Is Brexit Britain a third world country?

JohnnyFlash

Short term pain for long term gain.

Balanadan

Berties_Horse wrote: »

Do you pilot your own learjet?

I've been meaning to take some time to get my licence but it's difficult to find the time. When I'm not working I'm usually entertaining some beautiful woman.

Yamanoto

Balanadan wrote: »

It was a Hilton, chosen for proximity to business meetings more than anything else, supposedly the best of the bunch in the area. I'll ask my PA for the details, I asked her to blacklist it.

Which area was this?

mad muffin

mfceiling wrote: »

What Hotel was it OP?

It’s right there in the OP. Faulty Towers.

Mezcita

First sign of it here for me. Unable to get insured on my English girlfriend's policy without giving up my Irish license or getting a UK one. Guh.

Capt'n Midnight

Augeo wrote: »

I don't think sterling will fall much in the long-term TBH.

If there's a Hard Brexit expect it to reach parity with the Euro shortly.

Then factor that in a few years GDP would be 10% behind where it could have been without Brexit

China and India is where all the big growth will be but they've made it clear they'll have big demands for any UK deal.. And in case you haven't noticed the US is involved in a trade with everyone, so big tariffs on EU/China/Mexico/India.



As for the UK expecting a good deal with the US ?

Never Give a Sucker an Even Break
- W. C. Fields.

Silentcorner

Silentcorner wrote: »

Depends on how they Brexit I would imagine.

A no deal Brexit should have an awful impact on the British economy, it would be hard to see how Scotland would want to stay in the UK...so that will be like a side show in amongst the carnage...the North is already one of the most politically dysfunctional nations in the developed world...

I can't for the life of me see a Brexit that will help Britain...indeed, the EU, for all its flaws, has been a handy scapegoat for far too long in Britain especially...and with a complete charlatan like Johnson about to take the reins, I wouldn't like to be British.

We of course, are also in unchartered waters...with a completely inflexible political system rooted in parochialism...it is hard to see how we would deal with the calamity in any meaningful way...our tourism industry will get the first shock but it impact plenty of others.

Excellent post. Blaming the EU for the poverty and unemployment today of the same areas of England which were poor and ignored in the 1920s/1930s/before Britain joined the EU in 1973 was never a good idea. This pattern of neglect long predates EU membership. So much ignorance while the Tory toffs (and 'Third Way' Labour politicians) continue on at the vanguard of support for globalisation, lowering conditions for the same British poor whom they now feign to be interested in protecting. There are two absolute certainties of Brexit:

1) The EU will be the scapegoat for all the bad things of Brexit. About 7 Tory-supporting Eurosceptic oligarchs own most of the British media - watch that space. And the next British PM will be chosen by about 0.35% of the British population, and it's going to be one of two Oxbridge graduates. But... but...but the EU is "elitist" and "undemocratic".

2) The poorer and marginalised areas and communities which supported Brexit will have their wages and conditions of employment (if they're lucky to be employed) reduced significantly in the forthcoming years as the British struggle to compete, while the wealthy will either, like James Dyson and others, move most of their wealth out of Britain, or dictate lower taxes and better returns for keeping their money there.

The predictability of these two things is painful. And, yes, many smaller Irish firms, particularly in agribusiness, will suffer because of the overdependence on the British market by smaller, Irish-owned businesses - so the regional impact in Ireland of Brexit will not be even.

Augeo

Augeo wrote: »

I don't think sterling will fall much in the long-term TBH.

If rightwing British politicians are as thick today as they were in the 1920s, they'll revalue sterling higher than it's worth out of a sense of imperial prestige, leading to the price of British exports rocketing and thus the quantity of exports sold declining rapidly (because foreigners, who would have to pay for British products in British money, would get fewer pounds for their money).

Google 'Gold Standard', 1925 and Winston Churchill, and see how that one policy was central to the rapid decline in British competitiveness and consequent enormous rise in British unemployment. This then led directly to, among other things, the 1926 General Strike of millions of British workers.

The painfully obtuse and malleable Brexit-supporting British do not know their own history, though. And that is a really big problem.

biko

I haven't been to England in a while but last I was it did not feel like a 3rd world country (except parts of London).

My luxury hotel was luxurious, no complaints from me.

corsav6

I was there with the wife and kids 2 weeks ago. We went from Windsor to London on a Monday hoping it would be quiet but it was packed. It rained all day but the place was packed.
Legoland in Tuesday was also packed, midweek during school time and still extremely busy. On Wednesday which was our last day we went swimming to a place outside Windsor and guess what? It was packed, again midweek during school hours too. A quick stop into the nearest Penney's beforehand as we forgot towels and it once again was busy.
So I'm not sure where you were op, or what you were on but our experience of London and surrounding areas were far different than yours.

InTheShadows

I think a lot of people here are desperate for the UK to fall apart after the coming hard Brexit which i find sad if im honest. I have a lot of friends and indeed family in the UK and i completely respect their democratic choice to leave the EU. They will struggle in the short term but i feel after 2-3 years of pain they are going to be in a very strong position.

Victor

Balanadan wrote: »

Is Brexit Britain a third world country?

Brexit is inconsistent with a developing country.

JupiterKid

Walking around Oxford today it seems the OP's assertions are unfounded and Britain is in pretty rude health.

Then again, Oxford is a university city packed with tourists at this time of year and is pretty wealthy so I doubt it would compare to, say, Bradford or Hull.

steddyeddy

InTheShadows wrote: »

I think a lot of people here are desperate for the UK to fall apart after the coming hard Brexit which i find sad if im honest. I have a lot of friends and indeed family in the UK and i completely respect their democratic choice to leave the EU. They will struggle in the short term but i feel after 2-3 years of pain they are going to be in a very strong position.

You're not helping them by spreading the myth that leaving the biggest single market in the world is going to be good for the UK. Name a country that thrives on WTO rules?

ancapailldorcha

InTheShadows wrote: »

I think a lot of people here are desperate for the UK to fall apart after the coming hard Brexit which i find sad if im honest. I have a lot of friends and indeed family in the UK and i completely respect their democratic choice to leave the EU. They will struggle in the short term but i feel after 2-3 years of pain they are going to be in a very strong position.

Ah yes, the old Brexit underpants gnome argument:

1. Leave the EU
2. ???
3. Profit

I'd be grateful if you could elaborate on step 2.

Danzy

Britain is just the EU with good growth and kow unemployment.

It still has the same problems, deterioration in many ways, just better growth and low unemployment.

Both are over reliant on past success to pay the bills today.

To call it 3rd world though is mad, it remains one of the more well to do States in the Western World by some margin to many others in it.

DublinWriter

I can't understand why Sterling has remained so high against the Euro.

Admittedly, it had dropped somewhat in the past two years, but nothing like I imagined it would.

I get the horrible feeling that the Bank of England are covertly buttressing the currency something akin to what happened with the dropping-out of Sterling from the ERM in 1992 when briefly at one point, the Irish punt was worth more the pound sterling.

Danzy

InTheShadows wrote: »

I think a lot of people here are desperate for the UK to fall apart after the coming hard Brexit which i find sad if im honest. I have a lot of friends and indeed family in the UK and i completely respect their democratic choice to leave the EU. They will struggle in the short term but i feel after 2-3 years of pain they are going to be in a very strong position.

I'd like to see the U.K. fall apart politically but prefer it to be amicably done, as much as it could be anyway.

A no deal Brexit would cause massive problems but people are also overlooking that the Eurozone region is not an economic success. 10% smaller now than a decade ago, as opposed to Britain being 10% bigger, no great shake there, while the US is 50% bigger GDP wise now.

It has shocking youth unemployment, underemployment, very low GDP growth etc etc.

No Deal is the least preferred option.

Grayson

I believe the UK has the worst income inequality in the EU. When you see what's happened to towns, especially in the midlands and north, it's scary. There's huge swathes of the country outside London that have very little going for them. And in London the inequality is generational. Younger generations have very little hope if purchasing homes in one of the most expensive cities in the world.

Danzy

DublinWriter wrote: »

I can't understand why Sterling has remained so high against the Euro.

Admittedly, it had dropped somewhat in the past two years, but nothing like I imagined it would.

I get the horrible feeling that the Bank of England are covertly buttressing the currency something akin to what happened with the dropping-out of Sterling from the ERM in 1992 when briefly at one point, the Irish punt was worth more the pound sterling.

It's fundamentals are better than the Eurozones.

Wirh massive and sustained QE and negative Interest rates, the Eurozone economy bare grew, is stuttering once again and has a small risk of turning deflationary. Never mind looking at the debt crisis in Italy or the shocking state of German banking.

Victor

Victor wrote: »

Brexit is inconsistent with a developing country.

There have been quite a few commentators describing Brexit Britain as an 'emerging economy', including Denis O'Brien late last year when it looked comparatively sane compared to now: '“The United Kingdom looks to me like an emerging market at the moment, there is so much chaos,...”

The well-known veteran funds manager Mark Mobius, whose expertise is on emerging markets:

...“Up to now, the UK is riding on the coat-tails of the EU, in the sense that [the UK] can have very low interest rates,” Mr Mobius told the FT at an event in New York this week hosted by the Emerging Markets Investors Alliance. “As soon as they break, people are going to start looking hard and fast. The rating agencies will say ‘wait a minute, no more EU association? We’ve got to downgrade.’”
... “The UK is like an emerging market now. Their balance of payments is terrible; their government debt is terrible; their fiscal debt is terrible,”
(UK ‘like an emerging market’, warns veteran fund manager)

The UK is a “small pie of the global economy”, however, Europe as a whole is much bigger, and a hard Brexit will impact the continent's growth negatively, probably by half a per cent, Mr Mobius said.

A lot of the companies, he said, have begun to prepare for the potential upsets ahead. At the outset there will be a slowdown in Europe, but as companies move from the UK, Europe will prosper, he said.

“Europe will be [the ultimate] beneficiary in other words,” Mr Mobius added.

Interestingly, he thinks a hard Brexit will be great for emerging markets and that Britain should use its many, eh, "connections" with its former colonies to their advantage. He does not deny that a hard Brexit will be much worse for British manufacturers, however (the journalist did not push him on squaring this circle, unfortunately):

Mark Mobius says Brexit could be ‘terrific’ for emerging markets

When anybody recalls Theresa May's trip to India in late 2016, and the clear power shift which was evident in it, you can see why Brexit might be good for emerging markets. Indeed, nobody in Britain seemed to have thought that if they left the EU they were actually be of much less use to India, etc:

On The World This Weekend on Radio 4, he told me that Indian companies had invested more in the UK than anywhere else in Europe. They've seen it as the bridge to the EU. As a result of Brexit, that bridge is about to be broken, so having good links with the UK will become less important.

That means India could, in future, see Britain as a less essential trade partner, just as the UK needs its enormous market even more. (India: Theresa May's charm offensive leaves many unmoved)

I recall Dick Spring back in the early 1990s asking everybody in the North to step back from the 'abyss' - I think that could be very apt advice to the English now.

topper75

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Telling millions of EU migrants here that they are not welcome as well as comparing the EU to the Soviet Union is a poor signal to send to potential investors.

Are potential investors attracted to a migrant free-for-all? I should have thought they would be keener to look at a country that had full legal control over WHICH migrants get in.

Blaming broken hotel lifts on a trading block disengagement that hasn't even happened yet is a logic jump that has left me behind I'm afraid.

JJJackal

topper75 wrote: »

Are potential investors attracted to a migrant free-for-all? I should have thought they would be keener to look at a country that had full legal control over WHICH migrants get in.

Blaming broken hotel lifts on a trading block disengagement that hasn't even happened yet is a logic jump that has left me behind I'm afraid.

What if the investors come from countries where alot of the migrants come from

Geuze

DublinWriter wrote: »

I can't understand why Sterling has remained so high against the Euro.

Admittedly, it had dropped somewhat in the past two years, but nothing like I imagined it would.

I get the horrible feeling that the Bank of England are covertly buttressing the currency something akin to what happened with the dropping-out of Sterling from the ERM in 1992 when briefly at one point, the Irish punt was worth more the pound sterling.

GBP has fallen from 75p approx before the vote to 90p approx now.

Grayson

topper75 wrote: »

Are potential investors attracted to a migrant free-for-all? I should have thought they would be keener to look at a country that had full legal control over WHICH migrants get in.

Blaming broken hotel lifts on a trading block disengagement that hasn't even happened yet is a logic jump that has left me behind I'm afraid.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/24/ease-migration-rules-for-indians-to-win-post-brexit-deals-say-mps

The government must make it easier for Indians to come to Britain to secure a post-Brexit trade deal with one of the world’s fastest growing economies, a group of MPs have said.

Warning that Britain is falling behind in the global race to engage with India on its path to becoming an economic superpower, the Commons foreign affairs committee said ministers urgently needed to update their strategy on India and could not rely on historical links from the days of empire.

The cross-party group of MPs urged greater priority for post-Brexit trade talks with India, while calling on the government to facilitate the easy movement of people to come to Britain among priorities for improving relations.

Shows the type of country the UK is now. They're about to shoot themselves in the foot and then they'll go begging India for a trade deal.

Capt'n Midnight

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

If there's a Hard Brexit expect it to reach parity with the Euro shortly. ...............

Oh right.
Can't see that happening

ancapailldorcha

topper75 wrote: »

Are potential investors attracted to a migrant free-for-all? I should have thought they would be keener to look at a country that had full legal control over WHICH migrants get in.

Blaming broken hotel lifts on a trading block disengagement that hasn't even happened yet is a logic jump that has left me behind I'm afraid.

They're attracted by the ability to tap into a significant pool of world-leading talent so they can exploit the biggest market in the world.

I never mentioned hotel lifts.

Berserker

Augeo wrote: »

Their social welfare is better than that of the US but not as generous as ours.

Social welfare here is incredibly generous in comparison to the US or UK.

Balanadan wrote: »

It was a Hilton, chosen for proximity to business meetings more than anything else, supposedly the best of the bunch in the area. I'll ask my PA for the details, I asked her to blacklist it.

Canary Warf, was it? I've stayed in it and plenty of hotel in central London and it was exceptional. Think it has a rating of 9.0+ on the hotel booking sites. Most of the hotels in that area have the same ratings. Why would you ask you P.A. to blacklist a hotel?

Grayson

Grayson wrote: »

I believe the UK has the worst income inequality in the EU. When you see what's happened to towns, especially in the midlands and north, it's scary. There's huge swathes of the country outside London that have very little going for them. And in London the inequality is generational. Younger generations have very little hope if purchasing homes in one of the most expensive cities in the world.

Using headline stats like income inequality isn’t a realistic comparison for the UK. Some of the worlds highest earners are based there, so it massively skews the figures

cgcsb

It is becoming one, partly due to British culture. Recently, as their nation cicrcles the plughole, the UK media's politics section have been focusing on PM hopeful, Borris's domestic disputes. Conversation about policy is non existent and the population are watching love island.