Should the UK remain a member of the EU

[Skidfingers McGonical]

37 minutes ago, Section_31 said:

If Britain crashes out it'll be the fault of Tory hardliners, nobody else.

 

'The ERG' 

 

The fuck do they think they are giving themselves that bullshit official name? Just a gaggle of cunts.

Reminds me of that ‘Ermagherd’ meme. 

 

Fucking shit.

[M_B]

How would British industry and agriculture compete with tariff free imports from unregulated markets using cheap labour? Just as well everything will be cheap cause everyone will be out of a job.

[Boss]

9 minutes ago, M_B said:

How would British industry and agriculture compete with tariff free imports from unregulated markets using cheap labour? Just as well everything will be cheap cause everyone will be out of a job.

British industry is a myth. There's hardly any British industry left. It's all owned by foreign states or foreign private companies. Everything else is either subsidised so it can survive or left to the whims of the free market.

[Marko121]

1 hour ago, Boss said:

The UK can ensure basic standards for workers, environmental protections and health and safety on it's own without EU arbiters. Non EU countries already undercut UK businesses and forcing standards down is subjective.

The UK can ensure basic standards or even better standards for workers, but you can bet your arse we won’t 

[AngryOfTuebrook]

3 hours ago, Boss said:

The UK can ensure basic standards for workers, environmental protections and health and safety on it's own without EU arbiters. Non EU countries already undercut UK businesses and forcing standards down is subjective.

Ensuring those standards costs money.  Money that makes your products and services uncompetitive.  Either you lose business, or you give up some of those basic standards.

 

Now, if you agreed with your 27 closest (geographically, economically and politically) trading partners that you would adhere to certain standards, they wouldn't be able to undercut you by lowering standards.

 

(NB - It's all about agreeing standards; it's not about subjecting to some external arbiters.  The UK, for decades, had a prominent role in setting those standards.  51.9% of the electorate voted to give the UK less international influence.)

 

Non-EU countries, like India, Bangladesh, China, etc. do undercut EU countries on price - but at the expense of their workers, their environment, etc.  

 

"Forcing down standards" is absolutely not subjective.  It's ridiculous to pretend otherwise.  Breathing air with fewer pollutants is objectively better than breathing air with more pollutants.  Having to work 38 hours a week to afford a clean and structurally sound place to live is objectively better than having to work 60 hours a week to have a clean and structurally sound place to live.  Farm animals that get to move around outdoors enjoy objectively better standards of health and welfare than ones that are crammed into massive sheds for their whole lives.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

3 hours ago, Boss said:

British industry is a myth. There's hardly any British industry left. It's all owned by foreign states or foreign private companies. Everything else is either subsidised so it can survive or left to the whims of the free market.

Ownership of private companies is, generally, with the shareholders.  It makes no sense to define the nationality of an industry by the birthplace of its CEO or whatever.  It does make sense to understand "British industry" to mean "industry in Britain".

 

So, try answering M_B's question again.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

9 hours ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

It's worth restating these basic facts until people understand them.

 

 

That link's not the best, so I'll paste the thread here.

*********************************************

Dear every hard Brexiter who wants a hard Brexit with WTO rules, I'll write slowly so you can follow this.

 

1. If we go to WTO rules we will need to apply tariffs to our exports and imports.

 

2. If we apply tariffs, then British manufacturers exporting will be more expensive.

 

3. If our exports are more expensive, fewer people will buy them and jobs will be lost and the economy will tank.

 

4. If we decide NOT to apply tariffs, then WTO rules say that foreign importers can flood us with cheap tariff-free goods.

 

5. If our country is flooded with cheap tariff-free goods, then our domestic producers will not be able to compete, they will go bankrupt, jobs will be lost and the economy will tank.

 

6. The only way our manufacturers can compete with cheap tariff-free goods flooding the country from 3rd world countries would be to reduce OUR wages and working conditions to those of the importers.

 

7. In other words, our wages etc reduced to same levels of 3rd world countries.

 

8. So. No deal Brexit with WTO rules will mean - in order to avoid economic meltdown - that our working conditions and wages are reduced to 3rd world levels.

 

9. Now can you see why the hard-right of the Tory party are so keen on a no-deal Brexit?

 

[Rico1304]

5 hours ago, Boss said:

What's wrong with zero tariffs? Doesn't everyone praise the EU because it's tariff-free trade? Isn't that the purpose of the Single Market?

Oh dear. You don’t understand it.  

[AngryOfTuebrook]

5 hours ago, Boss said:

What's wrong with zero tariffs? Doesn't everyone praise the EU because it's tariff-free trade? Isn't that the purpose of the Single Market?

Here's a clarification of what the Single Market is.  (It's not all about tariffs.)

 

 

[Boss]

55 minutes ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

Ensuring those standards costs money.  Money that makes your products and services uncompetitive.  Either you lose business, or you give up some of those basic standards.

 

Now, if you agreed with your 27 closest (geographically, economically and politically) trading partners that you would adhere to certain standards, they wouldn't be able to undercut you by lowering standards.

 

(NB - It's all about agreeing standards; it's not about subjecting to some external arbiters.  The UK, for decades, had a prominent role in setting those standards.  51.9% of the electorate voted to give the UK less international influence.)

 

Non-EU countries, like India, Bangladesh, China, etc. do undercut EU countries on price - but at the expense of their workers, their environment, etc.  

 

"Forcing down standards" is absolutely not subjective.  It's ridiculous to pretend otherwise.  Breathing air with fewer pollutants is objectively better than breathing air with more pollutants.  Having to work 38 hours a week to afford a clean and structurally sound place to live is objectively better than having to work 60 hours a week to have a clean and structurally sound place to live.  Farm animals that get to move around outdoors enjoy objectively better standards of health and welfare than ones that are crammed into massive sheds for their whole lives.

 

Do you have any evidence these things are going to happen? You're talking in absolutes about purely imagined scenarios. Will we be reeling out the coal factories again? Will everyone now have to work 60 hours a week? Will all the farm animals live in battery farms (like most of them do already)?

[AngryOfTuebrook]

6 hours ago, Boss said:

 

Do you have any evidence these things are going to happen? You're talking in absolutes about purely imagined scenarios. Will we be reeling out the coal factories again? Will everyone now have to work 60 hours a week? Will all the farm animals live in battery farms (like most of them do already)?

Because I don't have "evidence" of things that would happen as a result of something which has not yet happened, you're assuming everything's going to be just fine?  I have no evidence that you will get injured or killed if you play blind man's bluff on the M25; but I still wouldn't recommend it.

 

Do you realise how irrational and dangerous complacency like yours is?

 

Nobody is talking about "purely imagined scenarios". People  - including members of the Government  - are talking about leaving the EU on WTO terms.  Those terms are not "purely imagined".  They exist; and swapping the best trading relationship any nations have ever had for the worse terms other countries now operate on will have consequences. 

 

Have a read of the 9 points in the tweet I posted above.  Then have a listen to that clip of Michael Dougan explaining what the Single Market is and what leaving it means. Both of those links contain stuff that is fundamental to understanding what is going on right now.

 

 

[Hades]

10 hours ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

Ensuring those standards costs money.  Money that makes your products and services uncompetitive.  Either you lose business, or you give up some of those basic standards.

 

Now, if you agreed with your 27 closest (geographically, economically and politically) trading partners that you would adhere to certain standards, they wouldn't be able to undercut you by lowering standards.

 

(NB - It's all about agreeing standards; it's not about subjecting to some external arbiters.  The UK, for decades, had a prominent role in setting those standards.  51.9% of the electorate voted to give the UK less international influence.)

 

Non-EU countries, like India, Bangladesh, China, etc. do undercut EU countries on price - but at the expense of their workers, their environment, etc.  

 

"Forcing down standards" is absolutely not subjective.  It's ridiculous to pretend otherwise.  Breathing air with fewer pollutants is objectively better than breathing air with more pollutants.  Having to work 38 hours a week to afford a clean and structurally sound place to live is objectively better than having to work 60 hours a week to have a clean and structurally sound place to live.  Farm animals that get to move around outdoors enjoy objectively better standards of health and welfare than ones that are crammed into massive sheds for their whole lives.

Nice post but nothing justifies eating meat.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

10 minutes ago, Hades said:

Nice post but nothing justifies eating meat.

Starvation would.

 

But, whatev's - people should be more strongly encouraged to become vegetarian and/or vegan, for their own health, for the environment and for the welfare of the animals.  The best way to achieve this  (in capitalist democracies) is to rebalance the food supply, so that non-meat alternatives are available and affordable to people who are struggling to feed their families. A "No deal"/WTO Brexit would make this much less likely, as UK food producers and suppliers would be forced (by market pressures) to churn out animals as cheaply as possible. 

[aRdja]

10 hours ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

Ownership of private companies is, generally, with the shareholders.  It makes no sense to define the nationality of an industry by the birthplace of its CEO or whatever.  It does make sense to understand "British industry" to mean "industry in Britain".

 

So, try answering M_B's question again.

Some of the concerns you’d imagine also would be with the workers and the economy that it creates,

[Rico1304]

https://news.sky.com/story/flybmi-goes-into-administration-all-flights-cancelled-11639652

[Rico1304]

Mmm

 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/feb/17/brittany-kaiser-trump-russia-robert-mueller-cambridge-analytica

[Gnasher]

On 2/14/2019 at 6:36 PM, Boss said:

The UK can ensure basic standards for workers, environmental protections and health and safety on it's own without EU arbiters. Non EU countries already undercut UK businesses and forcing standards down is subjective.

Exactly. The most basic rights workers have gained over the past 100 years have been without the EU.  The EU is not imperative for the protection of workers rights.

[Rico1304]

14 minutes ago, Gnasher said:

Exactly. The most basic rights workers have gained over the past 100 years have been without the EU.  The EU is not imperative for the protection of workers rights.

When JRM describes concentration camps as being established to help the people I can see no reason to fear him having a say in workers rights.  Why wouldn’t you trust him? 

[AngryOfTuebrook]

2 hours ago, Gnasher said:

Exactly. The most basic rights workers have gained over the past 100 years have been without the EU.  The EU is not imperative for the protection of workers rights.

The EU is a surer guarantor of workers' rights than the UK Government has ever been.  There's a good reason that the worst of this country's neocons, the kleptocratic enemies of the working class, are the loudest cheerleaders for Brexit. 

 

It's ridiculous that anyone who gives a shit about workers would ever think that removing one of the sources of our rights would be a good thing. 

[magicrat]

2 hours ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

The EU is a surer guarantor of workers' rights than the UK Government has ever been.  There's a good reason that the worst of this country's neocons, the kleptocratic enemies of the working class, are the loudest cheerleaders for Brexit. 

 

It's ridiculous that anyone who gives a shit about workers would ever think that removing one of the sources of our rights would be a good thing. 

Not if they get blue passports back to take holidays they wont be able to afford on budget airlines that don't exist

[AngryOfTuebrook]

7 hours ago, magicrat said:

Not if they get blue passports back to take holidays they wont be able to afford on budget airlines that don't exist

Talking of holidays, campaigns by British unions led in 1938 to laws ensuring a minimum of 1 week's paid holiday a year.

 

http://www.unionhistory.info/timeline/Tl_Display.php?irn=100265&QueryPage=..%2FAdvSearch.php

 

This remained the UK legal minimum until 1978, when the EU Working Time Directive mandated a minimum of 4 weeks' paid leave each year. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_Time_Regulations_1998

 

Anything workers have gained which is not guaranteed by law has to be fought for again and again.

 

Brexit is a neoliberal wet dream come true. 

[deiseach]

[skend04]

Japan are/were on the verge of pulling bilateral trade talks by all accounts. This after Hammond had to cancel his trip to China.

 

Going well this Brexit lark. We might not even have cheap Chinese goods to buy at this rate. 

[magicrat]

7 minutes ago, skend04 said:

Japan are/were on the verge of pulling bilateral trade talks by all accounts. This after Hammond had to cancel his trip to China.

 

Going well this Brexit lark. We might not even have cheap Chinese goods to buy at this rate. 

The fucking imbeciles couldn't run a school fete

[Anubis]

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/18/japan-almost-cancelled-brexit-talks-high-handed-letter-liam-fox-jeremy-hunt

 

Japanese officials have reportedly accused Jeremy Hunt and Liam Fox of taking a “high-handed” approach towards a post-Brexit free trade deal, and briefly considered cancelling bilateral talks due to take place this week.

 

The Financial Times cited unnamed officials in Tokyo who reacted with dismay to a letter sent on 8 February in which Hunt, the foreign secretary, and Fox, the international trade secretary, insisted that “time is of the essence” in securing a trade deal with Japan, the world’s third-biggest economy.

 

Hunt and Fox also called for flexibility on both sides – an approach the paper said had been interpreted as criticism that Japan did not share their desire to quickly conclude a free trade agreement after Britain is scheduled to leave the European Union on 29 March.