I note commentators turning up on this site to say that there is no way I am progressive because I remain in favour of the European Union.
It is, apparently, a sign of your progression that you wish to leave the EU, with the resulting inevitability of the breakup of the Union, which may well be advantageous for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, but which will be deeply and harmfully disruptive in England.
It is likewise a sign of your left wing status that you wish reduce the income of people in this country, inevitably.
And it is also progressive to want to consign the politics of the remaining rump nation - whatever it is and might be called - to being about negotiating new trade deals with Europe and other countries for the next fifteen years.
If that is progressive politics, then I want nothing of it.
But that's because I do want progressive politics. I want to do a Green New Deal. And in the mayhem post-Brexit that will not be possible. The simple fact is that there will only be the political capacity in England to do a Green New Deal or Brexit, but not both.
And I want to achieve real reform of the City. But that will be impossible when post-Brexit UK politics will be hard-right, without a doubt, and will be aimed to create tax haven UK.
And I want to fight fascism - which cannot be done right across Europe without being in Europe.
I could go on, and on. I hope I don't need to. I hope the point is obvious. If being a little-Englander is progressive that's news to me. And it's not what I want to be. I want real reform. In the real world. For the benefit of real people. With international impact. And there's not a hope of that if we leave the EU.
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Hurrah! Well said, Richard.
‘I want real reform. In the real world. For the benefit of real people. With international impact.’
Yes! YES!! Spot on.
It seems that Left and Right have come to the end of the road that was poorly finished and badly sign posted.
The contractor who built the road was called Neo-Liberalism (his three biggest investors were Fredrick von Hayek, Milton Friedmann and James Buchanan) and he had a sub-contractor called ‘Third Way’ who did the signage who confused people with invented new words to make destinations like ‘greed’ , ‘unaccountability’ ‘inequality’ sound acceptable.
Any real progressive only has one choice: to leave the Left.
I hope you will forgive this completely off-thread intervention, but I thought it of special interest.
VAT has become an issue in the funding of Scotland (assignment of VAT is slowly being transferred from Westminster to Scotland, finally by 20121; assignment of the tax will become part of the Scottish Budget, but not the right to control or amend the tax). This change through the Smith commission I think (like Income Tax) was always designed as much as a political trap, as it was a reform for the sake of good government. And so it has proved. The Fraser of Allander Institute (FAI) produced a Blog on the problem it created in December, 2018 ’VAT Assignment — A bridge too far for fiscal devolution?’. It begins by setting the framework:
“Working out how much VAT is raised in Scotland is exceptionally difficult. Unfortunately, a paper published recently by the UK Government on how it plans to do this suggests that little progress has been made in finding a robust way forward after over 3 years of trying.”
The FAI goes on to identify the problem:
“There is one big challenge with assigning or devolving VAT to Scotland. Businesses are not required to report separate VAT returns for sales made in Scotland. Unlike income tax, which is based upon where a worker resides, VAT is much more complex to identify.”
In the 21st century, with Big Tech, and modern accounting systems this should not be as expensive or difficult to do, at least for the major contributors to the tax, as some critics claim, if there was the least political will to do it; although the FAI makes an issue of the cost. In any case, the FAI continues:
“Previous approaches have looked to regionalise this model to come up with a Scottish share for VAT. This has been done by using the Living Costs and Food Survey (LCFS) to produce estimates of the expenditure on different goods in Scotland (and rUK). An assumption is then made that the VAT gap is proportionately the same across the UK.
In some instances, other methods are used — e.g. for government and the exempt sectors — but the majority of revenues estimated hinge on the LCFS data.
But there are a number of issues with this approach.
Chief amongst them is the robustness of the underlying statistics.
The LCFS has a small sample size: prior to 2017-18, it was only 500 households per year. This means that the confidence intervals are significant — see Table 1 from GERS which shows that for 2017/18 the confidence interval was plus/minus £223m. In other words, we can be 95% confident that the ‘true’ value for VAT revenues in Scotland could lie anywhere between £9.9bn and £10.4bn. These are obviously significant fluctuations — arguably acceptable when the purpose is a statistical publication of Scotland’s overall public finances, but much less so when it comes to marginal changes in day-to-day Scottish budget lines.”
Notice the reference to GERS. I will pass over the rather strange and casually dismissive wording, that these estimates are “arguably acceptable when the purpose is a statistical publication of Scotland’s overall public finances” (really?!). The FAI argument proceeds from there as follows:
“Recognising that earlier estimates were weak in the context of the new tax powers, both governments started working on a better way to assigning such receipts to Scotland. Presumably, many approaches have been examined.”
In order not to turn this comment in to an extensive essay, I will hasten to the FAI Conclusions:
“The amount of detail published on VAT assignment leaves a lot of questions unanswered. But from what we can tell, the method appears similar to previous approaches. This should cause concern for Scottish Ministers and MSPs. Given the reliance on survey based estimates, this has the potential to introduce significant fluctuations into the amount of VAT assigned year-on year, and therefore potentially into the Scottish Budget.
A key aim of the Smith Commission was to improve accountability and make Scotland’s politicians responsible for the money that they spent. Unfortunately rather than helping to deliver this aim, the current proposals for VAT assignment risk undermining that principle.
Perhaps it is wise to pause and think again.”
The Scottish Government has not accepted the proposal because of the defects (that political opponents are now spinning as incompetence, or proof that Scotland is incapable). For me it provides an interesting, and rare insight into the deeply woolly nature of the statistics on Scotland’s finances that Westminster is prepared to accept, and even promote in the 21st century: but everyone else really should wonder why this is still the case. GERS is generally and casually accepted without sufficient consideration of the underlying problems. As soon as a major tax is about to be used that is based on the conventional Westminter approach to estimates, rather than providing accurate and robust data; the reliability of the proposed data instantly collapses in a heap – for very good reason.
Thanks John
I am sure I have visited this issue before – bit it may have been in private comment: I am not sure
The essence of this issue is exactly the same as GERS and all the absurd claims on Scottish trade deficits: there is no data on flows within the UK. In fact source and destination are not defined in a great many cases and so we end up with what I have long called CRAP – completely ruibbisgh approximations
These is, of course, a way around this and that is to make each UK country a reporting entity with VAT data on imports / exports required as for other EU states. It would not be hard and right now there would be little incentive to game it either. But will it happen? I very much doubt it. And so this devolution of VAT remains a giant con trick.
“a con trick” which Derek McKay & co. appear to have seen through…. and therefore have refused it. Just a pity he was a member of the Smith Commission..!