which the UK has opted out of).

Greece had the opportunity to exit and didn't. I think because they realised that, although being in debt to the EU is bad, not being able to borrow money at all is worse.

The EU is not perfect (and the Eurozone is actually quite bad), but leaving it doesn't make it go away, doesn't address the problems that the EU is supposed to address.

To me, the dead giveaway is that nobody in the UK wants to 'own' Brexit. Farage, Johnson, Gove et al have all resigned and vanished. Why is that?


The UK isn't in the Eurozone.


So the UK economy is already completely isolated from the EU, unaffected by anything going on? Oh, well, then, an awful lot of this Brexit stuff is way less of a problem than people are claiming.

I have to say that the analysis of Brexit has been some of the worst "justifying a predetermined conclusion by hyper-local rationalizations" I've ever seen in politics, and that is saying something. You can tell something is a rationalization when it feels really satisfying, but if you try to take the rationalization out into the rest of the world it either makes no sense, or even outright contradicts the thing being rationalized. Whether Brexit is good or bad, it's going to have little to do with what I've heard from either side.


I'm not saying that countries should or should not get out of the EU. I would just like to see some concrete evidences of Greece/Italy/Spain/Portugal on destroying German and British wealth.


You're setting a standard that can't be met by anyone. Any "concrete evidence" would have to provide concrete evidence of a hypothetical. But it isn't that bizarre of an idea that Germany could be better off if it wasn't tied to much weaker economies through a shared currency. Of course the problem here is that the situation is so large you can find not-quite-concrete evidence for almost any proposition.


Agreed, there is no "concrete evidence" and no way of supporting any of the sides. But let's just imagine for a while, what if it would be the exact same opposite?

Who helps richest countries go richer? How can a country grow if there is no decrease somewhere else? Maybe a greater profit if you don't need to pay for a different currency?

Edit: With help I mean get cheap labour, cheap goods, cheap rent and even being able to sell in that country's market and export abroad.




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