I was just asked to offer a quick comment on the economic consequences of Brexit for another website. This is what I offered:
The UK's vote to leave the EU takes us into unknown political territory.
An election has been won by people who, it is already obvious, have no plan on how to deal with the situation they have created. What is now apparent is that the Brexit camp are demanding that a government committed to Remain must deliver Leave.
What means is that markets are right to react sharply. What they dislike most of all is uncertainty and that is the one thing we can now be sure that we have.
That immediate market reaction could just be speculative, but I doubt that. The fundamental uncertainty will flow through into a significant decline in investment, which will lead to recession, inevitably.
The decline in the value of sterling should logically lead to an interest rate rise but that would tip many UK households, and in turn many UK banks into financial crisis. Preventing this will require massive injection of funding from the Bank of England but not for investment, but just to keep banks afloat.
At the same time tax yields will fall, inevitably. Balanced budgets are now animpossibility.
The result will be political turmoil.
Economically Brexit can for the time being only suggest massive financial stress is coming the UK's way. And no one, anywhere, will be wanting to offer us any help in solving it because we've just turned our back on the world.
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Maybe you should get a new photo done now that you are a professor, with a mortar-board and gown. It would add a little much-needed gravitas.
If you grew a big moustache too, you would look a bit like Professor Jimmy Edwards. Nowt wrong with that – folk used to like him.
How did two posts of this berk get through-the last things we want at a time like this is a piss-taker on board.
I am not sure
I was vaguely amused that anyone was stupid enough to post them
The aftermath of a revolution is upon us now that ignorance, racicm, bigotry and greed are in charge. I dont think I want to live here anymore!
‘now that ignorance, racicm, bigotry and greed are in charge. ‘ There’s’ no ‘now’ those have been features for some years.
‘That immediate market reaction could just be speculative’-isn’t that the most likely thing, pure currency arbitrage?
Interest rate rise to bring in more Sterling not possible -roll out the QE ‘printing’ again?
How will the rich cope without their farming subsidies?
See:www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/01/farm-subsidies-blatant-transfer-of-cash-to-rich
Maybe they would like to invest in my new company, I have promises from four people at work already . We are going to invest in fans because there will be a lot of brown stuff to distribute soon !! We should make a killing!!!
Sorry but you have to keep your sense of humour.
I abstained in the end by the way.
I wonder how many abstentions there were-we’ll never know because we aren’t allowed to register one.
As Richard Wolff puts it ‘capitalism has hit the fan.’ Problem is, the public have been so inured to being sprayed with the brown stuff they can’t smell it any more.
If you were considering Remain,your abstention,in effect,became a vote for leave.
Marco-I reject that! I stood up for firm principles that I would not accept a bogus decision that did represent real change-that’s the message I put on my ballot paper -the fact that it didn’t ‘count’ say a lot about our voting system which should include principled abstention.
They want both a separation from the EU and the subsides. It is most likely that the state will step in.
The situation is similar to that of Wales where the biggest percipient (other that farming) of subsides in the UK voted against the machinery giving those subsides. However I can’t see a Troy state stepping in to fill the cash void.
The only logical move now is a quick General Election.
Cameron is busted, but Boris/Gove have no mandate to rule – and 48% of the electorate don’t want them anywhere near the levers of power.
If the Tories even slightly split down Brexit lines, there will be no prospect of anything being passed through Parliament and the years and years of untangling UK legislation from EU Directives will stall before it even starts.
So we have not only economic, but legislative turmoil too.
‘we’ve just turned our back on the world.’
In terms of climate change/rentier capitalism/inequality/social justice – I’d say the ‘world has turned its back on itself.’
The capitalist/neo-liberal model is dead and the Gramsci ‘interregnum’ is fully upon us. Zombie capitalism will PRETEND it is still alive so things will carry on apparently as before but with greater cognitive dissonance.
The fact is labour got this wrong, hugely. They forgot who their core voters are and will pay the price, a party of the people who no longer represent the people. Unless corbyns steps down or changes tack they’ll be no where at the next election.
there is an effect on wages for the less skilled-and indeed, for some of the skilled, for example lorry drivers. However, surveys show most people grossly over-estimate the number of migrants employed here.
agreed – Corbyn has to go, especially if there is going to be a quick general election.
And how might that happen when 59% elected him and he is closer to public sentiment than anyone else in Labour?
Do you understand the process required to trigger a general election before the fixed term 5 year period?
1. A motion of no confidence is passed in Her Majesty’s Government by a simple majority and 14 days elapses without the House passing a confidence motion in any new Government formed
2. A motion for a general election is agreed by two thirds of the total number of seats in the Commons including vacant seats (currently 434 out of 650)
By what logic do you see the opposition parties supporting either of these options?
It will happen because corbyns won’t even be nominated. He’s not got enough support with his own MPs
That’s rubbish Myles, Corbyn (and Labour generally) may not prefer Brexit but it inadvertently suits them very well. With FPTP voting, UKIP has been a massive drain on Labour’s prospects.
Now that UKIP have what they want they serve no further purpose. Why on earth would Corbyn resign if:
A. Labour’s greatest bugbear is now a spent force &
B. None of the other prospective Labour leaders supported the Leave option anyway?
All of the people who are now saying that pro-Remain leaders everywhere must resign are blowing hot air. The whole idea of that is arbtirary and at most an internal Tory dispute.
Good point.
If there is a figure who contributed most to Leave winning it’s Jezza.
Voted no in 1975, no to Maastrict, no to Lisbon. Ran a completely halfhearted Remain compaign.
Can’t blame the elites for this result. They didnt vote this way. This was the vote of ordinary working people.
There is a grim irony in urban lefties worrying about markets when the working class has its say.
We have to worry about markets
We have to make sure in future we can put people first
One flows to the other
Wrong Adrian, the irony is that this disastrous result (which I’m completely unsurprised by) was voted for by many working class people who are angry at the effects of austerity, but have just voted for even more of it. Public services have been run into the ground by Cameron and Osborne? Well, once we get an even more right wing bunch of Conservatives than those two clowns, plus a recession caused by Brexit, those same people are going to suffer even more.
Out of the frying pan into the fire.
Why is corbyn being blamed for the result of Tory internal squabbling? The voters you speak of were lost years ago under Blair/Brown. These people are blaming the EU for all the ills of austerity and have been fed anti EU propaganda for years! You cannot pin any of this on corbyn.
Corbyn stepping is a dismal prospect, more than ever we need good leadership and vision on the left. The last thing we need is “Neoliberal Light” which is probably what we will get with another Labour leader. Changing tack definitely. More than ever Britain needs hope on this dismal morning.
Labour got this wrong? Blaming Labour? Let me pass you this biscuit – because you surely are taking it. Cameron promised to have a referendum ro avoid splitting his party before the election (happy to split it once elected) – and to garner a few UKIP votes in places like South Thanet.
Nothing whatsoever – NOTHING – to do with the Labour Party. Simply a cheap attempt to win votes for an election which many suspect he doubted he would win anyway.
Labour’s leadership may not have had its full heart in campaigning for Remain – but I thought Corbyn and those alongside him made a good case for a different Europe.
But one thing is for certain – no campaigning by Labour at any level and extent – would have combatted the xenophobia and lies of the Leave campaign.
You may care to note the when it comes to the £350 million to be spent on the NHS – Garage is already saying “Nothing to do with me guvnor”. Oh what a cheeky chappy he is.
I agree that Cameron is responsible for this by allowing a referendum on it. However, Jeremy Corbyn’s lack of commitment and leadership is responsible for so many Labour voters voting to leave. The rise in xenophobia among traditional Labour voters is deeply disturbing and Corbyn could have done more to challenge this. A very sad day for the UK and Europe
Richard (not Richard M),
I really do not understand this take on Corbyn and the Labour Party’s alleged mistaken campaign, nor the need for Jeremy Corbyn to go. Consider the following:
1) Are you REALLY suggesting that the Labour Party should wholeheartedly have joined in with – in effect surrendered to – the xenophobic, indeed, frankly racist arguments of the BREXIT campaign, all in the cause of “standing up to the undemocratic, corporatist EU”? Talk about cutting off one’s nose – more like one’s head! – to spite one’s face, when the ONLY beneficiaries of such strategy would have been the uberFascist BREXITER leadership, rather than the incipiently-Fascist Cameroonies! In military terms, it’s the equivalent of withdrawing your centre to your right flank, allowing the enemy to pierce the centre, surround your forces and annihilate them! Politely, (actually, impolitely) total bollocks.
2) The correct strategy for Labour was to set out a reason for staying in and to reform the EU, and to seek to re-educate Labour’s core vote on the realities, which was Corbyn’s strategy, and for my money, Corbyn, with his quiet persuasiveness, was the ONLY statesmanlike voice in the whole campaign.
I accept that re-educating Labour’s core vote will be an exceptionally difficult task, given that they have been – as have we all, to a greater or lesser extent, but particularly since the Goebbelsesque Coalition came to power in 2010, but really ever since the “Wicked Witch of the West” entered No 10 in 1979 – consistently subjected to a simplistic, dumbed-down narrative that is light years away from the real facts. After all, UKIP appears to get its greatest support in areas of lowest immigration, for example!
However, that does not mean that the attempt at re-education should not be undertaken, and that was the route Jeremy Corbyn opted for: this is the REAL test of leadership, seeking to argue one’s case, and not merely give up and give in to prejudice. To have done what you seem to be suggesting, and pandered to the incipient, and ill-founded, prejudices of the core vote, instead of trying to to accommodate the Party’s views to those narrow views, would have been a betrayal of decency.
Our situation now is similar to that of the 1930’s, namely enslavement to a false economic narrative, and a desire to appease evil forces, with an unwillingness to call out those forces for what they are. For my money, Jeremy Corbyn did that, and ANY possible replacement of him as Leader would almost surely fall back into the Chamberlain- style appeasement of the evil forces of racism bigotry and worship of false economic narratives against which Jeremy Corbyn bravely argued. In other words, a Tweedledum Labour Party for a Tweedledee Tory Party – EXACTLY the situation the held before Jeremy’s election, and also the reason why those who elected Jeremy Corbyn as Leader did so, and did so so very convincingly.
And there is the problem with the current labour opposition, “re-educate labour voters”. Voters don’t need re-educating, they need representing. What a patronising statement to assume labour voters aren’t educated enough to vote for labour. Labour currently do not represent the traditional labour voter, corbyns should have stuck to his pre-leadership principles.
I’m sorry – but what last night proves is that very large numbers of people do not realise what is actually going on
Thank you for your clear good sense Andrew. I agree with your analysis completely.
Couldn’t agree more, thank you Andrew.
Exactly Andrew, that is 100% correct. Incidentally, Mandelson was on R4 this morning putting the boot into Corbyn, and praising Cameron and Osborne! Says it al, doesn’t it?
Richard I respectfully disagree, I think last night proves a majority of uk voters without representation. If labour doesn’t want to represent them then they’ll move to ukip, that is a very scary scenario.
Richard (the other one, not Richard M)
You say:
And there is the problem with the current labour opposition, “re-educate labour voters”. Voters don’t need re-educating, they need representing.”
Are you SERIOUSLY telling me that the Leave vote was the reasoned result of careful weighing up of pros and cons, and the arrival at a balanced judgement. More complete tosh! As you must well know, it was the result of a veritable stampede of bigoted, xenophobic misrepresentation.
And it is NOT patronising to say that Labour’s (or any other Party’s) electorate needs to be re-educated.
“Voters don’t need re-educating, they need representing.” you say. Fine, lets give them what they would undoubtedly go for in a “referendum” on such things: the return of capital punishment, public flogging, corporal punishment in schools, a return to the old grammar school/secondary modern binary education system, probably discrimination against gays and transsexuals, against ethnic minorities and much else besides.
What you are asking for is “delegate democracy”, not “representative democracy” under which system, as was wonderfully set out by the person who quoted Burke, are representatives who will exercise their reason and judgement under the overall supervision of their conscience, both to protect, but also refine, the interests of their constituents.
What you are after, by contrast, is a system in which the pupils dictate what the teachers are to teach. Enough already!
Andrew, calling leave voters bigoted and xenophobic isn’t addressing any issue. Looking down your nose at them because you feel you have a superior view will only alienate them further. Both sides were spouting garbage, to say believing one side over another is not a result of a reasoned decision making (because they don’t agree with you) is quite ridiculous.
I personally don’t believe having referendums is a good way to go but we’ve had one and the people have voted accordingly. We must acknowledge that and take their preference on board if labour are ever to be elected again. Democracy is about representing the people, not leaders educating the people. What you are asking for is for the ruling class to tell us what to think, how is that democracy? It should be against everything we stand for.
There is xenophobia
And there is bigotry
What are you suggesting? Embracing it?
And why shouldn’t leaders educate? Hasn’t that been the way in society, always? Or are you saying I should invite my classes to teach me next time we meet? How do yo think they might think about that?
Richard, we are talking about MPs the people’s representatives, not teachers. You’ve argued in the past about Cameron and Osborn spreading lies about austerity, that is leaders educating the people. Do you agree with that now. MPs are representatives not teachers, there is a place for education don’t get me wrong, but it is not up to labour to do that. It is up to labour to represent their voters. There has been some racism and bigotry, but if you listen to most leavers their reasons are not racist, labelling leavers (many labour voters) this way is alienating and devicive
No sorry
Labour was built in part as an education movement
All politics should have its foundations in a coherent body of intellectual thought
Of course it has a duty to explain / educate on that
This is not just Labour – it is all
The lies were an affront to that
Andrew-my feeling wast that IF Corbyn had been able to outline a Left rational for leaving which exposed the role of corporatism/IMF and rentier capitalism at its root and this had been explained with clarity then he could have gained much support.
He was muzzled by the neo-liberals and that section of the Left that thinks the EU is about social justice and ‘workers rights’ -the reality on the ground in Europe contradicts that.
But I think Corbyn IS the right person to lead the Labour Party and I will continue to support him. Even what he has said today hints at the explanations the public SHOULD BE GIVEN and need to be given with greater clarity and soon!
Unfortunately, the Labour Party is defunct at its heart because they are already going for him and trying to bring him down which will finish the Parties’ electoral chances for another generation. The rubbish I’ve already hear emanating from the orifices of the likes of Chuka Umanna show that there are people dominant in Labour who are utterly clueless with regard to the underlying issues. We’ve also had the undignified sight of Andy ‘weather-vane’ Burnham jumping on the immigration bandwagon in the most disgustingly opportunistic way-he’s still sizing himself up for the top job.
The death of the political sphere will be complete soon and when the public discover that the guff merchants of the Leave campaign cannot deliver on anything there will be further trouble ahead.
If Corbyn is forced out by these ‘assassins’ it will be time for a new Party of the Left to be formed.
Oh dear, Richard (the other one), there you go again, misrepresenting what I say, or simply ignoring it.
I am NOT calling the Leave voters racist and bigoted; what I AM saying is that they were persuaded by ill-founded arguments that WERE racist, bigoted and largely untrue, by “leaders’ such as Farage (who is undoubtedly racist) or Gove, (who is undoubtedly elitist), and who based their WHOLE argument on “fingering and denouncing” the “other” in society, in this case immigrants, following in the Cameron Government’s truly SHAMEFUL “othering” of the unemployed, the sick, the disabled and the mentally ill.
As to the proposition that it is not the job of a Leader to educate his or her followers, well, that’s just leadership on the “Duke of Plaza Toro” model, who always led his regiment from behind, and I’m pretty damn sure Margaret Thatcher would have hit you with her handbag for coming out with such a jejune comment!
She believed, as every great leader believes, it was her job to LEAD, which implies setting out a vision, and arguing for it, and – yes – educating the leader’s followers to understand that vision, while always recognising that the led MUST be listened to – real leadership is a process of dialogue between leaders and led, in which the leader must recognise the rights of the led, and carry them with him or her. Margaret Thatcher forgot that, and fell; Blair would undoubtedly have been pushed had he not jumped; both of them began to believe they could walk on water, forgetting the first rule of real leadership – pay heed to the led.
Finally, I certainly am NOT looking down my nose at the Leave voters “de haut en bas”, but rather with profound compassion and sorrow, watching them, having driven themselves yet deeper into the trap laid for them by some of the most unconscionable blackguards (pre and post Referendum) this country as ever had the misfortune to be ruled by.
‘Labour was built in part as an education movement
All politics should have its foundations in a coherent body of intellectual thought’
Absolutely spot on Richard M. Without education we are lost and have what we have at present: a bunch of politicians working to the Overton Window. The Overton Window is itself a product of mis-education, propaganda, and consent management. It is real education that reveals to us the forces at work in our lives.
Politicians no longer do this and no longer have the intellectual acumen to do so (regardless of an Eton ‘education’). At times like this I think of a person like George Lansbury who worked (in the 20’s and 30’s) to help raise the awareness of the public, this man having left school at 14 to work and had to educate himself in impoverished material condition and reached the point where he could stand up in parliament and challenge people like Churchill and gained the respect of other , like Baldwin who had every advantage in life.
Where’s that spirit now? We need it. Has 40 years of crap T.V infantilised media got us to where we are? A narcolepsy so deep that we don’t even challenge as a nation the shysters and con-merchants in Westminster and will swallow the words of buffoons like hot cakes.
Richard (not Richard M) Andrew is EXACTLY right when he says Labour voters need re-education. They have allowed the Right-wing media to teach them for too long that all of their problems are down to immigrants, welfare scroungers, the EU and greedy capitalists empowered by a captured state to erode wages and conditions, when all along the problems faced by working class communities are home grown.
One argument I’ve seen too often is the dual “Take back control from an undemocratic EU” coupled with “What has the EU done to protect sick/disabled/unemployed from Tory attacks?”. Doesn’t take a genius to look at those two statements and realise maybe we haven’t lost control to an undemocratic EU? After all, if the EU couldn’t intervene to protect workers rights, what control do they have over those rights?
Same as the Austerity narrative. We’re told that taxpayers’ money is needed to pay for public services, so cuts across the board (NHS, SureStart, Social Care) are required to reduce the burden on “Hardworking taxpayers”, yet on the realisation that Brexit was going to win, Mike Carney announced a £250 billion liquidity fund to protect the banks. Was that money taken from those same “hardworking taxpayers”? Of course not, it came from the same source as QE.
Working class people are, unfortunately, on the whole clueless about the workings of our Government, the EU and the Bank of England. I know, because I got into an argument with my own father, who fervently believes that the BoE is a private business and totally separate from the Treasury!
Yes, Labour voters NEED re-education!
Sorry, greedy capitalists are in the wrong part of the comment, they [/i]are[i] part of the problems for working class people, but not recognised as part of the problem.
I hope that there’s not going to be an early general election, but I fear there may be. I would like the tories to take a big hit for taking us down low and now even lower, but if an election comes too soon they will just be rewarded for giving us ‘democracy’ and Labour are not yet ready with policies for normal times let alone this mess. No one knows what to do. Please advise, Richard.
I think we need an election
But not before November
When Brown took over from Blair there was no election. No election at all.
We need a general election but we will probably not get one.
Corbyn is not the right leader to take Labour into the next general election, whenever it is. Much as I respect his principles, he isn’t a leader.
Sorry if that goes down badly with his supporters…
I’m afraid so Carol. If you thought things were bad before the referendum, now they’re going to get a great deal worse. We’ll simply swap one bunch of dreadful Tories for an even worse one, in the midst of economic chaos, and rising nationalist sentiment.
Ordinary Labour voters, angry at the results of years of rising inequality and austerity caused by right wing politics, have been conned into putting the blame onto the EU and have just voted for even more of the same, from which they will be the ones suffering most.
And all headed by a ranting demagogue with a ‘mission’ to ‘free Britain from the shackles of the EU’ and lead it forward to a ‘glorious’ freedom’ ‘a new dawn’. etc etc. Does this sound familiar?
I see no prospect of a general election prior to 2020.
As already explained further back:
Two condition (only) will trigger a general election:
a motion of no confidence is passed in Her Majesty’s Government by a simple majority and 14 days elapses without the House passing a confidence motion in any new Government formed
a motion for a general election is agreed by two thirds of the total number of seats in the Commons including vacant seats (currently 434 out of 650)
Neither is likely.
So it’s 2020.
Conservatives (and press/media) V Labour (V press/media)
The electorate have already been seen to be, at best, easily led.
It’s early days yet..but the banks are well down this morning (Barclays (BCS) fell 20% in London, Deutsche Bank (DB) 16%, Lloyds Bank (LYG) 17% and RBS (RBS) 17%)
And construction is taking a hit…..
Still, while getting new EU workers into the UK will be difficult (depending upon the immigration rules. The ones we have now will not allow any) the ones here already will be unaffected:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/43645264-12a7-11e6-839f-2922947098f0.html#axzz4CUyY8lTb
Spain has already suggested shared government of Gibraltar….which will be rejected (even though the UN has said we have to get out of the disputed areas)…so back to closed borders.
I would like to think negotiations will be calm and friendly. Of course, they won’t be. There is FAR too much at stake for the rest of the EU now. It’s a mess, and it’s going to get messier. If I see another picture of Garages grinning little frog-face, I’m going to lose it BIG time.
Thanks for the facts, JohnM. I feel a lot better. Must stop panicking and think before posting. Next threat to worry about is JC’s leadership. I don’t think that the challenge has much chance of succeeding but we’re going to be in chaos for some time. Thank goodness JC is level-headed.
The problem lies not with Corbyn, but with Blair and Brown and everyone else in Labour who bought into the neoliberal ideology, whether this was out of conviction or out of a sense that resistance is futile. You cannot turn the QE2 around in nine months and it takes time to build an alternative economic narrative. Corbynomics makes economic sense (I’m sure Richard will agree with this :)), but it is now so far out of the political mainstream that it instantly gets rubbished as unfeasibly utopian.
Making a rational case in the face of mob fury on the EU and immigration whipped up by the tabloid press over a period of 30 years is impossible and he would have been derided with ‘Look at poor, useless Jeremy bleating away’. We can only hope that, with the benefit of hindsight, in its moment of neoliberalism and the right’s greatest triumph, the seeds of its destruction have been sown. One thing is for sure, if Corbyn goes the membership will not put up with the PLP foisting a neoliberal moderate on them. Maybe the political fallout over the referendum will lead to a fundamental realignment in UK politics with Labour shedding its neoliberal wing and allowing a progressive alternative to evolve unhindered.
I would think if Corbyn steps down labour is finished. The fact is that we have seen in Scotland that the Blairite labour party do not have a core vote at all, any more. It seems to me that this is partially true in England as well: but the cynical decision to assume “they have nowhere else to go” is more true there, so they have not yet paid the price. Far from this being a failure of Corbyn’s approach, it is the Blairite PLP which have brought this about. The spectacle of Blairites trying to pretend that Corbyn ought to be able to work magic with that ex core vote they have spent decades alienating is quite funny really.
I think you’re right about Corbyn. My values are instinctively LibDem/Green and I continue to vote for them at local level. However, at national level, there is no longer a viable alternative to the Conservatives, who will (I fear) drift further to the right. I can understand that traditional Labour voters feel the same and could very well end up in Ukip’s clutches.
Sue,
Now that UKIP have what they want it would appear that their very success has made them redundant. They also have a shocked and disappointed 48% who will (rightly or wrongly) blame them for this result and all of the negative consequences that follow.
If there is any one party that is longer viable – it’s them.
That assumes that the leave voters agreed with UKIP.
“That assumes that the leave voters agreed with UKIP”.
Well, they did on one major point at least. But that’s not what I’m getting at. I’m saying that UKIP is essentially a single issue party whose issue is now a fait accompli. There is little left of potential interest in them. They could carry on perhaps in diminished form as some sort of BNP type fringe outfit but their relationship with mainstream politics is now spent.
UKIP will attract blame from the 48% (Remain supporters) regardless of whether most Leave voters agreed with them or not. They will be blamed (along with Boris et al.) because they are perceived to be the identifiable, representative face of the Leave decision.
My japanese clients are already bailing out – although in fairness, in anticipation of Scottish UDI (& remaining in the EU) they are – with my encouragement re-focusing on this location. One thing for sure – they will not touch England with a barge-pole. Japanese gov advice to Japanese companies is to de-invest in England asap. For myself – I will get an irish passport. The Uk as a political entity is finished & England will become irrelevant.
I’m not surprised to hear this Mike. As Prof Michael Dougan said in his excellent lecture, one of the reasons Britain, in the absence of a lot of successful indigenous companies, is still prosperous (in the sense of being the 5th largest economy) is its ability to attract inward investment because it is seen as a gateway to the EU. And now that’s gone. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
From being against Scottish independence before this (albeit with sympathy for Scots sick and tired of Tory and Tory lite Westminster governments), I’m now fully in sympathy with the SNP if they go for a 2nd referendum. Same for NI, who didn’t vote for this idiocy either. I see Sinn Fein are now seeing this as an opportunity to call a referendum for a united Ireland.
So well done Nigel and all the other Ukip fools. You’re going to make Britain a lot poorer, and quite possibly, there will be no Britian in the political senses in a few years time.
Inward investment is a lovely catchall term, Britain is where it is purely down to the City of London. I remember post 08 crash several talking head bankers trying to lay the blame on poor/lack of regulation. When your defence for poor behaviour amounts to nothing more than ‘scorpion and frog’ it really is time to go back to the drawing board.
Mr Murphy keeps pointing out that the only viable solutions are people, not market, led. But I’d be harsher, we need a good dose of flea powder to thin out the parasites as well.
The only coherent people led ideas being offered are via Corbyn and the Greens. Unless of course you subscribe to the perfection of ‘man’ nietzche style. In which case we’ll never agree.
I cann’t respond to Alastair directly so I will here. The inward investment the Japanese were & hopefully are) proposing is fairly high tech. Skilled, well paid jobs – that kind of thing. I had hoped to involve one UK university (Wales). This will not now happen & the totality of the investment (if it happens) will be Scotland.
My business partner reports other cancelled projects (by for example German companies). Slowly but surely it will become apparent that England is in the grip of something ver very upleasant. I recommend the book “A State of Denmark” – we are on our way in there – all the (truely odious) players a lining up.
Mike, I don’t dispute what you’re posting, in or out of the EU the sorts of changes required to move to a people led structure would cause pain. I think it would have been better from within but we have what we have. This is about trying to make the best of things and using momentum, and anti Westminster/establishment feeling, to make changes that would be benefit people before profit.
The benefits to investors of the sort of investment you describe are all still there apart from EU membership. If the fall in the pound holds up(we’ve been overvalued a long time now) I believe investors will return quickly. But the state can and should play a larger role.
None of that negates my belief that financial centres and markets, useful tools we created, have been misused on an industrial scale to the general detriment of populations everywhere. Nor my belief that London has been a key player and often cheerleader in this process.
David Cameron is the victim of his own success.
Offering a referendum to appease the right wing of his party was a dangerous thing to do.
What the country now needs is a new vision, and the leadership to deliver it. We cannot lose hope.
Sadly, I think you are right.
Corbyn is simply not convincing or persuasive as a leader.
I don’t know who could replace him though. The Blairites have to go.
‘Corbyn is simply not convincing or persuasive as a leader.’
You are quite wrong there-Corbyn has done something nigh on impossible: re-politicised politics and challenged the suited-shyster image of the collection of lobbied-puppets with their dumbed-down, trashy photo-shoot, creosoted, olieaginous, sub-reptilian vacuousness.
This is a MAJOR step up from the moral basement we are in – we NEED to remind ourselves of this: this man coped with 6 months of puerile daily attack from the press whilst dealing with unending hostility from his own MP’s.
Let’s give him some credit for this for heaven’s sake!
I don’t normally watch Sky News but caught it the other night where Corbyn was answering questions asked by mainly young people. I noted that he answered and gave facts for his reasons. Such a contrast to Cameron. who i feel is offering me sound bites to approve. It’s a pity being a thoughtful and decent man is considered ‘unelectable’.
Simon,
“the suited-shyster image of the collection of lobbied-puppets with their dumbed-down, trashy photo-shoot, creosoted, olieaginous, sub-reptilian vacuousness.”
I love that. You have brought some light relief to an otherwise dark occasion.
This is your time Richard, we need a plan, I voted out for this moment I trust you and others like you can sieze thus moment in usher in change
James, if I said what I really think of people like you, my comment would be modded out by Richard, as he’s perfectly entitled to do. Do you really think that leaving the EU, with all the economic and political chaos it’s going to cause, means intelligent, moderate, progressives can usher in positive change? We are going to be poorer, and the very worst people on the economic and political right are cheering to the rooftops, and chomping at the bit to get stuck in to the rest of us.
Perhaps you’d like to explain how we can ‘seize this moment to usher in change’? I’m all ears.
” the very worst people on the economic and political right are cheering to the rooftops”.
Well, Goldman Sachs (along with a string of other notorious Wall St and City identities) made substantial donations to the Remain campaign.
https://next.ft.com/content/b168d094-bfb1-11e5-9fdb-87b8d15baec2
That needn’t reflect badly on the good people who supported Remain but it does raise at least some doubt about your observation in this case. It may be that James is just a glass half-full sort of guy who will also be aware that the best of Britain’s progressive institutions were established before she joined the EU. That needn’t reflect badly on the EU, it simply recognises that some excellent reforms have been achieved both with and without them.
Then again, I can’t blame you for being annoyed by the fact that he “voted out”.
Oh well..
Who is he going to step down for? Jack Straw’s son, Neil Kinnock’s son, Tony Blair’s son, Ed ball’s wife,the vapid Umanna?
Maybe Rachael Reeves, Jess Smith or one of the others that no one wanted to vote for.
Well, well…………………..
Corbyn
To hear Farron – the leader of an essentially defunct party – call for the head of Corbyn is one of the biggest jokes in history.
Corbyn’s speech to Dimbleby this morning was measured and consistent with everything he has said. His ‘we just need to get on with it now’ attitude was also spot on. Because we do.
To call for Corbyn to resign when obviously this vote was about immigration is just plain sophistry. Corbyn promised that if elected he would try to sort this out by being in the EU. The voters have ran out of patience – understandably in some cases. They have had an opportunity to be heard and they have taken it (well more of them have taken one view than the others). That is politics. That is supposed democracy.
Now, we must – as NASA says – ‘work’ the problem.
What now?
Well, we must ensure that the BREXIT people keep to their promises and spend the money intended for the EU on the NHS etc. No more austerity then soon?
Immigration must fall, so we would expect to see less foreigners working here and more English speaking people in work. We might also expect to see wages rising slightly over time along with working conditions because there are less immigrants prepared to work for less.
I point these things out because to be honest I think that the neo-lib ultras in the Tory government may have hopefully played their last Ace. This may be a pyrrhic victory for them.
If the NHS continues to drop in performance, if school places fill up with indigenous kids but there still are not enough places, if pay and working conditions continue to drop then what is the neo-lib Tory excuse next? Over time, they will not be able to blame Europe – which is a relief TBH. And if we find migrants turning up dead on our beaches or leaky boats in the English channel – well…………
The Tories are running out of excuses and they will need (and are highly likely to) to find new things to take the blame of course.
But just maybe, people will not buy it next time around. Just maybe.
As for Cameron – he is walking away from a mess of his making. He has committed political suicide to win an election and is being lauded for it. But his wealth will insulate him from any outcomes – his children too.
Farage’s triumphalism this morning showed that he is no major league politician and the manipulative will continue to lead angry frustrated people. He seems to think that the other 48% do not matter. So much for him ‘unifying’ the country and proclaiming new bank holidays.
My worry now is that the EU will fragment. There may well be less co-operation and more conflict. And that my children or their children will get dragged into conflict too. I hope that I don’t live to see that.
I also agree with Richard in that the economy could falter and under present austerity thinking more jobs will have to go.
I’m very disappointed but I am not surprised. What do expect when you cut money from public budgets and people feel that they are competing with each other for fewer and fewer resources as the State withdraws its role in order to create a ‘free market’?
Anyhow that is enough from me for now.
‘ point these things out because to be honest I think that the neo-lib ultras in the Tory government may have hopefully played their last Ace. This may be a pyrrhic victory for them.’
That was my initial dialectical reasoning for voting out as I thought it would expose the shysters as the Emperor’s new Clothes thereby creating a movement for real change. But then I had doubts about that because of the state of Labour. But it may still happen.
Johnson/Gove are good on guff and petty jingoism but will not be able to deliver on the things that are really needed. (Indeed it would be against their personal rentier interests to do so).
I wish now that I had abstained like you, Simon. I never wanted the vote in the first place.
Carol – I’ve heard rumours of some sort of ‘no-confidence vote in Corbyn’ – this is the death knells of Labour if it is successful and my membership will cease forthwith.
I knew they’s do this, I’d knew they’d rob us of the last hope. Short-sighted bunch of bastards -I KNEW they’d do this!
Euro 2016 final, an Establishment view, Eton 1 – Eton 1.
I think that’s called an Eton Mess!
Yet another thing that needs fixing with this country in my view. (although I do quite like the pudding!)
Turmoil indeed. The Forex and Fixed-interest trade floor is like the Den at Millwall; Equities – where I belong, and where I’ve been since 7 AM – is full, studiously quiet, and very, very busy.
For those who are blaming the banks and the traders: we’re the guys with the shovels. The steaming pile we’re shovelling – and you can all say what it is – wasn’t made by us, however profitable it may be.
The real economy will be spattered liberally by our enthusiasm with the shovels and it will be a mess: and when the giant dump is gone we’ll make another fortune digging graves.
Including, I fear, our own: and all the other industries which have a use for the numerical computing that I do – pharmaceuticals especially – are even harder-hit by Brexit than the banking sector.
At least we know, at last, that politics is not irrelevant.
Thanks for the insiders view, Nile. Illuminating given what I’ve been reading in the business section of the Guardian for most of the day. And your last point is a key one that a lot of people had forgotten, or at least wished to ignore (big business and financial sector being two of the worst offenders).
Why pharmaceuticals?
Number-crunching, but it’s accessible general mathematics and statistics – and a lot of it, and all stages of the product lifecycle. Better still (for me) a lot of that is heavily customised – it’s not the same accounting spreadsheets over and over again.
Engineering uses mathematics and parts of it are computationally-intensive: but it tends to be a small (and highly specialised) aristocracy of engineers performing those calculations.
Richard,
Regarding the “decline in the value of sterling”, is there not some silver lining in the benefit for exporters, import-competing industries and bringing inflation closer to the BoE target level? And if inflation doesn’t exceed target I can’t see the justification for an interest rate rise.
In theory a rate rise helps exporters
A fall in the last few years has resulted in record trade deficits
The linkage is not clear right now
So a rise in rates may happen irrespective of inflation
Interesting.
Some might invoke the “counterfactual” argument and say that the deficits could have been even greater had the pound not fallen. I guess we’ll never know.
Contrary to orthodox theory it also seems that central bank decisions are increasingly being driven by currency speculators rather than inflation or any of that Taylor Rule stuff. Heaven help those that rely on monetary policy.
‘is there not some silver lining in the benefit for exporters,’
I’d say no because without increased pay and lessened housing costs the increase in import prices will cause even less money circulation as private debt is so high so I can’t see that almost randomly magical number of 2% being reached.
Massive infrastructure spending and Green job creation plus basic income would but I see another herd of pigs taking off into flight.
I’m not quite sure that I follow that Simon.
The increased import prices and inflation are (more of less) one and the same in this case. Besides which, it is not only exporters that benefit from the falling pound it is also import-competing industries. Not all of the UK’s imports have local substitutes but many do. As imports become dearer, the volume of imports decline (in relative terms) and domestic production rises. Domestic employment rises along with it.
I’m not saying that a devaluation is entirely a good thing but that’s the upside.
I agree Marco -but I was just factoring in the continuing rise of private debt (often said to be between £10000-£14000 WITHOUT mortgages) with higher prices and lack of substitution people will cut back spending which could cut out the effect that would ordinarily be expected -there’s no slack here.
I also note that since we are now no longer going to be subject to the EUs’ rather stringent data protection laws, the various government departments are now pushing ahead with plans to share personal data on citizens (including medical data) across all government departments.
This won’t come as a surprise to those who have been watching the ongoing car-crash that is the care.data debacle currently being played at packed local medical commissioning groups across ENGLAND (to sum it up: GPs’ are data controllers in law, for your data. They are responsible for its security. Another law makes it illegal for GPs’ to refuse to supply that data to care.data) (simplified) Storing it in cloud storage in the states may make sense to some in government…..
Funnily enough, local CCGs’ are also packed with private health practitioners
From Zero Hedge:
“Eight years after the start of the global credit crisis, the post-Brexit turmoil seemed set to unleash a further wave of monetary easing, potentially including in the U.K. itself. Economists in research notes Friday highlighted that the People’s Bank of China could act, either through intervention to prop up its currency or potentially with a cut in the required reserve ratio for its commercial banks.”
All these Central Banks have been meeting for months to get these plans together with the ECB ensuring there is no liquidity crisis. So more pile ups of ‘free money’ in the reserves but nothing for the real world of jobs/education/social care -deja vu.
I agree with that
The cost is £14,400 per Brexit voter
The UK has suffered from neoliberal governments since the late ’70s with varying levels of nastiness.
The EEC is a monetarist/neoliberal organisation (ditto the IMF). Neoliberalism is ‘baked into’ the EEC via various treaties. The treatment of Greece is a shocking example of its beliefs.
Leaving the EEC will cause problems but it is also a tremendous OPPORTUNITY for progressive politics (Labour & Greens) to offer positive & optimistic ways forward – replacing Osborne’s balanced budgets mantra with those of full employment & high investment in the UK.
For such policies to be enacted they must tap into the general disgust with the political/Westminster/EEC establishments.
A major problem is that most people (shockingly Labour MPs) believe that running an economy is the same as that of managing an individual household. This is the crux of the problem & requires ‘education’ (see comments above).
Some suggestions for ‘tapping into’ establishment cynicism:
– Move Parliament out of London
– Abandon HS2 and use resources to: modernise all railway networks; & build cycle paths absolutely everywhere in the UK (better than the Netherlands).
– Re-nationalise the major utilities – rail, energy, & water.
– Controlled immigration
Kweladave, pretty much agree as long as the priority for controlling immigration is working to improve conditions elsewhere to make migrating less desirable. Western foreign policies heavily influenced, when not dictated, by the US, have done bugger all to create stability.
That said the bit that always goes unmentioned, even more so than immigration/migration, is overall population numbers. Unless addressed this can only lead to more and more conflicts over resources, the biggest being water.
‘a tremendous OPPORTUNITY for progressive politics ‘
Here’s what’s happening to the ‘tremendous opportunity:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-mps-table-motion-of-no-confidence-in-jeremy-corbyn-a7100561.html
It’s all like a Swiss clockwork mechanism – every tick of the clock and we’re nearer to corporate fascism on steroids.
Margaret Hodge behind this with the dampest of damp squibs Chris Leslie mouthing off (utterly useless character).
I don’t gamble but I’d bet there’s going to be an appearance from the ‘weather vane’ himself as soon as Corbyn’s position gets rockier.
Poised to cancel membership.
Simon, you’re saving me an awful lot of typing today. Apart from the fact that I did not abstain and that I resigned from the Labour Party several years ago now, we are joined at the hip as far as your comments/observations go.
Its true that neoliberalism is ‘baked’ into the EEC through various treaties and many will recall that, during the Labour leadership contest, the Lisbon treaty was invoked by Corbyn’s opponents in an attempt to dismiss the People’s QE proposal.
Leaving the EEC is also a tremendous opportunity, as you say, for progressive politics. So the challenge now is to turn weakness into strength, snatch victory from the jaws of defeat (and various other suitable cliche’s).
It’s not the option I wanted
It may be the one to now take
Hobson’s Choice
As an ex Customs and Excise officer, I wonder if anyone realises that with the end of the Single Market, businesses trading with Europe will have to return to the completion of Customs import and export forms – which in my day had up to 64 boxes of data to be completed for each consignement, instead of the EU Intrastat data which was a one line summary of trade per month by customer/supplier. And if the border controls are to be re-introduced where are the staff going to come from and how much is it going to cost ? Hardly the freedom from bureaucracy promised by the “Outers”
Now in the blog Codger
Thank you