Brexit WTF, WTF

[Jambalaya]

My God you've swallowed the coolaid...

The notion that we, as a tiny country of 60 million are actually able of acting independently trade wise is laughable. It's a seriously competitive world out there, and unless you're one of the big guns you will end up on the wrong side of every trade deal. As we've already seen with that famous Japan deal.... Oh, and the way that America are just falling over themselves to do a deal with us...
I get why the notion of "small nimble UK doing bespoke better deals" is an attractive one. But now we're seeing the reality. And that is simply that we're getting bullied off the park as other countries recognise our weakness.

The notion that we hadn't retained our democracy is also fabulous "Daily Mail" nonsense. It just isn't true. At all. Even the government in their Brexit withdrawal bill recognised that the UK parliament had always been sovereign for gods sake.

On the subject of FoM you're missing the point. FoM with the EU isn't just about people migrating permanently, or semi permanently. Seasonal work in the EU was a very popular thing for young people. Pre Brexit figures are hard to come by, precisely because nobody had to count them, but an estimated 25k, mostly young people, per year went to work in holiday resorts etc. Numbers in 2021 were estimated to be down 75%, as visas were getting refused. A minor thing in the scheme of things maybe, but still an opportunity that you've ripped away from the young.
Now answer the question - what opportunity has Brexit opened up to replace that for young people?

Eurozone is not relevant. UK could never have been forced to bail out the Euro. Remember Cameron's famous concessions....

EU reform deal: What Cameron wanted and what he got

David Cameron claims his EU reform deal will give the UK "special status" in the 28 nation bloc - but did he get what he wanted?

www.bbc.co.uk

So can we put that to bed now? We weren't on the hook for EU bailouts, and were not going to be. Claims that we were are simply lies made up by ERG types looking to justify their position.

I didn't swallow the coolaid I helped make it. The Leave campaign was tame in regard to what I wanted. I know the fight is not yet over.

I did seasonal work in the Europe before freedom of movement existed. I have lived and worked in US and Singapore by getting a work visa.

Look these assurances from the EU to Cameron that you link to were totally worthless. It ia remains illegal under the EU Treaties to bail out euro countries but they have done it multiple times anyway (as begrudgingly admitted by Lagarde). So much for international law compliance eh ?

EDIT: yes we are a small country in population terms but not in terms of influence and power. We are a small country but we buy more from EU than do US, India and China combined.

 

[Jambalaya]

Revisionist nonsense.

The leave campaign spent the entire time telling people that we were special and we held all the cards etc. The notion of Canada deal, WTO, No deal etc was only really discussed after the vote.

But even if you were right, we don't live in Switzerland. We don't do direct democracy here, we do representative democracy. For the government to hide behind the referendum result when imposing restrictions on trade against the best interests of the country is very, very weak.

We should have had a better deal however too many MPs went direct to Brussels/Barnier and made it clear they would block "no deal" and indeed would push for SM / CU membership. We had of course a totally biased Speaker who just made up stuff on the fly. A deeply unpleasant bully who was protected by the Labour Party as it suited them. Truly shameful.

 

[dogwatch]

The Leave campaign and voters made it clear we wanted out of SM and CU.

Is that so? Michael Gove was co-convenor of Vote Leave and this is what he said about the Customs Union.

“There is a free trade zone stretching from Iceland to Turkey that all European nations have access to, regardless of whether they are in or out of the euro or EU. After we vote to leave we will remain in this zone.
“The suggestion that Bosnia, Serbia, Albania and the Ukraine would stay part of this free trade area - and Britain would be on the outside with just Belarus - is as credible as Jean-Claude Juncker joining UKIP.
“Agreeing to maintain this continental free trade zone is the simple course and emphatically in everyone’s interests.”

https://fullfact.org/europe/what-was-promised-about-customs-union-referendum/

 

[Flaming]

I didn't swallow the coolaid I helped make it. The Leave campaign was tame in regard to what I wanted. I know the fight is not yet over.

I did seasonal work in the Europe before freedom of movement existed. I have lived and worked in US and Singapore by getting a work visa.

Look these assurances from the EU to Cameron that you link to were totally worthless. It ia remains illegal under the EU Treaties to bail out euro countries but they have done it multiple times anyway (as begrudgingly admitted by Lagarde). So much for international law compliance eh ?

EDIT: yes we are a small country in population terms but not in terms of influence and power. We are a small country but we buy more from EU than do US, India and China combined.

Yes, before the EU existed the rules for working abroad were very lax, and going off to work abroad in the 1960s or early 70s was not difficult. It is a different world now, and visa rules must be followed. And temporary working visas for UK citizens are being limited by EU countries.

I'll ask again, what new opportunity has opened up for UK youngsters as a result of Brexit that compensates for that?

European Union Exports By Country

Trading Economics provides data for 20 million economic indicators from 196 countries including actual values, consensus figures, forecasts, historical time series and news. European Union Exports By Country - was last updated on Wednesday, November 30, 2022.

tradingeconomics.com

Your statement about EU exports seems to be false. The US alone takes more exports from the EU than we do, with India and China together being more than us.

 

[Flaming]

Those things were crystal clear requirements of voters and laid out very clearly by Vote Leave. Even David Cameron who effectively headed the Remain campaign said leaving the EU meant leaving the SM and CU

Yes it's the weirdest thing. Vote leave spent all the campaign saying fears about leaving the single market and loss of trade were "project fear" and that Cameron shouldn't be trusted.

But now you tell us that what Gove etc said about still being part of the biggest trading block in the world was bollocks, and we should have listened to Cameron when he said this would be the outcome.

Look, if what we have now is what you want, then fair enough.

But you've got massive problems coming. It's not going well, and the public are starting to notice. Nobody, whatever way they voted in 2016, or 2019, voted to make themselves, or the country, poorer. There were differing visions offered of the route to securing prosperity, and the country chose one.
If it doesn't deliver, especially for the areas that voted heavily for it, then the popularity of Brexit is in deep, deep trouble. Might take 5 year, might take 10, but if it's seen that the UK is left behind then the clamour to do something about it will start to get harder to resist.

 

[AnIdiot]

Yes it's the weirdest thing. Vote leave spent all the campaign saying fears about leaving the single market and loss of trade were "project fear" and that Cameron shouldn't be trusted.

But now you tell us that what Gove etc said about still being part of the biggest trading block in the world was bollocks, and we should have listened to Cameron when he said this would be the outcome.

Look, if what we have now is what you want, then fair enough.

Is it though? I mean, I can see it suits Jambalaya (though maybe not- he's made clear he thinks it's a soft option) but the "misrepresentations" leading up to the referendum vote meant that a lot of people voted for (1) closing the debate and (2) what they thought they'd been promised (but hadn't).
That is not the decisive vote of a well-informed electorate that our brexiteer friends like to portray it as... and when challenged on this they like to make claims about the biggest democratic exercise, will of the people etc... conveniently ignoring that what is being delivered is a long, long way from what was either promised or desired by a significant percentage of the voters. Deflecting this onto external events like Putin's "Special Military Operation" and Covid doesn't address the fundamental issue.
Democracy is not well served by deception.
Then there's the follow-on: having created an undeliverable commitment, the Conservatives won a thumping majority on a populist vote and a commitment to deliver an impossible agenda. The party purged itself of the competent, pragmatic people that are needed to run any government effectively. Unsurprisingly, they've made a complete hash of almost everything they've done since.
Again, democracy is not well served by this sort of chaos, a direct result of the electoral system's ability to hand enormous power to deceitful incompetents with no mechanism to revoke it timeously.

It stinks.

 

[Laser1]

the 17.4m Leave voters made it crystal clear they wanted to leave the SM and CU (no freedom of movement)

The majority of the 17.4m voters did not have the foggiest what SM & CU were.

It is ironic that what you have put in brackets is the only thing they did understand and acted upon. Farage with the blessing of the Cons.Party made sure of that. Let's stick it to johnny foreigner was - and regretfully still is - one of the UK's elder population greatest past-times.

It is often served up as a light humour but it is truly sad that 'what does the EU do' was the biggest search term (or variations thereof) on Google on 24th June 2016.

 

[Laser1]

 

[Waynemarlow]

Yes it's the weirdest thing. Vote leave spent all the campaign saying fears about leaving the single market and loss of trade were "project fear" and that Cameron shouldn't be trusted.

Perhaps I need to republish this for you.

I don't see any major fall off of exports to the EU despite Covid and the present war going on in Europe.

Where is the predicted unemployment, ah do we not have almost full employment ? We have higher than ever immigration and no one is really grizzling about that, was immigration so much of an issue as many here seem to be making ? The pound seems to have found its true level, the Euro is continuing to fall badly against the dollar, the economy here seems pretty stable considering the world economy around us is probably at its most volatile its been for a very long time. Any major contortions in our economy has been largely self inflicted rather than directly caused by Brexit.

Perhaps Cameron, Hunt, the CBI and all those who buy the Guardian might just have not been correct in there doom laden predictions. Still one thing for sure, people like Flaming will be blaming Brexit for everything that doesn't go their way.

 

[Flaming]

Perhaps I need to republish this for you.

View attachment 556850

I don't see any major fall off of exports to the EU despite Covid and the present war going on in Europe.

Where is the predicted unemployment, ah do we not have almost full employment ? We have higher than ever immigration and no one is really grizzling about that, was immigration so much of an issue as many here seem to be making ? The pound seems to have found its true level, the Euro is continuing to fall badly against the dollar, the economy here seems pretty stable considering the world economy around us is probably at its most volatile its been for a very long time. Any major contortions in our economy has been largely self inflicted rather than directly caused by Brexit.

Perhaps Cameron, Hunt, the CBI and all those who buy the Guardian might just have not been correct in there doom laden predictions. Still one thing for sure, people like Flaming will be blaming Brexit for everything that doesn't go their way.

Oh dear Wayne, I thought you had turned over a new leaf and were being polite after our recent Solar chat....

Never mind...

The problem with that graph is obvious. It is neither adjusted for exchange rate or inflation. The other issue is that fuel is included as a "good" and fuel exports are currently running about 800 million per month over normal, due to Putin. This seems mainly to be LNG arriving in ships and being processed and then piped to the continent. Good business, but hopefully not a long term thing for obvious reasons. Strip that out to look at the trade in manufactured goods etc and adjust for inflation and you really don't see growth at all. Decline even.

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As ever, the situation is just not as simple as you would like it to be. And nobody has ever said that Brexit would cause an instant implosion. Well, nobody that you should listen to anyway. What has been said, and is being seen, is a steady drip drip of lost orders, closing factories etc.
And all the while our balance of trade gets worse and worse - exactly as it was predicted to do after Brexit.

And just to once again be 100% clear. Brexit is not the source of everything that is wrong. But is definitely is a negative factor on the UK economy. To deny that is simply not credible.

 

[Waynemarlow]

The problem with that graph is obvious. It is neither adjusted for exchange rate or inflation. The other issue is that fuel is included as a "good" and fuel exports are currently running about 800 million per month over normal, due to Putin. This seems mainly to be LNG arriving in ships and being processed and then piped to the continent. Good business, but hopefully not a long term thing for obvious reasons. Strip that out to look at the trade in manufactured goods etc and adjust for inflation and you really don't see growth at all. Decline even.

Didn't everything above also take place prior to 2016 including importing energy, you can't just say that sort of thing doesn't now count, when it is going against your narrative.

As to manufacturing deminishing in this country, that took place long before Brexit, blame the Unions and then Tony Blair for that. Add in that we are one of the most populice countries in Europe per sqm, with an ever expanding population, with some of the most restrictive environmental regimes and you are really wondering why manfacturing is failing here ?

 

[Flaming]

Didn't everything above also take place prior to 2016 including importing energy, you can't just say that sort of thing doesn't now count, when it is going against your narrative.

As to manufacturing deminishing in this country, that took place long before Brexit, blame the Unions and then Tony Blair for that. Add in that we are one of the most populice countries in Europe per sqm, with an ever expanding population, with some of the most restrictive environmental regimes and you are really wondering why manfacturing is failing here ?

The point is that volumes of LNG being processed in the UK and then piped to Europe have massively increased in the last 12 months as Europe tries to reduce its reliance on Russian Gas. The point is that if you are comparing like for like, to see what the underlying economy is doing, you have to strip that out.
Honestly that's so basic a concept that if you don't get that....

It's notable how you simply go for "whataboutism" in trying to distract from the Brexit influence.

For what feels like the millionth time....

Brexit is not the only thing that makes life hard for manufacturers. But it IS making life harder. To claim otherwise is not credible. If it had not happened it wouldn't magically all be roses, but it would be better than it is. That is simply a fact.

 

[Waynemarlow]

The point is that volumes of LNG being processed in the UK and then piped to Europe have massively increased in the last 12 months as Europe tries to reduce its reliance on Russian Gas. The point is that if you are comparing like for like, to see what the underlying economy is doing, you have to strip that out.
Honestly that's so basic a concept that if you don't get that....

The point is that if you want to strip out gas and energy exports this year, you have to strip out all imports of gas and energy over the last 20 years or more, to be on a like for like basis.

Never have I said it was going to get easier for UK manufacturers to export to Europe. I had hoped that the UK and the EU would agree amenable terms, but then a divorce on non amenable terms was agreed. Don't blame those voting to leave on that, blame the idiots at the top as neither the EU or the UK has any real gain in the present settlement. That is not to say that in the next 8 years we don't see more pleasantries on the border and much easier trade, much like the original EEC terms that we orignally signed up for.

As I have always said, its going to take at least 10 years before we can see any actuality of our leaving the EU in our economy, how much of that will be down to the pandemic and Ukraine war will be always a contentious point and I suspect both having far far far larger influences than Brexit ever had.

 

[Waynemarlow]

Hey a question Flaming, as you are the only one seemingly keeping this thread alive thats actually UK based, why not just go over to PM ing Jambayla and myself, we can have a regular chat and put the world to rights privately ?

 

[Flaming]

The point is that if you want to strip out gas and energy exports this year, you have to strip out all imports of gas and energy over the last 20 years or more, to be on a like for like basis.

Yes, I literally did that by telling you how much EXTRA the uplift accounts for.

I don't really blame most of the people who voted for Brexit. I entirely blame those who campaigned for it.

 

[Laser1]

The point is that if you want to strip out gas and energy exports this year, you have to strip out all imports of gas and energy over the last 20 years or more, ...

Cheap shot ..... You are only telling half of the story.

That is only because of the throughput of gas which is landed in the UK but for which you have no sufficient storage facilities. Some of this volume is sold but the bulk only needs to be stored on the continent. It is expected that when the winter kicks in these stored volumes may need to be drawn back to Britain. UK now exports more leccy as well due to the Ukraine situation.

In monetary terms it represents a stack of money but has naff all to do with the issues that @Flaming is dealing with on a daily basis.

You're making shit up again Wayne. UK plc gave up their gas storage capacity the last few years. Above a quote in reply to Jambo who claimed the same shit in July.

 

[Waynemarlow]

I entirely blame those who campaigned for it.

You better get campaigning then thats your only way of changing the result, what will it take 20 years plus, thats democracy for you.

 

[Flaming]

You better get campaigning then thats your only way of changing the result, what will it take 20 years plus, thats democracy for you.

Why in the world would you think I'm not?

 

[AnIdiot]

.... Don't blame those voting to leave on that, blame the idiots at the top as neither the EU or the UK has any real gain in the present settlement. ..

Worth noting that one of the primary reasons we have such big idiots at the top just now is... brexit! (see earlier posts in this thread).

As I have always said, its going to take at least 10 years before we can see any actuality of our leaving the EU in our economy,

We are seeing the actuality of our leaving the EU right now. Your contention is that it will be better in the long run. Most posters here think you are wrong.

how much of that will be down to the pandemic and Ukraine war will be always a contentious point and I suspect both having far far far larger influences than Brexit ever had.

That's deflection again- they might be bigger effects but Brexit was sold as being positive. It should have offset the negatives, if it was delivering benefits, but in actuality has made things even worse.

Hey a question Flaming, as you are the only one seemingly keeping this thread alive thats actually UK based, why not just go over to PM ing Jambayla and myself, we can have a regular chat and put the world to rights privately ?

For the record, and clarity, I'm UK based: I think I've mentioned this before. Also worth noting that readership of this thread is, and always has been, much higher than the writership.

 

[Waynemarlow]

Worth noting that one of the primary reasons we have such big idiots at the top just now is... brexit!

As in any meaningful relationship Jack, it takes two sides to Tango.