> And so far, do you think that Brexit has been more of a success or more of a failure? %
With 62% saying failure (the rest are don't know/neither).
Note that only 55% say it was wrong to leave, and on such a close referendum anyway I'm not even sure that's a statistically significant different answer than in 2016.
Key point: you can think it hasn't gone well (managed poorly, opportunities no taken, whatever) without thinking it was wrong, or even that in hindsight being in the EU is better.
(You can also have voted to remain, but now want to make the best of it, and think it's going well/badly - it's completely independent.)
> Note that only 55% say it was wrong to leave, and on such a close referendum anyway I'm not even sure that's a statistically significant different answer than in 2016.
Conveniently ignoring that only 30% say we were right to leave. Nice try.
A sad truth about policy change is that most of the negative side effects take many years to manifest and are far out of the memory range of the average voter and so they never really get properly correlated with the cause, and therefore nobody ever changes their mind.
I think that's why so many US voters are now telling each other "I hope you get what you voted for" after the last presidential election. Sometimes you need a really, really bad hangover to decide that you need to make some changes in your life.
The tories completely butchered it. They've done the opposite of what should have been done in terms of making brexit pay, and now we're in an absolute mess.
I'd have to say that when the UK initially joined the EU most people probably didn't notice much of a difference, except that the euro made going on holiday and using the local currency a lot easier (I still remember the Lira in Italy being particularly difficult to get my head around). But otherwise it didn't make much of a difference in day-to-day life for most.
But now, leaving seems to be like constantly picking at a festering scab.
Except that the UK joined the EU before it was even called the EU and long before the Euro existed. The UK also never adopted the Euro or joined the Schengen area, so we never got the full open borders + same currency experience. Being over the water from the EU - with the exception of the Irish border, which is over the water from the rest of the UK anyway - helps add a sense of separation, uniqueness and sheer arrogance which has allowed our newspapers to lie about the EU for the entirety of its existence.
What's hurt us from leaving is the single market. It's now vastly more difficult to trade with the EU, our closest geographical neighbour. Lots of post-referendum talk about amazing trade deals with Australia and the USA and Canada and India came largely to nothing, and they're all so far away and much more difficult to manage the logistics of. Plus the awkward situation where Northern Ireland is still kind of in the single market and kind of not, due to the need to preserve various agreements about trade and movement over the Irish border.
Ultimately, EU membership was what helped us get out of the economic pit we were in in the early 1970s. It's what helped us build the massive services economy which fuelled the 1980s on a wave of consumer credit and London skyscrapers. I'm not saying those are necessarily good things, but the day to day impact of EU membership was actually enormous - just most people weren't consciously aware of it.
Which is why it was possible for a bunch of charlatans to convince a tiny majority to vote to leave it.
> Ultimately, EU membership was what helped us get out of the economic pit we were in in the early 1970s. It's what helped us build the massive services economy which fuelled the 1980s on a wave of consumer credit and London skyscrapers.
there was (and still is) no single market for services, so how could have joining the EEC have caused any of these things?
the 80s boom this was purely a result of Thatcherite policy (for better or worse), it had nothing to do with the EEC
> It created a common market based on the free movement of:
> goods
> people
> services
> capital.
I assume we can differ in the opinion of how much of that has been achieved and at what time, and I agree it is far from perfect, but your statement is rather undifferentiated and categorical.
> You are entitled to your opinion, but it differs to the official stance from the EU.
the EU taking credit for things for which it was entirely uninvolved? imagine that
> Now let's have a look at the Treaty of Rome (1957)
the Treaty of Rome (1957) was, and still is, an aspiration
the signing of it did not spontaneously unify the laws and regulations of its parties, create a common market, unified defence policy, and create a political union. this took time and is still ongoing
> I assume we can differ in the opinion of how much of that has been achieved and at what time
the Single European Act itself, the instrument which created the EU single market did not enter effect until 1987, so clearly it could not have been the catalyst for the changes to the UK services economy in the 70s
the EU single market still does not encompass most services: professional qualifications are almost entirely controlled by member states, there is no banking union, there is no capital markets union, and it goes on
it does not exist in any functional way whatsoever
this is very different to the single market for goods, which is extremely effective and functionally complete
but why debate this, when we have a direct example to refer to? a member state with significant intra-EU service exports leaving the single market
if being part of the EU single market for services was important, you would expect that UK service exports to the EU would decline significantly as a result
so, what happened in reality?
the exact opposite: UK service exports to the EU have increased since brexit
this should confirm to even the most pro-EU person that the single market for services is woeful
Did you mean, no single market for _financial_ services?
In that case, yes. But other kind of services do take advantage of the single market. The issue is the language barrier, so Germany, Austria benefits a bit more than other, but with non-english speakers aging out of the workforce, this is changing (we used to be mostly franco-belge, we now work with Spain, Italy and Romania. Weirdly our bad accent makes it easier to understand each others than Oxford English)
> when the UK initially joined the EU most people probably didn't notice much of a difference, except that the euro made
There were 26 years between the UK joining and the euro being introduced. 29 between that and coins & notes being in people's hands (for the first three years the currency was primarily only used for accounting purposes not day-to-day, though in the run up to 2002 prices were often presenting in both currencies in preparation for the public switch starting).
> But now, leaving seems to be like constantly picking at a festering scab.
There was a plan for joining. Leaving was a desire without a (properly thought out) plan.
After joining it took time to fully integrate and over the decades, unpicking all that was always going to be much more complicated than merging into it in the first place (the “we are not in any more, we don't have to do a thing or pay what we'd already agrees” ideas many brexit supporters seemed to have were pure fantasy). Most divorces are more complicated than the marriage that preceded them.
Of course, it is all us remoaners fault for not helping the leavers make their plan. :)
It's like removing a particular dependency that you thought would be simple and it turns out to have been useful all over the place in ways that one person alone doesn't remember off the top of their head.
Then you start realising that the fab new modules you were thinking of using have all sorts of missing features and limitations and now your performance has dropped x% and memory usage went up instead of down.
...but you put the old module on the banned list and can't take the hit to your credibility of admitting that it wasn't as bad as the alternatives.
> But now, leaving seems to be like constantly picking at a festering scab.
Does it? I feel similarly to your description of joining about it: maybe I can't join an EU line (more often I now join an EU + UK + ... line, so it's only a signing quirk) and my passport is a different colour, but otherwise it hasn't made a difference day-to-day.. at all? Maybe if I was an international lorry driver or something?
EU + UK line are going to disappear when the new EU passport check (ESS) and electronic travel authorization (euphemism introduced by the US to call a visa) will come into force. And now that EU citizen have to do the same for UK it will to just transform a quick Eurostar travel in a big headache.
I am an academic working on a multinational clinical trial. I assure you, it has made many aspects of my daily life much worse, from shipping things across borders, recruiting students or staff, to discussions about patient safety and the EMA/MHRA, as well as the desire of colleagues to collaborate internationally.
Born in the 1960s, I remember when the UK joined a trade bloc. Decades later, during the Brexit referendum, the "think of the children" argument was heavily pushed by the Remain campaign. Yet, as someone who grew up within the trade bloc and later the EU, I recall that we had no say on the Maastricht Treaty—while other countries did, with some even being told to vote again.
I also remember the Liberal Democrats advocating for a referendum on EU membership from the early 2000s onward. However, when the vote finally happened, the level of vitriol and disdain the party directed at Leave voters completely changed my perception of what "liberal" and "democratic" truly mean. Their stance no longer aligned with those ideals.
Corporate lobbying has a significant impact on EU policy, often overshadowing the interests of its citizens. The EU’s influence is a mix of positives, negatives, and deeply concerning interventions. One striking example was when the entire EU was forced to pay higher prices for imported solar panels to protect a single German company. Another was the rushed adoption of CFL lighting just before LED technology became viable—CFLs contain mercury, posing a serious health hazard if broken, and many have likely ended up polluting landfills.
While I support the idealistic vision of a united Europe, many well-intentioned policies have been poorly thought out, leading to unintended consequences. The depopulation of many towns and villages across Europe due to youth migration is a direct result of EU-driven policies, yet little thought was given to the broader impact.
The UK sought EU reforms, but when those were denied, a referendum became inevitable. Many who voted Leave did so because the trade bloc they originally joined had evolved into something they no longer recognized. For decades, key decisions were made without direct input from the British people. It's no surprise that those who had once voted to join felt compelled to vote to leave. Yet, the mainstream media labeled them as racists, disregarding the complexity of their concerns.
Beyond the UK's experience, France’s actions in African countries when it adopted the Euro are worth investigating—they reveal a shocking side of EU monetary policy. Meanwhile, Germany, whose strong currency transitioned smoothly into the Euro, benefited enormously—often at the expense of struggling nations like Greece and Italy, which found themselves locked into an economic framework that served German interests far more than their own.
Saddest part is, France blocked any reforms until the UK had left the EU, and had they only engaged back then and made some reforms, the UK could have justified a new vote on the EU, with a more informed opinion. That in itself is a tradegy, but then the UK being physically seperated from Europe, has always seen many cultures and approached, not as aligned as the Europe and subsequently the EU as a whole, which beyond cheap holidays, duty free, not many really embraced the EU as a whole and vice versa.
> Beyond the UK's experience, France’s actions in African countries when it
adopted the Euro are worth investigating—they reveal a shocking side of EU
monetary policy.
Can you elaborate on this? I know enough to know that I should not pretend to
know anything.
I keep an eye on OurWorldInData's Energy [0] and GDP [1] per capita graphs. They suggest that the UK is moving roughly in step with the other western-Europe powers and have been in a state of crisis since around 2005. It matches up well with the growing political instability that seems to be coming to a head all through Europe, there are a surprising number of people who refuse to accept that >33% drop in energy use (& trending) is a problem.
I'd speculate that Brexit was actually a response to an energy crisis slowly eroding living standards and people are getting more antsy when it turns out that it didn't lead to saner energy policy than the EU mainland. I remain glad that I'm closer to China who, for all her faults, at least has the whole energy-and-prosperity link under control. I wish my civilisation would re-learn that one.
So let me get this right, solar panels on the roof, heat pumps, better fridges, and better insulation among other things are a crisis that will lead, in comparison, to the downfall of Western civilisation?
Jeez, I better randomly turn on a resistive space heater in the middle of summer when I’m not home so we can all live better lives somehow.
Do you think I should randomly flail my arms about in the hope it’ll somehow make more dividends for my bank of choice? Just want to double-check.
> So let me get this right, solar panels on the roof, heat pumps, better fridges, and better insulation among other things are a crisis that will lead, in comparison, to the downfall of Western civilisation?
Well the data does seem to incline in that direction. Particularly the UK, as far as I can tell it is impossible to be both intellectually honest and believe that a 33% (!) reduction in per capita energy is good for people's living standards. Someone'd have to be wilfully ignorant of Jevons' paradox, the only way to get that drop off is some sort of squeeze in their ability to access energy which isn't fun to live through. I feel for the poor who are being forced to live with that and be told that they're better off and shouldn't believe their lying eyes. It also neatly explains a lot of the political trends the UK has undergone in the last decade like the high debt level and general dissatisfaction with the leadership.
Ah yes, the activity of “accessing energy”, the very relatable and not at all abstract real activity that we fellow humans perform multiple times a day.
And here I thought we did “normal” things like “switch on the light” and notice that an LED still works just as well as an incandescent.
Or some decide to turn on the dishwasher instead of doing the dishes by hand, which does it far more efficiently.
Just wondering, since you seem to know, how do I make the money directly come out of the wall? Do I need to turn the crappy old five space heaters all to setting three to get all the money? Or should I just use the reverse cycle AC at a comfortable temperature like a normal person?
Also, you’re calling the US’ economic success since 1970 a failure, since that also saw a drop in per capital use of 33%, so I’ll happily trade you all the money you made since 1970 for a pile of wooden logs, seems like that’d be a great deal for you, eh?
> Or some decide to turn on the dishwasher instead of doing the dishes by hand, which does it far more efficiently.
That would increase measured energy consumption per capita.
> Also, you’re calling the US’ economic success since 1970 a failure
They've gone from the world's leading hegemon to arguably 2nd largest economy vs China which is now the world's industrial superpower. And indeed there are a lot of notable turns for the worse [0] in the US that started coming up from the 1970s. I do think there is a case to be made the the US's post-70s economic policy has been pretty lackluster. And there does seem to be a real problem that set in around 2000, it has been pretty much worse-to-worse steps since then. The energy trend is related.
> And here I thought we did “normal” things like “switch on the light” and notice that an LED still works just as well as an incandescent.
How much energy do you think that is saving? Order of magnitude?
The only graphs the relate energy consumption to anything else within the same graphs are 1) a curve implying we ought to be using 400 kW per capital use of continuously, enough to power hundreds of homes most of the time and 2) one that shows GDP flying off with no regard for per capital use of consumption of power.
I feel compelled to ask, how are you using your personal 400 kW today? Surely you must be using that amount since you think it’s vital to your personal prosperity. Is it Bitcoin mining or… honestly I can’t think of anything else?
> That would increase measured energy consumption per capita.
Not if the water is heated I would have thought is the understood assumption. But if you want to wash them in near enough ice water while pumping a substation into your crypto operation, then you do you.
Also, congrats. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bolder claim than calling the US stock market since 1970 an underperformer. Let us know that we evidently don’t, but make sure you’re not backtesting there with 50 years of hindsight. Make a prediction of similar boldness. I’m probably not gonna put money on that though, just wanna put that up my index fund investing front.
2. All the graphs relate to energy, energy is the economy. It is literally impossible to fabricate/transport any good or run any service without some sort of energy consumption happening. The reason the energy trend matters so much is because it leads every activity.
> I feel compelled to ask, how are you using your personal 400 kW today?
There is, and I speak with a great deal of literalness when I say this, no aspect of either of our lifestyles that doesn't involve consuming energy. I suspect you have a poor understanding of what energy is.
> Also, congrats. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bolder claim than calling the US stock market since 1970 an underperformer
An economy isn't the stock market. And I don't know how you made that mistake since just in another of your post you were complaining that too much money was going to billionaires! The stock market has been going great, the economy has been going so-so trending towards poorly.
I mean I’m of the weird belief that moving an item from point A to point B fundamentally uses, more or less, amount of energy x regardless of whether it’s 1950 or 2000 or 2050, but if you want to make the laws of Physics obey exponential growth to make sure we all remain economically prosperous then good luck to you.
Maybe not in this universe, but good luck to you nevertheless.
And yeah that was a typo. I guess that’s what happens when you use but a few watts on a mobile phone instead of an AI on the latest RTX to burn the equivalent half a log for every letter. I guess I’m not respecting the needs of the economy too much by doing that, eh?
I'd be a bit wary of using energy use that directly as indicator. Yes, it is a broad measure of industrialization, however:
Suppose a country goes on a broad national campaign to insulate drafty houses. That drops energy use, but has no corresponding drop in living standard.
i.e. there is some sort of measure/factor for efficient application of energy needed for it to really be meaningful
Run me through your numbers. Where did the 33% drop in per-capita energy use come from? What order of magnitude do you think is draft reductions?
Because if that were true I'd expect the UK would be a world-leading paradise with vast energy surpluses and everyone having a high old time in great comfort. That isn't the vibe they're giving off. They look like a nation with a slow-rolling energy crisis and a social contract that is coming under quite a bit of pressure because of it. Happy people don't vote for Nigel Farage.
Got it. LED bulbs are destroying the social contract. One would call you a luminary but it seems you’d prefer being called predominantly a producer of hot air, like the old incandescents, instead.
Also, the US is down 30% as well since peak MWh/person. If you had invested $1 in the S&P 500 at that peak, in about 1970, you’d have about $300 now. Seems like energy use mightn’t be all that coupled to economic success, but if you want to call the US since 1970 a failed society I’m not going to stop you.
The US just elected Trump, where he won the popular vote. And are experiencing a sort of general crisis across financial, military and political domains. I don't think the US is particularly stable either, they just cope a bit better than the Europeans and are more flexible in calling for change when things aren't working out. Although I doubt it'll help them in the short term.
A) OK, so on the one hand we could blame $2 trillion going to billionaires in 2024 alone, near enough $6000 for every person in the country, with evidence of any trickle down effect being a thing still outstanding, but evidence of their political effect as clear as an outstretched arm over DC.
B) Or we could blame people not keeping five terrible refrigerators with no insulation at full blast instead of one good modern one.
I mean it’s probably not option A entirely, there’s sure to be options C through to Z too, but I’m probably not gonna consider B overly relevant.
>Where did the 33% drop in per-capita energy use come from?
That's kinda my point - we don't know the answer. The 33% could be a bad thing (deindustrialization), or a good thing (energy efficiency) or the most like - a mix.
It can't be energy efficiency. Energy efficiency causes energy consumption to increase. That's basic economics [0]. The argument, at best, is that the energy efficiency improvements are cancelling out the energy availability problems to the point where quality of life stays about the same. Although the type of efficiencies gains we'd need to see to cancel out a 33% drop would be so staggering to the point where it'd be a major deal to the point where nobody would be able to stop pointing at the UK's outrageous success as an international beacon of Quality of Life improvements.
The actual message seems to be that they're having a lot of troubles and QoL is dropping.
> Energy efficiency causes energy consumption to increase. That's basic economics [0].
Switching from incandescents to LEDs reduces electricity consumption by up to 90% to produce the same amount of light. I mean sure, someone will have twice as much light in their life after that switch. Heck, show me the person who now have five times more light bulbs in their ceiling.
But show me the person who now has ten bulbs in the ceiling to make your statement marginally true, or twenty times, increasing annually, to make it representative of your point.
No, really. Show me the person who has twenty times the holes in the ceiling than originally designed, twenty times the light, they must have gone permanently blind. It’d be fascinating to meet that person. Given the confidence with which you stated that it’s basic economics, is it you?
Modern houses do have a lot more lightbulbs if you feel like keeping count, I saw a kitchen with something like 6 or 7 of them recently. Although I'd assume the big uptick would be industrial consumers. Particularly 24/7 operations with lots of opportunities for lighting. Or people would start installing better streetlamps as the ability to do so improved. But the point I'd like to make is that your lack of imagination isn't going to overcome the laws of economics no matter how much you can't imagine change. "I can't imagine basic results playing out" isn't an argument for why they won't, it just means you don't understand the situation well. Jevons' paradox flows pretty directly from the laws of supply and demand and the observation that energy demand is highly elastic because it does anything and everything.
And an important concept that you may be unaware of is 'fungibility' - that means some goods (energy being a prime example) can be repurposed across a wide range of activities and not just lighting. So if people don't need to put as much energy into lighting then they take the energy they would have used and put it to something else, like more comforts in their life. It is a very reliable trend.
Got it. It’s a basic law of economics that all kitchens must be lit like the surface of the sun by the end of the century otherwise we’ll all be in economic doom.
Also pretty sure that Jevons’ paradox might actually not apply indefinitely for a finite resource with a real price attached to it, but how does me, the ignoramus, dare to stand in the way of this ever more exponentially enlightened (literally) economic powerhouse.
Which makes sense as energy is a costly input and so using less to get the same result is a good thing.
In other documents the EIA list people moving to Southern states as one of several factors driving this trend.
Just moving from coal and gas plants of 40% efficiency to 60% combined cycle gas plants would make everything consuming the generated electricity use 1/3rd less primary energy with no changes on their end.
I just double check on GDP [1] as well rather than GDP per capita.
It is clear post 2007, UK and France and perhaps Germany as well had 15 years of stagnation. Using Bank of England 's calculator [2] £10.00 in 2008 would equal to £16.00 today.
You make good points, thanks for sharing. May I also add onto your speculation by saying that Brexit was a symptom of bad governance in general, and the energy crisis is a symptom too.
I have a feeling that somehow your point is going to be proven (or disproven) rather soonish, considering Trump's total turn on renewables and energy output ("Drill, baby, drill"). We might actually find out if the old school American way can indeed make a significant difference on the average guy...
Britain got what they voted for in the referendum and that's to be outside of it. It's permanent and 100% legally binding with no going back. It's pointless trying to compare the tranquil and prosperous days of EU membership with the bum deal they have today. Totally pointless.
There's absolutely nothing (other than internal politics) to stop Britain from asking to rejoin the EU, just like any other country. They'd lose a bunch of the perks they had from being a founding member, but countries joining the EU is a well known process
>Countries usually strike trade deals to reduce border bureaucracy, but the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement did the reverse, restoring the customs requirements that had disappeared with the advent of the EU single market.
Nothing was done in this regard. Frankly speaking the government thought the border check was good. And both UK and EU and each individual countries customs have very different views of the rules.
>Starmer’s negotiations with the EU could reduce friction for some individual sectors, such as food and drink exporters, if Labour makes good on its promise to strike a veterinary agreement with Brussels.
Only agriculture sector, not Food and Drink which often implies something else.
>smaller companies had less capacity to deal with “the deluge” of new bureaucracy, while larger businesses had the money and staff to adapt.
I can assure you even large businesses took very long time and still failed to adapt.
We can all argue about whether Brexit was right or wrong on politics. But there isn't a single shred of doubt post Brexit handling was absolutely appalling.
>> But there isn't a single shred of doubt post Brexit handling was absolutely appalling
That’s not the bit that confuses me, the bit that I’ve never had a satisfying answer to is why would anyone have believed anything else might be possible?
If the task was akin to extracting your eggs from a baked cake, then which personalities looked up to the job in 2016?
It is the basic like trading agreement, customs and border checks, simple things that you do when you trade.
The problem is absolutely no one inside the government, politicians or civil servant has any idea about trading. This makes drafting any decent, workable agreement and procedure near impossible. And that is ignoring all the politics involves, both internal and external.
Having said that, all that expectation may be a tall order. I have known little to zero government that actually execute well. Singapore being perhaps the only one. US Government does well comparatively speaking, partly because they are well paid, only let down are the politics.
> The problem is absolutely no one inside the government, politicians or civil servant has any idea about trading. This makes drafting any decent, workable agreement and procedure near impossible. And that is ignoring all the politics involves, both internal and external.
Correct, because all of the (then) EU countries outsourced this to the EU.
They have only realised the leaving part. They haven’t committed to the being a better European country part. Regulations, tax, government spending, immigration are no better than leaving the EU. They have so much potential if the Tory didn’t waste effort in fighting for status. Liz truss was right in bringing down government spending and lowering tax, Suella Braverman was right about immigration. Boris Johnson was right about abolishing EU regulations. Now everything is even worse, more tax, no cap illegal immigration, more government debt. But people instead blame the brexit.
However you feel about the way the EU and member states are currently run, it's odd to make such a big deal about leaving and then copy everything about the EU. Feels like you're just creating an EU country with less freedom of movement and free trade.
An area I don’t see much discussion on is the double whammy impact of Brexit AND Covid. Both have permanently reshaped live in UK and both landed within months of each other.
Yeah, the issue is how the cash was spent, who it was given to.
I'd rather have money printing be used for long-term investments, all things being equal.
But if it can be done, I'd rather inject it in the real economy rather than in the stock market and second-hand real estate.
Multiple things could have been done to do that. Rent freeze + automatic social security payments (rather than paying the business, you pay the now inactive employees until the economy starts again) would have been great.
The Brexit vote was June 2016. The withdrawal agreement was first drafted in 2018. The business impact was being felt for years before Covid as uncertainty and confusion affected investment.
Sure, but every country was affected by Covid. Not always to a similar degree as Britain but the differences in Europe in that regard aren't so big. Most handled it similarly, saw similar infection rates and are seeing similar long-term consequences. Just like we were all affected by cheap Russian gas disappearing.
I think you can safely cancel out Covid and Putin when comparing the way living standards and cost of living have changed over the last decade between the UK and countries like France, Germany, The Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, etc.
This is not a pro-Brexit opinion, but it is also interesting how much of the worst prophesies did not happen. Tech business in particular mostly stayed in the UK and London is still the best place to be within the European geographical region. And London is still the financial capital. Very little moved to Paris and Frankfurt. Indeed London is still a very attractive place for EU skilled labour despite the added friction.
> but it is also interesting how much of the worst prophesies did not happen.
So, I think the real issue was the new investments (net FDI fell off a cliff for years after the vote). Generally companies won't move unless forced to, but new companies generally seemed to avoid the UK post Brexit.
In fact, Ireland benefited from a bunch of this, I worked for 1-2 companies who'd moved their headquarters and staff from the UK to IE because they needed an EU base.
> Indeed London is still a very attractive place for EU skilled labour despite the added friction.
Honestly, not unless you work in finance. I was offered a Big tech role in London a few years back, and it was basically my euro salary converted into pounds, so it didn't make any financial sense for me to move (which is easy because I'm an Irish citizen).
> net FDI fell off a cliff for years after the vote
I don't know what stats you're looking at. As a percentage of market share the UK is essentially where it was in 2017 and inline with historical trends. Moreover it has been recently increasing largely due to poor conditions in Germany.
Actually, looking at more of the sheets I'm coming to the conclusion that I don't understand how they're measuring things here, so I dunno what's going on honestly.
5 years ago, the value of companies listed on the LSE was 2 times the size of Paris. Now they are almost equal (Paris was first in 2023). In 2024 only 18 IPO took place on the LSE, the lowest number in the last 20 years. London is still the major place for financial services but other European center are growing faster.
Before Brexit I knew tech companies where they had a UK EMEA HQ, where they would have people looking after all regions, with people living and paying tax in the UK. Post Brexit, so many people started moving home, companies started opening more local offices in region. So the people who would have been on high wages paying high tax here, sending in the UK, are not back in their home country.
London is still one of the two financial capitals of the world (the other one being NY). In finance no-one left London after Brexit, at most they shifted the legal minimum into the EU as required and not more.
a) Having English be the national language is a massive advantage which only Ireland shares (and Ireland has plenty of American tech outposts). That's an advantage people don't mention often.
b) The EU keeps adding regulations, which make it a less attractive place to invest. The UK seems to copy each of these regulations though, which maybe makes this a moot point.
But I think ultimately, it's probably down to network effects. The same way Twitter/X stuck around even though basically everything about it changed, cities might do the same.
Ah thought you meant Brexit agreement compelled UK to copy new EU laws. UK politicians (both Conservative and Labour) love to look around world to copy any regulation targetting business, especially ones targetting tech and online censorship, not far off actual copying China's great firewall...
No I mean more the fact that Britain seems to have left the EU at least in part because they didn't want to deal with EU regulation superseding what the UK wanted...
...and then proceeded to basically copy every EU regulation. Whatever one's take is on EU regulation, it's just odd to me to do that because you basically lose the upside of the EU while keeping the downside.
I was listening to some report about the economic effects which said that the economic impact of increased immigration had somewhat offset the negative impact s of Brexit :-)
As for finance, it seems a complicated area. Some UK companies seem to list on the NYSE now which is a reminder that when we lose things they don't only have to be lost to the EU.
Yeah, there's definitely a world where all EU/European businesses centralised in London. Honestly though, short term national interests have stopped that happening for 30 years now, so I don't expect any changes here (even though it's probably the best thing the EU/Europe could do to help more new tech businesses get off the ground).
The predicted overnight exodus didn't happen, but I'm certainly seeing a slow bleed out happening. We've had attrition on London headcount & all the replacements are in EU.
The Brexit the UK ended up with was pretty might the lightest possible Brexit. This is exactly because anyone in power rapidly understood anything else would be a huge disaster. It was interesting watching a succession of "leaders" scream that they would deliver true Brexit, be given power, and then lose their nerve only to be replaced by the next "true" brexiteer.
The result is we suffered only 10% of the maximum damage in exchange for 0% of the "advantages" (can't sign our own trade deals, no say in the EU, must take rules, last in queue for access etc).
I think this is actually the worst outcome long term: a car crash hard Brexit would have all but assured reentry in the long term. Instead we will be in Europe for all practical purposes but dragging our feet at the back...
Yet I don't think that anybody can argue that it was handled well. It was handled abysmally poorly.
- The regulatory burden on individuals and small businesses has increased quite dramatically since Brexit. New customs declarations, VAT rules, compliance checks, etc.
- Transit of goods to and from EU states is now many times more difficult than it was, and a lot of European firms simply don't want to ship to the UK any longer.
- Temporary skilled immigration from places like Poland and Romania has been replaced by permanent and largely unskilled immigration from places like Pakistan. En masse. Much to the consternation of Brexit voters, who have, for the most part, simply become anti-status-quo voters.
The impression I get is that the UK political establishment reclaimed some control over its laws, regulations, and borders -- and proceeded to spite the populace with them. Maybe they wanted revenge for being forced into a Brexit they didn't want to go through with. "We'll give it to 'em, good and hard."
Referring to 'unelected officials' highlights a misunderstanding of how the EU operates and getting really tiring.
They are named like most executive of other countries and confirmed by the EU parliament. The French prime minister is even more an unelected official than a EU commmissioner.
In the US, executive branch functionaries don't get to propose legislation, and even their ability to interpret rules has recently been constrained.
The EU commission consists of appointed bureaucrats, and one's national representatives in the EU commission and the EU parliament are always -- by definition -- a minority. I think that the UK's old share was something like 9%, which was not nearly enough to pass or block legislation without a lot of outside assistance.
Simply put, there was no way for a voter in the UK to meaningfully affect EU regulations. There was -- and still is -- essentially zero democratic influence at the member-state level.
But similarly, for a voter in Kansas, there is no way for them to meaningfully affect US regulation: Kansas people and representatives are a minority when taken at the level of the US, and they will not be enough to pass or block legislation without a lot of non-Kansas assistance. (and, sure, Kansas also has its own laws, the same way being in the EU does not mean each country does not have their own government able to take a lot of decisions independently of the EU decisions)
Kansas is run by officials who are formally affiliated with the national political parties -- the Democrats or Republicans -- and in most cases they'll push the party line. In the UK, if you're an old-school Tory, which is a sizable portion of the national voting demographic, the majority of the political parties in the EU commission and parliament will not reflect, promote, or support many of the positions you feel most comfortable with. The EU commission and parliament are dominated by centrist, pan-European blocs (e.g., EPP, S&D, Renew Europe) that rarely align with Tory priorities.
Kansas itself is not a uniparty state; the current governor is a Democrat, the former was a Republican. The EU, in contrast, had (and still has) an entrenched majority that is to the Tories as the Democracts are to Republicans -- and there's no prospect of that changing. So, de facto, those old-school Tories were like Republicans in Hawaii -- set to lose every contest.
Further, if Kansas were somehow a uniparty state, a Kansas man who feels out of place or unhappy with his local political situation could pack up and move to Texas, or Idaho, or Vermont. Happens all the time. But you can't exactly ask a working-age man from Leeds to pack up and move to Luxembourg or Slovenia. It's a much more difficult proposition, and it almost never happens.
I'm not sure how the 3 points you mentioned could have not ended like this.
For example, for point 2, what do you expect? That somehow EU states will provide to UK all the advantages of being in the union even if it is a bad strategy for them while at the same time UK does not give them any advantages?
The Brexit took a really long time to be installed. There were TONS of people telling "ok, the previous one is an idiot, put me in charge and I will reach the greatest deal ever", then failing and being replaced by someone saying the same. And a lot of these people were actively pro-brexit from the start, so it's hard to believe they fudged it on purpose. Also, what would be the point? They are also living in UK, and they are politician here. Surely, it is in their interest to get a strong country and be seen as a hero rather than as an incompetent.
A more realistic hypothesis is simply that it is just impossible to reach a perfect situation where you have the cake and eat it.
You sound like those old-school communists who insist that it's a very good idea in principle, but the proletariat has always been betrayed by leaders who didn't have enough faith.
The article seems to hyperlink to a 2020 poll of polls for what people are “now saying”.
Here is a current poll.
“11% of Britons say Brexit has been a success, with more Leavers saying it has gone badly than well”
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/51484-how-do-britons-...
The question you're using the answer from is:
> And so far, do you think that Brexit has been more of a success or more of a failure? %
With 62% saying failure (the rest are don't know/neither).
Note that only 55% say it was wrong to leave, and on such a close referendum anyway I'm not even sure that's a statistically significant different answer than in 2016.
Key point: you can think it hasn't gone well (managed poorly, opportunities no taken, whatever) without thinking it was wrong, or even that in hindsight being in the EU is better.
(You can also have voted to remain, but now want to make the best of it, and think it's going well/badly - it's completely independent.)
> Note that only 55% say it was wrong to leave, and on such a close referendum anyway I'm not even sure that's a statistically significant different answer than in 2016.
Conveniently ignoring that only 30% say we were right to leave. Nice try.
A sad truth about policy change is that most of the negative side effects take many years to manifest and are far out of the memory range of the average voter and so they never really get properly correlated with the cause, and therefore nobody ever changes their mind.
I think that's why so many US voters are now telling each other "I hope you get what you voted for" after the last presidential election. Sometimes you need a really, really bad hangover to decide that you need to make some changes in your life.
The tories completely butchered it. They've done the opposite of what should have been done in terms of making brexit pay, and now we're in an absolute mess.
This may provide interesting reading for many, as it was prior to the referendum of independence from the EU (which was painted as BREXIT by the EU)
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/3534-will-britain-vot...
I'd have to say that when the UK initially joined the EU most people probably didn't notice much of a difference, except that the euro made going on holiday and using the local currency a lot easier (I still remember the Lira in Italy being particularly difficult to get my head around). But otherwise it didn't make much of a difference in day-to-day life for most.
But now, leaving seems to be like constantly picking at a festering scab.
Except that the UK joined the EU before it was even called the EU and long before the Euro existed. The UK also never adopted the Euro or joined the Schengen area, so we never got the full open borders + same currency experience. Being over the water from the EU - with the exception of the Irish border, which is over the water from the rest of the UK anyway - helps add a sense of separation, uniqueness and sheer arrogance which has allowed our newspapers to lie about the EU for the entirety of its existence.
What's hurt us from leaving is the single market. It's now vastly more difficult to trade with the EU, our closest geographical neighbour. Lots of post-referendum talk about amazing trade deals with Australia and the USA and Canada and India came largely to nothing, and they're all so far away and much more difficult to manage the logistics of. Plus the awkward situation where Northern Ireland is still kind of in the single market and kind of not, due to the need to preserve various agreements about trade and movement over the Irish border.
Ultimately, EU membership was what helped us get out of the economic pit we were in in the early 1970s. It's what helped us build the massive services economy which fuelled the 1980s on a wave of consumer credit and London skyscrapers. I'm not saying those are necessarily good things, but the day to day impact of EU membership was actually enormous - just most people weren't consciously aware of it.
Which is why it was possible for a bunch of charlatans to convince a tiny majority to vote to leave it.
> Ultimately, EU membership was what helped us get out of the economic pit we were in in the early 1970s. It's what helped us build the massive services economy which fuelled the 1980s on a wave of consumer credit and London skyscrapers.
there was (and still is) no single market for services, so how could have joining the EEC have caused any of these things?
the 80s boom this was purely a result of Thatcherite policy (for better or worse), it had nothing to do with the EEC
> there was (and still is) no single market for services, so how could have joining the EEC have caused any of these things?
Well, let's address the "there still is no single market...". You are entitled to your opinion, but it differs to the official stance from the EU.
Here the page about the Single Market for Services: https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/single-market/ser...
Now let's have a look at the Treaty of Rome (1957): https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=LEGISSUM...
The summary says:
> It created a common market based on the free movement of:
> goods
> people
> services
> capital.
I assume we can differ in the opinion of how much of that has been achieved and at what time, and I agree it is far from perfect, but your statement is rather undifferentiated and categorical.
> You are entitled to your opinion, but it differs to the official stance from the EU.
the EU taking credit for things for which it was entirely uninvolved? imagine that
> Now let's have a look at the Treaty of Rome (1957)
the Treaty of Rome (1957) was, and still is, an aspiration
the signing of it did not spontaneously unify the laws and regulations of its parties, create a common market, unified defence policy, and create a political union. this took time and is still ongoing
> I assume we can differ in the opinion of how much of that has been achieved and at what time
the Single European Act itself, the instrument which created the EU single market did not enter effect until 1987, so clearly it could not have been the catalyst for the changes to the UK services economy in the 70s
the EU single market still does not encompass most services: professional qualifications are almost entirely controlled by member states, there is no banking union, there is no capital markets union, and it goes on
it does not exist in any functional way whatsoever
you don't have to make my word for it, you can read it in the EU's own reports on the subject, such as the latest here: https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/document/download... (1.1 Barriers in the Single Market)
this is very different to the single market for goods, which is extremely effective and functionally complete
but why debate this, when we have a direct example to refer to? a member state with significant intra-EU service exports leaving the single market
if being part of the EU single market for services was important, you would expect that UK service exports to the EU would decline significantly as a result
so, what happened in reality?
the exact opposite: UK service exports to the EU have increased since brexit
this should confirm to even the most pro-EU person that the single market for services is woeful
Did you mean, no single market for _financial_ services?
In that case, yes. But other kind of services do take advantage of the single market. The issue is the language barrier, so Germany, Austria benefits a bit more than other, but with non-english speakers aging out of the workforce, this is changing (we used to be mostly franco-belge, we now work with Spain, Italy and Romania. Weirdly our bad accent makes it easier to understand each others than Oxford English)
> when the UK initially joined the EU most people probably didn't notice much of a difference, except that the euro made
There were 26 years between the UK joining and the euro being introduced. 29 between that and coins & notes being in people's hands (for the first three years the currency was primarily only used for accounting purposes not day-to-day, though in the run up to 2002 prices were often presenting in both currencies in preparation for the public switch starting).
> But now, leaving seems to be like constantly picking at a festering scab.
There was a plan for joining. Leaving was a desire without a (properly thought out) plan.
After joining it took time to fully integrate and over the decades, unpicking all that was always going to be much more complicated than merging into it in the first place (the “we are not in any more, we don't have to do a thing or pay what we'd already agrees” ideas many brexit supporters seemed to have were pure fantasy). Most divorces are more complicated than the marriage that preceded them.
Of course, it is all us remoaners fault for not helping the leavers make their plan. :)
The Uk joined the EEC in 1973 and Euro coins and notes came into circulation in 2002.
It's like removing a particular dependency that you thought would be simple and it turns out to have been useful all over the place in ways that one person alone doesn't remember off the top of their head.
Then you start realising that the fab new modules you were thinking of using have all sorts of missing features and limitations and now your performance has dropped x% and memory usage went up instead of down.
...but you put the old module on the banned list and can't take the hit to your credibility of admitting that it wasn't as bad as the alternatives.
> But now, leaving seems to be like constantly picking at a festering scab.
Does it? I feel similarly to your description of joining about it: maybe I can't join an EU line (more often I now join an EU + UK + ... line, so it's only a signing quirk) and my passport is a different colour, but otherwise it hasn't made a difference day-to-day.. at all? Maybe if I was an international lorry driver or something?
EU + UK line are going to disappear when the new EU passport check (ESS) and electronic travel authorization (euphemism introduced by the US to call a visa) will come into force. And now that EU citizen have to do the same for UK it will to just transform a quick Eurostar travel in a big headache.
You've always needed to go through passport control on Eurostar.
I am an academic working on a multinational clinical trial. I assure you, it has made many aspects of my daily life much worse, from shipping things across borders, recruiting students or staff, to discussions about patient safety and the EMA/MHRA, as well as the desire of colleagues to collaborate internationally.
It's like the modern equivalent of:
"Apart from [big long list of stuff people never thought much about before] what has the EU ever done for us?!?"
The Treaty of Rome indeed.
Born in the 1960s, I remember when the UK joined a trade bloc. Decades later, during the Brexit referendum, the "think of the children" argument was heavily pushed by the Remain campaign. Yet, as someone who grew up within the trade bloc and later the EU, I recall that we had no say on the Maastricht Treaty—while other countries did, with some even being told to vote again.
I also remember the Liberal Democrats advocating for a referendum on EU membership from the early 2000s onward. However, when the vote finally happened, the level of vitriol and disdain the party directed at Leave voters completely changed my perception of what "liberal" and "democratic" truly mean. Their stance no longer aligned with those ideals.
Corporate lobbying has a significant impact on EU policy, often overshadowing the interests of its citizens. The EU’s influence is a mix of positives, negatives, and deeply concerning interventions. One striking example was when the entire EU was forced to pay higher prices for imported solar panels to protect a single German company. Another was the rushed adoption of CFL lighting just before LED technology became viable—CFLs contain mercury, posing a serious health hazard if broken, and many have likely ended up polluting landfills.
While I support the idealistic vision of a united Europe, many well-intentioned policies have been poorly thought out, leading to unintended consequences. The depopulation of many towns and villages across Europe due to youth migration is a direct result of EU-driven policies, yet little thought was given to the broader impact.
The UK sought EU reforms, but when those were denied, a referendum became inevitable. Many who voted Leave did so because the trade bloc they originally joined had evolved into something they no longer recognized. For decades, key decisions were made without direct input from the British people. It's no surprise that those who had once voted to join felt compelled to vote to leave. Yet, the mainstream media labeled them as racists, disregarding the complexity of their concerns.
Beyond the UK's experience, France’s actions in African countries when it adopted the Euro are worth investigating—they reveal a shocking side of EU monetary policy. Meanwhile, Germany, whose strong currency transitioned smoothly into the Euro, benefited enormously—often at the expense of struggling nations like Greece and Italy, which found themselves locked into an economic framework that served German interests far more than their own.
Saddest part is, France blocked any reforms until the UK had left the EU, and had they only engaged back then and made some reforms, the UK could have justified a new vote on the EU, with a more informed opinion. That in itself is a tradegy, but then the UK being physically seperated from Europe, has always seen many cultures and approached, not as aligned as the Europe and subsequently the EU as a whole, which beyond cheap holidays, duty free, not many really embraced the EU as a whole and vice versa.
> Beyond the UK's experience, France’s actions in African countries when it adopted the Euro are worth investigating—they reveal a shocking side of EU monetary policy.
Can you elaborate on this? I know enough to know that I should not pretend to know anything.
It's just AI slop. Ignore it.
https://archive.is/xpale
I keep an eye on OurWorldInData's Energy [0] and GDP [1] per capita graphs. They suggest that the UK is moving roughly in step with the other western-Europe powers and have been in a state of crisis since around 2005. It matches up well with the growing political instability that seems to be coming to a head all through Europe, there are a surprising number of people who refuse to accept that >33% drop in energy use (& trending) is a problem.
I'd speculate that Brexit was actually a response to an energy crisis slowly eroding living standards and people are getting more antsy when it turns out that it didn't lead to saner energy policy than the EU mainland. I remain glad that I'm closer to China who, for all her faults, at least has the whole energy-and-prosperity link under control. I wish my civilisation would re-learn that one.
[0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-energy-use?tab...
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?...
So let me get this right, solar panels on the roof, heat pumps, better fridges, and better insulation among other things are a crisis that will lead, in comparison, to the downfall of Western civilisation?
Jeez, I better randomly turn on a resistive space heater in the middle of summer when I’m not home so we can all live better lives somehow.
Do you think I should randomly flail my arms about in the hope it’ll somehow make more dividends for my bank of choice? Just want to double-check.
> So let me get this right, solar panels on the roof, heat pumps, better fridges, and better insulation among other things are a crisis that will lead, in comparison, to the downfall of Western civilisation?
Well the data does seem to incline in that direction. Particularly the UK, as far as I can tell it is impossible to be both intellectually honest and believe that a 33% (!) reduction in per capita energy is good for people's living standards. Someone'd have to be wilfully ignorant of Jevons' paradox, the only way to get that drop off is some sort of squeeze in their ability to access energy which isn't fun to live through. I feel for the poor who are being forced to live with that and be told that they're better off and shouldn't believe their lying eyes. It also neatly explains a lot of the political trends the UK has undergone in the last decade like the high debt level and general dissatisfaction with the leadership.
Ah yes, the activity of “accessing energy”, the very relatable and not at all abstract real activity that we fellow humans perform multiple times a day.
And here I thought we did “normal” things like “switch on the light” and notice that an LED still works just as well as an incandescent.
Or some decide to turn on the dishwasher instead of doing the dishes by hand, which does it far more efficiently.
Just wondering, since you seem to know, how do I make the money directly come out of the wall? Do I need to turn the crappy old five space heaters all to setting three to get all the money? Or should I just use the reverse cycle AC at a comfortable temperature like a normal person?
Also, you’re calling the US’ economic success since 1970 a failure, since that also saw a drop in per capital use of 33%, so I’ll happily trade you all the money you made since 1970 for a pile of wooden logs, seems like that’d be a great deal for you, eh?
> Or some decide to turn on the dishwasher instead of doing the dishes by hand, which does it far more efficiently.
That would increase measured energy consumption per capita.
> Also, you’re calling the US’ economic success since 1970 a failure
They've gone from the world's leading hegemon to arguably 2nd largest economy vs China which is now the world's industrial superpower. And indeed there are a lot of notable turns for the worse [0] in the US that started coming up from the 1970s. I do think there is a case to be made the the US's post-70s economic policy has been pretty lackluster. And there does seem to be a real problem that set in around 2000, it has been pretty much worse-to-worse steps since then. The energy trend is related.
> And here I thought we did “normal” things like “switch on the light” and notice that an LED still works just as well as an incandescent.
How much energy do you think that is saving? Order of magnitude?
[0] https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
The only graphs the relate energy consumption to anything else within the same graphs are 1) a curve implying we ought to be using 400 kW per capital use of continuously, enough to power hundreds of homes most of the time and 2) one that shows GDP flying off with no regard for per capital use of consumption of power.
I feel compelled to ask, how are you using your personal 400 kW today? Surely you must be using that amount since you think it’s vital to your personal prosperity. Is it Bitcoin mining or… honestly I can’t think of anything else?
> That would increase measured energy consumption per capita.
Not if the water is heated I would have thought is the understood assumption. But if you want to wash them in near enough ice water while pumping a substation into your crypto operation, then you do you.
Also, congrats. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bolder claim than calling the US stock market since 1970 an underperformer. Let us know that we evidently don’t, but make sure you’re not backtesting there with 50 years of hindsight. Make a prediction of similar boldness. I’m probably not gonna put money on that though, just wanna put that up my index fund investing front.
1. It is "per capita" not "per capital".
2. All the graphs relate to energy, energy is the economy. It is literally impossible to fabricate/transport any good or run any service without some sort of energy consumption happening. The reason the energy trend matters so much is because it leads every activity.
> I feel compelled to ask, how are you using your personal 400 kW today?
There is, and I speak with a great deal of literalness when I say this, no aspect of either of our lifestyles that doesn't involve consuming energy. I suspect you have a poor understanding of what energy is.
> Also, congrats. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bolder claim than calling the US stock market since 1970 an underperformer
An economy isn't the stock market. And I don't know how you made that mistake since just in another of your post you were complaining that too much money was going to billionaires! The stock market has been going great, the economy has been going so-so trending towards poorly.
I mean I’m of the weird belief that moving an item from point A to point B fundamentally uses, more or less, amount of energy x regardless of whether it’s 1950 or 2000 or 2050, but if you want to make the laws of Physics obey exponential growth to make sure we all remain economically prosperous then good luck to you.
Maybe not in this universe, but good luck to you nevertheless.
And yeah that was a typo. I guess that’s what happens when you use but a few watts on a mobile phone instead of an AI on the latest RTX to burn the equivalent half a log for every letter. I guess I’m not respecting the needs of the economy too much by doing that, eh?
I'd be a bit wary of using energy use that directly as indicator. Yes, it is a broad measure of industrialization, however:
Suppose a country goes on a broad national campaign to insulate drafty houses. That drops energy use, but has no corresponding drop in living standard.
i.e. there is some sort of measure/factor for efficient application of energy needed for it to really be meaningful
Run me through your numbers. Where did the 33% drop in per-capita energy use come from? What order of magnitude do you think is draft reductions?
Because if that were true I'd expect the UK would be a world-leading paradise with vast energy surpluses and everyone having a high old time in great comfort. That isn't the vibe they're giving off. They look like a nation with a slow-rolling energy crisis and a social contract that is coming under quite a bit of pressure because of it. Happy people don't vote for Nigel Farage.
Got it. LED bulbs are destroying the social contract. One would call you a luminary but it seems you’d prefer being called predominantly a producer of hot air, like the old incandescents, instead.
Also, the US is down 30% as well since peak MWh/person. If you had invested $1 in the S&P 500 at that peak, in about 1970, you’d have about $300 now. Seems like energy use mightn’t be all that coupled to economic success, but if you want to call the US since 1970 a failed society I’m not going to stop you.
> Also, the US is...
The US just elected Trump, where he won the popular vote. And are experiencing a sort of general crisis across financial, military and political domains. I don't think the US is particularly stable either, they just cope a bit better than the Europeans and are more flexible in calling for change when things aren't working out. Although I doubt it'll help them in the short term.
A) OK, so on the one hand we could blame $2 trillion going to billionaires in 2024 alone, near enough $6000 for every person in the country, with evidence of any trickle down effect being a thing still outstanding, but evidence of their political effect as clear as an outstretched arm over DC.
B) Or we could blame people not keeping five terrible refrigerators with no insulation at full blast instead of one good modern one.
I mean it’s probably not option A entirely, there’s sure to be options C through to Z too, but I’m probably not gonna consider B overly relevant.
>Where did the 33% drop in per-capita energy use come from?
That's kinda my point - we don't know the answer. The 33% could be a bad thing (deindustrialization), or a good thing (energy efficiency) or the most like - a mix.
It's largely a meaningless datapoint on its own.
> or a good thing (energy efficiency)
It can't be energy efficiency. Energy efficiency causes energy consumption to increase. That's basic economics [0]. The argument, at best, is that the energy efficiency improvements are cancelling out the energy availability problems to the point where quality of life stays about the same. Although the type of efficiencies gains we'd need to see to cancel out a 33% drop would be so staggering to the point where it'd be a major deal to the point where nobody would be able to stop pointing at the UK's outrageous success as an international beacon of Quality of Life improvements.
The actual message seems to be that they're having a lot of troubles and QoL is dropping.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
> Energy efficiency causes energy consumption to increase. That's basic economics [0].
Switching from incandescents to LEDs reduces electricity consumption by up to 90% to produce the same amount of light. I mean sure, someone will have twice as much light in their life after that switch. Heck, show me the person who now have five times more light bulbs in their ceiling.
But show me the person who now has ten bulbs in the ceiling to make your statement marginally true, or twenty times, increasing annually, to make it representative of your point.
No, really. Show me the person who has twenty times the holes in the ceiling than originally designed, twenty times the light, they must have gone permanently blind. It’d be fascinating to meet that person. Given the confidence with which you stated that it’s basic economics, is it you?
Modern houses do have a lot more lightbulbs if you feel like keeping count, I saw a kitchen with something like 6 or 7 of them recently. Although I'd assume the big uptick would be industrial consumers. Particularly 24/7 operations with lots of opportunities for lighting. Or people would start installing better streetlamps as the ability to do so improved. But the point I'd like to make is that your lack of imagination isn't going to overcome the laws of economics no matter how much you can't imagine change. "I can't imagine basic results playing out" isn't an argument for why they won't, it just means you don't understand the situation well. Jevons' paradox flows pretty directly from the laws of supply and demand and the observation that energy demand is highly elastic because it does anything and everything.
And an important concept that you may be unaware of is 'fungibility' - that means some goods (energy being a prime example) can be repurposed across a wide range of activities and not just lighting. So if people don't need to put as much energy into lighting then they take the energy they would have used and put it to something else, like more comforts in their life. It is a very reliable trend.
Got it. It’s a basic law of economics that all kitchens must be lit like the surface of the sun by the end of the century otherwise we’ll all be in economic doom.
Also pretty sure that Jevons’ paradox might actually not apply indefinitely for a finite resource with a real price attached to it, but how does me, the ignoramus, dare to stand in the way of this ever more exponentially enlightened (literally) economic powerhouse.
This is the weirdest bit I’ve seen someone stick to on this site for some time, and that’s saying something.
Here’s an important concept you seem to be unaware of: elasticity of demand.
In the US the amount of energy used to create an inflation adjusted dollar of GDP has been declining since 1949.
https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/index.php?tbl=T...
China appears to have a similar progress.
Which makes sense as energy is a costly input and so using less to get the same result is a good thing.
In other documents the EIA list people moving to Southern states as one of several factors driving this trend.
Just moving from coal and gas plants of 40% efficiency to 60% combined cycle gas plants would make everything consuming the generated electricity use 1/3rd less primary energy with no changes on their end.
I just double check on GDP [1] as well rather than GDP per capita.
It is clear post 2007, UK and France and perhaps Germany as well had 15 years of stagnation. Using Bank of England 's calculator [2] £10.00 in 2008 would equal to £16.00 today.
[1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?location...
[2] https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/in...
You make good points, thanks for sharing. May I also add onto your speculation by saying that Brexit was a symptom of bad governance in general, and the energy crisis is a symptom too.
I have a feeling that somehow your point is going to be proven (or disproven) rather soonish, considering Trump's total turn on renewables and energy output ("Drill, baby, drill"). We might actually find out if the old school American way can indeed make a significant difference on the average guy...
Britain got what they voted for in the referendum and that's to be outside of it. It's permanent and 100% legally binding with no going back. It's pointless trying to compare the tranquil and prosperous days of EU membership with the bum deal they have today. Totally pointless.
There's absolutely nothing (other than internal politics) to stop Britain from asking to rejoin the EU, just like any other country. They'd lose a bunch of the perks they had from being a founding member, but countries joining the EU is a well known process
>Countries usually strike trade deals to reduce border bureaucracy, but the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement did the reverse, restoring the customs requirements that had disappeared with the advent of the EU single market.
Nothing was done in this regard. Frankly speaking the government thought the border check was good. And both UK and EU and each individual countries customs have very different views of the rules.
>Starmer’s negotiations with the EU could reduce friction for some individual sectors, such as food and drink exporters, if Labour makes good on its promise to strike a veterinary agreement with Brussels.
Only agriculture sector, not Food and Drink which often implies something else.
>smaller companies had less capacity to deal with “the deluge” of new bureaucracy, while larger businesses had the money and staff to adapt.
I can assure you even large businesses took very long time and still failed to adapt.
We can all argue about whether Brexit was right or wrong on politics. But there isn't a single shred of doubt post Brexit handling was absolutely appalling.
>> But there isn't a single shred of doubt post Brexit handling was absolutely appalling
That’s not the bit that confuses me, the bit that I’ve never had a satisfying answer to is why would anyone have believed anything else might be possible?
If the task was akin to extracting your eggs from a baked cake, then which personalities looked up to the job in 2016?
It is the basic like trading agreement, customs and border checks, simple things that you do when you trade.
The problem is absolutely no one inside the government, politicians or civil servant has any idea about trading. This makes drafting any decent, workable agreement and procedure near impossible. And that is ignoring all the politics involves, both internal and external.
Having said that, all that expectation may be a tall order. I have known little to zero government that actually execute well. Singapore being perhaps the only one. US Government does well comparatively speaking, partly because they are well paid, only let down are the politics.
> The problem is absolutely no one inside the government, politicians or civil servant has any idea about trading. This makes drafting any decent, workable agreement and procedure near impossible. And that is ignoring all the politics involves, both internal and external.
Correct, because all of the (then) EU countries outsourced this to the EU.
They have only realised the leaving part. They haven’t committed to the being a better European country part. Regulations, tax, government spending, immigration are no better than leaving the EU. They have so much potential if the Tory didn’t waste effort in fighting for status. Liz truss was right in bringing down government spending and lowering tax, Suella Braverman was right about immigration. Boris Johnson was right about abolishing EU regulations. Now everything is even worse, more tax, no cap illegal immigration, more government debt. But people instead blame the brexit.
I've always wondered this about how Brexit went.
However you feel about the way the EU and member states are currently run, it's odd to make such a big deal about leaving and then copy everything about the EU. Feels like you're just creating an EU country with less freedom of movement and free trade.
An area I don’t see much discussion on is the double whammy impact of Brexit AND Covid. Both have permanently reshaped live in UK and both landed within months of each other.
Not just covid, but also the huge cash printing at the time. The average person on the street saw very little of that.
In the UK it has basically been a massive injection of inequality.
Yeah, the issue is how the cash was spent, who it was given to.
I'd rather have money printing be used for long-term investments, all things being equal.
But if it can be done, I'd rather inject it in the real economy rather than in the stock market and second-hand real estate. Multiple things could have been done to do that. Rent freeze + automatic social security payments (rather than paying the business, you pay the now inactive employees until the economy starts again) would have been great.
> both landed within months of each other.
The Brexit vote was June 2016. The withdrawal agreement was first drafted in 2018. The business impact was being felt for years before Covid as uncertainty and confusion affected investment.
Sure, but every country was affected by Covid. Not always to a similar degree as Britain but the differences in Europe in that regard aren't so big. Most handled it similarly, saw similar infection rates and are seeing similar long-term consequences. Just like we were all affected by cheap Russian gas disappearing.
I think you can safely cancel out Covid and Putin when comparing the way living standards and cost of living have changed over the last decade between the UK and countries like France, Germany, The Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, etc.
This is not a pro-Brexit opinion, but it is also interesting how much of the worst prophesies did not happen. Tech business in particular mostly stayed in the UK and London is still the best place to be within the European geographical region. And London is still the financial capital. Very little moved to Paris and Frankfurt. Indeed London is still a very attractive place for EU skilled labour despite the added friction.
> but it is also interesting how much of the worst prophesies did not happen.
So, I think the real issue was the new investments (net FDI fell off a cliff for years after the vote). Generally companies won't move unless forced to, but new companies generally seemed to avoid the UK post Brexit.
In fact, Ireland benefited from a bunch of this, I worked for 1-2 companies who'd moved their headquarters and staff from the UK to IE because they needed an EU base.
> Indeed London is still a very attractive place for EU skilled labour despite the added friction.
Honestly, not unless you work in finance. I was offered a Big tech role in London a few years back, and it was basically my euro salary converted into pounds, so it didn't make any financial sense for me to move (which is easy because I'm an Irish citizen).
> net FDI fell off a cliff for years after the vote
I don't know what stats you're looking at. As a percentage of market share the UK is essentially where it was in 2017 and inline with historical trends. Moreover it has been recently increasing largely due to poor conditions in Germany.
https://www.ey.com/en_uk/newsroom/2024/07/foreign-direct-inv...
The ONS appears to disagree: https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/bus...
You'll need to download the XLS file but it definitely seems to show substantial declines since 2016 (post Brexit vote).
That being said, the numbers are so large that I'm concerned I'm misinterpeting something.
My original comment was based on something reported in the FT recently, though I find myself unable to find the article itself.
Actually, looking at more of the sheets I'm coming to the conclusion that I don't understand how they're measuring things here, so I dunno what's going on honestly.
5 years ago, the value of companies listed on the LSE was 2 times the size of Paris. Now they are almost equal (Paris was first in 2023). In 2024 only 18 IPO took place on the LSE, the lowest number in the last 20 years. London is still the major place for financial services but other European center are growing faster.
the LSE is a single market in a set of thousands
it's an insignificant fraction of financial services London provides and certainly not significant data point to measure the EU against London
Wikipedia's "List of major stock exchanges"[1] has 19 exchanges, not 'thousands', and the LSE is the 11th. How is that not a significant data point?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_stock_exchanges (Nasdaq Nordic and Baltic are presented combined into one valuation)
there are more financial markets that stock exchanges
exchange traded equities are a minority of trading (probably not even 1%)
Before Brexit I knew tech companies where they had a UK EMEA HQ, where they would have people looking after all regions, with people living and paying tax in the UK. Post Brexit, so many people started moving home, companies started opening more local offices in region. So the people who would have been on high wages paying high tax here, sending in the UK, are not back in their home country.
Great for their home country, bad for the UK.
Is London still a financial capital? LSE has had more delisting than listings in the last 5 years
Not in equities (the LSE is basically on life support), but still doing well in areas such as FX, insurance and clearing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Financial_Centres_Index
London is #2 Nearest EU is at #10
London is still one of the two financial capitals of the world (the other one being NY). In finance no-one left London after Brexit, at most they shifted the legal minimum into the EU as required and not more.
I think there's a few things here:
a) Having English be the national language is a massive advantage which only Ireland shares (and Ireland has plenty of American tech outposts). That's an advantage people don't mention often.
b) The EU keeps adding regulations, which make it a less attractive place to invest. The UK seems to copy each of these regulations though, which maybe makes this a moot point.
But I think ultimately, it's probably down to network effects. The same way Twitter/X stuck around even though basically everything about it changed, cities might do the same.
Inertia can be overcome - some random situation might do it and then the pull the other way would be unstoppable.
Sure, but usually inertia doesn't get undone by some incrementally different alternative, but by something qualitatively different.
The UK and EU have roughly similar problems, benefits, infrastructure and regulatory environments.
If there was a Singapore-like city state off of the coast of France, I'm sure things would look different.
> The UK seems to copy each of these regulations though, which maybe makes this a moot point.
Which new EU regulation since Brexit has UK copied into law?
This year, the UK has both an "online safety law" (EU analog: DSA) and a digital market regulation (EU analog: DMA) coming.
Ah thought you meant Brexit agreement compelled UK to copy new EU laws. UK politicians (both Conservative and Labour) love to look around world to copy any regulation targetting business, especially ones targetting tech and online censorship, not far off actual copying China's great firewall...
No I mean more the fact that Britain seems to have left the EU at least in part because they didn't want to deal with EU regulation superseding what the UK wanted...
...and then proceeded to basically copy every EU regulation. Whatever one's take is on EU regulation, it's just odd to me to do that because you basically lose the upside of the EU while keeping the downside.
I was listening to some report about the economic effects which said that the economic impact of increased immigration had somewhat offset the negative impact s of Brexit :-)
As for finance, it seems a complicated area. Some UK companies seem to list on the NYSE now which is a reminder that when we lose things they don't only have to be lost to the EU.
To be fair, basically every large EU company appears to be moving towards a US listing, as the pool of capital available is much, much larger.
Brexit probably helped that though. ie. the net effect of Brexit might have weakened both Britain AND the EU
Yeah, there's definitely a world where all EU/European businesses centralised in London. Honestly though, short term national interests have stopped that happening for 30 years now, so I don't expect any changes here (even though it's probably the best thing the EU/Europe could do to help more new tech businesses get off the ground).
>Very little moved to Paris and Frankfurt.
The predicted overnight exodus didn't happen, but I'm certainly seeing a slow bleed out happening. We've had attrition on London headcount & all the replacements are in EU.
Is it really?
C'mn, contribute a little more to the thought/conversation/retort.
Do you feel differently?Are you baiting some reponse for sake of proving a point?
The Brexit the UK ended up with was pretty might the lightest possible Brexit. This is exactly because anyone in power rapidly understood anything else would be a huge disaster. It was interesting watching a succession of "leaders" scream that they would deliver true Brexit, be given power, and then lose their nerve only to be replaced by the next "true" brexiteer.
The result is we suffered only 10% of the maximum damage in exchange for 0% of the "advantages" (can't sign our own trade deals, no say in the EU, must take rules, last in queue for access etc).
I think this is actually the worst outcome long term: a car crash hard Brexit would have all but assured reentry in the long term. Instead we will be in Europe for all practical purposes but dragging our feet at the back...
> The Brexit the UK ended up with was pretty might the lightest possible Brexit.
this is not true in the slightest, we had the 2nd hardest exit possible
a possible outcome could have been that we left the EU and remained in the EU single market and EU customs union
there's this rather famous EU commission slide of the various options the UK could take: https://i.kinja-img.com/image/upload/c_fit,q_60,w_1315/adf2f... with integration decreasing as you move right (the "brexit hardness")
we ended up with the Canada option, the only harder option would have been to drop out without a signed deal (which thankfully didn't happen)
These threads are usually overcome by shills, AI or people who live nowhere near the UK. It gets really boring after a while.
> Five years after the UK left the European Union on 31 January 2020
That is only four years… Proofread by LLM I guess.
It's currently 2025 . . . 2020 was five years ago.
Maybe it’s an off-by-one error. Those are pretty common, you know.
O dear, cannot edit anymore, but misread as 31 december…
Should not comment when sick at home…
Today, January 31, 2025 is 5 years after January 31, 2020… Is the article saying something different? It’s paywalled
are you a time traveller from 2024?
Today is 31 January 2025 buddy
It was a good idea in principle.
It was a reaction to regulatory over-reach by unelected officials on the continent, which even those officials acknowledged at the time: https://www.politico.eu/article/jean-claude-juncker-says-eu-...
Yet I don't think that anybody can argue that it was handled well. It was handled abysmally poorly.
- The regulatory burden on individuals and small businesses has increased quite dramatically since Brexit. New customs declarations, VAT rules, compliance checks, etc.
- Transit of goods to and from EU states is now many times more difficult than it was, and a lot of European firms simply don't want to ship to the UK any longer.
- Temporary skilled immigration from places like Poland and Romania has been replaced by permanent and largely unskilled immigration from places like Pakistan. En masse. Much to the consternation of Brexit voters, who have, for the most part, simply become anti-status-quo voters.
The impression I get is that the UK political establishment reclaimed some control over its laws, regulations, and borders -- and proceeded to spite the populace with them. Maybe they wanted revenge for being forced into a Brexit they didn't want to go through with. "We'll give it to 'em, good and hard."
Referring to 'unelected officials' highlights a misunderstanding of how the EU operates and getting really tiring. They are named like most executive of other countries and confirmed by the EU parliament. The French prime minister is even more an unelected official than a EU commmissioner.
In the US, executive branch functionaries don't get to propose legislation, and even their ability to interpret rules has recently been constrained.
The EU commission consists of appointed bureaucrats, and one's national representatives in the EU commission and the EU parliament are always -- by definition -- a minority. I think that the UK's old share was something like 9%, which was not nearly enough to pass or block legislation without a lot of outside assistance.
Simply put, there was no way for a voter in the UK to meaningfully affect EU regulations. There was -- and still is -- essentially zero democratic influence at the member-state level.
But similarly, for a voter in Kansas, there is no way for them to meaningfully affect US regulation: Kansas people and representatives are a minority when taken at the level of the US, and they will not be enough to pass or block legislation without a lot of non-Kansas assistance. (and, sure, Kansas also has its own laws, the same way being in the EU does not mean each country does not have their own government able to take a lot of decisions independently of the EU decisions)
Sure, but there are important differences.
Kansas is run by officials who are formally affiliated with the national political parties -- the Democrats or Republicans -- and in most cases they'll push the party line. In the UK, if you're an old-school Tory, which is a sizable portion of the national voting demographic, the majority of the political parties in the EU commission and parliament will not reflect, promote, or support many of the positions you feel most comfortable with. The EU commission and parliament are dominated by centrist, pan-European blocs (e.g., EPP, S&D, Renew Europe) that rarely align with Tory priorities.
Kansas itself is not a uniparty state; the current governor is a Democrat, the former was a Republican. The EU, in contrast, had (and still has) an entrenched majority that is to the Tories as the Democracts are to Republicans -- and there's no prospect of that changing. So, de facto, those old-school Tories were like Republicans in Hawaii -- set to lose every contest.
Further, if Kansas were somehow a uniparty state, a Kansas man who feels out of place or unhappy with his local political situation could pack up and move to Texas, or Idaho, or Vermont. Happens all the time. But you can't exactly ask a working-age man from Leeds to pack up and move to Luxembourg or Slovenia. It's a much more difficult proposition, and it almost never happens.
I'm not sure how the 3 points you mentioned could have not ended like this.
For example, for point 2, what do you expect? That somehow EU states will provide to UK all the advantages of being in the union even if it is a bad strategy for them while at the same time UK does not give them any advantages?
The Brexit took a really long time to be installed. There were TONS of people telling "ok, the previous one is an idiot, put me in charge and I will reach the greatest deal ever", then failing and being replaced by someone saying the same. And a lot of these people were actively pro-brexit from the start, so it's hard to believe they fudged it on purpose. Also, what would be the point? They are also living in UK, and they are politician here. Surely, it is in their interest to get a strong country and be seen as a hero rather than as an incompetent.
A more realistic hypothesis is simply that it is just impossible to reach a perfect situation where you have the cake and eat it.
> It was a reaction to regulatory over-reach by unelected officials on the continent
It's quite funny to see that 5 years after Brexit the UK is still governed by unelected bureaucrats, including a few Russians in the House of Lords.
Are they going to get rid of hereditary membership for the House of Lords?
> It was a reaction to regulatory over-reach by unelected officials on the continent
This bullshit again.
Pray tell me, who exactly are the unelected officials?
Are you talking about the EU commission? They are appointed by the national governments, who are all elected.
It's like complaining that some minister in your own damn government did something you dislike, and call him an "unelected official".
You sound like those old-school communists who insist that it's a very good idea in principle, but the proletariat has always been betrayed by leaders who didn't have enough faith.