Should the UK remain a member of the EU

[Jose Jones]

Do you reckon Uber and AirBnB and that were just really evil geniuses in how they sucked in gullible young lefties by being all nice to start off with, e.g.;

Uber - just get a lift with someone going in the same direction who's happy to give you ride

AirBnB - get spare bed at a friendly person's house, see the real city and live like a local

 

and had long term goals for world domination all along?  Or is it that they became so popular that the nature of capitalism turned them into evil overlords?

Google's original mandate was "don't be evil" for example, and now they're spying on every single thing that you do and working out how to replace you with a robot.

[Moctezuma]

Have spoken to some Brexit supporting relatives recently their view on the empty shelves was in the following vein (direct quote to illustrate) "it's a good thing, the nation may loose some weight".

 

Will be interesting to see how this plays out you would imagine we will go through a period of inflation around food as wages will have to be increased to cover the staffing shortfalls. I don't see how the producers can absorb those costs completely given they are often on relatively tight profit margins (in particular the farmers not on lucrative arable contracts).

 

Also I wonder how this model will work in the long term with our ageing population and tombstone population pyramid? Will be interesting to see.

[Rico1304]

9 hours ago, Captain Willard said:

This is bound to happen. Businesses will adapt until the HGV crisis is sorted. Delivery Driving jobs will become well paid which will knock on to Uber, deliveroo etc and hasten the end of these exploitative business models. This is how free labour markets are meant to work. 

Why will they become well paid?  These aren’t skilled HGV drivers, they are low skilled drivers requiring nothing more than a normal licence.  

[Chairman Meow]

2 minutes ago, Rico1304 said:

Why will they become well paid?  These aren’t skilled HGV drivers, they are low skilled drivers requiring nothing more than a normal licence.  

 

Were there not licence changes around vans at some point?

 

I know after I had my licence they changed the rules around some of the bigger stuff and using trailers. But I am sure I remember someone going on about them introducing van tests or something? I have no idea if that was a thing, a potential thing that someone moaned about to me or if I maybe even dreamt it. 

 

 

[AngryOfTuebrook]

1 hour ago, Moctezuma said:

Have spoken to some Brexit supporting relatives recently their view on the empty shelves was in the following vein (direct quote to illustrate) "it's a good thing, the nation may loose some weight".

 

It would be an interesting argument, if there were a shortage of cakes and sausage rolls, but an abundance of fresh fruit and veg.

 

If I were you I'd burn their houses down and then tell them to be glad of the chance to get out and get some fresh air.

[Bruce Spanner]

Never did see the day that I'd be referencing 'Pig World - The Voice of the British Pig Industry' but the old worlds are no more.

 

We have a shortage of processors and butchers required immediately.

 

If people struggle to get bacon for their breakfast I think we can start the rioting.

 

'The Association of Independent Meat Suppliers (AIMS) is calling on the Home Office and UK Visas & Immigration to make meat processors eligible for a Skilled Worker visa.

 

Tony Goodger, a spokesperson for AIMS, said that at present the jobs of butcher, slaughterman and butchery managerial roles meet the RQF3 skills threshold for the Skilled Worker route so are eligible to be sponsored for a Skilled Worker visa, but that meat processors do not meet the threshold.

 

“We have seen correspondence to one of our members from the Minister for Future Borders and Immigration, Kevin Foster MP, in which he states that meat processors do not meet the RQF3 threshold so are not eligible to be sponsored for a Skilled Worker visa,” said Mr Goodger.

 

The Standard Occupation Code (SOC) 5433, Fishmongers and Poultry Dressers on the current skilled worker visa list this shows that both fish processors and poultry processors are eligible to be sponsored for a Skilled Worker visa. Mr Goodger said the Association was ‘somewhat confused’ that meat processors had been omitted from the list.

 

He said: “This omission is already impacting on our members at a time when the industry is facing severe labour shortages. “We have written to our constituency MP, Rt Hon Rishi Sunak asking that he makes representation to the Home Office and UK Visas & Immigration to correct this anomaly and have the role of meat processor added to the related job titles list for SOC 5431, butchers thereby making them eligible for Skilled Worker visas”'

[AngryOfTuebrook]

They've had five years (well, 4 years - I'll cut them some slack because of the way Covid disrupted everything) to prepare for this. They've had time to invest in training people to do the jobs that they were always adamant that the forrins wouldn't be allowed to do. Instead, they chose to spend that time waving flags and shouting slogans.

 

Brexit was always going to be bad. It didn't have to be this bad.

 

Tories are cunts.

[Bruce Spanner]

7 minutes ago, AngryOfTuebrook said:

They've had five years (well, 4 years - I'll cut them some slack because of the way Covid disrupted everything) to prepare for this. They've had time to invest in training people to do the jobs that they were always adamant that the forrins wouldn't be allowed to do. Instead, they chose to spend that time waving flags and shouting slogans.

 

Brexit was always going to be bad. It didn't have to be this bad.

 

Tories are cunts.

 

The irony of the above I posted is not that we don't have the pork, it's that we have a surplus we can not process and transport, so farmers are stuck with pigs they will have to slaughter instead of sending to market.

 

Reasons are twofold, not enough processors ect, but more ridiculously supermarkets won't accept meat from pigs that are too big as it doesn't 'look right' on the shelves, so they will be destroyed.

 

Amazing what you find out from listening to 'Farming Today' on R4.

 

Once the food standards legislation kicks in we are truly screwed.

 

All of this should have been mitigated against, wankers.

[Rushies tash]

3 minutes ago, AngryOfTuebrook said:

They've had five years (well, 4 years - I'll cut them some slack because of the way Covid disrupted everything) to prepare for this. They've had time to invest in training people to do the jobs that they were always adamant that the forrins wouldn't be allowed to do. Instead, they chose to spend that time waving flags and shouting slogans.

 

Brexit was always going to be bad. It didn't have to be this bad.

 

Tories are cunts.

They'll wait for people to be a bit more outraged about empty shelves (and for the news to helpfully skirt around the main reason for this) before they suggest that the unemployed do all these jobs for their benefits.

[Moctezuma]

Bruce and Angry, I've not really been concentrating on Brexit stuff with all the Covid bit at work and national datasets, how 'bad' will it actually get? Enough for people to notice peripherally/with some aggregate changes or a actually impacting on your average person's life on a day to day basis? Or is it very much a sliding scale?

[Skidfingers McGonical]

If the bacon stops, I’m going full Postal. 
 

D-Fens will be seen as being inspired by me and not the other way round. 

[No2]

I was wondering what product is the tipping point? What empty shelf will have people reaching for the pick axes? No rashers on a weekend would seriously piss me off, tea bags would probably send me over the edge.

[Bruce Spanner]

1 hour ago, Moctezuma said:

Bruce and Angry, I've not really been concentrating on Brexit stuff with all the Covid bit at work and national datasets, how 'bad' will it actually get? Enough for people to notice peripherally/with some aggregate changes or a actually impacting on your average person's life on a day to day basis? Or is it very much a sliding scale?

 

Rafael Behr wrote a decent, but flawed piece this week effectively 'It's a massive failure, but it's not as bad as it could have been. 

 

I'm on the slightly more pessimistic side, but we're not going to become Mogadishu overnight, but we'll become a very grey version of Blighty where choice, prosperity and opportunity are the preserve of the few and the rest see standards and choice fall along with our global standing. 

 

The handling, planning, negotiations, politics of it has been an absolute disaster and have set us back as a country in the worlds eyes immeasurably. Europe hate us, the US hates Johnson and all that entails, the rest of the world won't trust us as we renege on agreements and threaten to break international law. The trade deals have been weighted in favour to the other countries as we are negotiating from a position of weakness, the US trade deal which a lot of the 'sunlit uplands' depends on is now effectively shelved. The trade agreement with Australia was to soften our ability to join the Trans-Atlantic trade pact, but Arden has already threatened to veto that, so that might be dead in the water as well. 

 

We have left being a major player in the largest trading bloc on the planet to an isolated, untrusted island with little to offer the world anymore. 

 

In finance the city is being picked off by European countries so we are losing many, many billions through this which are never coming back, that's not just cash in markets, that's wages, tax, rent, goods and services, all of it, it's a huge loss. Part of the reason for leaving was to become 'Singapore on Sea' and have low tax, low regulation economy on Europe's door, with access to the single market. Surprisingly Europe saw this coming a mile off and insisted on 'Equivalency Rules' on finances services meaning it was a no starter and this was the weight bearing stone of the whole gig, so with that gone, we're fucked. Sunak's free ports were tied in to this, but nobody checked international agreements on these and they are dead in the water as they are prohibited in most of the areas we are looking to do business. Nobody has checked the fine print on anything and we have lost most of the things we wanted to walk away with and the whole house of cards was built on. Negotiations were ego driven and have massively backfired and left us with far less than we walked in with and few chances of regaining them in the short to medium terms. 

 

We have screwed the finance sector, fishing, agriculture, despite what you think about the flawed CAP, and foods industries by not thinking about anything beyond a headline. Costs to import/export are prohibitive due to addition checks and paper work meaning goods imported will now come at a premium, or not at all as the cost is not worth it meaning that choice will be restricted as Britain does not have the infrastructure to grow and develop these things as we've always relied on Europe. The average range of choice will realistically plumet with cost going up on things produced in the UK. we don't have enough driver, border guards to process imports/exports, vets to certify etc, all of this could have been mitigated against, but it seems like when the vote was won they considered their job done. It's a clusterfuck which could set us back years and cost countless jobs/business with very little chance of real growth beyond our borders in the future as others can produce better and cheaper. A real concern for jobs and communities that rely on these industries'.  

 

Future proofing the economy should have been the priority, but as we are seeing it was not even an after thought. Apprenticships are used as tax write downs for big firms and are not the 16 year old on the site that people think, these numbers are down year on year and we are looking at real skills gaps and shortages due to a chronic lack of basic foresight. Some shortage jobs will receive an uplift in pay, but this is a trend across Europe where our pay rises are actually smaller in real terms. If any good is to come of this the Unions, like the GMB already has, need to get everybody signed up and get protections. Will they last I doubt it as supply side costs are going through the roof and companies, another Brexit bonus, so firms will either find ways to cut costs or go under as the margins will dissipate. There's a reason the UK government wanted to extract itself from the working time directive and it's not to help the little people. Venture capitalist are already buying up big companies in the UK with this in mind, it'll lead to less regulation and less protections for low paid low skilled workers. 

 

Growth is predicated on output and our manufacturing output was decimated many years ago, so we rely on services, which we outsourced a lot of ironically. So, we need to recalibrate our whole economy to meet the demands of the new world and that takes imagination, drive and vision, sadly lacking with these cretins. There is hope for green and future economies is a delicate one and one where Europe and other nations have the jump on us already, so we're playing catch up whilst severing ourselves from the collective brain power our knowledge sharing agreements had with research universities across Europe. It's just so little foresight and it could be disastrous.  

 

We have sold small business down the river by extracting ourselves, by choice, from internationally recognised safety standards and checks and insisting we have our own, we have neither the infrastructure, as we outsourced the vast majority of the previous testing, nor the time. Another monumental balls up, in line with the others as we just didn't think of the larger ramifications of the big picture. 

 

There plenty more and I've rambled long enough, but in short the worst case scenario is industry is overwhelmed and can not keep up with costs of importers and have little to export due to the same costing jobs, tax, business' and prosperity. Workers rights are eroded and we become a festering, miserable little island. Our cultural exports stall, our national cultural pastimes lose funding/there's no spare money in households to pay to see them and fall by the wayside. Best case scenario some industries see growth and we manage the transition to standing on our own two feet and build towards something, but it will take a hurculian, and unrealist, effrot to get near that. With who we have in charge, and will most likely stay in charge, I'd wager more far right libertarian ideologically driven disaster awaits and Britain to take a hiatus as a significant country for teh foreseeable future.

 

Economic forecasts are gloomy in comparison to our neighbours, jobs in real term are still down on 2019 levels, with 1.6m on furlough still with uncertain futures, the pound is still a fifth down on 2016 and shows no real signs of regaining that level.  

 

Would it have been better handled and the outcomes more benificial if these idiots hadn't done the negotations, perhaps, but the vote leave campaign, the funding and this shit show are two sides of teh same coin so it's not something that can really be a thought experiment.

 

TL:DR We are poorer, less choice, less secure, have less chance of prosperity and have no clear plan on how to change any of that beyond a few pithy slogans mumbled by an idiot and eventually the hand waving of the deluded will subside and a real conversation needs to happen. 

 

We've been had. 

 

 

[Mudface]

12 minutes ago, Bruce Spanner said:

 

Rafael Behr wrote a decent, but flawed piece this week effectively 'It's a massive failure, but it's not as bad as it could have been. 

 

I'm on the slightly more pessimistic side, but we're not going to become Mogadishu overnight, but we'll become a very grey version of Blighty where choice, prosperity and opportunity are the preserve of the few and the rest see standards and choice fall along with our global standing. 

 

The handling, planning, negotiations, politics of it has been an absolute disaster and have set us back as a country in the worlds eyes immeasurably. Europe hate us, the US hates Johnson and all that entails, the rest of the world won't trust us as we renege on agreements and threaten to break international law. The trade deals have been weighted in favour to the other countries as we are negotiating from a position of weakness, the US trade deal which a lot of the 'sunlit uplands' depends on is now effectively shelved. The trade agreement with Australia was to soften our ability to join the Trans-Atlantic trade pact, but Arden has already threatened to veto that, so that might be dead in the water as well. 

 

We have left being a major player in the largest trading bloc on the planet to an isolated, untrusted island with little to offer the world anymore. 

 

In finance the city is being picked off by European countries so we are losing many, many billions through this which are never coming back, that's not just cash in markets, that's wages, tax, rent, goods and services, all of it, it's a huge loss. Part of the reason for leaving was to become 'Singapore on Sea' and have low tax, low regulation economy on Europe's door, with access to the single market. Surprisingly Europe saw this coming a mile off and insisted on 'Equivalency Rules' on finances services meaning it was a no starter and this was the weight bearing stone of the whole gig, so with that gone, we're fucked. Sunak's free ports were tied in to this, but nobody checked international agreements on these and they are dead in the water as they are prohibited in most of the areas we are looking to do business. Nobody has checked the fine print on anything and we have lost most of the things we wanted to walk away with and the whole house of cards was built on. Negotiations were ego driven and have massively backfired and left us with far less than we walked in with and few chances of regaining them in the short to medium terms. 

 

We have screwed the finance sector, fishing, agriculture, despite what you think about the flawed CAP, and foods industries by not thinking about anything beyond a headline. Costs to import/export are prohibitive due to addition checks and paper work meaning goods imported will now come at a premium, or not at all as the cost is not worth it meaning that choice will be restricted as Britain does not have the infrastructure to grow and develop these things as we've always relied on Europe. The average range of choice will realistically plumet with cost going up on things produced in the UK. we don't have enough driver, border guards to process imports/exports, vets to certify etc, all of this could have been mitigated against, but it seems like when the vote was won they considered their job done. It's a clusterfuck which could set us back years and cost countless jobs/business with very little chance of real growth beyond our borders in the future as others can produce better and cheaper. A real concern for jobs and communities that rely on these industries'.  

 

Future proofing the economy should have been the priority, but as we are seeing it was not even an after thought. Apprenticships are used as tax write downs for big firms and are not the 16 year old on the site that people think, these numbers are down year on year and we are looking at real skills gaps and shortages due to a chronic lack of basic foresight. Some shortage jobs will receive an uplift in pay, but this is a trend across Europe where our pay rises are actually smaller in real terms. If any good is to come of this the Unions, like the GMB already has, need to get everybody signed up and get protections. Will they last I doubt it as supply side costs are going through the roof and companies, another Brexit bonus, so firms will either find ways to cut costs or go under as the margins will dissipate. There's a reason the UK government wanted to extract itself from the working time directive and it's not to help the little people. Venture capitalist are already buying up big companies in the UK with this in mind, it'll lead to less regulation and less protections for low paid low skilled workers. 

 

Growth is predicated on output and our manufacturing output was decimated many years ago, so we rely on services, which we outsourced a lot of ironically. So, we need to recalibrate our whole economy to meet the demands of the new world and that takes imagination, drive and vision, sadly lacking with these cretins. There is hope for green and future economies is a delicate one and one where Europe and other nations have the jump on us already, so we're playing catch up whilst severing ourselves from the collective brain power our knowledge sharing agreements had with research universities across Europe. It's just so little foresight and it could be disastrous.  

 

We have sold small business down the river by extracting ourselves, by choice, from internationally recognised safety standards and checks and insisting we have our own, we have neither the infrastructure, as we outsourced the vast majority of the previous testing, nor the time. Another monumental balls up, in line with the others as we just didn't think of the larger ramifications of the big picture. 

 

There plenty more and I've rambled long enough, but in short the worst case scenario is industry is overwhelmed and can not keep up with costs of importers and have little to export due to the same costing jobs, tax, business' and prosperity. Workers rights are eroded and we become a festering, miserable little island. Our cultural exports stall, our national cultural pastimes lose funding/there's no spare money in households to pay to see them and fall by the wayside. Best case scenario some industries see growth and we manage the transition to standing on our own two feet and build towards something, but it will take a hurculian, and unrealist, effrot to get near that. With who we have in charge, and will most likely stay in charge, I'd wager more far right libertarian ideologically driven disaster awaits and Britain to take a hiatus as a significant country for teh foreseeable future.

 

Economic forecasts are gloomy in comparison to our neighbours, jobs in real term are still down on 2019 levels, with 1.6m on furlough still with uncertain futures, the pound is still a fifth down on 2016 and shows no real signs of regaining that level.  

 

Would it have been better handled and the outcomes more benificial if these idiots hadn't done the negotations, perhaps, but the vote leave campaign, the funding and this shit show are two sides of teh same coin so it's not something that can really be a thought experiment.

 

TL:DR We are poorer, less choice, less secure, have less chance of prosperity and have no clear plan on how to change any of that beyond a few pithy slogans mumbled by an idiot and eventually the hand waving of the deluded will subside and a real conversation needs to happen. 

 

We've been had. 

 

 

[AngryOfTuebrook]

1 hour ago, No2 said:

I was wondering what product is the tipping point? What empty shelf will have people reaching for the pick axes? No rashers on a weekend would seriously piss me off, tea bags would probably send me over the edge.

Pick axe supplies have run out.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Excellent post, Bruce.

[No2]

I'll hold fire praising it until Gnasher has had time to dissect and correct.

[Bruce Spanner]

7 minutes ago, No2 said:

I'll hold fire praising it until Gnasher has had time to dissect and correct.

 

It'll be, smarm, followed by factually incorrect and wooly reassoning, then a non-sequitur, then an article that actually disproves his argument as he hasn't read it, then he'll post a link to the FT that nobody can read as it's behind a paywall.

 

He'll then argue that black is white and up is down as he has absolutley no critical faculties and can not even concieve that he might, just might not fully grasp the magnitiude of the situation, he'll then blame others by labelling them tories, when in reality his thinking is more alligned with them than he cares to consider.

 

In short.

 

[Moctezuma]

44 minutes ago, Bruce Spanner said:

 

Rafael Behr wrote a decent, but flawed piece this week effectively 'It's a massive failure, but it's not as bad as it could have been. 

 

I'm on the slightly more pessimistic side, but we're not going to become Mogadishu overnight, but we'll become a very grey version of Blighty where choice, prosperity and opportunity are the preserve of the few and the rest see standards and choice fall along with our global standing. 

 

The handling, planning, negotiations, politics of it has been an absolute disaster and have set us back as a country in the worlds eyes immeasurably. Europe hate us, the US hates Johnson and all that entails, the rest of the world won't trust us as we renege on agreements and threaten to break international law. The trade deals have been weighted in favour to the other countries as we are negotiating from a position of weakness, the US trade deal which a lot of the 'sunlit uplands' depends on is now effectively shelved. The trade agreement with Australia was to soften our ability to join the Trans-Atlantic trade pact, but Arden has already threatened to veto that, so that might be dead in the water as well. 

 

We have left being a major player in the largest trading bloc on the planet to an isolated, untrusted island with little to offer the world anymore. 

 

In finance the city is being picked off by European countries so we are losing many, many billions through this which are never coming back, that's not just cash in markets, that's wages, tax, rent, goods and services, all of it, it's a huge loss. Part of the reason for leaving was to become 'Singapore on Sea' and have low tax, low regulation economy on Europe's door, with access to the single market. Surprisingly Europe saw this coming a mile off and insisted on 'Equivalency Rules' on finances services meaning it was a no starter and this was the weight bearing stone of the whole gig, so with that gone, we're fucked. Sunak's free ports were tied in to this, but nobody checked international agreements on these and they are dead in the water as they are prohibited in most of the areas we are looking to do business. Nobody has checked the fine print on anything and we have lost most of the things we wanted to walk away with and the whole house of cards was built on. Negotiations were ego driven and have massively backfired and left us with far less than we walked in with and few chances of regaining them in the short to medium terms. 

 

We have screwed the finance sector, fishing, agriculture, despite what you think about the flawed CAP, and foods industries by not thinking about anything beyond a headline. Costs to import/export are prohibitive due to addition checks and paper work meaning goods imported will now come at a premium, or not at all as the cost is not worth it meaning that choice will be restricted as Britain does not have the infrastructure to grow and develop these things as we've always relied on Europe. The average range of choice will realistically plumet with cost going up on things produced in the UK. we don't have enough driver, border guards to process imports/exports, vets to certify etc, all of this could have been mitigated against, but it seems like when the vote was won they considered their job done. It's a clusterfuck which could set us back years and cost countless jobs/business with very little chance of real growth beyond our borders in the future as others can produce better and cheaper. A real concern for jobs and communities that rely on these industries'.  

 

Future proofing the economy should have been the priority, but as we are seeing it was not even an after thought. Apprenticships are used as tax write downs for big firms and are not the 16 year old on the site that people think, these numbers are down year on year and we are looking at real skills gaps and shortages due to a chronic lack of basic foresight. Some shortage jobs will receive an uplift in pay, but this is a trend across Europe where our pay rises are actually smaller in real terms. If any good is to come of this the Unions, like the GMB already has, need to get everybody signed up and get protections. Will they last I doubt it as supply side costs are going through the roof and companies, another Brexit bonus, so firms will either find ways to cut costs or go under as the margins will dissipate. There's a reason the UK government wanted to extract itself from the working time directive and it's not to help the little people. Venture capitalist are already buying up big companies in the UK with this in mind, it'll lead to less regulation and less protections for low paid low skilled workers. 

 

Growth is predicated on output and our manufacturing output was decimated many years ago, so we rely on services, which we outsourced a lot of ironically. So, we need to recalibrate our whole economy to meet the demands of the new world and that takes imagination, drive and vision, sadly lacking with these cretins. There is hope for green and future economies is a delicate one and one where Europe and other nations have the jump on us already, so we're playing catch up whilst severing ourselves from the collective brain power our knowledge sharing agreements had with research universities across Europe. It's just so little foresight and it could be disastrous.  

 

We have sold small business down the river by extracting ourselves, by choice, from internationally recognised safety standards and checks and insisting we have our own, we have neither the infrastructure, as we outsourced the vast majority of the previous testing, nor the time. Another monumental balls up, in line with the others as we just didn't think of the larger ramifications of the big picture. 

 

There plenty more and I've rambled long enough, but in short the worst case scenario is industry is overwhelmed and can not keep up with costs of importers and have little to export due to the same costing jobs, tax, business' and prosperity. Workers rights are eroded and we become a festering, miserable little island. Our cultural exports stall, our national cultural pastimes lose funding/there's no spare money in households to pay to see them and fall by the wayside. Best case scenario some industries see growth and we manage the transition to standing on our own two feet and build towards something, but it will take a hurculian, and unrealist, effrot to get near that. With who we have in charge, and will most likely stay in charge, I'd wager more far right libertarian ideologically driven disaster awaits and Britain to take a hiatus as a significant country for teh foreseeable future.

 

Economic forecasts are gloomy in comparison to our neighbours, jobs in real term are still down on 2019 levels, with 1.6m on furlough still with uncertain futures, the pound is still a fifth down on 2016 and shows no real signs of regaining that level.  

 

Would it have been better handled and the outcomes more benificial if these idiots hadn't done the negotations, perhaps, but the vote leave campaign, the funding and this shit show are two sides of teh same coin so it's not something that can really be a thought experiment.

 

TL:DR We are poorer, less choice, less secure, have less chance of prosperity and have no clear plan on how to change any of that beyond a few pithy slogans mumbled by an idiot and eventually the hand waving of the deluded will subside and a real conversation needs to happen. 

 

We've been had. 

 

 

Thanks for the effort put in, this is a useful summation, it sounds like a lot of this stuff is in the aggregate* i.e. that the effects will be a long term degradation of British services and different sectors of the economy until it can be reoriented to new areas of growth. That's why I asked whether people would see it manifest in their day to day lives in the immediate future, as I'm starting to think that the core of the Brexit vote (i.e. English retirees who live in the South and midlands) won't feel much of an effect until they hit care homes.

 

Interesting what you were saying about the reduction of the tax base as it feels like there is going to have to be fairly heavy spending over the next while to enable the economy to recover from Covid and to put in the infrastructure needed to mitigate climate change. Given the Conservatives proclivity for household finance analogies with the national economy that may cause some issues.

 

* I realise for people directly involved in these industries it will feel a lot more immediate

[Arniepie]

1 hour ago, Bruce Spanner said:

 

Rafael Behr wrote a decent, but flawed piece this week effectively 'It's a massive failure, but it's not as bad as it could have been. 

 

I'm on the slightly more pessimistic side, but we're not going to become Mogadishu overnight, but we'll become a very grey version of Blighty where choice, prosperity and opportunity are the preserve of the few and the rest see standards and choice fall along with our global standing. 

 

The handling, planning, negotiations, politics of it has been an absolute disaster and have set us back as a country in the worlds eyes immeasurably. Europe hate us, the US hates Johnson and all that entails, the rest of the world won't trust us as we renege on agreements and threaten to break international law. The trade deals have been weighted in favour to the other countries as we are negotiating from a position of weakness, the US trade deal which a lot of the 'sunlit uplands' depends on is now effectively shelved. The trade agreement with Australia was to soften our ability to join the Trans-Atlantic trade pact, but Arden has already threatened to veto that, so that might be dead in the water as well. 

 

We have left being a major player in the largest trading bloc on the planet to an isolated, untrusted island with little to offer the world anymore. 

 

In finance the city is being picked off by European countries so we are losing many, many billions through this which are never coming back, that's not just cash in markets, that's wages, tax, rent, goods and services, all of it, it's a huge loss. Part of the reason for leaving was to become 'Singapore on Sea' and have low tax, low regulation economy on Europe's door, with access to the single market. Surprisingly Europe saw this coming a mile off and insisted on 'Equivalency Rules' on finances services meaning it was a no starter and this was the weight bearing stone of the whole gig, so with that gone, we're fucked. Sunak's free ports were tied in to this, but nobody checked international agreements on these and they are dead in the water as they are prohibited in most of the areas we are looking to do business. Nobody has checked the fine print on anything and we have lost most of the things we wanted to walk away with and the whole house of cards was built on. Negotiations were ego driven and have massively backfired and left us with far less than we walked in with and few chances of regaining them in the short to medium terms. 

 

We have screwed the finance sector, fishing, agriculture, despite what you think about the flawed CAP, and foods industries by not thinking about anything beyond a headline. Costs to import/export are prohibitive due to addition checks and paper work meaning goods imported will now come at a premium, or not at all as the cost is not worth it meaning that choice will be restricted as Britain does not have the infrastructure to grow and develop these things as we've always relied on Europe. The average range of choice will realistically plumet with cost going up on things produced in the UK. we don't have enough driver, border guards to process imports/exports, vets to certify etc, all of this could have been mitigated against, but it seems like when the vote was won they considered their job done. It's a clusterfuck which could set us back years and cost countless jobs/business with very little chance of real growth beyond our borders in the future as others can produce better and cheaper. A real concern for jobs and communities that rely on these industries'.  

 

Future proofing the economy should have been the priority, but as we are seeing it was not even an after thought. Apprenticships are used as tax write downs for big firms and are not the 16 year old on the site that people think, these numbers are down year on year and we are looking at real skills gaps and shortages due to a chronic lack of basic foresight. Some shortage jobs will receive an uplift in pay, but this is a trend across Europe where our pay rises are actually smaller in real terms. If any good is to come of this the Unions, like the GMB already has, need to get everybody signed up and get protections. Will they last I doubt it as supply side costs are going through the roof and companies, another Brexit bonus, so firms will either find ways to cut costs or go under as the margins will dissipate. There's a reason the UK government wanted to extract itself from the working time directive and it's not to help the little people. Venture capitalist are already buying up big companies in the UK with this in mind, it'll lead to less regulation and less protections for low paid low skilled workers. 

 

Growth is predicated on output and our manufacturing output was decimated many years ago, so we rely on services, which we outsourced a lot of ironically. So, we need to recalibrate our whole economy to meet the demands of the new world and that takes imagination, drive and vision, sadly lacking with these cretins. There is hope for green and future economies is a delicate one and one where Europe and other nations have the jump on us already, so we're playing catch up whilst severing ourselves from the collective brain power our knowledge sharing agreements had with research universities across Europe. It's just so little foresight and it could be disastrous.  

 

We have sold small business down the river by extracting ourselves, by choice, from internationally recognised safety standards and checks and insisting we have our own, we have neither the infrastructure, as we outsourced the vast majority of the previous testing, nor the time. Another monumental balls up, in line with the others as we just didn't think of the larger ramifications of the big picture. 

 

There plenty more and I've rambled long enough, but in short the worst case scenario is industry is overwhelmed and can not keep up with costs of importers and have little to export due to the same costing jobs, tax, business' and prosperity. Workers rights are eroded and we become a festering, miserable little island. Our cultural exports stall, our national cultural pastimes lose funding/there's no spare money in households to pay to see them and fall by the wayside. Best case scenario some industries see growth and we manage the transition to standing on our own two feet and build towards something, but it will take a hurculian, and unrealist, effrot to get near that. With who we have in charge, and will most likely stay in charge, I'd wager more far right libertarian ideologically driven disaster awaits and Britain to take a hiatus as a significant country for teh foreseeable future.

 

Economic forecasts are gloomy in comparison to our neighbours, jobs in real term are still down on 2019 levels, with 1.6m on furlough still with uncertain futures, the pound is still a fifth down on 2016 and shows no real signs of regaining that level.  

 

Would it have been better handled and the outcomes more benificial if these idiots hadn't done the negotations, perhaps, but the vote leave campaign, the funding and this shit show are two sides of teh same coin so it's not something that can really be a thought experiment.

 

TL:DR We are poorer, less choice, less secure, have less chance of prosperity and have no clear plan on how to change any of that beyond a few pithy slogans mumbled by an idiot and eventually the hand waving of the deluded will subside and a real conversation needs to happen. 

 

We've been had. 

 

 

But it could have been worse?

[Arniepie]

In addition to Bruce's excellent points have also seen things like the erasmus scheme binned off (after a promise in parliament that it was safe),issues with both the fishing and farming industries,unresolved issues in ni and the gmnt asking for leeway from the eu..and that after what?8 months. 

 

Still those blue passports eh?

[No2]

38 minutes ago, Bruce Spanner said:

 

It'll be, smarm, followed by factually incorrect and wooly reassoning, then a non-sequitur, then an article that actually disproves his argument as he hasn't read it, then he'll post a link to the FT that nobody can read as it's behind a paywall.

 

He'll then argue that black is white and up is down as he has absolutley no critical faculties and can not even concieve that he might, just might not fully grasp the magnitiude of the situation, he'll then blame others by labelling them tories, when in reality his thinking is more alligned with them than he cares to consider.

 

In short.

 

I notice you left out the bit about hating poor people getting pay rises. Maybe he's right about that one.

[Anubis]

4 hours ago, Bruce Spanner said:

...but more ridiculously supermarkets won't accept meat from pigs that are too big as it doesn't 'look right' on the shelves, so they will be destroyed.

 

Been the same with knobbly fruit and veg for years. Hasn't one of them started to sell packs of knobbly vegetables as though they are a curiosity? Sure I saw an advert somwhere.

[Bruce Spanner]

2 minutes ago, No2 said:

I notice you left out the bit about hating poor people getting pay rises. Maybe he's right about that one.

 

 

[Anubis]

3 hours ago, Moctezuma said:

Bruce and Angry, I've not really been concentrating on Brexit stuff with all the Covid bit at work and national datasets, how 'bad' will it actually get? Enough for people to notice peripherally/with some aggregate changes or a actually impacting on your average person's life on a day to day basis? Or is it very much a sliding scale?

Have you seen The Hunger Games.....