I was intrigued by a response on Twitter to a comment I made suggesting that MPs had voted for the UK's economic suicide. The respondent suggested that the EU would lose badly; the UK was destined for the largest structural change in our economy since the industrial revolution. The implication was clear: the UK was in this person's view headed for some new economic nirvana.
I will resist the temptation to allude to Ken Clarke's belief that there are some in the UK who think we can jump down the Brexit hole and arrive in some Mad Hatter's tea party where all is good in the world. I will, instead, presume this person is serious. In that case my question is a simple one, and is ‘why should that happen?' I can find no reason for this.
I can, for example, see no hint of new technology on the horizon to which only we have access as a result of Brexit.
There is also no hint of a significant upturn in demand for existing goods and services: a combination of new inflation and uncertainty, plus credit already being stretched, suggests there is relatively little mileage left in the current consumer led growth.
And nor is there much sign of investment. Nissan is hinting at reversing its decision to stay. Banks are definitely planning to move, at least in part. And in the face of demand uncertainty at home and abroad, plus real inflation and interest rate rise risks there is almost no incentive for business to invest. Falling tax rates, which result in tax based incentives becoming ever more worthless, do not change that. Nor will a supposed absence of regulation: any wise business knows we will still face as much regulation as at present, but it will now come bilaterally rather than multilaterally and so be much more onerous to deal with.
So where's this structural change going to come from? Is it from being the dirty country of Europe? The EU will certainly adjust for that in regulations. Or from being a tax haven? There's a new EU tax haven list due soon.
I'm genuinely bemused about what might trigger optimism in this case. Any clues anyone?
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Who will Brexiters decide to blame when things get worse? We know who they blame now, but who will be to blame 2, 3 or 4 plus years down the line?
Who will be their new scapegoats, for you can be sure of one thing: it will not be their fault!
I am not reassured by the exellent comments here and feel that Britain will be ruined for most people after Brexit. I hope I am wrong.
Can I ask both remainers and Brexiteers on this page what they think will happen to property prices in the UK. I’m one of the Jams, little or no pension, can’t afford to make mistakes. I was planning to invest in a buy-to-let in England. Is this a good idea and are there better/safer investments?
I think the market is overpriced
But I have always done so
I may have a clue to this optimism but it may be a tenuous one.
In his book about Vietnam (Dispatches, 1977) Michael Herr says that there will always be war because some men like it.
This also rings true about economic upheaval; it will always happen because the biggest movers and shakers in the financial world love chaos because of the opportunities it affords them. So they will seek chaos out and even create it.
This is where the optimism comes from – especially the top-down kind.
Gosh, that’s a bleak assessment, but I think you’re right.
I have heard none. Turbocharged nationalism and Propaganda which would have made Joseph Goebbels proud from the rabid right wing press. I speak to my brother in law sometimes – I come across very few Brexit people. My brother in law gets the Telegraph every day and believes what it says hook line and sinker.
1) The EU has been a millstone around our necks and we will be free to stand on our own two feet after Brexit. WE pay them vast amounts of money and get next to nothing in return.
2) The UK is a centre of excellence – simply better than the rest. I’m not sure that he would go as far as explicitly stating English exceptionalism but I believe its there. This was very apparent over his views on the Nissan deal – of course the government didn’t need to offer Nissan anything exceptional.
3) The economists were wrong. Osbourne and Cameron lied – we can’t believe economic forecasts – Michael Fish moment. Can’t trust experts believe in the will of the people.
4) Admiration for the US economic model and the ability to cut “red tape” so things are bound to be better. if Neoliberalism is not working it is because too much is in public hands ans the state is too big. (He wouldn’t put it in those terms).
5) Countries will be queuing around the block to make favorable trade deals with us. My belief that we do not have the capacity to do this and in any event it will take years are dismissed. Our friends in NZ will help and we can always hire privately.
My brother in law says we have to agree to disagree.
I hear all those too
And all have not a shred of evidence to support them
Belief in the points that Sean makes are an article of faith for many, many Brexiteers, Richard. Therefore evidence doesn’t come into it. Thus, when they hear the appalling speech by Jacob Rees-Moog in support of Brexit they actually believe him. They don’t see what we see: that this is a toff who knows Brexit will have no personal impact, nor much on enough of his constituents as to ensure he continues to get elected, but it will return economic and social relations in the UK to something akin to the 19th century. In short, it recreates an economic and social order that his ilk believe should never have been lost.
I fear that we now have very little hope of heading off the UK’s journey down that particular road. Indeed, I think it clear that very few of those ordinary citizens who supported Brexit are going to change their minds until the suffering from pursuit of that course of action becomes unbearable. And that will take time because the Brexit supporting media will spin a narrative that disguises and/or excuses such an outcome – just as they have for years with austerity. Meanwhile – and as PSR notes – those with the means to do so will exploit the uncertainty as much as they can, as they did so effectively in the aftermath of the financial crisis.
And I wonder why I’m feeling below my usual levels of optimism
It might be good to get some comments from “Lexit” (left-wing supporters of EU exit) here as they have been quite optimistic about triggering Article 50, and I’d love to have more information on what their basis for optimism is. For example my friend Carol Wilcox is in this camp.
Nobody has heard anything from lexit supporters since the referendum. They have disappeared into silence. Try and find a reference to it anywhere and you cannot. Taking these numbers from a facebook post on the issue:
Left leave facebook page, posted nothing new since June 2016
Counterfire website makes no mention of lexit since June 2016
The Morning Star has mentioned lexit once since the vote.
Socialist Worker mentioned lexit 41 times in the run up to the vote and has not mentioned it once since July 2016.
As should have come as absolutely no surprise to anyone voting for a Brexit led by Farage, Gove, Boris etc has resulted in the Brexit of Farage, Gove, Boris etc. Lexit never existed outside the idiocy of a small number of people.
Howard
Read Linda Kaucher’s contributions? She sounds well-miffed with the EU and she does make some good points (like many of us do) – my only bone of contention with her is that it does not make sense to go from one neo-lib affected institution (the EU) to cavorting with a rampantly full on, all out neo-lib Trumped USA who put themselves first.
How is that going to help us?
All that LEXIT seems to do is create an industry of disgruntlement (analysis) which churns around and around but does not deliver an alternative – no answers – just critique after critique.
We have had the chance to create that alternative within the EU and we did not take it. In the UK our own neo-liberalism helped to create and support neo-liberalism in the EU architecture. This is the truth of the matter. The EU reflects the political dimensions of the States of whom it is comprised.
Neo-liberalism starts at home folks – you cannot just ascribe it as an EU problem.
The Left does not seem to get this.
I always spend a week or so trying to hold the view that is opposite from the place I start.
In the case of Brexit my main lines of argument were that the EU is a major driver of neoliberalism, removes democratic freedom as we saw in Greece, and that free movement increases inequality by keeping labour cheap.
All these arguments failed because I could not see that a vote for Brexit would decrease neoliberalism, hand more democratic power to people, or reduce inequality. All of these things are within the scope of domestic politics, not the EU.
I am still waiting for someone to give any reason of why we should leave.
Neatly put
These are the arguments. If these are new to you, suggest you brush up on economics.
1. We can eliminate EU required tariffs and anti dumping measures imposed upon our imports,resulting in cheaper imports and stopping subsidisation of inefficient domestic industries at the expense of less efficient ones.
2. Whilst we will always have to produce things which meet the customer’s standards, we won’t need to impose those same regulations on our domestic producers. Those regulations were agreed at a supranational level as compromises between 27 members and are therefore not the best fit for our economy.
3. We get back the money we send to the EU. After Germany, the UK’s net contribution is more than all the other countries added together. Plus the money we get back in the form of EU spending is spent on subsidising inefficient regions and industries and so again diverts resources to less productive areas. A lot of it is simply wasted on bizarre things too.
The arguments boil down to arguments against protectionism and over regulation (which is the same thing). And the argument that the more remote decisions are the less effective they are. (The information problem). Obviously, if you think prosperity is generated through homogeneity of supranational regulation and through limiting competition both domestically and from abroad, then Brexit will worsen our prospects
1) Which tariffs are we going to get rid of?
2) How many UK businesses do you want to close?
3) How will closing UK business help the UK economy?
4) How many people are going to impose tariffs on us?
5) How ill this help us export to replace those businesses you want us to lose?
6) How many UK producers (not services, producers) only serve the UK market? Data, please in absolute numbers and % of total market
7) We pay the EU a tiny overall sum in real terms: not enough to make more than a change to the petty cash of government and much less than a blip in GDP downward will cost
8) What are you going to do with inefficient regions?
9) I repeat, which industries are you closing?
10) What activities are bizarre? University research?
I will ignore the fact your theory is based on assumptions not replicable in the real world. All I can see here is you want opportunity to repeat Thatcher’s 1981 achievement of crashing UK manufacturing. Please tell me how that will help us?
1) Ultimately, all of them.
2) Fewer than are created.
3) Creative destruction, transfer away from low productivity jobs, make use of comparative advantage.
4) That is a more interesting question. Very much depends on our WTO position and what sort of FTA’s Fox is able to negotiate (I am not optimistic on that point, Fox is not up to the role). But my understanding is that there is little appetite among our trading partners to erect tariff barriers – indeed since the founding of the FTO there has been no example of such significant trade partners increasing tariff barriers against each other. Of course, we are in uncharted waters.
5) As above, through better use of comparative advantage, fewer regulatory restrictions, and hopefully more extensive trade agreements.
6) The ONS quotes around 15% of businesses export – I know this doesn’t quite answer your question and that as a % of market share this is likely to be considerably larger, but figures aren’t readily available (I am afraid that I don’t have access to Dexeu’s figures for this!). I read a paper a couple of years ago that estimated the figure at around 65% of market share, when I have time I will try and find it.
7) Very true, this argument has always been something of a red herring, particularly as the Gov will continue most of this spending in the short-medium term. But there is money to be saved, particularly in agricultural subsidies.
8) Now we get to the really interesting questions – I think you have written on this before Richard? We certainly need to do more than the Government’s “industrial strategy”. But as a starter, far more focus on education and training, far more infrastructure spending outside the M25, I have always been persuaded by tax incentives for poorer regions (or vice versa, say a % corporate tax surcharge on business headquartered within the M25 over a certain size?), more devolution, far better provision by Government for retraining to assist those workers whose industries are uncompetitive – but to be fair getting this right is v important regardless of Brexit.
9) I would anticipate that there are more likely to be specific business failures rather than whole industries collapsing.
10) Come on Richard, there are areas of EU spending which are not efficient, and we should not be blind to this. The CAP, poorly conceived infrastructure projects, badly spent cohesion funds – there is no doubt we can do better in some areas.
I know these points are barely even scratch the surface, but my point is that there are answers. I have not given up on the idea that the Government’s Brexit policy can be tempered, that we can make this an opportunity. Is that optimism? Probably more like hope.
Interesting
So, the answer is that Brexit changes nothing
Given that Fox won’t succeed and we suffer very little tariff disruption now or import blocking and the vast majority of producers will need to be EU compliant (inevitably) you have outlined a situation where we gain nothing from Brexit at all because we can do the vast majority of what we want now
As I thought
What we can’t do are some capital and tax controls
But they weren’t mentioned
Richard,
Yes, the success of Brexit is contingent on us doing things differently to what would have happened. That is a truism. However, that would to some extent happen by default. For example, the EU appears to be on a programme of regulating everything it can. I am unaware of any natural limits to this technocratic impulse. Every regulation is a consultation involving all vested interests across the whole of the EU. And so Olive Oil producers in Italy could demand certain provisions that impact cheese makers in Wales. Simply by localising regulation, or avoiding it altogether as necessary, brings a benefit.
In case you think this is just an EU trend, look at HMRC’s making Tax Digital programme, which has nothing to do with the EU
Then stop thinking anything will change
In fact, it could very easily get worse as we will now have to comply with two sets of regulations in many areas
James
You’re just SOOOOOOO…. Maggie Thatcher 1980’s .com!
I can’t believe that you are still talking in this fashion. Obviously the epiphany of 2008 has passed you by. You are also rude (‘brush up on economics’).
You come across as someone who believes in making people redundant in order that we can get efficiency but then moans that there are too many unemployed people perhaps?.
When you talk of efficiency you are basically supporting the net beneficairies of the lowering of costs (efficiency) – the investors (the 1%) and the financial sector who cream the benefits off when they get involved in mergers and acquisitions for themselves (plus of course our over paid top management sector).
You are definitely not supporting the net losers – workers and customers – the latter who increasingly get a poor automated service which ends up not being that effective and takes up their time to make services work so that effectively their labour is beings used for free by the service provider whose efficiency you admire so much.
I envisage a time when we realise that inefficiency is actually useful to us because it keeps people in work and gives them something to do!! How’s that for an idea! Now that IS radical in my view.
Imagine that! People first and money last!
Pilgrim,
2008 was due to the socialisation of the monetary system to favour the banking class. It does not prove that competition, free trade and market economics are bad. Why do we not get systemic failure in any industry apart from the finance industry?
I’m in favour of workers being profitable ie. Creating net value rather than destroying it. If that means them losing their jobs in the shortrun due to competitive forces then so be it. If you think this is unacceptable perhaps you should start a campaign to prevent the very high failure rate of local restaurants by spending your own money keeping them in business.
Efficiency is not simply about lowering costs. It is about maximising profits. So revenue being higher than costs. If it costs me £110 to make something that I can only sell for £100 I am destroying value, even if I get a subsidy for £20.
You appear to be confusing business with charity at the end there. The problem is you ending up treating people as a charity when they are perfectly capable of working in a profitable activity. Moreover, as soon as you start doing this you attract more people onto the gravy train. Eventually paying people to dig and refill holes thinking this is clever economics.
Ah, I get it
You wanted all banks to collapse in 2008 and with it the whole food supply chain and the entire economy
Very politely, this forum is a space for intelligent debate
And you clearly can’t provide that
Your time is up
Just when it was getting interesting Richard shuts the debate down. Of course I’m peeved because I disagree with Richard on this topic (unlike most of his other arguments, including those in his books). Nevertheless maybe this blog isn’t the forum for debate I’d hoped it was.
And incidentally James went to the trouble to make several serious points. His momentary supposed rudeness was quite mild compared to the insults Richad hurls around. In contrast to James some of the commenters here sound like those on those awful right-wing blogs where any dissent is immediately shouted down.
“Whine” over Richard.
You may find persistent comment from free market fundamentalists unattached to anything related to the real world interesting but I have to read such offerings, and would rather have a life
This person enjoyed a good run before I got bored with him. No doubt he’ll seek to reappear under another identity soon. That’s so common I even checked you did not share his identity. It seems you don’t
I assure you, running a blog can be boring, especially when those of little sense think I am providing a platform for their own promotion. For the record, I am not. This is a platform for those who can combine compassion and logic to promote the betterment of the overall human condition
“3. We get back the money we send to the EU. After Germany, the UK’s net contribution is more than all the other countries added together.”
This is an extraordinary statistic and seems so unlikely to be true I did some checking.
I had a look at a few places for example http://english.eu.dk/en/faq/faq/net_contribution and looked at the UK contribution for 2014 (figures in Euro) this has the UK on -4,929.8M net which is about the same as the Netherlands on -4,711.1M and Italy on -4,467.0M. It has France on -7.164,6M and Germany on -15.501,6M.
Possibly the methodology is different?
How exactly is the UK going to hold large multinationals like Google, Apple etc to account by itself? It won’t.
There are plenty of economic proposals for a clean/hard Brexit which works in a positive way for the UK.
Iain Mansfield wrote an interesting paper which won a prize for how Brexit might work in a good way for the UK.
https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Brexit%20Entry%0170_final_bio_web.pdf
Ruth Lea, Lee Rotherham, Patrick Minford and of course Dan Hannan have all put forward visions of a global trading nation outside the EU.
Often the detail is glossed over and it becomes a focus on tariff amounts and broad swipes at regulation without specific examples.
It then becomes an exercise in patriotism and not economics.
As someone who struggles to get products today into Switzerland and Norway efficiently and fights protectionism in Brazil,India, Mexico et al, then sadly every single proposal I have read looks totally deluded or at least biased.
I live in hope of finding something.
The hard right has a view, I agree
But their vision of free trade is based on completely false assumptions
In the real world there is no such thing as free trade
I work for a US Multinational now. Most of their trade is in the EU and I believe they base their manufacturing in the UK because they have understanding/language issues. They prefer us to handle all that bit for them. We also, trade through out the world from this UK base already. I wonder what they will do – when we are no longer a good gateway to their biggest market? I struggle to get any of the points about trade suddenly taking off in other countries when we leave the EU – we are already trading with them now. These comments appear to be from people who actually do not know much about the business world and have been lied to by an elite who have intentions behind what they sell to those avid listeners to the Brexit mantra. From where I sit now, if we do actually go through with this as presented, I can not see how the long overdue recession will not hit us straightaway. And I am deeply concerned as to how bad it could be. However, our society is so fractured, I don’t think without a real attempt to sort out some of people’s everyday issues that we can ignore the vote. People are really disenfranchised with the status quo – and no effort has been made to show how their circumstances are to be improved whether we leave the EU or not. For I see this as a protest. May has given lip service to this but that is all it is. Things will continue as is if not significantly worse. In all of this, I look to those who have spread these lies and misinformation – our papers, news and a few very wealthy individuals who have stood up as fake revolutionists.
Join the club
If there are “plenty of economic proposals… which work in a positive way….”, why weren’t these spelled out prior to the referendum. Why have the Government spent eight months effectively saying nothing, except “Brexit means Brexit. We can be forgiven for thinking that on winning the vote, they had not a clue what to do next. Remember Boris Johnsons pathetic offering the day after the vote, and the reasons for his betrayal by Gove. A minority’s of MPs believe in Brexit, probably including Mrs May, They simply observe that the drip drip of anti EU propaganda over the last ten years has taken root in a large sector of the electorate, and are opportunistically exploiting it for their own ends. And, not to be forgotten, is that the EU we might be leaving is one in which we ourselves have had a large role in making it what it is today.
I have a book published in early 1914 on the history of British Shipping in which the author spells out the radical changes in global economies arising from the age of steam, larger vessels and all the rest. He ponders at one point as to what changes might occur. He was certainly expert and an authority, but his predictions proved rather wide of the mark.
I accept that foreseeing how change will occur is hard
But foreseeing that change is no more likely in the UK than elsewhere is much easier to predict
We are in a 27-1 situation. The EU is big enough to carry on without us, despite its own problems.
Perhaps the UK is in a Walter Mitty situation.
We only survived (“won”) the World Wars because of alliances, not on our own.
Continental countries were all invaded during these wars and suffered immensely, with the possible exception of Spain and Portugal. But Spain had a civil war, with foreign interventions.
So, continental countries see the value of European co-operation, almost instinctively.
The USA is big enough to survive more or or less OK, even if its reduces trade with Mexico and China (say). The UK is tiny by comparison – a speck on the horizon. With the ‘America First’ policy, any UK-USA trade deal is likely to be unequal.
And of course, UK-EU trade is huge.
We’ll need to apply to rejoin the EU.
I think that will happen
But would you honestly have us back, Richard? Seriously? After having caused all the bother and upset for other EU states (e.g. giving a lift to far right populism in France, Austria, The Netherlands, Germany, etc) that will stretch on for years.
And don’t forget, even if in five years time it’s becomes obvious that leaving the EU has caused harm to the living standards of many people (as I have no doubt whatsoever it will) do you honestly believe the anti-EU hardcore in the Tory party, UKIP and the media will admit as much? And for many of them why should they, after all almost all Tory MPs represent constituencies that will feel very little of the negative impact. Meanwhile UKIP and Labour can fight it out through an endless blame game in those constituencies which get hit hardest. Of course, if Corbyn had taken a principled stand and made the argument for voting against Article 50 that you’ve made, and many of us endorse, Labour would be in a good position to challenge UKIP (to put it bluntly, ‘we told you so’). But now?
So, no, I don’t see a way back. And if I were a continental European politician I’d have no qualms about that.
For once I hope you are wrong
Ah but don’t forget if we re-apply we’ll have to meet all the conditions of any new entrant including signing up to the Euro. Woopee.
Surely the ‘structural change’ question has to be whether it is more or less likely in the two decades after Brexit – given that a Remain vote would likely have been for at least that much more status quo. We’re talking about two or three crashes here – and you’ve recently blogged how this change is likely only to occur after such a crash.
Extracting ourselves from a mostly corporate captured entity that by treaty requires strict deficit and debt to GDP ratios, untrammeled free-movement of capital, that restricts government intervention and that has already shown it’s anti-democratic colours following the GFC can only help here.
As for the immediate short-term optimism? I’ve absolutely no idea, but then I didn’t know where it came from in the last decade and it’s now pretty clear that much of the country didn’t feel it anyway.
The only two ‘advantages’ I can see of leaving the EU:
1.capital controls would be legal. But they are often as much a measure to stop the economy tanking as to make it flourish. And most of the Brexiteers are such ardent free traders (who somehow manage to be unaware of the irony of leaving a local free trade area in favour of an imaginary world one) that they would never countenance capital controls.
2.more decisions would be made closer to home so the ‘democratic deficit’ would be reduced. Though again given that most Brexiteers are the same people who have emasculated local authorities this really just amounts to ‘fewer decisions made abroad’.
The optimism is based on a cure for “unhappiness”, they create.
During the last elections UKIP’ers I met on the streets and shared platforms in hustings were unhappy and angry, blaming immigrants and foreigners (EU) for their conditions. Bertrand Russell nicely summarized how to promote happiness through the “abolition of economic exploitation, of war, of education in cruelty and fear”. Trump and Farage are two peas from the same pod what they desire is to ‘educate’ the atomized masses in the conditions of fear and chaos to exploit the opportunities raised (unhappiness) for their own class. That’s what they want; only possible with their feral fake-news media selling the myths (unhappiness stories) told by UKIP and Trumpeters. Trump has convinced me more that an isolationist US is feasible, more so than an isolationist little Englander state of Farage. The US elite will get rid of Trump no doubt on ‘trumpeted up charges’, then we will see if this man and his followers have fascism buried within.
Richard, your own work provides many of the answers, at least from a left/humanist approach. The chances of the policy approaches you support being enacted are greater after Brexit than within the EU. Now I accept that this ‘greater’ may be in the order of moving from 1 to 2 parts in a million, but it’s there. This is part of what has dismayed me about the post referendum Brexit row. I felt that energy would have been far better utilised preparing to try and change GB post Brexit.
It was always going to be a grind so I’m not sure optimism would have been the right word regardless of what the referendum result had been. There are sh0ort games, long games and dead ends, ‘Remoaning’ is a dead end.
I’m not remoaning
I am complaining at parliament voting for an action that no one can comprehend because no one knows what it means
That’s quite different
From the quite specific answers given above to what will change and where the UK will see advantages in the future, it seems that not everybody shares your struggle with comprehension, and what the vote means.
I do seem to remember you being less of a fan of the EU in the past than you evidently are now.
24/10/15 – How much longer can the Europe pretend to be democratic ?
14/07/15 – Europe needs a new dream if the crisis of 2016 is to be avoided
14/07/15 – The end of my European Dream (‘How could I now support continuing memberships of the EU ? How, I have to ask, could any democrat do so?’)
13/07/15 – The EU demands an end of Greek Trade Union rights
12/07/15 – If the Euro fails2/07/15 – (‘The language of the ideologies on which the EU was founded suits some all to well no’)
02/06/15 – Europe: The final Countdown
22-05/15 – The EU encourages immigration and tax abuse
13/05/15 – EU Stress to come
Wow, you are sad
Of course I am a critic of the EU. Who wouldn’t be? It’s like I’m a critic of HMRC. Does it mean I think taxes are bad? No. It means I do not think they get all the implementation right.
Is it really so hard to think you can see faults with things and still live with it? Maybe you’ve never been married and so don’t get how that works
Fair point and I did hum and haw about using the Remoan term as I think it’s lazy and inaccurate. In fact I apologise and would like to withdraw that term but keep the thrust of my point if I may.
I was really trying to address the use of the term optimism and how we’re unlikely to achieve a national optimism while being pulled in so many directions. I mention this as I feel that would be central to any hope of policy enactment around the sorts of concepts we share. The real enemy is neoliberalism and all other forms of economic Darwinism. That’s the same in the EU, out of the EU or in bed with the USA.
I worry that we’re in danger of taking our eye off the ball and losing ground when it was possible to make some quick gains.
I entirely accept that we have to plan for a world beyond Brexit now
It will happen
Sad ? For pointing out apparent inconsistencies in your message ? Being a critic of something is one thing. However I struggle to see how one could argue in favour of remaining with an institution that one has, at various times, seen as undemocratic, represented the end of your dreams, tramples over Union rights, has a potentially failing currency, encourages immigration and tax abuse and was facing a potential final countdown. That seems a little more than merely getting a bit of implementation wrong.
Or perhaps you’d like everyone to reassess your previous postings as mere hyperbole, as much as we can now your denigration of everyone else for having no comprehension of what the vote means ?
I call for radical reform of HMRC
It does not mean I want rid of a national tax authority
Only a small minded person would think so
And I have made the same clear with the EU: it has many faults but is better than the other options
Remember Churchill once said democracy is the worst system of government we’ve tried apart from all the rest
Now stop playing small minded literalism and start understanding nuance
Quoting Churchill to a European to promote the UK’s continued participation in Europe against the will of its people. You may do nuance, but you certainly don’t do irony do you ?
You clearly have no clue about me
it’s based on ignorant nationalism – the same fuel that Trump runs on.
Make Britain Great Again. Take back control, and give it to the media barons that so crave power without the ECJ to reign them in.
Yes but the policies of the left are also about taking back control. In some ways it’s another master stroke from the right. A switch and bait of epic proportions, my god they’ve even got poor people in the US to support a billionaire narcissistic whackjob. In Europe they’ve got people supporting austerity, I’ve even heard people that don’t agree with austerity qualifying that by saying ‘well the Greeks needed it’.
The left need something a little better than ‘you’re thick’ or a basket of identity issues.
Accepted
I have just seen a comment on a German news website which describes Theresa May’s government as a bunch of overburdened amateur thespians ! In other words not competent to cope with the complexity of the process of leaving the EU.
In the popular vote Clinton beat Trump roughly 52:48 but under the US constitution, Trump won. Some people might be unhappy about it but that’s how the constitution works. Constitutionally it is the correct result.
In the popular vote the UK voted Leave roughly 52:48 in a non-binding referendum but under the UK constitution, parliament is sovereign, the referendum was merely informative. Under the UK constitution, parliament has not yet decided to leave the EU.
The bill currently before parliament will merely give May the power to notify the EU that the UK is leaving once the decision to leave has been made under the UK constitution. It does not make that decision. Assuming this bill passes, the UK will still not have decided to leave. If May then notifies the EU of the decision to leave then the EU is perfectly within its powers to reject that notification on the grounds that it is invalid.
Amusing prospect
But incredibly remote
Oh and a third reason for optimism on Brexit is that by controlling immigration we can now be the first to introduce proper UBI.
Well we can hope. This is yet another idea that is unlkely to cross the radar of the majority of Brexiteers. Indeed this article http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/anglosphere-old-dream-brexit-role-in-the-world
suggests that Brexit for the backslapping Parliamentarians is English nationalists harking back to the Empire, when they feel they had a role and were properly in charge and so could be again. I’d love to know what German born Brexiteer Gisela Stuart thinks.
She thinks?
MayP, an excellent article, thanks for that. To quote: “The Anglosphere was at the forefront of late Victorian debates about global politics, and it has never gone away. The current revival of such ideas is a testament both to their success and to the mesmeric grip that the empire retains over swathes of the British governing class. It is one of those ideas on which the sun never sets.”
Utterly ludicrous, a retreat to a past that can’t be recreated, leading to a course of action that’s actually going to massively weaken our economic strength, and our political and cultural influence in the world. And judging by the number of Leave voters on FB who aren’t part of the British governing class, but who insist that we can now ‘make Britain great again’, an illusion shared by a large number of the governed.
Oh well, they’ll learn sooner or later what nonsense all this is. Especially when we (probably) crash out of the EU due to the incompetence of this government and the economy takes a massive hit. The trouble is, will they realise they’ve been conned, or will they blame anybody and everybody but themselves?
Or suppose it becomes obvious as soon as 2018 that we’re heading for disaster and the SNP hold a 2nd referendum and win it? Will the ‘make Britain great again crowd’ condemn all the Scots as traitors for wanting to leave their precious Britain? Or will those of us who could see this coming be blamed for not believing enough in their great vision?
And as for people like Gisela Stuart and the other left wingers who should know better than to go along with this flag waving idiocy?
James
Sorry to come back at you but I really do think that you come across as a neo-lib dinosaur because you speak of business as if it were a totally self contained separate phenomenon away from society.
Never mind saying that I’m confusing business with charity – many family owned firms were created and ran well in this country for years and even created wealth and sustainability in towns and counties as a by-product of there being a business there in the first place.
Eventually in the 1970’s, they would be destroyed by over financialisation and the over-promotion of investor rights adopted from the neo-lib USA. All fuelled by rent seeking greed.
Look at any town that has lost its main employer because of ‘efficiency’ needed to give higher returns (profits) to investors who don’t even live there and then try to tell me that business is not part of the community or society. How else do you think inequality has grown? Why else would capitalism be failing now? Failing Simon – which it is.
As for your mini-lecture on business and the profit motive, I think you’ll find that Richard is a better academic than both you and I – but especially you.
Well said PSR. As I’ve spent most of my life around the City and business, I’ve seen both the good and the bad. I suspect James illustrates unwittingly that limited understanding of economics that has been mostly taught over the last 30 years, which is a major contributor to the mess that we are in today. The neo-liberal strand which has produced the high levels of inequality and abandoned communities. That is now cynically blaming those problems on interfering foreigners and migrants. That is suggesting that even more deregulation is the answer. Completely ignoring the effect that has in terms of further destroying jobs in the U.K., as well as allowing flawed products in and stuffing the environment. All straight out of the Donald Trump playbook
Funnily enough, the serious international businesses I’ve worked with (which excludes most in the City) rather like clear standards and regulations as it makes it so much easier for them to make and trade common products and services. Frictionlessly to use a phrase of the moment. It’s the dubious businesses who want to be able to produce and sell low quality and even dangerous products to unsuspecting consumers, who are the ones that dislike regulations. Funnily enough, just the kind of businesses that the Mail likes to wail about! But then they never understood economics and trade either
The Irish and the Scots believe Brexit means breakup, a prospect the English seem indifferent to.
Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone?
England will be off the UN Security Council in a few years
With bank rate still kept artificially low, all asset prices are over valued including our property market.
How can it be otherwise?
virtually free money, people unconcerned at their ability to repay and banks ever willing to lend
We have got back to all the pre 2008 features – interest free credit card balance transfers 100% mortgages
History will repeat itself
I agree, although not entirely because of low interest rates, of which I approve