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Merged Now What?

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Francesca R said:
Not really in France or Italy, and these matter the most.
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Regarding Italy :

No EU exit for us, say Italy's on-the-rise Eurosceptics
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/19/no-eu-exit-for-us-say-italys-on-the-rise-eurosceptics


'Italy was one of the EU’s founding members and the union’s flag flutters atop state buildings nationwide. But Brussels is certainly not viewed with great affection. The failure of Europe to respond adequately to refugees and migrants arriving on Italian shores, coupled with constant negotiations over the country’s finances, has led to a sense of bitterness among many Italians.

But the suggestion Italy might follow in the UK’s footsteps is broadly viewed as preposterous, with a post-Brexit poll finding that two thirds of Italians would vote to remain in the event of a referendum.

The outcome of the British vote was celebrated by the leader of the far-right Northern League, Matteo Salvini, who called for Italy to hold its own vote. But his party has lost support in recent weeks, with one poll showing just 12.4% of voters would back it.

The more significant rise has been that of the Eurosceptic Five Star Movement (M5S), an anti-establishment party founded by comedian Beppe Grillo. The M5S won a quarter of the national vote in 2013 and last month clinched the mayoral seats in Rome and Turin. Polls now show it has 30.6% of the vote, above the ruling Democratic party’s 29.8%.

Luigi Di Maio, the deputy speaker of the Italian parliament, has emerged as the most likely figure to lead the M5S at the next general election. He is critical of Brussels, but says the EU has become a scapegoat. “It was very often used by Italian politics as an alibi, it’s not guilty of everything it has been blamed for,” he told the Guardian'
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Not an Italian Boris Johnson, obviously.

Another lesson is the "complacency" that electorates will vote the status quo rather than be in thrall to anti-EU populism. The EU playing hardball with such movements has not stopped their rise.
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Your evidence for this rise? Are you quite sure you're not mistaking more media attention for something of substance?
 
You just quoted evidence that M5S has 30% support. That is a populist rise. Unless you think they are orthodox status quo favourers. Meanwhile Renzi has promised to resign if he loses a referendum in October (which is not about the EU but the polls are favouring him loding it). If he goes that puts Italy back into the political mess it has only lately escaped.

In France Le Pen is widely expected to get into the second round in 2017. The UMP candidate will be similarly placed to Cameron in promising stuff to shore up the vote. Bear in mind that people publicly booed the PM in Nice following the attack there. That is an astonishing display of populism's strength.

I think you are screening out anything that you don't want to accept. Everything in the EU garden is rosy. Britain voting out doesn't matter a jot. Have fun.
 
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Francesca R said:
You just quoted evidence that M5S has 30% support.
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And evidence that M5S does not advocate leaving the EU.
That is a populist rise.
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Which is not equivalent to a rise in anti-EU feeling. There's more to populism than that.

Unless you think they are orthodox status quo favourers.
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I don't think they want to overturn everything.

Meanwhile Renzi has promised to resign if he loses a referendum in October (which is not about the EU but the polls are favouring him loding it). If he goes that puts Italy back into the political mess it has only lately escaped.
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Which would be revealing, no doubt.

In France Le Pen is widely expected to get into the second round in 2017. The UMP candidate will be similarly placed to Cameron in promising stuff to shore up the vote. Bear in mind that people publicly booed the PM in Nice following the attack there. That is an astonishing display of populism's strength.
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No, it isn't. Unless you think that only "populists" would boo the PM at such a time.

I think you are screening out anything that you don't want to accept. Everything in the EU garden is rosy. Britain voting out doesn't matter a jot. Have fun.
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I think to get that impression from my contributions you must really want to.
 
CapelDodger said:
You mean travellers? :eek:

You're being ironic, aren't you? :cool:
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I don't know; but "have the unemployed from round the UK shipped in" is not very respectful. What about "offer seasonal employment to native UK workers"? Wouldn't that be a nicer way of expressing the idea?
 
Ambrosia said:
"Seasonality" has long since gone by the wayside, you can get anything you want, all year around at reasonable prices. I am not so sure that's a good thing.
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I grew up in the 1970s in a small town in the North East of England. Seasonality is over-rated when for eight months of the year your vegetable choice is limited to a motley collection of root vegetables :mad:
 
Ambrosia said:
It would probably need some kind of extra incentive, like losing benefits if you don't go and so some work if it's available. Maybe even gaining extra benefits if you get off your lazy arse and go do some work.

As well the GBP:EUR exchange rate could well have an impact.

If a Polish worker comes here and earns GBP and then also gets a favourable exchange rate to send money home, then that's win win for them.

If the rate gets low enough whereby the Polish worker could do similar work at home for a similar income, then they'd be more inclined to work in Poland.
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If the GBP:EUR has deteriorated to that extent (for example the GBP is 30% of its previous value) then there will be much larger effects than that, not least the runaway inflation (on all those imported goods) which should have an upward pressure on wages, once again making it lucrative for imported labour.
 
Craig B said:
I don't know; but "have the unemployed from round the UK shipped in" is not very respectful. What about "offer seasonal employment to native UK workers"? Wouldn't that be a nicer way of expressing the idea?
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Except no one has wanted to do that sort of thing for decades in this country.
You're talking about moving people from their home to a picking site for months at a time. That's how long the Poles are here.

Are they supposed to maintain two homes?

S and A provide accommodation for their seasonal work force, which is deducted from their wages. This Indy article covers the situation a few years ago. It's changed since, with a long round of hassle over providing proper accommodation rather than caravans, for example, but the basics of costs are much the same.
 
Tolls said:
Except no one has wanted to do that sort of thing for decades in this country.
You're talking about moving people from their home to a picking site for months at a time. That's how long the Poles are here.

Are they supposed to maintain two homes?

S and A provide accommodation for their seasonal work force, which is deducted from their wages. This Indy article covers the situation a few years ago. It's changed since, with a long round of hassle over providing proper accommodation rather than caravans, for example, but the basics of costs are much the same.
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I guess we can just concrete over the strawberry fields and build new schools and hospitals with all the money we've saved from the EU?

We can buy our strawbs tariff-free from the US or Korea or Japan now we have the freedom to negotiate trade deals. They'll probably give us them for free because we're so important and powerful.

Not only that but we won't have all the foreigners here causing every single problem in society so we can probably get rid of the police force and half the council workers and they'll have plenty of free time to grow their own fruit and veg.

We could retrain them as unicorn farmers and export unicorn milk to Australia.

Brexit is great.
 
Tolls said:
Except no one has wanted to do that sort of thing for decades in this country.
You're talking about moving people from their home to a picking site for months at a time. That's how long the Poles are here.

Are they supposed to maintain two homes?

S and A provide accommodation for their seasonal work force, which is deducted from their wages. This Indy article covers the situation a few years ago. It's changed since, with a long round of hassle over providing proper accommodation rather than caravans, for example, but the basics of costs are much the same.
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Not a problem. The unemployed of Sunderland can move into the temporary accommodation by the fields and while they are there Sunderland council can rent out their council houses. Win Win.
 
Reports of the post-referendum squeeze on UK science spending:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36835566

British universities, in collaboration with small businesses, receive £850m in research grants each year from the European Union.

Since the vote to leave the European Union there have been reports that British applicants for grants are already losing out.
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Seems a bit early to me, maybe they were poor applications but if this is true then it's putting Britain's success post-Brexit at risk. Not only might we be missing out on important research opportunities but our university sector (a major "invisible" export) may lose cachet.
 
The Don said:
Reports of the post-referendum squeeze on UK science spending:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36835566



Seems a bit early to me, maybe they were poor applications but if this is true then it's putting Britain's success post-Brexit at risk. Not only might we be missing out on important research opportunities but our university sector (a major "invisible" export) may lose cachet.
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There was a piece on the news about this yesterday and they were saying that British scientists are basically being excluded from join research projects now. Whether there is actual data to back that up or its just anecdote I don't know. It would seem to make sense that you won't put UK parties on future applications for EU funding though.
 
Lothian said:
Not a problem. The unemployed of Sunderland can move into the temporary accommodation by the fields and while they are there Sunderland council can rent out their council houses. Win Win.
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It would be simpler if the council housing was mobile. If it was horse-drawn it would even be carbon-friendly.
 
Archie Gemmill Goal said:
There was a piece on the news about this yesterday and they were saying that British scientists are basically being excluded from join research projects now. Whether there is actual data to back that up or its just anecdote I don't know. It would seem to make sense that you won't put UK parties on future applications for EU funding though.
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That was on Deutsche Welle earlier, too. They interviewed a German scientist who had asked a British scientist to remove his name from a funding request they and others had put together. It sounded like the Brit had agreed but would continue to work on the project anonymously as it was important work.
 
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