[hbsbsbsndk]

I think it's a "fuck around and find out" situation like Brexit. People love to stomp their feet and complain, but when some big interest group actually organizes the vote and it happens they'll be caught unawares.

People complain about have/have-not provinces, but Alberta would be in a much worse position as a independent nation. There are benefits to Confederation beyond just shuffling tax dollars around.

[aylmao]

This certainly sounds to me more like a Texas situation. Independent for about a year, to then join the USA.

[alfor]

It would join the USA right away. That would be the end of Canada.

[AnimalMuppet]

I can understand Alberta being unhappy with Canada. But the solution is to join the US? Have they seen the US lately?

[Alupis]

As an outsider with no horse in the race, and pays little attention to domestic affairs of foreign nations - has Brexit actually been that awful for people?

For all of the doomsday talk, hand-wringing, and sky-is-falling bluster, nothing substantial/consequential seems to have materialized.

[kergonath]

> For all of the doomsday talk, hand-wringing, and sky-is-falling bluster

You have to be careful about these arguments. A lot of them were post-fact rationalisation by Brexiteers who needed to justify their actions, and they did it by erecting strawmen. Nobody said that the sky would be falling. Nobody sane, anyway. What was said was things like “immigration will happen anyway because the UK has a structural need for manpower”, which is true and immigration is still increasing; “this will create more red tape rather than less”, which it did; “exports will fall and it is our major market”, which they did and it still is; and so on.

If you read actual prospective papers from the time, the warnings were true, give or take the massive spanner in the works that was Covid. The EU did not roll over, and the UK did not get access to the single market without costs. The UK was sidelined and just spent 10 years cap in hand trying to get free trade deals. Fishermen are not better off, far from it. Environment regulations did get to shit. The cost in terms of GDP was massive. Poverty did rise (although it was bound to rise anyway with pre-Brexit policies).

If the whole thing is not a massive self-inflicted shot in the feet, I don’t know what is.

[nonchalantsui]

I mean if you don't pay attention to foreign affairs, of course nothing seems consequential?

You can begin here:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/may/19/how-has-bri...

[pessimizer]

None of it. And you can't get a remainer to admit it, ever. They'll just deny they ever said anything was going to happen, and call leavers stupid liars again. According to remainers, all of that screaming they were doing is because they thought Brexit would slightly weaken the £.

Purely a protest of the wealthy and the haters of export? It didn't seem like it at the time. I thought they were fighting a Nazi-ridden post-apocalyptic deathscape. The numbers of dead from medication shortages was supposed to be massive. Was that ever a sane or good-faith prediction?