Brexit: the referendum

CapelDodger said:
"The Honourable Member is employing terminological inexactitudes". Or something like that; Churchill, I think.

"Disingenuous" is a fine word and very apt.
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It certainly wasn't "terminological inexactitude" - it was very precise and misleading.

As most of the money never leaves the treasury, it is darn close to a lie. It isn't taken out and then refunded, it is credited before being removed.
 
CapelDodger said:
Another extract from the Hague piece (which is very good):


"If you fancy getting touched by Turks vote Remain."
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Imagine if Turkey joins the EU before Britain can negotiate a new trade deal, I'm sure the Turks won't hold a grudge....
 
SusanB-M1 said:
That's cheered me up a bit - thank you! Do you think the Telegraph readers are, generally speaking, remainers?
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I think they're split. There are a lot of barking articles too.
 
jimbob said:
Good article by William Hague

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...paign-cant-keep-dodging-the-biggest-question/
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IMO it is a good article and stays well away from the "OMFG if we stay/leave then we're all going to be eaten by hippos !!!1!!!11!" scaremongering that both sides have been employing.

The trouble is it's far too long and requires the reader to pay some attention as opposed to "£350m a week" or "Turks !!!!!!". It's also a problem that a quietly considered article by William Hague is less attractive to the media than some photo-op of Boris doing something ridiculous or Farage saying something racist. It really should be mandatory reading for everyone (together with a comparable article, if one exists from the Out campaign).

My worry is that pretty much everyone has decided based on their gut and, if this isn't too much of a mixed metaphor, they're filtering all information based on their gut. Necessarily any information based on what is going to happen in the future is speculative and subject to error and revision. This means that one side's forecasts can be rejected out of hand as baseless speculation while the other's can be embraced as a sensible view of the future.

That said, the "Remain" campaign at least know what the rules are going forward, the "Out" campaign necessarily have to speculate (or make it up as thy're going along as I see it).
 
zooterkin said:
Bugger, I've just realised I will probably be out of the country on the day of the referendum, and it's too late to get a postal vote. Any 'Leave' voters want to buddy-up? :)
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If you are quick - as in by the end of the day quick - you can register for a proxy vote and get a family member or friend to vote on your behalf.
 
Information Analyst said:
Tempted to use that on another forum, and one particular Brexiter seems to be working through pretty every industry/company they are convinced has been "destroyed by the EU"!
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I'd be interested to know how much 'UK' industry would remain had we not had free access to the EU over the past few decades.

I doubt many of those car plants would be here for example.

The other amazing thing is that the reason why its so easy for UK production to be moved overseas has nothing to do with the EU but rather the 'business friendly' environment that Tories (of whatever colour tie) have created in the UK relative to our European cousins.

I've been in this very situation where I was involved in deciding where production of products should happen and it was simply too expensive and too difficult to close down plants in Europe because of local labour laws. In the UK its fairly easy.

So the decision was no more new Western European production plants but those that are there already will have to stay.
 
Archie Gemmill Goal said:
The other amazing thing is that the reason why its so easy for UK production to be moved overseas has nothing to do with the EU but rather the 'business friendly' environment that Tories (of whatever colour tie) have created in the UK relative to our European cousins.

I've been in this very situation where I was involved in deciding where production of products should happen and it was simply too expensive and too difficult to close down plants in Europe because of local labour laws. In the UK its fairly easy.

So the decision was no more new Western European production plants but those that are there already will have to stay.
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...and what little protection UK workers have is largely due to EU legislation (at least some of which the UK has used the opt-out to ignore).
 
The Don said:
...and what little protection UK workers have is largely due to EU legislation (at least some of which the UK has used the opt-out to ignore).
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This is my biggest concern, to be honest.

From a very cursory look at things, an awful lot of the 'leave' side of things just seem to want to be able to run sweat-shops.
 
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I'm surprised nobody has gone with the end of the booze cruise to France as a reason to remain yet.

I'm sure a hell of a lot of people who are convinced that the EU is costing them money make it back in cheap booze and fags brought back from holiday.

I'm getting slightly nervous that Brexit seems to be edging it now as the few people I know who have told me they are voting have or will be voting to leave.
 
Here's the thing, as I see it.

Those who think that we would have unfettered access to the European free trade area following a Brexit are - in my opinion - mistaken. There WILL be tarifs on exports from the UK to the EU. On the PLUS side, we would be free to seek tarif agreements with the entire world, something that the EU prevents us from doing. Swings and roundabouts.

However, my objections to the EU are deeper than that, and at a strategic level.
We joined an Economic Community of seven North-Western European (in the geographical sense) nations with very similar economies. This was back in 1972.

In the intervening 45 years, this has grown into a political community of 28 nations, with an increasing preponderance of Eastern European nations. The union is set on expansion even further eastwards, with countries like Turkey being féted.

There are two issues with this.
Firstly, it means that the overall legislative agenda will increasingly be dominated by Eastern European perspectives, and with an increasingly dominant Eastern European voting block in the European Parliament. What is good for Albania is NOT necessarily good for the UK.

Secondly, the EU has a track record of putting politics ahead of day-to-day economics. Hence nations are being invited into the EU with significantly divergent economies, purely for the sake of EU political expansion. Hence Greece and - more recently - Bulgaria and Romania.

Thirdly, the core principle of 'free movement' has been a catastrophe for the lower-skilled manual workers in the original Western European members. Wages are clamped at minimum levels by an endless succession of workers from poorer Eastern European nations migrating into the wealthier nations looking for higher salaries.

This benefits 'big business' immensely, but is a disaster both for indigenous workers, and for community cohesion. It is socially corrosive.

We can continue to operate closely with the European Union in terms of security, crime and justice, research and development, and so forth. But we should NOT be dominated by their political agenda.

That, in a nutshell, is it !
 
Roofgardener said:
Here's the thing, as I see it.

Those who think that we would have unfettered access to the European free trade area following a Brexit are - in my opinion - mistaken. There WILL be tarifs on exports from the UK to the EU. On the PLUS side, we would be free to seek tarif agreements with the entire world, something that the EU prevents us from doing. Swings and roundabouts.
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I am not sure where the roundabouts come from. Every reliable economic economic commentator predicts a large swing to an income deficit following brexit.

Thirdly, the core principle of 'free movement' has been a catastrophe for the lower-skilled manual workers in the original Western European members. Wages are clamped at minimum levels by an endless succession of workers from poorer Eastern European nations migrating into the wealthier nations looking for higher salaries.
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We are generally talking jobs that Uk citizens don't want to do. I guess the two choices are import low skilled workers or export the jobs to where the low skilled are.
 
Lothian said:
We are generally talking jobs that Uk citizens don't want to do. I guess the two choices are import low skilled workers or export the jobs to where the low skilled are.
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Oh, if the jobs were essential and there was no imported labour then the wages for these jobs would have to go up until such time as they were appealing enough. Supply and demand at work.
 
Lothian said:
I am not sure where the roundabouts come from. Every reliable economic economic commentator predicts a large swing to an income deficit following brexit.
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Plus all that time and effort that goes into developing those trade rules with the other country.

I'm not sure what business the EU is preventing us doing with the rest of the world in any case unless we're talking about:

  • Building products so unsafe they cannot be sold in the EU
  • Making workplaces less safe
  • Paying people less (in which case is that less than the low-cost workers already allegedly flooding the job market"
  • Not bothering with all that expensive environmental legislation, let's just poison the land, water and air
  • Engaging in business practices outlawed by the EU and going beck to greasing the wheels with a bit of baksheesh
 
3point14 said:
Oh, if the jobs were essential and there was no imported labour then the wages for these jobs would have to go up until such time as they were appealing enough. Supply and demand at work.
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(1)You mean if it is essential they are physically done here.
(2)Another option is to use an Australasian style migration system. This is what the Brexiters camp suggest is appropriate for the UK. In the Australian system you have employer-sponsored jobs for people willing to work for lower wages, these bypass the points system. Alternatively they make the particular manual industry a "skill" with high points.

There are two broad groups of people who appear to want Brexit. Those who dislike foreigners and see them diluting UKness in society. The second appear to be wealthy entrepreneurs who hate the employment limitations put on us by Europe. I suspect this second group, don't want a wage increase eating into their profits. They want cheap labour. They are the ones funding the Brexit campaign. They are the ones who will get their way if they win.

While I anticipate that the economic recession following Brexit will cost jobs, raise unemployment and make the UK a less attractive place for foreign workers I don't think we will see any change limiting the ability of businesses to recruit the cheapest employees, irrespective of where those workers currently are.
 
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3point14 said:
Oh, if the jobs were essential and there was no imported labour then the wages for these jobs would have to go up until such time as they were appealing enough. Supply and demand at work.
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Well it depends really doesn't it?

No doubt a smaller workforce would have upwards pressure on wages in some areas but also no doubt that some jobs would disappear.

Unlikely that farmers are going to pay £20/hr for someone to pick strawberries if Lidl can just import Spanish strawberries on the cheap.

And it's unlikely that councils will pay lollipopmen, street sweepers and janitors £20/hr if their budgets are cut because the UK economy overall is in decline.

So you'd have to balance out the reduction in workforce with the reduction in required jobs.

Of course the good news is that we will always need fastfood workers, gym cleaners and shelfstackers so we could look forward to everything becoming a bit more expensive in the shops if wages rise.

Which will be great along with the higher taxes needed to maintain pensions and healthcare for an aging indigenous population from a declining pool of working age people.

It would probably drive people to drink if they could still afford to import wine.
 
Lothian said:
(1)You mean if it is essential they are physically done here.
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Yes. The concept of importing people into the country (from somewhere with much lower living costs) to do jobs that don't actually need them to be in the country is not one I'm aware of.


(2)Another option is to use an Australasian style migration system. This is what the Brexiters camp suggest is appropriate for the UK. In the Australian system you have employer-sponsored jobs for people willing to work for lower wages, these bypass the points system. Alternatively they make the particular manual industry a "skill" with high points.

There are two broad groups of people who appear to want Brexit. Those who dislike foreigners and see them diluting UKness in society. The second appear to be wealthy entrepreneurs who hate the employment limitations put on us by Europe. I suspect this second group, don't want a wage increase eating into their profits. They want cheap labour. They are the ones funding the Brexit campaign. They are the ones who will get their way if they win.

While I anticipate that the economic recession following Brexit will cost jobs, raise unemployment and make the UK a less attractive place for foreign workers I don't think we will see any change limiting the ability of businesses to recruit the cheapest employees, irrespective of where those workers currently are.
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I think we're bought and sold either way but staying is preferable to the undefined nightmare that leaving brings.
 
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