I See You’ve Suddenly Become an Expert in EU and UK Politics!

Congratulations to all the folks on Facebook and Twitter that have spent the past four years quietly learning hordes of information about the European Union and United Kingdom. Your devotion to informing yourself before resolutely expressing your opinion that fully one half or another of the United Kingdom are all idiots is laudable. I’m sure, especially for those not living in the UK, that you have thought through the decision far more than they.

Take this gem, for example: searches for “what is the EU” have “skyrocketed,” according to the Washington Post, and they conclude–like many–that “leave” voters had no idea what they were voting for, and were “frantically” searching to learn what they had done. (The # of daily searches briefly went up by 3x.)

Surely it cannot be the case that searches for “what is the EU?” numbered some tiny number before the vote, and tripled to some other tiny number, representing a tiny fraction of the voting population. I am sure the Washington Post somehow divined that most of these searchers were not, in fact, “remain” voters. I would love to know how they figured that out.

I also stand amazed that people read so thoroughly the provisions of the Schengen, EU trade policies, and labor/immigration policies that they were able to determine that the long-term fundamentals of the EU were so good or poor, despite professional economists and businesses being divided on the matter. I’m doubly impressed that so many people have read the TTP and TTIP so thoroughly that they understand the nuances of all three of these arrangements to be vehemently in favor of one or two of these, while so completely opposed to the other.  I urgently await to be taught the finer details of thousand-page free trade policies to understand which I should favor and which I should disapprove of.

So hats-off to you: half of the UK had no idea what they were voting for, but I’m so glad that you had it figured out.

–Erik

PS: The London Stock Exchange has recovered all of its losses that it suffered from Brexit. That’s right: totally bounced back.

PPS: For those of you who have not studied the topic as exhaustively as your friends on Facebook and Twitter, Xander and I go in-depth into the arguments for/against the Brexit and what some of the long-term aftermath might look like, in some of our most recent ReConsider episodes:

Ep 10: Brexit!

Ep 13: Brexit II: Judgment Day