Current Politics in the United Kingdom

[Dr Pepper]

Originally Posted by hoss

As you are intent on repeating the policy of the inter-war era, we will soon see if the outcome is the same.

Well as a scientist I will tell you an experiment needs to be done more than once with repeatable results to have any credibility-and more to the point-should be repeatable by others with the same result..........your turn...

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by hoss

As you are intent on repeating the policy of the inter-war era, we will soon see if the outcome is the same.

Hoss, dear boy, you are hallucinating again. I warned you about those mushrooms.

In the 1930s, Britain retaliated against the Hoover administration. Hoover had thought he was allowed to impose 37.5% import tariffs on British territories but that we British were still obliged to operate free trade in respect of imports from the USA. That was why the British side, including Canada, implemented "colonial preference" - free trade between British territories and a tariff on American goods.

Now - who do we see operating a "colonial preference" policy today? Clue - it isn't Britain.

[haunted]

Originally Posted by DB83

All eyes now on Brussels if they accept the request to defer the leave date. Of course they will but with many attached strings. But why just roll over unless that was the grand plan all along by May >> get such a bad deal that it would never pass but pretend you are following the will of the people but end up in indefinitely.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-47614074

Speaker Bercow won't allow another vote on the May deal. It was thought that a fourth vote might have been needed to get it passed.

What now?
Looks like a request for a long extension to Article 50 but for what except to prevent No Deal? Also UK participation in 2019 Euro elections

[DB83]

And I can almost imagine the headline in tomorrow's Mail.

"Bercow halts Brexit"

He can be a little sh*t but rules are rules. So then you have to change the rules.

[jacques22]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

What usually happens in a situation of near-full employment is that the price of labour increases. But this requires there to be a labour shortage, and as matters currently stand, there is an inexhaustible pool of overseas labour which can enter the country freely and fill vacancies. Therefore, until the rest of the European Union is also operating at a 4% unemployment level, close to effective full employment, there is no labour shortage and wages, particularly in strenuous but unskilled jobs such as harvesting fruit and vegetables, are held low.

That's the theory.
In the real world, there are more and more unfilled vacancies. On the UK side, the reason is that there are Brits who don't want to perform certain jobs. On the EU side, the Home Office's hostile environment has deterred a lot of migrant workers from going to the UK for work.
From Reuters today, if you need a reality check:
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-br...-idUKKCN1QZ06R

The best bits:
Asparagus grown in Britain is feted by chefs as among the world’s best but the seasonal worker shortage threatens the country’s asparagus industry and the viability of Chinn’s Cobrey Farms business.
(...)
“It is incredibly clear cut - there is no UK asparagus on your supermarket shelves without seasonal migrant workers,” Chinn, whose great grandfather started as a tenant farmer in 1925, told Reuters.
“We’re really at the point where we either import the workers or we import the asparagus.”
(...)
This year Chinn’s team has had to work much harder to recruit Romanians and Bulgarians who are perplexed by the long Brexit process as Prime Minister Theresa May seeks parliament’s approval for a divorce deal with the EU. They are also wary of the welcome they will receive from Britons, who voted in 2016 to leave the EU.
(...)
Chinn’s concern grew after 20 of the 100 or so workers due to help cultivate the crops in January failed to turn up.
Of 247 workers due to arrive between March 31 and April 6, 125 are yet to book flights, he said. They include 38 who have worked at Cobrey Farms before and stayed in the dozens of static caravans that stand at the foot of the hills on the farm.
Chinn, who voted Remain in the 2016 Brexit referendum, said uncertainty over eastern Europeans’ employment rights and how long they can stay, combined with a fall in the value of the pound, meant Germany and the Netherlands were now considered more attractive destinations.
(...)
British farms typically pay workers the national minimum wage of 7.83 pounds an hour plus performance-related bonuses.
Chinn said the idea of British workers plugging the gap was fanciful. He does not expect much help from the supermarkets, where sales volumes have already been negotiated for the season and prices have been fixed, barring exceptional circumstances.
(...)
Britain’s fruit and vegetable sector relies on up to 80,000 seasonal workers from the EU each year. Having previously been inundated with applications, labour agencies say interest dropped off in 2017 and 2018 as workers from Romania and Bulgaria opted to go elsewhere in the EU.
(...)
Concordia, a labour agency charity that finds EU pickers for British farms, said it now has to work much harder to recruit.
“U.K. agriculture is definitely entering into a crisis. No labour means no harvesting, which means no fruit and no vegetables on shelves in British supermarkets,” Chief Executive Stephanie Maurel told Reuters.

Originally Posted by scoundrel

The low level of these wages and the prevelance of overseas workers in those occupations are co-related and are not a coincidence. British workers are denied a proper living wage and overseas workers are mistreated by the dirisory pay level they get for extremely hard work. This is a good example of how the free movement of labour is a freedom for bosses and not a freedom for workers.

Correlation does not mean causation.
Again, you fail to address the reason why Brits refuse to perform certain jobs.
And leaving the EU won't prevent British bosses from keeping fat profits for themselves while paying the minimum to their workers, whether British or migrant workers (see Tim Martin).
On the contrary, by leaving the EU, the UK will be able to lower the standards for working rights. And instead of hiring EU workers, those unscrupulous bosses will simply hire more workers from Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Originally Posted by scoundrel

I know a woman whose father was a bus driver for Arriva - the bus company managers scrutinised his bus like a hawk looking for the tiniest scratch in the paint, because they could hand him an official warning, one of three which would enable them to fire him. He was on one of the old contracts and earning > £25K a year, which is hardly a King's ransom for driving a double decker bus in London traffic. But they could replace him with an EU driver who would be willing to drive for £7.90 an hour and whose EU bus driver's licence would be automatically valid in London.

This isn't fairy tales. The free movement of labour undermines pay and conditions for British workers.

That example has nothing to do with the EU.
Clearly, the bus managers wanted to get rid of a bus driver whose old contract gave him a slightly better salary than his peers probably because of seniority. That kind of situation also happens in some EU countries, where your bonus automatically increases after X years in the same company.
I'm pretty sure the bus managers could have found a young British driver willing to work for the minimum salary, and even maybe on a zero-hour contract. But remember, it's British politicians who set the minimum wage and who made zero-hour contracts legal. In France, the minimum wage is 9.88 euros and there is no such thing as zero-hour contracts.

[Devius]

Originally Posted by DB83

St. Theresa, for the moment at least, has been thwarted in bringing her deal back to the Commons a third time.

If I was the Speaker of the House John Bercow, I'd stay away from some of tomorrow's newspapers - especially the Sun's...

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by haunted

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-47614074

Speaker Bercow won't allow another vote on the May deal. It was thought that a fourth vote might have been needed to get it passed.

What now?
Looks like a request for a long extension to Article 50 but for what except to prevent No Deal? Also UK participation in 2019 Euro elections

Speaker Bercow has come in for quite a lot of criticism and I feel very little doubt that he is an ardent Remainer. But his rulings have been rooted in constitutional precedent and in fact he is a serious expert on the British constitutional settlement. Government sources who were making snide remarks about him being an activist speaker are full of it. Apart from the rules of Erskine May, which Mr Bercow has cited with references, it is natural common sense that the government cannot be allowed to table a motion twice, and that when the House rejects it, the House has spoken. The Speaker has defended the House from government malpractise and IMHO the government should face reality and move on.

Potentially, Speaker Bercow's ruling would mean that Mrs May's deal can't be re-presented until the next session, which I think will begin after summer recess. That would mean a short extension period on Article 50 won't cut the mustard. I wonder what the Europeans will do. They might not be able to come to a unanimous decision and, if they can't, a last minute panic vote on the May deal is now ruled out. A no-deal Leave is very much on the table right now. I prefer that to being the gimp in the EU's cellar, which is what Mrs May was offering.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by Devius

If I was the Speaker of the House John Bercow, I'd stay away from some of tomorrow's newspapers - especially the Sun's...

A pack of absolute bollocks, and I speak as a convinced Brexiteer. But if Mr Bercow saves the copies from the Commons library, they will spare him the cost of a packet of toilet rolls.

[vinceprince]

Originally Posted by DB83

And I can almost imagine the headline in tomorrow's Mail.

"Bercow halts Brexit"

He can be a little sh*t but rules are rules. So then you have to change the rules.

Exactly if you don't get the answer you want, just keep asking the same question repeatedly until they give the answer you want right?

[hoss]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

In the 1930s, Britain retaliated against the Hoover administration. Hoover had thought he was allowed to impose 37.5% import tariffs on British territories but that we British were still obliged to operate free trade in respect of imports from the USA. That was why the British side, including Canada, implemented "colonial preference" - free trade between British territories and a tariff on American goods.

Yes, and everybody lost.