Should the UK remain a member of the EU

[AngryOfTuebrook]

4 hours ago, Liverpool lad said:

An absolute clusterfuck 

Thanks everyone for voting for this

Fuck me! @Liverpool lad just summed it up for us!

[Numero Veinticinco]

I… don’t like Brexit. 

[AngryOfTuebrook]

4 hours ago, Numero Veinticinco said:

I… don’t like Brexit. 

Tell me why!

 

[Numero Veinticinco]

8 minutes ago, AngryOfTuebrook said:

Tell me why!

 

I wanna shoot... the whole thing down. 

[Mudface]

More Brexit dividends. Still, as long as a carpenter got a temporary pay bump, who cares about decimating scientific research.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jun/10/brexit-row-could-prompt-exodus-of-senior-scientists-from-uk

 

Brexit row could prompt exodus of senior scientists from UK
At least 16 recipients of prestigious ERC grants making plans to reject UK offer and move their labs abroad

Research work in a lab
The UK government has promised to underwrite the funding, totalling about £250m.
The UK is facing an exodus of star scientists with at least 16 recipients of prestigious European grants making plans to move their labs abroad as the UK remains frozen out of the EU’s flagship science programme.

Britain’s participation in Horizon Europe has been caught in the crosshairs of the dispute over Brexit in Northern Ireland, meaning that 143 UK-based recipients of European Research Council fellowships this week faced a deadline of either relinquishing their grant or transferring it to an institute in an eligible country.

The UK government has promised to underwrite the funding, totalling about £250m, but a growing number of scientists appear likely to reject the offer and instead relocate, along with entire teams of researchers.

The ERC said 16 academics had recently informed it that they intend to move their lab abroad or are in negotiations about doing so. These researchers, and some others, have been given an extension before their grants are terminated.

Moritz Treeck, a group leader at the Francis Crick Institute in London who is due to receive €2m over five years from the ERC to study the malaria pathogen, is among those contemplating a move. He said a major downside of the UK offer was the lack of flexibility about moving the funding internationally.

“It personally makes me very angry,” he said. “The UKRI really put up a wall for scientists to move the funding. It’s all nationalist stuff, it’s not about science.”

The Guardian heard from three other senior academics planning to move, who wished to remain anonymous because they were negotiating contracts.

One, a biology professor at a top-ranking university awarded a €2m grant, said the impasse over UK participation in EU programmes had already been “hugely disruptive”.

“I feel heartbroken to be put in this position,” she said. “Either I leave at huge personal and professional cost, or I stay and miss out on career-changing opportunities. This was supposed to be … a massive achievement and recognition of our standing as scientists. Instead I feel hugely stressed.”

Another said the offer to match the €2m funding she had been awarded to research the roots of populism in the 21st century would not replace the prestige of ERC grants, widely viewed as the Champions League of academic fellowships.

“ERC is a label that is internationally recognised as excellence,” she said. “For me, as a Latin American immigrant, it’s really something that changes my career in Europe. I worked on this proposal for two years and I didn’t want to give up something that I really struggled to get.”

A third senior scientist, who plans to transfer a €2m ERC grant to study the response of animals to climate change to an institute outside the UK, said: “My main motivator for choosing to move is that I lack trust in UK governmental institutions and processes after what I’ve witnessed since moving here.”

The loss of these academics is a blow to the UK government’s proposed “bold, global alternative to Horizon”. This week the science minister, George Freeman, called on the EU not to “weaponise science for politics” before a meeting in Brussels, but said the UK was ready to press ahead with its plan B if the dispute is not resolved.

Others who are remaining in the UK said they had been left in limbo, with little clarity on when the UKRI funding will be available. Prof Tom Sheldon, an ecologist at the University of Oxford who was awarded a €3.1m grant to study the effect of human-caused climate change in the timing of seasonal events in Oxford’s Wytham Woods, said: “We’ve heard nothing at all, which is one of the disturbing things. It’s like a black hole.”

Sheldon said the uncertainty about funding meant he could not start recruiting the four PhD students, four postdocs and technicians needed for the project, and since the research focused on seasonal phenomena, this could delay the work by a year. “These are major research programmes, you can’t just recruit people to start the next day,” he said. “It’s hugely destabilising.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said: “We recognise the EU’s delays to formalising the UK’s association to Horizon Europe have led to uncertainty for researchers, businesses and innovators based in the UK. This is why the government has guaranteed funding for eligible, successful applicants to Horizon Europe who are expected to sign grant agreements by December 2022 and who have been unable to sign grant agreements with the EU.

“The guarantee means that eligible, successful applicants will receive the full value of their funding at their UK host institution for the lifetime of their grant.”

[Gnasher]

44 minutes ago, Mudface said:

More Brexit dividends. Still, as long as a carpenter got a temporary pay bump, who cares about decimating scientific research.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jun/10/brexit-row-could-prompt-exodus-of-senior-scientists-from-uk

 

 

 

Wonder what mugface and crew have got against the working class getting pay rises? 

[Bruce Spanner]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-cost-uk-economy-eu-b2098289.html

 

5.2% GDP shortfall ‘mostly’ down to Britain’s exit from EU, according to top think tank, but we've got the happiest fish so all good.

 

'The Centre for European Reform (CEF) said that by the end of last year, Britain’s economy was 5.2 per cent – or £31bn – smaller than it would have been without Brexit and the Covid pandemic.

 

“We can’t blame Brexit for all of the 5.2 per cent GDP shortfall …. but it’s apparent that Brexit is largely to blame,” said John Springford, author of the CEF study.

 

The CER modelled the performance of a “doppelganger” UK – if the nation had remained inside the EU’s single market – using data from other advanced economies similar to the UK.

 

Mr Springford said “disentangling” the economic effects of Brexit and Covid in recent years was “difficult” – but said it was clear that the bigger negative impact had come from Brexit.'

[AngryOfTuebrook]

34 minutes ago, Gnasher said:

Wonder what mugface and crew have got against the working class getting pay rises? 

Nothing, as you well know.

 

These attempts at deflection don't work.

[Bobby Hundreds]

I've decided, I think we should remain. When's the vote?

[Gnasher]

1 hour ago, AngryOfTuebrook said:

Nothing, as you well know.

 

These attempts at deflection don't work.

Sorry but i'm not the silly toff who keeps bringing working class people getting pay rises into the argument.

 

[cloggypop]

Arron Banks has lost his libel case. 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/13/arron-banks-loses-libel-action-against-reporter-carole-cadwalladr-guardian-defamation-brexit-russia?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1655111726

[M_B]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61603429

 

Quote

UK farmers turn to Nepal and Tajikistan for fruit pickers

By Lucy Hooker
Business reporter, BBC News

Bal Kumar Khatri has worked harvesting rice and beans in his native Nepal before, and been a trekking guide in the Himalayas.

But this year, instead, the 26-year-old is in a polytunnel in north Nottinghamshire picking strawberries.

Every spring thousands of seasonal workers come to harvest the UK's soft fruits, but this year they're coming from much further afield.

Before Brexit many came from Poland, Romania and Bulgaria.

Now as well as Nepalese, UK growers are employing Indonesian, Mongol, Tajik, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz workers.

Mr Khatri hasn't been here long, but he speaks some English and the farm's owners are relieved he's made it here.

Getting enough workers for the summer season is always a challenge, but this year, with the soft fruit season just about to hit its peak, many growers say they're more worried than they've ever been that there won't be enough pickers.

Jenny Tasker from Harwill Farm near Retford which supplies Waitrose, Tesco and Marks and Spencer, has always had a mix of nationalities. But this year their workers come from nine different countries, including 35 from Nepal for the first time, 45 Tajikistan, and even three from Indonesia.

The new recruits are fitting in well, says Ms Tasker, but there are challenges.

"We're having to do lots of training, so it's slow," she says. "It's about having patience on both sides," she says. But she, like others, is worried that she won't get all her berries harvested before they spoil.

UK production of soft fruit has been rising steadily, according to the industry body British Berry Growers (BBG) but wastage has been increasing too. It's hard to predict when berries will be ready to pick, and when they are, they can't wait.

The value of production lost due to labour shortages has approximately doubled in each of the last two years, based on a survey of BBG members. Last year, an estimated £36m worth of soft fruit was wasted, against total production of £760m, the BBG says.

'Very nervous'

At Harwill, workers like Mr Khatri and his brothers are provided with accommodation and free wifi has been installed for all the caravans. British farms are going to ever greater lengths to persuade workers to return year after year, partly because since Brexit the number of returnees from EU countries has dwindled.

Last year, Ukrainians filled the gaps, but this year Ukrainian men between 18 and 60 years old have been told to stay at home and fight.

The combination of war, Brexit and Covid led a parliamentary committee to warn in April that acute labour shortages across the UK food sector could threaten food security if action wasn't taken.

And since then the process of issuing visas to seasonal workers seems to have stalled, says BSF chairman Nick Marston. He welcomes the "league of nations" approach but says he's worried workers from so far away will end up arriving too late.

"It's making farmers very nervous," he says. "I don't think it has hit crisis point yet, but I am very concerned it may do."

Justin Emery says there are plenty of workers willing to come. He is director of the labour company Fruitful Jobs, one of four firms licensed to recruit seasonal workers overseas.

Fruitful Jobs is recruiting in 37 countries from South Africa to Kurdistan, Canada to Mongolia. But recruits have to find £244 for a visa plus their return air fare. That, plus the bureaucracy and language barriers, means it's not a quick process to recruit from new, far-flung places.

At this end, the arrival of Ukrainian refugees has diverted resources and held up visa processing, Mr Emery says. But, he adds: "They've caught up quite well, and people are coming in now."

But that's not enough to reassure everyone that the new system will work.

Tim Chambers, who owns a network of 24 farms in south east England, has told the recruitment firms he doesn't want workers from countries like Indonesia, Vietnam or the Philippines.

"It's not because I in any way have an issue with race, creed, or colour," he says. "[But] if you suddenly bring in a whole new country, culture, way of life, into your farm, it can cause major problems.

"In terms of efficiency, a new recruit in the first season is 25% less productive," he says.

"There will be cultural and lifestyle things too," he says.

Mr Chambers says he has a large number of experienced workers from central and eastern Europe still returning to work on his farms - he's already making sure not to put Russians and Ukrainians in shared accommodation to avoid friction.

But competition for labour is getting so "hot", he can see he may have to accept workers from new sources, if he wants to avoid what happened last year, when a shortage of labour meant he walked away from around 12% of his raspberry crop.

He blames the government for not issuing enough visas. This year there is a limit on numbers, of 30,000, with the potential to go up by 10,000 if necessary. The number of visas will begin to taper from 2023, with an increased focus on British workers and automation supposed to compensate.

"They don't understand the responsibility they've given themselves and the carnage they can cause by their actions," he says.

The other "bombshell" says Alastair Brooks, at Langdon Manor Farm in Kent, was the government's stipulation seasonal workers from overseas must be paid £10.10 an hour, well above the £9.50 minimum wage.

He can't pay his existing workers less than the new arrivals, so wages have gone up across the board.

"I don't begrudge them that, they work really hard. The problem is we'd fixed prices with our customers," he says.

The Home Office said the government was ready to back the UK's farmers and growers and "ensure that they have the support and workforce that they need".

"The Seasonal Workers scheme is now operating until the end of 2024," a spokesperson said, adding the government was working towards attracting UK workers into the sector.

 

[AngryOfTuebrook]

21 minutes ago, cloggypop said:

Arron Banks has lost his libel case. 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/13/arron-banks-loses-libel-action-against-reporter-carole-cadwalladr-guardian-defamation-brexit-russia?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1655111726

Excellent news, that.

 

Mind you, the cunt will probably consider it money well spent for putting the frighteners on journalists who want to investigate him.

 

[Strontium]

I try not to hate anyone, but Arron Banks is comfortably one of my 10 least favourite people on the planet. The horrible bastard.

[Bjornebye]

Disgraceful that they can be given a platform to chat absolute shite

 

 

 

 

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Standards, schmandards! 

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jun/13/fury-as-government-waters-down-post-brexit-food-standards

 

[Gnasher]

6 hours ago, Bjornebye said:

Disgraceful that they can be given a platform to chat absolute shite

 

 

 

 

Davis is an idiot. What can't be discounted is we have got historically low unemployment, increased wages for lower earners and record vacancies. Facts. I'm guessing they have not come about because of Government policy.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

36 minutes ago, Gnasher said:

Davis is an idiot. What can't be discounted is we have got historically low unemployment, increased wages for lower earners and record vacancies. Facts. I'm guessing they have not come about because of Government policy.

Do you think that those things are a result of Brexit?

[Gnasher]

5 minutes ago, AngryOfTuebrook said:

Do you think that those things are a result of Brexit?

In the main yes. Do you think they are the result of Tory economic policy?

[AngryOfTuebrook]

 

[AngryOfTuebrook]

12 hours ago, Gnasher said:

In the main yes. Do you think they are the result of Tory economic policy?

Brexit & the economic policy of this Govt. are inseparable: this Govt. exists for and because of Brexit.

 

The claims of "historically low unemployment" and record vacancies come with too many asterisks for me to go into here; suffice to say that this isn't a golden age of opportunity & prosperity for UK workers. I've already explained why I'm not fooled into "Backing Boris" as a result of the Covid-related, sector-specific temporary bump in some people's wages.

[skend04]

13 hours ago, Gnasher said:

In the main yes. Do you think they are the result of Tory economic policy?

Negged for being deliberately stupid, slavishly backing a failed policy like a cultist.

[Arniepie]

Bbc reporting biggest drop in real term wages in over a decade (4.2% in the public sector)

[Gnasher]

4 minutes ago, Arniepie said:

Bbc reporting biggest drop in real term wages in over a decade (4.2% in the public sector)

They are, and what reasons are given?

[Arniepie]

2 minutes ago, Gnasher said:

They are, and what reasons are given?

Having Tories in power for the last 11 years?