The people of the UK.

I had the feeling they were resting on the inherited wealth of their empire for rather long now. They always wanted special treatments in the EU. They even pay mad bucks on their royals for basically nothing.

Maybe this Brexit will go down bad and they will change their ways and join the EU in 10-20 years as 'real' members.

But I don't have many hopes in that. Probably they will end up like Switzerland or something :/

>They even pay mad bucks on their royals for basically nothing.

Royal family costs the UK £307m (highest number) with a revenue from them of £500m [1]. Seems like good business to keep paying for them.

1. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/07/is...

I've heard two different versions of this.

The first being that the Royal family actually makes the UK money because they cost less to maintain than what is made up for in brand image and tourism benefits.

The second is that because they don't pay tax, it means their enterprises are not as efficient and the return on the crown lands is about half of what could be expected on a normal enterprise.

The source for both these viewpoints are videos on YouTube. The first is from CGPGrey (I think), while the second is a reply to that video.

CGPGrey's vids are awesome. Unique perspective as an American living in the UK. I highly encourage anyone interested to go seek them out.

Also, he mentions in his podcasts that he is a HN user.

Interesting, didn't know that :)

Look into the Crown estate if you're interested, that's how they make a lot of their money, with any profits going back to the treasury AFAIK.

Shouldn't this estate make the same money even without them spending money on this extravagant lifestyle?

Without a royal family, the estate would belong to the nation, and the income could go directly to the treasury.