Current Politics in the United Kingdom - Page 354

**seany65** · March 27th, 2018, 12:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vinceprince

No. The referendum was called by Cameron due to internal fractions in the Parliamentary Tory Party. No other reason.

You polarise the debate. Everyone a 'hard Brexiteer' or a 'Euro-fanatic'.

Not so, most people want something in the middle though they may not be obsessed about it or as visible the 'extremists' in the media or posting endlessly about it on internet forums. The referendum meant they had to come down on one side of the line or the other.

Cameron called the referendum because of internal fractions, but what do you think those fractions were based on?

Europhiles (of varying degrees) and Eurosceptics (of varying degrees) causing disunity in the party because few in either side had the relationship with the EU that they wanted.

Cameron tried to appease the Eusceptics by getting concessions from the EU.

The EU didn't want to give any concessions as they didn't have the relationship with Britain that they wanted (Britain totally mesmerised by everything the EU says and does).

The Eurosceptics outside the tory party weren't happy with the ralationship we had with the EU, as they thought we were too 'close' etc.

The Europhiles outside the tory party weren't happy with the relationship with the EU as they thought we weren't 'close' enough.

Cameron thought the Europhiles inside and outside the tory party were much stronger than the Eurosceptics inside and outside the tory party, and so he called the referendum in an attempt to appease the Europhiles by setting their minds at rest about Britain's future in the EU.

Many people couldn't really be arsed either way and so they didn't vote.

An unknown number of 'Brexiters' wanted a 'hard Brexit', with Britain out of the single market, customs union, no free movement etc.

Few, if any, of those who couldn't be arsed either way care what sort of Brexit we get.

Few Remainers actually want any sort of Brexit and that is why they are trying to stop it. It is safe to to assume that few remainers want anything other than a Brexit so soft that it's only Brexit in name.

jacques22 · March 28th, 2018, 06:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by seany65

Cameron tried to appease the Eusceptics by getting concessions from the EU.

The EU didn't want to give any concessions as they didn't have the relationship with Britain that they wanted (Britain totally mesmerised by everything the EU says and does).

You are rewriting history here.
The EU actually gave those concessions:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...-actually-got/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politic...endum-35622105
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...nd-what-he-got

If the UK had voted 'remain', the Brits would have obtained those concessions negotiated by Cameron. The UK was already the best treated member inside the EU with the rebate and the op-outs. And it would have enjoyed a really privileged status with those concessions.

But the UK voted 'leave' and the concessions were therefore withdrawn since the UK no longer wanted to be part of the EU. Because the EU made those concessions, some British politicians thought they could push the envelope and "have their cake and eat it" by keeping the benefits of EU membership without the constraints.

**scoundrel** · March 30th, 2018, 11:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ********

This is called "democracy".

It's a brilliant concept. You come up with a proposal for what to do, and ask the people if they like it. If they don't, you can either abandon it or take their feedback and make changes, then ask them again.

Or, as with the Treaty of Lisbon (previously known as the Single European Constitution), you don't change a thing, but you conceal the provisions rejected by popular vote in France and Holland as technical amendments to existing treaties and that way you can impose by stealth all the provisions which the voters explicitly voted not to allow.

Democracy ignored is democracy denied.

**Wendigo** · April 4th, 2018, 09:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ********

Even the Express have to admit it.

The Express, hmmm, they probably had no "new" Princess Diana stories to thrill us with

**bawjaws** · April 4th, 2018, 10:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by seany65

You keep saying the referendum was based on lies, .

like every election ever

**haroldeye** · April 5th, 2018, 05:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wendigo

The Express, hmmm, they probably had no "new" Princess Diana stories to thrill us with

She was driving the bus!.

blueboy199 · April 9th, 2018, 10:04 PM

There is a fantastic rebuttal (review if you prefer) of much of the Treasury, and other, economic forecasts in the event of a Leave vote, in a Cambridge University report from January entitled "How The Economics Profession Got It Wrong on Brexit". It's a PDF so I've not posted a link, but it's simple to find. The following passage commenting on the Treasury (Project Fear) forecast probably comes as close as any academic paper to calling the authors a bunch of unscrupulous liars.

We havebeen unable to get a meeting with the Treasury to discuss these
differences, nor were HMT willing to release any further details of their
methods or equations. We do know however that there is an internal Treasury
paper from 2005 which generates much smaller estimates of the impact of EU
membership on intra-EU trade (HM Treasury, 2005). Importantly, this paper
recognises that the impact of EU membership was much smaller for the UK
than for other EU members. We had assumed that HMT’s failure to recognise
this key point in their 2016 report was due to an oversight, but the existence of
the 2005 Treasury paper suggests that it was more deliberate. The omission
could, of course, be due to a lack of institutional memory in an organisation
with high staff turnover, but it is important to note that the official responsible
for the 2016 report, Treasury Chief Economist, Sir Dave Ramsden (now Deputy
Governor at the Bank of England), was employed at the Treasury in 2005.

The second piece I've copied, below, from the Mayor of Knifeland's (sorry, London) report is again self-explanatory, and this "per capita" issue has been woefully missing from virtually every commentary both pre- and post-referendum. No surprise that the authors were happy to bury it as it didn't fit the required narrative. Am I that concerned that overall growth was a little lower in 2017, given reduced EU immigration since the vote? No.

An important aspect of these predictions was given no prominence in either the
Report itself or in the media coverage of the report. This was the fact that per
capita GVA (which measures living standards) was predicted to be only very
slightly reduced by 2030 in any of the Brexit scenarios. This is not shown
explicitly in the Report’s tables but can be seen in the table above by comparing
the GVA and Population rows in the table. In scenario 4 for instance GVA is
predicted to be 2.7% lower, and population to be 2.2% lower. Combining these
two estimates gives a reduction of per capita GVA of 0.5% by 2030.

It's a hell of a long read, as these academic reports often are, but worth it, especially for those of you who refuse to accept that the dice were loaded against Leave from the start. It's an attempt (by majority Remain voting authors) at a balanced look at the economic forecasting around Brexit. They don't know what will happen, you don't know, I don't know...but we have a better chance of making informed decisions if we're not fed ludicrous propaganda, as we were. #8496hours

**scoundrel** · April 9th, 2018, 10:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blueboy199

They don't know what will happen, you don't know, I don't know...but we have a better chance of making informed decisions if we're not fed ludicrous propaganda, as we were. #8496hours

The referendum campaigns on both sides were more full of shit than a German porn movie. Anyone who wanted to make an informed decision needed to start by completely avoiding any TV broadcasts or printed material from the official Remain or Leave campaigns and doing their own research.

blueboy199 · April 9th, 2018, 10:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scoundrel

The referendum campaigns on both sides were more full of shit than a German porn movie.

Yeah, mate, but the narrative, before and after, is that only one side lied.

Forgot to mention...heteroscedastic...don't you love it when academics just throw in a word like that, which you have to then look up. Ha.

**scoundrel** · April 10th, 2018, 08:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ********

If we can all agree that everything said before the vote was complete horseshit, we can agree that we have to have the final say on the deal once reality really bites, right?

Wrong.

There has already been a vote.

Would you be quite so keen for us to hold a second referendum if the Remain side had won? Somehow I doubt it.

April 9th, 2018, 10:04 PM	#3537
blueboy199 Member Join Date: May 2014 Location: Manchester Posts: 27 Thanks: 25,911 Thanked 196 Times in 25 Posts	There is a fantastic rebuttal (review if you prefer) of much of the Treasury, and other, economic forecasts in the event of a Leave vote, in a Cambridge University report from January entitled "How The Economics Profession Got It Wrong on Brexit". It's a PDF so I've not posted a link, but it's simple to find. The following passage commenting on the Treasury (Project Fear) forecast probably comes as close as any academic paper to calling the authors a bunch of unscrupulous liars. We havebeen unable to get a meeting with the Treasury to discuss these differences, nor were HMT willing to release any further details of their methods or equations. We do know however that there is an internal Treasury paper from 2005 which generates much smaller estimates of the impact of EU membership on intra-EU trade (HM Treasury, 2005). Importantly, this paper recognises that the impact of EU membership was much smaller for the UK than for other EU members. We had assumed that HMT’s failure to recognise this key point in their 2016 report was due to an oversight, but the existence of the 2005 Treasury paper suggests that it was more deliberate. The omission could, of course, be due to a lack of institutional memory in an organisation with high staff turnover, but it is important to note that the official responsible for the 2016 report, Treasury Chief Economist, Sir Dave Ramsden (now Deputy Governor at the Bank of England), was employed at the Treasury in 2005. The second piece I've copied, below, from the Mayor of Knifeland's (sorry, London) report is again self-explanatory, and this "per capita" issue has been woefully missing from virtually every commentary both pre- and post-referendum. No surprise that the authors were happy to bury it as it didn't fit the required narrative. Am I that concerned that overall growth was a little lower in 2017, given reduced EU immigration since the vote? No. An important aspect of these predictions was given no prominence in either the Report itself or in the media coverage of the report. This was the fact that per capita GVA (which measures living standards) was predicted to be only very slightly reduced by 2030 in any of the Brexit scenarios. This is not shown explicitly in the Report’s tables but can be seen in the table above by comparing the GVA and Population rows in the table. In scenario 4 for instance GVA is predicted to be 2.7% lower, and population to be 2.2% lower. Combining these two estimates gives a reduction of per capita GVA of 0.5% by 2030. It's a hell of a long read, as these academic reports often are, but worth it, especially for those of you who refuse to accept that the dice were loaded against Leave from the start. It's an attempt (by majority Remain voting authors) at a balanced look at the economic forecasting around Brexit. They don't know what will happen, you don't know, I don't know...but we have a better chance of making informed decisions if we're not fed ludicrous propaganda, as we were. #8496hours