The Brexit Thread

[Tom]

It’s the management of Brexit that has been the disaster, not the act itself. But the issue was that the people promising things weren’t in government at the time. The government, as bad as they were, at the time did say it’d have a negative effect, to be fair.

If, for example, they had legislated for the £17b or so membership fee to be immediately diverted to the NHS or go into a hospital construction & recruitment fund then they could have claimed at least one benefit.

Another mistake was putting a remainer in Theresa May in charge of it. Someone on the Leave side should have been forced to take responsibility.

All old arguments/points of course, but need raising every now and then.

 

[AstroDan]

European car manufacturers have also paused production over the last 2-3 years, it’s to do with supply issues globally due to covid not Brexit, try buying a new car, 12 months waiting list at least.
It’s getting boring to keep reading that it’s down to Brexit now to be honest.

Brexit is an unmitigated disaster. Far more than this specific issue.

I'm sick of reading JRM types attempt to worm their way out of ridiculous holes with lies. It is absurd that people still try to dig for any little glimmer of something good from this ridiculous act.

Why bother with any form of actual evidence when that matters not to a group of hardliners? Who cares about people's *actual* lives?

Thankfully the winds are starting to change.

Sense will eventually prevail.

Sent from my SM-G991B using Tapatalk

 

[Benzin]

You're forgetting the (up to) £200k over the next 5 years due to pork markets with Korea now opening up.



That the EU also have now but ours is clearly better.

 

[Dave]

It’s the management of Brexit that has been the disaster, not the act itself. But the issue was that the people promising things weren’t in government at the time. The government, as bad as they were, at the time did say it’d have a negative effect, to be fair.

If, for example, they had legislated for the £17b or so membership fee to be immediately diverted to the NHS or go into a hospital construction & recruitment fund then they could have claimed at least one benefit.

Another mistake was putting a remainer in Theresa May in charge of it. Someone on the Leave side should have been forced to take responsibility.

All old arguments/points of course, but need raising every now and then.

1) The deal we have was negotiated by a brexit supporting PM (Johnson) if brexit fans had actually listened to May you would have got a less damaging deal (still bad but not as bad).

2) Cutting yourself off from you nearest trading partners was always going to be damaging. Bringing in goods from further afield is more expensive, that’s not complicated it’s just counting.

The mental gymnastics people do to excuse the damage of brexit would be awe inspiring if the whole thing wasn’t damaging this country so much.

 

[Tom]

The government of the day warned against rising prices and the need for so-called emergency budgets. This was ignored and when that government lost the argument they left office. The people that were promising lower prices, higher wages and more NHS money have since been in government and delivered nothing, as you say. Johnson and Mogg are still highly regarded by Brexiteers for whatever reason.

If Labour or any alternative Conservative government wants an credibility on the issue, they should outline what they will do differently. Be that, divert membership money that was lied about to the NHS, reduce immigration levels, enter into a customs arrangement or protect closing factories with state aid.

 

[Dave]

The government of the day warned against rising prices and the need for so-called emergency budgets. This was ignored and when that government lost the argument they left office. The people that were promising lower prices, higher wages and more NHS money have since been in government and delivered nothing, as you say. Johnson and Mogg are still highly regarded by Brexiteers for whatever reason.

If Labour or any alternative Conservative government wants an credibility on the issue, they should outline what they will do differently. Be that, divert membership money that was lied about to the NHS, reduce immigration levels, enter into a customs arrangement or protect closing factories with state aid.

None of them can outline what they want to do as the only solution is greater alignment with the EU, and if they suggest that the client media will froth at the mouth and scream about it.

It’s why Labour are paralysed by the issue as well, no one dares admit the bleedin obvious in fear of the crazy’s going off on one.

 

[Matt.GC]

I had no idea that the government had changed? I thought the Tories had been in power since 2010?

 

[Tom]

The parliamentary Conservative Party is a coalition of millionaires, vicious right-wing fascists, populists, token minorities, liberals and even a few half-decent people. Any government is usually made up up of a mere a slice of any parliamentary party. Unfortunately in the Tories’ case it’s inevitably always bad due to the huge influence of their donors, millionaire businessmen, and their own often foul agendas.

I’d argue it’s actually the Tories that are the most paralysed because their backers demand wage erosion via free-flow immigration, but they win elections on a mantra of the exact opposite (even though it’s never been realised, but it seems people fall for it every time).

Labour’s path on Brexit is a lot more straight forward as many voters and their backers the unions would want reduced immigration and wages to rise through competition. They just need to demonstrate the metal, and accept they will upset some people in London, which electorally they do not even need.

 

[Dave]

The parliamentary Conservative Party is a coalition of millionaires, vicious right-wing fascists, populists, token minorities, liberals and even a few half-decent people. Any government is usually made up up of a mere a slice of any parliamentary party. Unfortunately in the Tories’ case it’s inevitably always bad due to the huge influence of their donors, millionaire businessmen, and their own often foul agendas.

I’d argue it’s actually the Tories that are the most paralysed because their backers demand wage erosion via free-flow immigration, but they win elections on a mantra of the exact opposite (even though it’s never been realised, but it seems people fall for it every time).

Labour’s path on Brexit is a lot more straight forward as many voters and their backers the unions would want reduced immigration and wages to rise through competition. They just need to demonstrate the metal, and accept they will upset some people in London, which electorally they do not even need.

We have at this very minute reduced immigration and low unemployment and high wage competition hence why outside the public sector wages have risen quickly over the last year.

You literally couldn’t make the job market more competitive right now but the economy is still struggling, the reason is our economy isn’t stagnating and inflation ballooning due to a high demand caused by pay increase but low supply due to import issues and energy prices (caused by the Ukraine war).

So Labour cannot win on a low immigration high wage promise as we have low immigration right now (despite what the Daily Heil says) and funnily enough nothing has changed.

 

[Tom]

Not sure we have reduced net immigration by any significant margin, and wages are rising below inflation therefore still being eroded in real terms. We’ve simply replaced EU numbers with those from other counties. It would have been interesting what Brexiteers voting in 2016 would have thought if you told them exiting the EU would make the U.K. “less white”.

If Labour stands on a platform of increasing immigration, it will be a bigger shooting in the foot electorally than what the Tories have done to themselves this year. Believe Starmer is semi wise to this though based on recent statements.

 

[Benzin]

Not sure we have reduced net immigration by any significant margin, and wages are rising below inflation therefore still being eroded in real terms. We’ve simply replaced EU numbers with those from other counties. It would have been interesting what Brexiteers voting in 2016 would have thought if you told them exiting the EU would make the U.K. “less white”.

Given our reliance on external labour sources, if some had bothered to think about it more than "boo immigrants" they would've realised that EU labour would've been replaced by other countries.

Most of the new trade deals we'll make will involve something in regards to easier immigration policies. And because we need that labour will have to agree to it.

Even though we could've controlled immigration levels in the first place but chose not too. Government policy is to make something an issue but not actually do anything to solve it (see also creating safe routes to reduce the trafficking of immigrants/refugees. The current method of asylum seeking is completely messed up).

 

[jon81uk]

I had no idea that the government had changed? I thought the Tories had been in power since 2010?

It changed from David Cameron who was probably fairly pro-EU to May/Johnson/Truss/Sunak. The ruling party may not have changed but we’ve had multiple general elections, changes of leader and changes of cabinet in the last six years.

Not sure we have reduced net immigration by any significant margin, and wages are rising below inflation therefore still being eroded in real terms.

Yet we have high employment but companies aren’t particularly increasing their wages to attract workers. Pretty much everywhere offering minimum wage work has a vacancies sign outside, but they don’t want to or can’t afford to pay more.

 

[Matt N]

It appears that the government’s deadline for repealing or changing every EU law has been pushed back to 2026: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rishi-sunak-eu-laws-lords-plans-2024-nqr3h6bgk

Is it me, or does repealing every EU law just sound as though the government wants to differentiate us from the EU as much as possible for the sake of it? Don’t a lot of the EU laws being repealed provide very useful purpose, and a great deal of legal safeguarding to the UK?

 

[Jonathan]

It appears that the government’s deadline for repealing or changing every EU law has been pushed back to 2026: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rishi-sunak-eu-laws-lords-plans-2024-nqr3h6bgk

Is it me, or does repealing every EU law just sound as though the government wants to differentiate us from the EU as much as possible for the sake of it? Don’t a lot of the EU laws being repealed provide very useful purpose, and a great deal of legal safeguarding to the UK?

My interpretation is pretty similar to yours, Matt. It's like they want to repeal EU laws for the sake of it and haven't really considered the implications that it might have.

 

[Craig]

Is it me, or does repealing every EU law just sound as though the government wants to differentiate us from the EU as much as possible for the sake of it? Don’t a lot of the EU laws being repealed provide very useful purpose, and a great deal of legal safeguarding to the UK?

Correct. It's a bit of a daft obsession and pointless cost to please the hardcore brexiteers. The vast majority of laws are well written, and most importantly agreed by the UK as a country at the time they came into force. If there's truly an issue with specific ones, then sure review them on an ad-hoc basis. The vast majority will probably just be rewritten, purely so the wording is different but the effect of said law is still the same. But to some idiots it's of paramount importance to do it because "we won" .

I note the article headline says "Lords will delay Rishi Sunak’s bonfire of EU laws" when the actual reasoning mentioned further in the article is because of the sheer civil service manpower required to properly review them:

However, the scale of the task means that it is increasingly seen in Whitehall as an impossible deadline, with internal estimates that thousands of officials will have to be diverted to review legislation full time.

The initial deadline of the start of 2024, as well as using the term "bonfire" is all made to sound as though we've made a "success" of Brexit. Much like this whole mess though, it's purely marketing bull which will ultimately result in a massive cost with very little benefit seen at the end of it.

Elsewhere in Brexit successes, the Financial Times today has said that economists are forecasting that the UK faces the worst and longest recession of the G7:


So mucking about playing with laws that in general work really is the least of our worries with the mess everything else is in at the moment!

 

[Benzin]

It appears that the government’s deadline for repealing or changing every EU law has been pushed back to 2026: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rishi-sunak-eu-laws-lords-plans-2024-nqr3h6bgk

Is it me, or does repealing every EU law just sound as though the government wants to differentiate us from the EU as much as possible for the sake of it? Don’t a lot of the EU laws being repealed provide very useful purpose, and a great deal of legal safeguarding to the UK?

Yes. But we also don't want pesky things like working time directives preventing companies from doing minimal for employees whilst gaining all the benefits and increasing profits whilst more food banks are opened.

Probably get those privatised soon.

 

[Tom]

Political gesturing mainly. The 'repeals' in many cases would be replaced by many cut-and-paste bills under different names, with a few things tweaked to please Conservative Party donors.

By 'pushing back' the 'repeals', they are admitting they don't have enough time on their watch so will kick the can down the road. Also leaves a carrot for business to back to Tories at the next election, as well as a few possible populist claims of future plans to try and fool enough of the electorate for a record fifth time. Cue something desperate like a referendum on the death penalty for certain crimes.

 

[Matt N]

To clarify, I am still willing to reserve full judgement on Brexit. I have always been sceptical of it in principle, but I confess that we have not had the finest circumstances in which to judge its impact. Therefore, I believe it is currently unfair to judge Brexit as a whole given the circumstances.

COVID and the war in Ukraine have made it difficult to judge whether our current crises are caused by Brexit or the various global disasters of the last few years (COVID, Ukraine etc). Therefore, I don’t think it’s entirely fair to declare Brexit a bust at this stage; there could be a strong element of the COVID & Ukraine factor playing into its alleged failure at the moment.

However, I’ll admit that I’m not sure whether some of the current proposed uses of “Brexit freedoms” are the most productive things to be focusing on at present, and I am sceptical as to whether many of them would tangibly benefit the British population at large.

For instance, I am sceptical about whether the planned introduction of imperial measures is a big issue for the bulk of the population. I do get that some people are very passionate about imperial measures, and they should of course be listened to, but I myself believe that there are currently bigger fish to fry than whether our flour is sold in grams or ounces. In fact, I actually believe that this could be counterintuitive for a number of reasons. The bulk of British products are produced in the EU, where metric units are mandated, so surely making an imperial product specifically for Britain will increase costs for UK consumers during a cost of living crisis, no? Also, introduction of the metric system in Britain predated EU membership, occurring in 1965. Therefore, I’d wager that few below the age of about 60 fully understand the imperial system, so it could confuse most consumers in this day and age.

I am also sceptical about whether differentiating so starkly from the EU on every single policy area is a productive course of action. I do get that many of those who voted for Brexit wanted sovereignty and for Britain to stand on its own two feet, but I do not believe that sovereignty and having a productive relationship with the EU are mutually exclusive. The current government seems very keen to think outside of the EU box at almost every turn, and while I do applaud outside-the-box thinking, I also believe that the box exists for a reason in a number of cases, and I’m not sure that disagreeing with the EU simply “because we can” is the best idea. It almost feels like the current government would be compelled to say that black was white if the EU said that black was black simply due to the principle of us no longer being in the EU. From where I’m standing, it almost feels like the government is pursuing an acrimonious relationship with the EU purely to make us different from the EU and emphasise our “freedom”, and I am somewhat sceptical about whether such rhetoric is a productive way to make Brexit work.

 

[jon81uk]

For instance, I am sceptical about whether the planned introduction of imperial measures is a big issue for the bulk of the population. I do get that some people are very passionate about imperial measures, and they should of course be listened to, but I myself believe that there are currently bigger fish to fry than whether our flour is sold in grams or ounces. In fact, I actually believe that this could be counterintuitive for a number of reasons. The bulk of British products are produced in the EU, where metric units are mandated, so surely making an imperial product specifically for Britain will increase costs for UK consumers during a cost of living crisis, no? Also, introduction of the metric system in Britain predated EU membership, occurring in 1965. Therefore, I’d wager that few below the age of about 60 fully understand the imperial system, so it could confuse most consumers in this day and age.

many products are already sold in imperial measurements, sauasges in 454g packs, jam in 340g or 454g jars, milk in 568ml bottles. The law would not have changed anything and was just another way of trying to keep certain people happy while changing nothing. Even if they did make some legal change it just means you'd see both measurements on packs, the sizes wouldn't change, same as the sausages are still 1lb packs even though the label says 454g.

 

[Benzin]

The Imperial measurement stuff is literally pandering to an audience who have the whole "things were better in my day" shtick going on.

Same age range a those who'll vote Tory and then wonder why they can't get an ambulance for 8+ hours. As long as there's so form of "patriotism" (I use the term very lightly, as the patriotism from flag-shaggers is more edging towards a darker variant) or nostalgic and culture wars so they can be angry at anyone else but those in charge.

Apparently one of the Tory think tanks (Bruges Group) believes we should be more like Hungary. So yay for fasicm I guess?