Sam Russell wrote: » I do not agree. It was the SNP who had done all the work on the Scottish Indyref, and had all the economic arguments worked out. It was the 'Stronger Together' who used the emotional arguments like 'You can't use the GB Pound', or 'You will have to leave the EU' or you will not get the BBC, or other such arguments. Most of this type of rhetoric was of uncertin truth and would have been subject to negotiation. It was emotion what won it.
Econ_ wrote: » He claimed that we can't declare that other people have been deceived or misinformed and that only them themselves can decide such a thing. It was then pointed out that if people are espousing verifiably untrue information, then they are by definition either misinformed/deceived or they are lying. 'Agreeing to disagree' at the junction in the debate is a cop out.
Zubeneschamali wrote: » But of course the impact will not be on yuppies and rich people - it will mainly be on the poor. Unemployment will reappear, food prices will shoot up, jobs will be poorly paid for competitiveness etc. The EU will no longer be helping the regions, and if you think Boris will, you can whistle for it.
Blowfish wrote: » In other tangential Brexit news, Facebook won't extend GDPR protections worldwide. Goes to show the value of personal data and that if the UK don't get their equivalent data protection laws in place quickly, companies are going to take advantage if they can.
Sand wrote: » Well, I think there has been research done which shows the Leave voters were not necessarily unusually poor. Not certain on that, might be confusing it with Trump voters.
CelticRambler wrote: » See this breakdown of the result (specifically figure 17, page 25) 95% of "economically deprived, anti-immigration" voted to leave - those who would typically benefit most from the EU's regional assistance schemes, and who will be hit hardest by rising food prices as a result of restricting EU migrant harvester workers.
Experience_day wrote: » Is everything in life about economics? The old left vanguard must be turning in their graves! The political class do their very best to ignore the issue that people thought their communities were changing irrevocably and wanted to do something about it. Was it the most direct action? No. But then again good luck trying for that. Any party outside of the mainstream gets shot down to pieces, aided and abetted by the media. We have an easy life here in Ireland. I've lived in a few places and we have had next to zero immigration the likes of which the UK has received. Maybe we'll understand in 30-50 years when we have swathes of people who steadfastly do not want to integrate into a community. That is, not because they are not allowed, but because they do not want to....
Leroy42 wrote: » I do understand the desire for the voters to see something done about immigration, and the issues that have developed because of it. I don't think that leaving the EU is the correct way to channel that though. However, I do think that it will have the desired effect. Already we can see that immigration has been effected, certainly the UK, anecdotally, would appear to less welcoming than before. In addition, if the economic predictions come to pass then the downturn in the economy will see less people looking to come to the UK. So from a singular "reduce immigration" POV, leaving the EU may well be considered the right thing to do. IMO, the cost to achieve that is simply too high and there were plenty of other ways to deal with it. In particular, the very people that championed immigration (big business etc) are still in charge and I don't see how they will simply accept that in stead of paying some Romanian the minimum wage for picking fruit they are now going to have to offer living wage and benefits to UK citizens. So I foresee either the jobs moving abroad or other forms of immigration to cover (replace the Romanians with Indians for example).
Christy42 wrote: » Why would they have to offer the living wage? Minimum wage was a well used baseline for a reason. There were enough people willing to work at that level (and realistically well below which I why there is a minimum wage). There is less competition for places now but you have to wonder if it is enough to bring a lot of jobs above minimum wage (keeping in mind in a pure capitalistic society those jobs would be well below the minimum wage).
Leroy42 wrote: » Because they won't work for the wages on offer, as they already do ( I don't say that as a negative against it, just a fact). The mere existence of foreign workers shows that there are not sufficient people within the UK to undertake the jobs at the current offering. With the immigrants gone, why would the remaining now work for the came conditions that they rejected previously? Now, why won't they to the jobs? Maybe they already have better jobs. The business nows faces a worker shortage. Instead of easy access to the east european market for workers, they will need to go through immigration etc, thus increasing the cost for the business Maybe they don't see the value in all that work for such little reward (as compared to welfare etc). Nothing will change there so the situation reverts to the above.
Christy42 wrote: » How do you know that there are no UK people willing to do the jobs at the current price? All we know is that on some occasions foreign workers were favoured.
ambro25 wrote: » The immigration ‘crisis’ in the U.K. that contributed to the Leave vote, is solely of successive U.K. governments’ making, and principally down to an endemic lack of vision and follow-up by adequate policies.
Leroy42 wrote: » I am basing it on the premise that it is easier to recruit locally (all things being equal) and only after that is no longer an option do you look elsewhere. Many of the fruit companies (for example) have claimed that they can't get the local workers and need foreign workers.
“But let me repeat this, we’ll make all controls and settings the same everywhere, not just in Europe.”
Rain Ascending wrote: » It looks like Facebook are gradually shifting their position. See this article today from Politico. For me, the key quote from Zuckerberg is this one... ... which makes this very much a Brexit story. Companies really don't like having to customize their products or services for different markets -- it reduces economies of scale. So contrary to some of the speculation here, the UK can deregulate all it likes, many companies won't care. They'll conform to one of the bigger regulatory regimes anyway, usually that of the EU or the US, depending on what markets they target. For example, in some industries South America follows US regulations and Africa, European. So, I'm not surprised at Facebook deciding to go all in on the EU's GDPR. Of course, the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal has made the decision easier...
Little progress from 'magical thinking' in Brexit talks on Irish border... However, there is creeping concern that with less than a year to go Britain is no closer to finding a solution, with no ideas considered developed enough to form the framework for a post-Brexit plan... It is said that the British team, led by Olly Robbins, have acknowledged that so-called “non-tariff barriers”, and not customs checks, are the main stumbling block on the trade side of the equation. These include the need for food hygiene and agricultural checks to accommodate the continued free flow of lamb, beef and dairy products criss-crossing the border.... However, the British side is also insisting on the future right to diverge from EU law, which the EU fears could open the floodgates to chlorinated chicken and hormone-injected beef if the UK agrees a free-trade deal with the US that includes agriculture.
Inquitus wrote: » That doesn't work, if you voluntarily adhere to someone else's standards it doesn't mean your goods or services can freely cross borders to another regulatory regime. Companies can stick to the highest regulatory standard, but a country cannot have a lower standard and still freely access the EU market regardless of what those companies do, and nor can companies in that non-EU country do the same.
Rain Ascending wrote: » Agreed. In a nutshell, if you are exporting, then you conform to the rules of the country to which to you export to, not the country you export from. The point I'm trying to make, perhaps not very clearly, is that the UK may struggle to create competitive advantage through lower regulation, e.g. by allowing the local economy to use lower cost goods and services. Internationally trading companies providing these goods and services are likely to conform anyway to one of their bigger markets with the strictest standards. In Facebook's case, this would be the EU with GDPR.
Sand wrote: » My reading of it was he said that just because people have access to the same data but reach a different conclusion does not make them deceived or misinformed. People are arguing Leave voters were deceived or misinformed because of the NHS lie etc. Thats an irrelevance. The top three reasons the Ashcroft poll gave for voting Leave was 1. The principle that decisions about the UK should be taken in the UK, 2. Voting leave offered the UK the best chance to regain control over immigration and its own borders, 3. Remaining meant little or no choice about how the EU extended its powers or membership. Economic rationales/lies peddled by the Leave campaign - 350mn a week to the NHS etc - don't factor. The Leave voters by and large had very different principles and values. The EU by definition does mean a pooling of sovereignty. Some view they economic prosperity that results as worth it, others do not. If GDP and jobs were important, you voted Remain. If you had different priorities you voted Leave. Now I get why Frito said 'agree to disagree' because there's a fierce refusal to acknowledge or accept that, and its gets tiresome to see people talking past the problem. Many Leave voters simply do not care if London house prices decline, or yuppies find it harder to travel around Europe taking a year out, or rich farmers cant import foreigners to pick their crops, or if the contributions to the EU were 350 mn or 200 mn a week, or if a GDP figure which is increasingly notional to them is a few percent higher or lower. They do not care. They want to feel empowered and in control of their destiny and their country. This feeling of powerlessness is mainly an UK political problem which Brexit will not solve (and indeed could make much worse), but talking about lies told in Brexit and calling Leave voters deceived/misinformed/stupid is largely irrelevant to addressing it.
Inquitus wrote: » I agree with your point, I misunderstood what you said. I guess my point is if your regulatory environment is not aligned with the EU you have to undergo all the EU tests, evaluations, border inspections etc. to export, which instead of increasing competitiveness is actually an additional product cost doing the exact opposite. Which means we are probably saying the same thing
CelticRambler wrote: » Here in France, lots of rural areas are losing their local services (schools, shops, doctors) because of a declining population of natives. The response of many councils is to invite foreigners into the area and give them all the support they can - free French lessons, free accommodation, free professional premises, etc. When we arrived with four children in tow, we were welcomed with open arms, mainly because we boosted the school numbers by 10% and guaranteed its survival as a two-teacher establishment for another few years. Despite the supposed close ties between Ireland and Britain, I never felt as welcome there as I have here.
ambro25 wrote: » Far from the furreiner-bashing of the past couple years in the U.K.
