BREXIT - Is This Really Still Rumbling On? 😴

rolf_f

TheBigBean wrote:

Rolf F wrote:

TheBigBean wrote:

Rolf F wrote:

why you want brexit, not why you don't want remain; that doesn't serve any useful purpose at all.

Isn't one of the reasons the remain campaign lost that it failed to put forward any reasons for remaining other than not liking Brexit?

The reasons for remaining were that it things were pretty good as they were; it worked, it wasn't perfect but we were working to make it work. Leave was all "leave and there'll be loads of money for everything and making Britain great again and blue passports etc". Grass greener on the other side arguments. It mostly isn't in reality but they sound much more exciting than "lets keep things as they are".

There were and are large numbers of reasons why we should remain and I think they still apply.

I think the debate has been done over the last three years, but I don't think your response is much different to the poster you were challenging. You could name lots of positives of remaining, but you haven't. You probably haven't done so because you are bored of the discussion which is fair enough, but I don't think you can expect others on the other side of the debate to have endless enthusiasm to list their reasons either.

The freedom for British people to live and work throughout Europe and vice versa
The stability of EU regulations that don't have to be thrown away every five years to help a new incompetent Government into power
Carefully thought out standards eg for food that keep us protected from eg crap from the US.
Common standards that we work with Europe to agree and adhere to ensuring things work across Europe
Free health care in Europe when we travel
An influence greater than we would have on our own.
As a European, being a part of Europe!
The support our further education system gets from foreign students without whom many courses would not be viable.
Security
Human rights

This is just some stuff that comes to mind. Over to you. To be honest though, what I've listed has been frequently stated before. I still don't know what the Brexiters want. Aside from Blue Passports. Which they could have had anyway.

pblakeney

Bonzo Banana wrote:

I don't get this idealogical viewpoint regarding the EU we need to focus on the UK's huge debts, trade deficit and small manufacturing sector start having a realistic economic outlook on our current position.

So your reason for coming out of the EU was a financial one? Fair enough.
What I don't get is how coming out of partnership with our biggest trading partners during a time of World downturn is going to improve our debt.
My guess is that those who voted to remain think the cost is outweighed by the benefits (not all financial) whereas those who voted to leave were guided by a bus, now with revised figures.
It is a stating point for the real debate.

fenix

Bonzo Banana wrote:

I don't understand why you mention food prices, many food prices would fall outside the EU and some from the EU would increase. The EU maintains tariffs on food imports from many countries outside the EU in order to maintain high prices by EU suppliers. A huge number of food products would fall in price especially if you are vegetarian or vegan buying unprocessed food. A huge number of other products would fall in price too. Considering we have so little manufacturing anyway and the EU maintains tariffs to protect mainland EU industries surely we would get many products much cheaper.

I don't see this at all. Yellowhammer is talking about delays of 2.5 days at ports - so who is paying the extra transport cost there ? All of the warehousing in the UK is already full - that's another cost that we are paying for.

And if food is coming from outside the EU then we have the transport costs - and the problems with increasing our carbon footprint too. Anyone in business knows that you want to use the suppliers nearest to you if you can.

bobmcstuff

Imposter wrote:

Bonzo Banana wrote:

I don't get this idealogical viewpoint regarding the EU we need to focus on the UK's huge debts, trade deficit and small manufacturing sector start having a realistic economic outlook on our current position.

The trade deficit thing is highly debatable - but even then I can't really see how post-brexit trading with a smaller number of nations on a less favourable basis is going to help address that.

Indeed. It's quite a commonly held view that the government's austerity program hasn't actually helped - the best estimate is that austerity has had a significant downward effect on GDP growth https://neweconomics.org/2019/02/auster ... -this-year - all at a time when borrowing is historically cheap, below the rate of inflation.

*mainstream economists have actually been pretty accurate since the Brexit vote - Osborne was too negative and the pro-Brexit economists too positive, but the mainstream has been pretty good (https://www.ft.com/content/691e3c92-051 ... 4d49afbbe3)

cycleclinic

Rolf F wrote:

TheBigBean wrote:

Rolf F wrote:

TheBigBean wrote:

Rolf F wrote:

why you want brexit, not why you don't want remain; that doesn't serve any useful purpose at all.

Isn't one of the reasons the remain campaign lost that it failed to put forward any reasons for remaining other than not liking Brexit?

The reasons for remaining were that it things were pretty good as they were; it worked, it wasn't perfect but we were working to make it work. Leave was all "leave and there'll be loads of money for everything and making Britain great again and blue passports etc". Grass greener on the other side arguments. It mostly isn't in reality but they sound much more exciting than "lets keep things as they are".

There were and are large numbers of reasons why we should remain and I think they still apply.

I think the debate has been done over the last three years, but I don't think your response is much different to the poster you were challenging. You could name lots of positives of remaining, but you haven't. You probably haven't done so because you are bored of the discussion which is fair enough, but I don't think you can expect others on the other side of the debate to have endless enthusiasm to list their reasons either.

The freedom for British people to live and work throughout Europe and vice versa
The stability of EU regulations that don't have to be thrown away every five years to help a new incompetent Government into power
Carefully thought out standards eg for food that keep us protected from eg crap from the US.
Common standards that we work with Europe to agree and adhere to ensuring things work across Europe
Free health care in Europe when we travel
An influence greater than we would have on our own.
As a European, being a part of Europe!
The support our further education system gets from foreign students without whom many courses would not be viable.
Security


Human rights

This is just some stuff that comes to mind. Over to you. To be honest though, what I've listed has been frequently stated before. I still don't know what the Brexiters want. Aside from Blue Passports. Which they could have had anyway.

Its not free health care. Health care is charged the same as it would be for citizens of the host country. So in belgium you get charged the same rate as belgians would. I know I got a bill.

The main reason I can see now for remaining part of the eU apart from trade is common standards which will have to be beefed up with enviromental standards. i.e cost of polution incorporated for goods that are imported (as that is outsourcing polution and emissions). Also equivelent emmisions standards for goods will have to come in. This has to be done at a europe wide level so we need to be involved. If europe does it then it will become a global standard. Leavers wont like that much too many fo them simply dont care about climate change or dont think humans are involved.

the problem for the EU remain cause is the reasons given are those of the past not the future. The EU of the future has to evolve and it wont be into a superstate. EU member states have intergrated about as much as they can poltically. The germans and the french cant agree about the EU army command. There are two rival propostions which is backed by either country. That wont happen and if it does it will be a pointless virtue signalling effort look we have an EU army that can do nowt. What can change is the single market regulations to help member states meet emmsiions targets. Litterally everything about our ecomonies has to change but that is beyond the capsity of one nation by itelf. It take a trade bloc like the EU single arket to make that kind of change. That however is not really being articulated. And before you I am a treehugging vegan enviormentalist. I am not. I am a realist though and can see what needs to be done.

rolf_f

thecycleclinic wrote:

That however is not really being articulated. And before you I am a treehugging vegan enviormentalist. I am not. I am a realist though and can see what needs to be done.

To be honest, being a tree hugging vegan environmentalist is being a realist. Anything else probably isn't.

cycleclinic

vegans normally require dietry suplements. any diet that requires supplements is not one we evolved to eat. That said we did not involve to eat crisps and I have stuffed my face with them today. Vegans are also to religous about there diet and far too envangelical about it too. That puts me right off. Also vegan food does taste a bit weird. Veggie food well that fine. Vegan food is also or can be more processed. What the heck is Quorn. It certainly does not grow on trees. Also much of the soya used does not grow here but in other parts of the world in land thats had rainforest on it. The overal impact may be less in terms of emissions but certain foods have more impact.

I have a saying what ever the question the answer is found in eating cheese. That does not work in the vegan world. Ever tried vegan cheese?

We digress. 10:30 tomorrow it might all kick off or not. A bit like brexit on or off or just delayed.

john80

Rolf F wrote:

john80 wrote:

Pross wrote:

Rolf F wrote:

What sort of clap trap did inspire you to vote Brexit if not the emotional variety?

You may as well give up, I've lost count of how many times those who have voted leave have been asked why without answering.

I have lost count of the times someone has given you a reason and then you claimed your counter reason was more valid. You are not alone in this behaviour pattern on this topic.

Please summarise them then. It's not about the validity of counter reasons - more the existence of the reasons in the first place. Positive things of course - why you want brexit, not why you don't want remain; that doesn't serve any useful purpose at all.

Take one example of someone saying they would like to reduce immigration to the cost of say gdp as they value immigtation higher than gdp. It is perfectly valid for another person to say the reverse is most important as maybe they are indebted to their eyeballs doing a job highly affected by brexit. It is this complete lack of ability of others to see that the views of others may be different an then deride others views. Maybe the guy who wants less immigration is a hippy that cycles everywhere, works a low paid but valued job such as a nurse as has been priced out their childhood area and thinks a more sustainable economy is more important than 2% increase on gdp. All made up scenarios but done to try to illuminate that everyones drivers are different hence their views also differ.

Stevo_666

bobmcstuff wrote:

I'm reminded of this:

I like that a lot

rjsterry

Stevo 666 wrote:

bobmcstuff wrote:

I'm reminded of this:

I like that a lot

"Bring back Nick Clegg"

Stevo_666

Not sure when this was posted, but 'Corbyn to consider expressing some sort of opinion' is quite topical

rjsterry

Stevo 666 wrote:

Not sure when this was posted, but 'Corbyn to consider expressing some sort of opinion' is quite topical

Apparently delegates have just voted not to back Remain in this, as yet, hypothetical 2nd referendum.

Long live the fence!

Stevo_666

rjsterry wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

Not sure when this was posted, but 'Corbyn to consider expressing some sort of opinion' is quite topical

Apparently delegates have just voted not to back Remain in this, as yet, hypothetical 2nd referendum.

Long live the fence!

So Labour has voted to remain - on the bloody fence

rjsterry

All good for the LibDems, I suppose.

Stevo_666

rjsterry wrote:

All good for the LibDems, I suppose.

I would guess so. And generally bad for Labour as many will not want to vote for a party when they have no idea of its policy on the biggest current issue in politics.

pinno

Hopefully there will be an exodus of party members and a few MP's to the Lib dems as a result of Labour's sudden swing back to the equivocal.

imposter2.0

Pinno wrote:

Hopefully there will be an exodus of party members and a few MP's to the Lib dems as a result of Labour's sudden swing back to the equivocal.

Difficult to 'swing back' to a position they never moved away from

bompington

Imposter wrote:

Pinno wrote:

Hopefully there will be an exodus of party members and a few MP's to the Lib dems as a result of Labour's sudden swing back to the equivocal.

Difficult to 'swing back' to a position they never moved away from

I think he's referring to the few seconds it took for the show of hands to be "recounted" by the enforcers behind the chair

Stevo_666

Not a bad article on what Labour has achieved today:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/23/labour-elite-wins-a-battle-but-it-might-have-just-lost-the-war

surrey_commuter

john80 wrote:

Rolf F wrote:

john80 wrote:

Pross wrote:

Rolf F wrote:

What sort of clap trap did inspire you to vote Brexit if not the emotional variety?

You may as well give up, I've lost count of how many times those who have voted leave have been asked why without answering.

I have lost count of the times someone has given you a reason and then you claimed your counter reason was more valid. You are not alone in this behaviour pattern on this topic.

Please summarise them then. It's not about the validity of counter reasons - more the existence of the reasons in the first place. Positive things of course - why you want brexit, not why you don't want remain; that doesn't serve any useful purpose at all.

Take one example of someone saying they would like to reduce immigration to the cost of say gdp as they value immigtation higher than gdp. It is perfectly valid for another person to say the reverse is most important as maybe they are indebted to their eyeballs doing a job highly affected by brexit. It is this complete lack of ability of others to see that the views of others may be different an then deride others views. Maybe the guy who wants less immigration is a hippy that cycles everywhere, works a low paid but valued job such as a nurse as has been priced out their childhood area and thinks a more sustainable economy is more important than 2% increase on gdp. All made up scenarios but done to try to illuminate that everyones drivers are different hence their views also differ.

The hippy works in the public sector, he should buy a book on macroeconomics and realise he more than anybody should care about the rate of GDP growth.

surrey_commuter

Bonzo Banana wrote:

cougie wrote:

Bonzo Banana wrote:

Pross wrote:

Rolf F wrote:

What sort of clap trap did inspire you to vote Brexit if not the emotional variety?

You may as well give up, I've lost count of how many times those who have voted leave have been asked why without answering.

I must admit I voted remain because I looked at the political parties we have and had such a low opinion of their skill level that I didn't think they could manage leaving well but I was a borderline leave voter. For me the huge issue of why I would have voted leave was of course the huge debts, destruction of industry and large trading deficit since joining the EU.

I think people are naive if they think Brexit could end by simply remaining in the EU. The level of debt is still increasing and austerity will get much worse over time. None of our politicians have come up with a strategy for existing in the EU in a financially stable way. Even if Brexit collapses and we remain in the EU the rising debt and huge trade deficit means we will be back here again in the future. Last time I saw the figure it was 1.8 trillion of debt but at lets say 2.5 trillion austerity will be far more extreme.

The issue with the UK is we are not competing well in the EU free market and we haven't budgeted for the money we pay the EU as a membership fee. Ultimately wages need to drop, the pound needs to devalue and public services need to reduce in order to pay membership costs and start paying back our national debt. This reality keeps getting pushed further in the future where it will become more extreme.

You cannot hide under the carpet our extreme debt and trading deficit with the EU if you don't deal with it today it will be back again. That's what I don't get people talk about remaining in the EU as a good option it's a horrifically bad option. I personally think the government should never have borrowed to prop up the UK economy, it should be illegal to create debts for future generations. All we do by borrowing is suck in more imports and that exported sterling comes back as investment in the UK because they aren't buying our goods and such investment basically means the majority of our large companies now are foreign owned sending their profits abroad. This isn't sustainable at all in the long term.

I would ask the question for those who wish to remain in the EU how will we reverse the trading deficit and move to a surplus and how are we going to pay back the huge debts and pay for EU membership. At 9 billion net contribution that is something like £300 a year from every tax payer (30 million people) which is a lot of money to extract every year especially with a trading deficit too and the legacy of all the past larger EU payments that we never actually had to spend but borrowed instead and all the compound interest on top. There is £60,000 of national debt for every tax payer currently and that doesn't include the public sector pension shortfall debt and some other debts.

Which ever way we go the UK is going to get a lot poorer and public services will be massively reduced in the future. Can anyone actually see the utterly moronic politicians we have now managing the UK economy outside the EU any better than they did inside it? Has anyone seen a proper industry policy by any party?

Try this to see how much the EU costs you.


https://euworthit.uk/


For me it's well worth paying. I dare say that the food price rises alone make it worthwhile me paying for the EU.

And that's on top of all the other benefits.

Surely a simple figure of net 9 billion shared by 30 million tax payers is much more accurate than that. That site seems to be a politically motivated site and that is the huge issue with this debate so much false information is spread about. I really don't care if effectively a low earner pays £10 towards the EU per year and a high earner £15,000 and you also share it via VAT I take the average of £300 per tax payer as significant. I think if we continue to make false claims and try to manipulate each other with figures that serves no useful purpose. It is an average of £300 per tax payer if you consider the UK to have 30 million tax payers which I believe is fairly accurate. The office of national statistics is a great source of information regarding our debt, eu contributions and reduced level of assets.

I don't understand why you mention food prices, many food prices would fall outside the EU and some from the EU would increase. The EU maintains tariffs on food imports from many countries outside the EU in order to maintain high prices by EU suppliers. A huge number of food products would fall in price especially if you are vegetarian or vegan buying unprocessed food. A huge number of other products would fall in price too. Considering we have so little manufacturing anyway and the EU maintains tariffs to protect mainland EU industries surely we would get many products much cheaper.

For example the EU adds tariffs up to 80% on e-bikes from China in order to protect assembly plants in the EU, without those tariffs prices would fall. Such tariffs are applied to a huge range of products often so EU factories are protected but with no benefit to the UK itself who just have to pay more for such goods because of the EU.

I don't get this idealogical viewpoint regarding the EU we need to focus on the UK's huge debts, trade deficit and small manufacturing sector start having a realistic economic outlook on our current position. Politics really should be about running a economy well but so much of the debate is idealistic in nature. It's like people are economically naive so politicians can be too. People should be demanding action on debt, the trade deficit and the wholesale selling of assets, I really don't understand why that isn't the no.1 priority, you shouldn't spend money until you have earnt it.

You won’t have cheaper food as your Govt has proposed high tariffs to protect the income of farmers.

I agree with you on debt and would get there by continuing austerity and following non-interventionist policies that did not hinder economic growth.

Unless you are an average taxpayer then the average amount of tax is irrelevant. Somebody on £125k pa is paying circa £50k in tax, that will take somebody on average earnings about 15 years to pay that. Unless people are earning above £50k they are not a net contributor so should be thanking those nice City boys for paying their EU subs.

Edited to add that tariffs will also go on EU food imports. Who would have thought those nice Brexit toffs would get the man in the street to subsidise the largest landowners?

morstar

The problem with the 'cost' of the EU is the idea that we get nothing in return.
I'm not on about rebates and re-investment even. More the fact that a whole load of costs of infrastructure and civil service costs are centrally pooled as it is more efficient and costs us less overall. Post Brexit, we will have to spend a lot of money on replicating infrastructure for ourselves solely. This is non- value add activity, just additional cost.
I own a car and it costs a lot of money to own and run. Should I just get rid? I get no financial return from it!
That £300 per head isn't going to freed up post Brexit, it's going to increase but go elsewhere.

rolf_f

Rolf F wrote:

TheBigBean wrote:

Rolf F wrote:

TheBigBean wrote:

Rolf F wrote:

why you want brexit, not why you don't want remain; that doesn't serve any useful purpose at all.

Isn't one of the reasons the remain campaign lost that it failed to put forward any reasons for remaining other than not liking Brexit?

The reasons for remaining were that it things were pretty good as they were; it worked, it wasn't perfect but we were working to make it work. Leave was all "leave and there'll be loads of money for everything and making Britain great again and blue passports etc". Grass greener on the other side arguments. It mostly isn't in reality but they sound much more exciting than "lets keep things as they are".

There were and are large numbers of reasons why we should remain and I think they still apply.

I think the debate has been done over the last three years, but I don't think your response is much different to the poster you were challenging. You could name lots of positives of remaining, but you haven't. You probably haven't done so because you are bored of the discussion which is fair enough, but I don't think you can expect others on the other side of the debate to have endless enthusiasm to list their reasons either.

The freedom for British people to live and work throughout Europe and vice versa
The stability of EU regulations that don't have to be thrown away every five years to help a new incompetent Government into power
Carefully thought out standards eg for food that keep us protected from eg crap from the US.
Common standards that we work with Europe to agree and adhere to ensuring things work across Europe
Free health care in Europe when we travel
An influence greater than we would have on our own.
As a European, being a part of Europe!
The support our further education system gets from foreign students without whom many courses would not be viable.
Security
Human rights

This is just some stuff that comes to mind. Over to you. To be honest though, what I've listed has been frequently stated before. I still don't know what the Brexiters want. Aside from Blue Passports. Which they could have had anyway.

Come on then BigBean. You picked at me for not naming some of my positives so I did. This is the point where you have a convenient opportunity to list all the benefits you expect to gain from Brexit and we can pick holes in each others ideas and maybe learn something from each other.

Crikey - why would you even post on a Brexit thread if you believe that nobody can be bothered to explain their reasons for their vote anymore? What is the point of that? I'm not bored of the discussion - it's too important to be bored by (another distinction I think between Remainers who really do care about the EU and brexiters who deep down don't care either way and seem to live in this fantasy world where after 31st Oct they think that everyone will get back to talking about football and the weather and not Brexit endlessly for the next 30 years which is what will happen) - what kind of idiot would get bored by this subject? It's too important for that.

briantrumpet

Stevo 666 wrote:

Not a bad article on what Labour has achieved today:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/23/labour-elite-wins-a-battle-but-it-might-have-just-lost-the-war

Crace is always a good read, as is Michael Deacon in the Telegraph... though I'm a bit worried that you've quoted a leftiebollox rag twice in a week as a source of news...

rolf_f

Surrey Commuter wrote:

Unless people are earning above £50k they are not a net contributor so should be thanking those nice City boys for paying their EU subs.

Is that really correct? I don't earn £50k but then I don't have children and so far am not a burden on the NHS and I would tend to assume that I am a net contributor - my wage is significantly above average and median so it seemed a reasonable assumption.

Of course, I'm not thanking those nice City boys - they are overpaid for what they do and I subsidise them in other ways so it all balances out. It's like saying that the small crownwheel in the automatic gearbox is contributing less than one of the pistons.

surrey_commuter

Rolf F wrote:

Surrey Commuter wrote:

Unless people are earning above £50k they are not a net contributor so should be thanking those nice City boys for paying their EU subs.

Is that really correct? I don't earn £50k but then I don't have children and so far am not a burden on the NHS and I would tend to assume that I am a net contributor - my wage is significantly above average and median so it seemed a reasonable assumption.

Of course, I'm not thanking those nice City boys - they are overpaid for what they do and I subsidise them in other ways so it all balances out. It's like saying that the small crownwheel in the automatic gearbox is contributing less than one of the pistons.

I will try to find the article. Maybe it is deemed over a lifetime so paying for your own education and pension.

rolf_f

Surrey Commuter wrote:

Rolf F wrote:

Surrey Commuter wrote:

Unless people are earning above £50k they are not a net contributor so should be thanking those nice City boys for paying their EU subs.

Is that really correct? I don't earn £50k but then I don't have children and so far am not a burden on the NHS and I would tend to assume that I am a net contributor - my wage is significantly above average and median so it seemed a reasonable assumption.

Of course, I'm not thanking those nice City boys - they are overpaid for what they do and I subsidise them in other ways so it all balances out. It's like saying that the small crownwheel in the automatic gearbox is contributing less than one of the pistons.

I will try to find the article. Maybe it is deemed over a lifetime so paying for your own education and pension.

Cheers - it does seem slightly unlikely; you'd sort of think that average pay ought to equal the threshold for becoming a net contributor (extremely simplistically). Of course, you need to look at lifetime average pay rather than current average pay as well. I suspect though that makes less difference than might be thought - we probably tend to over-estimate the degree to which our pay has risen in real terms.

bobmcstuff

Stevo 666 wrote:

Not sure when this was posted, but 'Corbyn to consider expressing some sort of opinion' is quite topical

The tweet's dated - 2nd April 2019.

Corbyn's been on the fence so long he probably has piles by now.

Longshot

Rolf F wrote:

Of course, I'm not thanking those nice City boys - they are overpaid for what they do

Their employers, who are in the position to gauge their value to the organisation, seem to disagree with you.

(not a City boy)

ballysmate

The value of anything on the market, be it an item for sale or a skill set is set by the buyer. The value is whatever the buyer is willing to pay.