Sorry Fueled. That really sucks. Hopefully everyone takes a breather over the weekend and the market comes back.
Edit: I think Cameron steps down because this is basically a vote of no confidence in his leadership. He strongly backed Remain. It wouldn't make sense for him to be the one to organize the exit.
This is a berkeleying disaster for the UK. They think the pound is low now, they've just screwed themselves royally for a couple of generations. The only two good things I can think of now are a) I have no assets left there and b) It will be dirt cheap to visit in future.
A group of, oh we're not supposed to call ourselves ex-pat on here, err, People born in Britain now living and working in the US, had a discussion this morning. We all agree that if the Eu offers people with a British passport a chance to trade it in for a European passport we will all do that.
Que a new Scottish referendum on leaving (once) Great Britain and joining Europe, and it will pass massively this time. Then watch Northern Island and Wales follow suit if they can.
So can I admit I haven't been following any of the news about this? (Or much else for that matter, I don't watch regular TV or listen to over-the-air radio.)
Is there a Cliff Notes / "Brexit for Dummies" I can read? Or maybe someone can sum up what happened and why there was a vote to exit the Union?
bastomatic wrote: Edit: I think Cameron steps down because this is basically a vote of no confidence in his leadership. He strongly backed Remain. It wouldn't make sense for him to be the one to organize the exit.
Yup, he set up the referendum as a confidence vote in himself and originally expected it to be a vote to remain by a 10 point margin.
I bet the Eu negotiators are not going to be in a generous mode when it comes to settling how to exist.
In reply to Jerry: I thought this was helpful:
Fueled by Caffeine wrote: Well.. This just cost me thousands. Thanks.
Just wait a few weeks. It's all reactionary now.
Adrian_Thompson wrote: Que a new Scottish referendum on leaving (once) Great Britain and joining Europe, and it will pass massively this time. Then watch Northern Island and Wales follow suit if they can.
Yep. I expect this to happen very soon.
Voting breakdown shows that Wales and England voted Leave. Scotland overwhelmingly voted remain (62%!) and Northern Ireland voted 56% remain. I agree that a Scottish independence is a much stronger possibility now than at the time of the last referendum.
From what I understand - while many talked about independence, and being ruled by those in Brussells who are not elected by Brits, really the referendum came down to fears and distaste for immigrants. Once in the EU, it's easy for an immigrant to move between countries, and many in the UK see themselves as overrun with immigrants, taking jobs from the blue collar native Brits. It's telling that only London voted Remain out of the whole of England. All the blue collar areas were strongly Leave.
bastomatic wrote: I think Cameron steps down because this is basically a vote of no confidence in his leadership. He strongly backed Remain. It wouldn't make sense for him to be the one to organize the exit.
From what I've been able to piece together not living in the UK anymore, one of the reasons Cameron agreed to the referendum in the first place was to pull out the rug underneath what I consider the nutso fringe of the Tory party who've been agitating against and blaming the EU for anything from the existence of human rights legislation (which actually isn't the fault of the EU...) to the weather. That just blew up in his face in a spectacular fashion. Hence, as Adrian says it's also a massive no-confidence vote for Cameron.
tuna55 wrote:Fueled by Caffeine wrote: Well.. This just cost me thousands. Thanks.Just wait a few weeks. It's all reactionary now.
Thats not my timeline for buying a house.
Adrian_Thompson wrote: I bet the Eu negotiators are not going to be in a generous mode when it comes to settling how to exist.
Certain German politicians (the usual suspect arseholes like Schäuble, of course) have already been making threatening noises for the last few weeks, not realising that they were/are actually reinforcing the stereotypes of the EU being mostly a vehicle of Franco-German hegemonial aspirations. Why they weren't able to realise that this would get them both barrels of typical British bloody minded-ness, I honestly don't understand.
All that said, unless the UK actually invokes Article 50 and begins leave proceedings, this is mostly hot air.
In reply to bastomatic:
Actually it's not that easy for non-EU immigrants to move to the UK even if they're already in the EU. The UK never joined the Schengen agreement of open borders and has retained border controls this whole time. That's never stopped certain political parties from stoking the fear of Britain being overrun with immigrants while at least part of their constituency and some of their leaders were living in Spain..
Interesting times indeed.
The rise in populist politics (is that not just another word for "democracy?)is trying to tell us something.
In the case of Brexit, as with all divorce proceedings, they can be cordial and fairly benign, or vindictive and ruinous to both parties. My fear is that Brussels is going to put on their shiny happy person hats and try to make an example of the UK as a deterrent to other countries who might be contemplating the same move. I bet article 50 gets re-wrote soon.
Since we are making predictions here, I predict that this is the beginning of the end of the EU. The people of Italy of France will also want to throw off their oppressors and force a similar referendum and they too will exit. The central bankers who have cobbled the whole system together by trying to solve a too much debt problem by creating a lot more debt are pretty much out of arrows in their quivers and don't have any comprehension that the average people are angry and fed up and want change. Goodbye EU.
I wonder if this will start the slide where our stock market makes the 30-50% drop that it has coming to get to where it should be.
Adrian_Thompson wrote: A group of, oh we're not supposed to call ourselves ex-pat on here, err, People born in Britain now living and working in the US, had a discussion this morning. We all agree that if the Eu offers people with a British passport a chance to trade it in for a European passport we will all do that.
This question is for Adrian or anyone else that might be able to answer.
I'm curious how it will affect my wife. She's in the U.S. on a green card** and has both a British and EU passport as a result. I'm assuming that once it all goes through, her EU passport will be null and void? What would be the advantage, if they offer it, for her to take an EU passport over the British one? Would it technically be possible since with an EU passport, you don't really have a "home country"?
I'm really uneducated on all of this and am honestly just curious. This is just about the only thing I can see that the Brexit would affect in my day to day life.
**She's been in the U.S. for almost 40 years. Her green card will never "expire" because her family came in during some big migration period where the green cards issued during that time are good forever. Or, something like that. Again, I'm relatively clueless.
-Rob
There could actually be an upswing for the US stock market after the initial uncertainty/fear based dip wears off. It's hard to predict really, only time will tell (as usual).
In reply to 84FSP:
Thanks for reminding me to order up some rally rubber
Fueled by Caffeine wrote:tuna55 wrote:Thats not my timeline for buying a house.Fueled by Caffeine wrote: Well.. This just cost me thousands. Thanks.Just wait a few weeks. It's all reactionary now.
Me either. I had sell orders in on most of my [taxable] holdings with the intention of using the proceeds for a down payment. Now we'll either be renting for a while longer, or else (and the one hope I'm holding onto) we'll see an upswing in the coming days. I've actually gone and increased my sell limits. I suspect that this occurring on a Friday will make it more even keeled though.
Is the referendum any more binding than the vote for "Boaty McBoatface"?
Soooo...did Germany just win Europe a few decades too late?
In reply to rob_lewis:
Honestly I have no idea. I became a US Citizen in 2008 so it will not affect me. I assume you are correct that she will end up as just a British Citizen in the future and not an Eu citizen. I do hope that the Eu make some kind of offer to Brits who want to stay part of the Eu to get some kind of Eu passport.
Just as with certain politicians over here, the whole immigration thing is blown way out of proportion. I think there are fewer new immigrants in the UK from other parts of Europe than there are Ex-pat (sorry) Brit's living in the south of Spain alone. Those people are now in a world of hurt too.
Why doesn't your wife apply for US Citizenship? The UK and US are both fine with duel Citizen ship of each other. This is not the case for all counties though.
Brian wrote: Is the referendum any more binding than the vote for "Boaty McBoatface"?
Joking aside, actually I don't think so. I think the government could chose not to act on it, but that would be an entirely new and different E36 M3 storm.
In reply to RossD:
It's never stopped the rest of the world (looking at you Canadians) from making wild grandiose statements about US politics for decades.
Adrian_Thompson wrote: Why doesn't your wife apply for US Citizenship? The UK and US are both fine with duel Citizen ship of each other. This is not the case for all counties though.
She's lazy. (Thank goodness she's not on the forum!!). I've asked her that a couple of times. She doesn't want to go through the hassle of applying for citizenship for, what she belives, isn't much benifit. She has an SSN, no problems working in the U.S., pays taxes just like I do, etc. The only thing that she thinks the citizenship would give her is the right to vote. And with our political climate, that's not very appealing.
I also think there is a part of her that would like to move back one day. TMI, but I was born in Bermuda while my dad was stationed there. As a result, I could claim myself as a Bermuda subject and make moving to England easier since I have both and U.S. birth certificate and a Bermuda one. (Although, oddly, can't claim dual citizenship. At least from what I've researched).
Ninja Edit. I always assumed I could, turns out I can't claim Bermuda citizenship just because I was born there. One of those things my parents always told me, but turns out isn't true....
While I doubt we'd ever move, I think she doesn't want to let go of that "option".
-Rob
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