BREXIT - Is This Really Still Rumbling On? 😴
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Keep on trotting out the 'red tape' trope. We've all seen lots of that dangling around on our Euro trips haven't we?
The driver for the current set of farmer protests, there's always some going on, is the EU target of setting aside 4% of actively farmed land to assist tackling climate change and the financial impact on farmers of reducing their croppage.
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Monkey see, monkey do. Far right blowhards are not very inventive. I'd have more time for this if the Telegraph hadn't been predicting the end of the EU forever.
As an aside, the regulatory burden I have to deal with has gone up since 2019. Massively.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
i'd guess uk farmers have it even tougher post brexit
but the uk lacks the revolutionary spirit of the french, imo we should be more like them, it's just better
though since the brexiter government enacted punitive laws to to suppress protest, if farmers did try it, they'd risk imprisonment - now that slow marching is enough to get time in chokey, blocking roads with tractors must be at least as harshly punished
my bike - faster than god's and twice as shiny0 -
I'm sure you know all about it, as I'm sure you do business in the EU?
The farmers in at least 4 EU states think it's enough of an issue to participate in on-going mass protests and risk arrest. Read the article and tell me which bit you don't agree with.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
I don't see any counter argument from you against the points raised here, just you sticking your fingers in your ears and saying you can't hear anything because the article critical of the EU.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
I would guess that if UK farmers had as bad a time of it they might join in. Anyway it's not just the French as mentioned above - Germany, Belgium and Holland are also seeing these types of protests.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
Wrecker Frost hath spoken. Maybe he's right, and maybe there's a reason.
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Not sure what arguments you have put forward - I just saw a repost of the Telegraph headline.
I'm aware some farmers are uppity because the pretty generous terms under which they operate are being curtailed. Are there specific regulations being introduced that affect your business?
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
The article states clear reasons for their protests: if you think that isn't true, show your evidence and say why you think farmers in multiple countries are protesting?
There are plenty of time consuming EU regs already in place that already impact my business and many others, such as the mandatory disclosure regime and the CBAM regs. A couple in the pipeline are public country by country reporting and the recently announced pan European tax rules.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
I'm not suggesting that the protesters don't have their reasons, I just don't think they are particularly valid. The very generous subsidies available in the EU come with conditions. They're welcome to try farming elsewhere if they think they're too onerous.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
The article does say that it's hard to have too much sympathy as they do benefit from various subsidies and protections, but despite these they are still struggling due to the red tape etc.
As for your comment that they should try farming elsewhere if they don't like it, how easy do you think that would be?
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
Difficult, I'm sure. So they had better put their efforts into finding a way to take advantage of the new regulatory environment rather than wishing for the world to stop turning.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
I think this is a decent summary of why Labour is being ultra-cautious.
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Is the relationship currently broken?
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Didn't we once have a decent trade agreement in which there weren't any tariffs? Maybe I'm misremembering.
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On that basis the relationship between the EU and the rest of the world is broken. It's an odd definition.
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The rest of the world hasn't had the access the UK did. You can't break something you never had.
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Anyway, I'm not sure how the 'broken' reference is relevant. I didn't use the word, and neither does the article, which mostly refers to improving the relationship with the EU, which is what other countries seem to want to do, given that they've been doing trade deals with them.
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Apparently the relationship needs fixing. I inferred therefore that it is currently broken.
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Things can 'work' but still benefit from 'fixing': my CAAD9 got me to and from work, but the gears kept on skipping. Now it's got a new chain, big and small chainrings, cables, cassette and rear mech, it's working better, and doesn't skip.
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Just to be true to form, I thought I ought to post this from the lefty Goldman Sachs:
U.K. goods trade has underperformed other advanced economies by around 15% since the Leave vote, according to the bank’s estimates, while business investment has fallen “notably short” of pre-referendum levels. Meantime, immigration from the EU has fallen — a key pledge of the Vote Leave campaign — only to be replaced by a less economically active cohort of non-EU migrants, primarily students, the research said. “Taken together, the evidence points to a significant long-run output cost of Brexit,” the report’s authors said. The bank noted the reduction in trade was in line with expectations and the underperformance in investment was “more pronounced” that anticipated. However, it said the shifts in immigration patterns posed the most important cyclical repercussions for the U.K. economy — and inflation in particular. “The post-Brexit change in immigration flows has reduced the elasticity of labor supply in the U.K., contributing to the post-pandemic surge in inflation and pointing to more cyclical labor market and inflation pressures going forward,” the report said.
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Not saying that the UK is doing great currently - it's not - but there really hasn't been a significant difference in UK economic growth since mid 2010 (when the Tories took over) and mid 2023, working on annual anniversaries. (Things have gone somewhat wonky since mid 2023).
For the years to mid 2016 (the EU ref) GDP growth averaged 1.9% pa. For the years since, excluding the Covid-distorted 2020 and 2021, GDP growth has averaged 1.9%. Population growth shows similar consistency.
So if Goldmans are correct, had the UK stayed in the EU, economic growth would have jumped circa 0.7% pa vs its level in the last 5 years of EU membership. Feels unlikely, whatever Goldmans doubtless very complex "doppelganger" model says.
Though as an aside, it is funny to read on Twitter the fulsome praise being bestowed on Goldmans by the anti-Brexit / anti-Tory brigade, which is left-leaning overall, given that not so very long ago, Goldmans was known as the "Vampire Squid" that sucked the life out of economy for normal people and helped cause the GFC, and a target of severe dislike from those of a left-leaning persuasion.
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The lot who really hated goldman (and got in on the anti-Semitic tropes), are fairly pro brexit or at least ambivilent. Corbyn lot etc.
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Not in my experience, but obviously yours may differ.
EDIT - And obviously, the reasons why folk may or may not have disliked Goldmans in the past doesn't change the questionable nature of their conclusions. (I saw a figure of 2% from Jonathan Portes, a very anti-Brexit but pragmatic economist recently.)
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Now that Goldman's share price is sagging and profits are down, and investment managers are doing well, the conspiratorial lot have moved to the other financial behemoth set up by a New York Jew, BlackRock
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Rick - Are you Jewish yourself? If not your references to the Jewish background of financial institutions is slightly troubling when discussing purely financial matters.
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What's troubling? That I'm calling out the anti-semitism that you see in a lot of anti-capitalist stuff? That it's no coincidence that it's Goldman and then BlackRock who get singled out as the baddies?
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Obviously UK has had a lot of immigration. Wages are the same as they were in 2008, more or less. We've had 16 years of stagnation.
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It's slightly troubling to me that you feel the need to highlight potential anti-semitism when it is irrelevant to whether Goldmans number crunching is reasonable.
That's why I asked if you were Jewish, as it may be that you'd experienced it yourself, which would obviously troubling.
Otherwise, one is left asking "Why?" in respect of seemingly random references to Jewish elements of Goldmans and Blackrock background.
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I assume you're talking about real-terms wages there? Even then I suspect it is very sector driven. In mine there were huge cuts during the GFC, they got restored around 2012 and then wages started to increase significantly for a few years (seems to have stalled a bit in the last few years due to high rises being needed just to keep up with inflation). I think that was at least partly due to the amount of experienced people who called it a day after being made redundant and moved into other sectors though, together with very little being spent on training newcomers.
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