Current Politics in the United Kingdom

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by Wendigo

We did not need 40 years to change our mind, if the vote was offered in the 1980's it would have been much clearer. It took 40 years for HMG to offer us a chance to vote, there is a massive difference. If you cannot see that then it is pointless talking to you.

The fact that talking is usually pointless never stops me talking. The Project Fear approach is trying to the patience, but if you lose your patience you put yourself in the weaker position.

Originally Posted by jacques22

And as the economic situation worsens in the UK, more people will back staying in the SM because they want to keep their jobs and they have wives and kids to feed. In the real world, employment and families are more important than ideology.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/britis...easing-2018-10

As ever, Jacques is guilty of two mistaken assumptions. These are:

1. Britain's economic numbers are exclusively caused by Brexit. None of the other usual economic drivers even exists anymore - unless Britain's economic performance were to improve and exceed the EU, in which case other drivers will be masking the bad effects of Brexit.
2. Non-economic arguments are to be flatly ignored. This is because it is here that the Remain campaign foundered in 2016. Britain's national sovereignty and right to govern herself is not important. National security in the face of a large and untrustworthy migration threat from the Middle East and North Africa is not a consideration. The threat to the pay and conditions of ordinary working people in the UK posed by the free movement of labour is not a consideration. This threat to ordinary British citizens pay, conditions and standard of life is made possible by undermining our democratic rights by stealth - I thought Kate Hoey made this point rather well when she described the ethos of the EU as "”an attempt to replace the democratic power of the people with a permanent administration in the interests of big business".

Project Fear is all about concealment of the real core issues by means of scare mongering. But actually the core issues are rather more disturbing than whether Britain has low quarterly economic growth this autumn or whether the pound sterling is weak in currency trading markets. The core issues are:

• Sovereignty.
• Democracy and the right to hire and fire our rulers.
• Deciding our own territorial policies ourselves - eg control of our fishing grounds.
• National security and control of our own borders.
• Ending the free movement of labour. This is a grave threat to Britain on several levels.

Incidentally, just in case anyone thinks I don't consider economic arguments, I would point out that provided the currency is stable, a weak currency is much better for trade, exports and jobs than a strong currency. This is why Germany props up the Euro - her economy would not benefit if she reverted to the Deutsche-mark. Meanwhile, Jacques has made the assumption that staying in the single market is preferable for job security. I think the opposite is true. If you do not control your own borders and you allow the free movement of labour, then you can forget about job security.

[bjcb0]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

Incidentally, just in case anyone thinks I don't consider economic arguments, I would point out that provided the currency is stable, a weak currency is much better for trade, exports and jobs than a strong currency. This is why Germany props up the Euro - her economy would not benefit if she reverted to the Deutsche-mark. Meanwhile, Jacques has made the assumption that staying in the single market is preferable for job security. I think the opposite is true. If you do not control your own borders and you allow the free movement of labour, then you can forget about job security.

A weak currency is a mixed blessing in a fairly open economy like ours, since we will see imports and fuel costs increase too. The poor will be more affected by this than the middle class, sadly. The Euro certainly does help Germany, just as it harms the French, Italian and Spanish economies. I still think Germany monetary policy is a far greater danger to the EU than the precedent of Brexit.

I do think Jacques is correct to predict a recession if we leave the single market. On the other hand, economics is really not a science, as we all know. We should all remember the 1970s prediction that injecting more money into the UK economy would increase inflation and decrease unemployment, but both went up (I can date my teenage understanding of this fairly precisely to buying the Men Only Christmas issue with Francoise Pascal!). The monetarist prediction in the later 1980s was that reducing the money supply would reduce inflation, which also failed to occur (I don't have a precise Men Only issue to date this, but I was probably looking at Kay Griffiths!).

[scoundrel]

They ought really to have included Men Only in the RPI shopping basket.

[vinceprince]

Originally Posted by bjcb0

A weak currency is a mixed blessing in a fairly open economy like ours, since we will see imports and fuel costs increase too. The poor will be more affected by this than the middle class, sadly.

The one group of people that don't have to worry about RPI inflation are the demographic group that most strongly voted for Brexit - Pensioners. Whose pensions are guaranteed to rise with inflation at the very minimum.

Maybe if everyone's jobs and income were similarly protected we would all be happy to crash out for the sake of some deluded idealistic 'Sovereignty'.

Many of us 'Remainers' were no great enthusiasts for the EU but were just realistic about what outcome could be achieved by 'leaving' and were not taken in by the dreamland bullshit peddled by Johnson/Gove/Farage etc.

[judy84]

Being in the EU hasn't done much good for trade. Trade war with the US. Companies moving to EU countries with lower wages and with EU subsidies. The loss of 600,000 (1/5 of total) of manufacturing jobs in the last decade well before the referendum.


Evidence of the EU already destroying Britain:

Cadbury moved a factory to Poland in 2011 with an EU grant; Ford transit moved to Turkey in 2013 with an EU grant; Jaguar Land Rover has recently agreed to build a new plant in Slovakia with an EU grant, owned by Tata, the same company who have trashed our steel works and emptied the workers pension funds.

Peugeot closed its Ryton plant and moved production to Slovakia with an EU grant.

The British army's new Ajax fighting vehicles are to be built in Spain using Swedish steel at the request of the EU to support jobs in Spain with an EU grant rather than Wales. There are dozens of other examples.

[palo5]

Originally Posted by judy84

The British army's new Ajax fighting vehicles are to be built in Spain using Swedish steel at the request of the EU to support jobs in Spain with an EU grant rather than Wales. There are dozens of other examples.

Huh? Doesn't the British government decide where its army vehicles are built?

Don't forget that Britain also got many manufacturing contracts precisely because they were in the EU. Hard to say if they'll keep those now, but good luck anyway

[otokonomidori]

Originally Posted by vinceprince

The one group of people that don't have to worry about RPI inflation are the demographic group that most strongly voted for Brexit - Pensioners. Whose pensions are guaranteed to rise with inflation at the very minimum.

"Old age and treachery will always beat youth and exuberance."

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by palo5

Huh? Doesn't the British government decide where its army vehicles are built?

If it was sovereign, then the answer would be "yes". But since the EU has a supra-national authority in matters such as industrial policy, your simple question is not as simple as it should be. General Dynamics is a global corporation which can subcontract work on a British contract to its Spanish group company. Under EU trade rules, Britain would have a difficult time if she objected to any such transfer of work as this is allowed under free movement of goods and services.

What is good for big business is not always good for the country.

[palo5]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

General Dynamics is a global corporation which can subcontract work on a British contract to its Spanish group company

In other words, the British did decide who got the contract, and they gave it to a US company, who sub-contracted to others who weren't British -- and that's a reason for leaving the EU because they steal your "sovereignty"

And brexiters swallow jokes like that? No wonder the world is laughing. Tell us about bendy bananas again. We are fascinated by such sophistication

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by palo5

In other words, the British did decide who got the contract, and they gave it to a US company, who sub-contracted to others who weren't British -- and that's a reason for leaving the EU because they steal your "sovereignty"

And brexiters swallow jokes like that? No wonder the world is laughing. Tell us about bendy bananas again. We are fascinated by such sophistication

The alternative contractor was BAE Systems, which is also a global corporation with subsidiaries and branches in the EU, the USA and Australia, and other places. This is a global business environment. Individual countries can set terms and conditions on business contracts to make sure they do not export jobs using public money - provided they are not bound by European Union treaties. These are objective realities, not changed by any amount of bluster and mockery.

Sovereignty is not an ideological thing, nor is it a delusion. Sovereignty is the right to make your own choices and to base these choices on what is in your own best interests. If you vote against that, you are indeed the turkey which votes for Christmas.