Whitman was of course GOP candidate for California governor in 2010. The support of her and a New York GOP congressman for Hillary along with scathing comments by Kasich, Jeb Bush and McCain and Romney about Trump shows the GOP leadership and congressmen are now increasingly as divorced from their nominee and party base as the Labour leadership and MPs are from their leader and activists. However just as with a Corbyn loss there is no guarantee a Trump loss will restore the party to the moderates indeed increasingly Republican voters are arguing much like Labour members that a Trump loss will be the elite's fault for failing to rally behind their man. Thus if Trump loses in November it is not impossible he could run in the primaries again in 2020 and win, much like Corbyn or maybe someone even more conservative could do so
Indeed. When a party is in free fall, it lurches further to the extremes. In 2001, post election in UK, Hague (bright and likeable) was hammered in the polls. It was terrible and the IDS took over, a bad situation made worse.
I think Clinton nailed it when she said something like, 'how can you trust Trump with nuclear weapons when he explodes because of a negative tweet!'
By contrast, I thought that Hillary comment was just beyond stupid trivia that lobby hacks eat up.
I noticed that Mrs Khan didn't wear a hijab when she met Obama. She looked all very Western.
She may well wear it for formal occasions but not otherwise.
In a free country it is her right to choose. I only wish that the same freedom applied worldwide. There is a horrible case ongoing about a Saudi/Welsh dual citizen literally caged in in Jeddah ongoing.
It's the 'let's ignore a democratic vote because we like the EU so much' strategy. And once we leave (if we do...) it becomes the 'let's join an undemocratic organisation under far worse terms than before' strategy.'
Problem is that after abolition of tuition fees & votes for prisoners policies, the Lib Dems love of all things EU was there only other key policy that differentiated them from other parties.
WRT the 48%, a lot of people backed the status quo, but have no liking at all for the EU, and are not dismayed by the vote to Leave. People like Theresa May, Philip Hammond, Michael Fallon fall into this category.
The proportion of the population who want to reverse the vote is substantially less than 48%.
Whitman was of course GOP candidate for California governor in 2010. The support of her and a New York GOP congressman for Hillary along with scathing comments by Kasich, Jeb Bush and McCain and Romney about Trump shows the GOP leadership and congressmen are now increasingly as divorced from their nominee and party base as the Labour leadership and MPs are from their leader and activists. However just as with a Corbyn loss there is no guarantee a Trump loss will restore the party to the moderates indeed increasingly Republican voters are arguing much like Labour members that a Trump loss will be the elite's fault for failing to rally behind their man. Thus if Trump loses in November it is not impossible he could run in the primaries again in 2020 and win, much like Corbyn or maybe someone even more conservative could do so
Indeed. When a party is in free fall, it lurches further to the extremes. In 2001, post election in UK, Hague (bright and likeable) was hammered in the polls. It was terrible and the IDS took over, a bad situation made worse.
I think Clinton nailed it when she said something like, 'how can you trust Trump with nuclear weapons when he explodes because of a negative tweet!'
By contrast, I thought that Hillary comment was just beyond stupid trivia that lobby hacks eat up.
I noticed that Mrs Khan didn't wear a hijab when she met Obama. She looked all very Western.
I simply don't understand and find, frankly, distasteful the attacks on Mr and Mrs Khan. I caught the bulk of an interview they gave to Channel 4 the other day. They seemed like perfectly normal parents who had lost a son who had fought for his country and rightly rather resented the way Trump suggested that they must automatically not be patriotic Americans simply because of their religion and that there was something sinister about the mother not speaking. She was well able to speak during the interview and spoke like any mother who has had an unimaginable and painful loss. Quite apart from anything else, Trump seems to lack some sort of basic human empathy. And in regard to this (and not just this) he lacks judgment.
It is a thing no one comes out of well, except the late Captain Khan who I assume did not think he was dying to make a party political point. Clinton should not have had them at the conference, they should have refused to go, Trump should have shut up about the whole thing.
Services PMI unchanged at 47.4. Could have been worse.
I know we can get boring on "talking down Brexit", but MarkIt do say this of the month's figure:
"the month-on-month decline in the Index in the latest period, at 4.9 points, was the largest observed since the survey began in July 1996."
Absolutely. It's grim. I think it's partly because it was a complete surprise - world+wife (minus a few astute punters on here) thought Remain would win right up until the small hours of the 24th. Businesses don't often get completely blindsided. We've had another 1973 oil-shock or Black Monday type event.
My prediction of a -0.4% contraction in Q3 looks about right on those figures.
It's the 'let's ignore a democratic vote because we like the EU so much' strategy. And once we leave (if we do...) it becomes the 'let's join an undemocratic organisation under far worse terms than before' strategy.'
Problem is that after abolition of tuition fees & votes for prisoners policies, the Lib Dems love of all things EU was there only other key policy that differentiated them from other parties.
WRT the 48%, a lot of people backed the status quo, but have no liking at all for the EU, and are not dismayed by the vote to Leave. People like Theresa May, Philip Hammond, Michael Fallon fall into this category.
The proportion of the population who want to reverse the vote is substantially less than 48%.
If the Lib Dems are going to become even more explicitly the EU (aka anti-UK) party, their demise is guaranteed I think.
OT: NIESR updated post-Brexit economic forecast for 2016/17
GDP +1.7%, +1.0 likely contraction Q3 2016, 50% chance of a technical recession.
Inflation to 3.1% by end 2017, unemployment to 5.6%. Budget surplus deferred to 2020/1.
The report supports my own calculations of a slowdown rather than recession. A jolt of inflation might be good for us, nominal growth of 5% per year looks attractive right now. A few years of 5% nominal growth with a 3% deficit and our debt/GDP looks a lot more favourable.
Whitman was of course GOP candidate for California governor in 2010. The support of her and a New York GOP congressman for Hillary along with scathing comments by Kasich, Jeb Bush and McCain and Romney about Trump shows the GOP leadership and congressmen are now increasingly as divorced from their nominee and party base as the Labour leadership and MPs are from their leader and activists. However just as with a Corbyn loss there is no guarantee a Trump loss will restore the party to the moderates indeed increasingly Republican voters are arguing much like Labour members that a Trump loss will be the elite's fault for failing to rally behind their man. Thus if Trump loses in November it is not impossible he could run in the primaries again in 2020 and win, much like Corbyn or maybe someone even more conservative could do so
Indeed. When a party is in free fall, it lurches further to the extremes. In 2001, post election in UK, Hague (bright and likeable) was hammered in the polls. It was terrible and the IDS took over, a bad situation made worse.
I think Clinton nailed it when she said something like, 'how can you trust Trump with nuclear weapons when he explodes because of a negative tweet!'
By contrast, I thought that Hillary comment was just beyond stupid trivia that lobby hacks eat up.
I noticed that Mrs Khan didn't wear a hijab when she met Obama. She looked all very Western.
I simply don't understand and find, frankly, distasteful the attacks on Mr and Mrs Khan. I caught the bulk of an interview they gave to Channel 4 the other day. They seemed like perfectly normal parents who had lost a son who had fought for his country and rightly rather resented the way Trump suggested that they must automatically not be patriotic Americans simply because of their religion and that there was something sinister about the mother not speaking. She was well able to speak during the interview and spoke like any mother who has had an unimaginable and painful loss. Quite apart from anything else, Trump seems to lack some sort of basic human empathy. And in regard to this (and not just this) he lacks judgment.
It is a thing no one comes out of well, except the late Captain Khan who I assume did not think he was dying to make a party political point. Clinton should not have had them at the conference, they should have refused to go, Trump should have shut up about the whole thing.
It's the 'let's ignore a democratic vote because we like the EU so much' strategy. And once we leave (if we do...) it becomes the 'let's join an undemocratic organisation under far worse terms than before' strategy.'
Problem is that after abolition of tuition fees & votes for prisoners policies, the Lib Dems love of all things EU was there only other key policy that differentiated them from other parties.
WRT the 48%, a lot of people backed the status quo, but have no liking at all for the EU, and are not dismayed by the vote to Leave. People like Theresa May, Philip Hammond, Michael Fallon fall into this category.
The proportion of the population who want to reverse the vote is substantially less than 48%.
I'd say only about 15-20% of voters in the EU referendum would have had an ideological commitment to the EU, and there would have been a strong overlap between this group and those who still want the UK to ultimately join the Euro.
Thing is, this group is disproportionately represented amongst the media and opinion formers.
If GDP does decline, whether over a single quarter or in a technical recession, some federalists will call more loudly for the vote to be ignored or re-run.
As if recessions don't happen all the time, or as if temporary prosperity is worth permanent erosion in sovereignty.
It's the 'let's ignore a democratic vote because we like the EU so much' strategy. And once we leave (if we do...) it becomes the 'let's join an undemocratic organisation under far worse terms than before' strategy.'
Problem is that after abolition of tuition fees & votes for prisoners policies, the Lib Dems love of all things EU was there only other key policy that differentiated them from other parties.
WRT the 48%, a lot of people backed the status quo, but have no liking at all for the EU, and are not dismayed by the vote to Leave. People like Theresa May, Philip Hammond, Michael Fallon fall into this category.
The proportion of the population who want to reverse the vote is substantially less than 48%.
I'd say only about 15-20% of voters in the EU referendum would have had an ideological commitment to the EU, and there would have been a strong overlap between this group and those who still want the UK to ultimately join the Euro.
Thing is, this group is disproportionately represented amongst the media and opinion formers.
And of those, a sizable number might like to reverse the result in theory but have no desire to do so at the moment because it would be at best politically impractical and at worst positively counter-productive.
It's the 'let's ignore a democratic vote because we like the EU so much' strategy. And once we leave (if we do...) it becomes the 'let's join an undemocratic organisation under far worse terms than before' strategy.'
Problem is that after abolition of tuition fees & votes for prisoners policies, the Lib Dems love of all things EU was there only other key policy that differentiated them from other parties.
WRT the 48%, a lot of people backed the status quo, but have no liking at all for the EU, and are not dismayed by the vote to Leave. People like Theresa May, Philip Hammond, Michael Fallon fall into this category.
The proportion of the population who want to reverse the vote is substantially less than 48%.
If the Lib Dems are going to become even more explicitly the EU (aka anti-UK) party, their demise is guaranteed I think.
Are 48% of the electorate anti-UK? It's a silly suggestion, admit it.
Absolutely. It's grim. I think it's partly because it was a complete surprise - world+wife (minus a few astute punters on here) thought Remain would win right up until the small hours of the 24th. Businesses don't often get completely blindsided. We've had another 1973 oil-shock or Black Monday type event.
They were blindsided politically but so far in economic terms it's a Schrodinger's shock - no-one knows what, if anything will change and so far it looks more and more likely that we'll just see a slightly different evolution from the status quo than we would have seen if Remain had won.
It's the 'let's ignore a democratic vote because we like the EU so much' strategy. And once we leave (if we do...) it becomes the 'let's join an undemocratic organisation under far worse terms than before' strategy.
I think a technical exit from the EU whilst practically changing very little - for example, remaining a member of the customs union, with large contributions, EU law primacy and little new on free movement - is a very real possibility.
If that happens, a lot of the big business community will be grateful, but May will be in serious political trouble.
'UKIP were founded in 1991 and the Greens in 1985, so they were available to vote for. The record in Government is a two edged sword (tuition fees vs raising the income tax threshhold), to a certain extent it does away with the 'wasted vote' argument which still applies to UKIP and The Greens.'
Both UKIP & The Greens until fairly recently were very minor players at GE's and only put up candidates in a handful of constituencies, so not available on a UK wide basis for a protest vote.
Difficult to argue that UKIP was a wasted vote as they have achieved their key policy objective with almost no representation at Westminster.
Absolutely. It's grim. I think it's partly because it was a complete surprise - world+wife (minus a few astute punters on here) thought Remain would win right up until the small hours of the 24th. Businesses don't often get completely blindsided. We've had another 1973 oil-shock or Black Monday type event.
They were blindsided politically but so far in economic terms it's a Schrodinger's shock - no-one knows what, if anything will change and so far it looks more and more likely that we'll just see a slightly different evolution from the status quo than we would have seen if Remain had won.
While you might feel I'm trying to hand wave bad news away, if you look at the PMI figures since 2014, I think we were heading towards at least a technical recession in 2017 whatever happened.
We've pumped our GDP numbers up via immigration rather than reaping the fruits of investment or improved productivity. That only gets you so far.
We're probably broadly in agreement (though I know we voted differently in EUref).
It's the 'let's ignore a democratic vote because we like the EU so much' strategy. And once we leave (if we do...) it becomes the 'let's join an undemocratic organisation under far worse terms than before' strategy.'
Problem is that after abolition of tuition fees & votes for prisoners policies, the Lib Dems love of all things EU was there only other key policy that differentiated them from other parties.
WRT the 48%, a lot of people backed the status quo, but have no liking at all for the EU, and are not dismayed by the vote to Leave. People like Theresa May, Philip Hammond, Michael Fallon fall into this category.
The proportion of the population who want to reverse the vote is substantially less than 48%.
That's your assertion. Anybody else could say that a proportion of the 52% voted that way because they were told that the NHS would get £350m extra per week. Now that has been described as a 'mistake'. So the Leavers may get substantially less than 52% in any rerun.
It's the 'let's ignore a democratic vote because we like the EU so much' strategy. And once we leave (if we do...) it becomes the 'let's join an undemocratic organisation under far worse terms than before' strategy.'
Problem is that after abolition of tuition fees & votes for prisoners policies, the Lib Dems love of all things EU was there only other key policy that differentiated them from other parties.
WRT the 48%, a lot of people backed the status quo, but have no liking at all for the EU, and are not dismayed by the vote to Leave. People like Theresa May, Philip Hammond, Michael Fallon fall into this category.
The proportion of the population who want to reverse the vote is substantially less than 48%.
If the Lib Dems are going to become even more explicitly the EU (aka anti-UK) party, their demise is guaranteed I think.
Are 48% of the electorate anti-UK? It's a silly suggestion, admit it.
A large chunk of the Remain vote was people simply nervous about change, little of it resulted from a strong commitment to the EU. Just look at how few people self-describe as 'European' (around 15%).
In the years ahead, the former part will melt away and that latter part will increasingly be seen as 'anti-UK', yes.
Whitman was of course GOP candidate for California governor in 2010. The support of her and a New York GOP congressman for Hillary along with scathing comments by Kasich, Jeb Bush and McCain and Romney about Trump shows the GOP leadership and congressmen are now increasingly as divorced from their nominee and party base as the Labour leadership and MPs are from their leader and activists. However just as with a Corbyn loss there is no guarantee a Trump loss will restore the party to the moderates indeed increasingly Republican voters are arguing much like Labour members that a Trump loss will be the elite's fault for failing to rally behind their man. Thus if Trump loses in November it is not impossible he could run in the primaries again in 2020 and win, much like Corbyn or maybe someone even more conservative could do so
Indeed. When a party is in free fall, it lurches further to the extremes. In 2001, post election in UK, Hague (bright and likeable) was hammered in the polls. It was terrible and the IDS took over, a bad situation made worse.
I think Clinton nailed it when she said something like, 'how can you trust Trump with nuclear weapons when he explodes because of a negative tweet!'
By contrast, I thought that Hillary comment was just beyond stupid trivia that lobby hacks eat up.
I noticed that Mrs Khan didn't wear a hijab when she met Obama. She looked all very Western.
I simply don't understand and find, frankly, distasteful the attacks on Mr and Mrs Khan. I caught the bulk of an interview they gave to Channel 4 the other day. They seemed like perfectly normal parents who had lost a son who had fought for his country and rightly rather resented the way Trump suggested that they must automatically not be patriotic Americans simply because of their religion and that there was something sinister about the mother not speaking. She was well able to speak during the interview and spoke like any mother who has had an unimaginable and painful loss. Quite apart from anything else, Trump seems to lack some sort of basic human empathy. And in regard to this (and not just this) he lacks judgment.
It is a thing no one comes out of well, except the late Captain Khan who I assume did not think he was dying to make a party political point. Clinton should not have had them at the conference, they should have refused to go, Trump should have shut up about the whole thing.
But since we are where we are, currently the only political backdraught is against the Donald. No doubt as I type there are Trumpton elves desperately digging for Khan relatives that may have tweeted /Facebooked something not totally unsupportive of fundamental Islam.
Services PMI unchanged at 47.4. Could have been worse.
I know we can get boring on "talking down Brexit", but MarkIt do say this of the month's figure:
"the month-on-month decline in the Index in the latest period, at 4.9 points, was the largest observed since the survey began in July 1996."
Absolutely. It's grim. I think it's partly because it was a complete surprise - world+wife (minus a few astute punters on here) thought Remain would win right up until the small hours of the 24th. Businesses don't often get completely blindsided. We've had another 1973 oil-shock or Black Monday type event.
My prediction of a -0.4% contraction in Q3 looks about right on those figures.
Interesting comparisons. I think the 73 oil shock is closer to the current situation in that you get the shock and then (probably) a long tail of underperformance. Whereas Black Monday was bad at the time but once the shock had worn off it didn't matter any more.
Similarly, it took the Liberals 20 years to go from entering government in 1931 to virtually nothing. Without adjusting precedents to current circumstances, they don't become terribly helpful.
The Lib Dems while led by Farron can never be an existential threat to the Conservatives because they can never appeal to the centre-right voter.
It's a concern for this wavering Lib Dem member but the "48%" strategy, if it becomes the USP for the Party from now to 2020, could be very helpful.
I would also note Paddy Ashdown and Charles Kennedy were able to appeal to centre-right voters and I don't see much difference between them and Tim.
I would also note you threw in the word "existential" - no, the LDs aren't but as with Gulliver, the giant can be felled by many small blows and between UKIP, the LDs, SNP, Plaid, Greens and Labour (let alone any "new" party), there are enough possibilities to weaken the Conservatives sufficiently to drag them away from a majority quite apart from gaffes, errors. blunders and all the characteristics of day-to-day Government.
Not now, perhaps, but 2020 is an eternity away and there's a lot of water to flow under a lot of bridges. You're far too astute but I detect a sense from many of the Conservatives on here they already consider 2020 "in the bag".
I wouldn't.
A safety-first government from Theresa May combined with an effective CCHQ performance and 2020 is in the bag, for much the same reasons that 2001 was in the bag for Labour pretty much from day one of the 1997 government. The Lib Dems are irrelevant on a national level and UKIP is struggling to find a post-Brexit role (and will be attracted to attacking the weaker of the main parties), the Greens are no threat on a number of levels and the SNP can barely pose a bigger one than they did in 2015. As for Labour, I don't see how they get out of their current hole and put forward a positive alternative. It's not healthy for a government to go so unchallenged but for the moment, the biggest challenge the government will face is on its own back benches.
It's the 'let's ignore a democratic vote because we like the EU so much' strategy. And once we leave (if we do...) it becomes the 'let's join an undemocratic organisation under far worse terms than before' strategy.'
Problem is that after abolition of tuition fees & votes for prisoners policies, the Lib Dems love of all things EU was there only other key policy that differentiated them from other parties.
WRT the 48%, a lot of people backed the status quo, but have no liking at all for the EU, and are not dismayed by the vote to Leave. People like Theresa May, Philip Hammond, Michael Fallon fall into this category.
The proportion of the population who want to reverse the vote is substantially less than 48%.
If the Lib Dems are going to become even more explicitly the EU (aka anti-UK) party, their demise is guaranteed I think.
Are 48% of the electorate anti-UK? It's a silly suggestion, admit it.
No a lot of them were afraid of change. Which is why a 48% strategy is doomed.
Mr. Royale, allowing the EU to dictate our tariffs (external to the EU) and their law to have primacy over ours would be a great reason for me to vote UKIP.
I'd really rather not. But Leave won. And Brexit means Brexit, May has said many times. It doesn't mean a foreign power having authority over us in the manner you outline (which is a plausible possibility).
It's the 'let's ignore a democratic vote because we like the EU so much' strategy. And once we leave (if we do...) it becomes the 'let's join an undemocratic organisation under far worse terms than before' strategy.'
Problem is that after abolition of tuition fees & votes for prisoners policies, the Lib Dems love of all things EU was there only other key policy that differentiated them from other parties.
WRT the 48%, a lot of people backed the status quo, but have no liking at all for the EU, and are not dismayed by the vote to Leave. People like Theresa May, Philip Hammond, Michael Fallon fall into this category.
The proportion of the population who want to reverse the vote is substantially less than 48%.
If the Lib Dems are going to become even more explicitly the EU (aka anti-UK) party, their demise is guaranteed I think.
Are 48% of the electorate anti-UK? It's a silly suggestion, admit it.
Yeah, it's a daft thing to say. One of the post-Brexit issues is that the Remain vote is as opaque as Leave. It's hard to split the federalists from the indifferent, the fearful, the risk-averse and the ignorant. However, it's not tenable to accuse people of a lack of patriotism.
It's the 'let's ignore a democratic vote because we like the EU so much' strategy. And once we leave (if we do...) it becomes the 'let's join an undemocratic organisation under far worse terms than before' strategy.
I think a technical exit from the EU whilst practically changing very little - for example, remaining a member of the customs union, with large contributions, EU law primacy and little new on free movement - is a very real possibility.
If that happens, a lot of the big business community will be grateful, but May will be in serious political trouble.
Remaining in the customs union is an absolute non-starter.
But since we are where we are, currently the only political backdraught is against the Donald. No doubt as I type there are Trumpton elves desperately digging for Khan relatives that may have tweeted /Facebooked something not totally unsupportive of fundamental Islam.
Some people are trying to make something of Khizr Khan deleting his website in which he talks about his work as an immigration lawyer.
Khan is more visible in the media than Clinton at the moment. After a certain point her campaign will start hoping they can move on to the next issue as much as Trump.
It's the 'let's ignore a democratic vote because we like the EU so much' strategy. And once we leave (if we do...) it becomes the 'let's join an undemocratic organisation under far worse terms than before' strategy.
I think a technical exit from the EU whilst practically changing very little - for example, remaining a member of the customs union, with large contributions, EU law primacy and little new on free movement - is a very real possibility.
If that happens, a lot of the big business community will be grateful, but May will be in serious political trouble.
Remaining in the customs union is an absolute non-starter.
I agree, but I smell that Whitehall and the most powerful business lobbyists are whispering exactly that into May's ear, with just Fox and a few others posing the counter argument.
It's the 'let's ignore a democratic vote because we like the EU so much' strategy. And once we leave (if we do...) it becomes the 'let's join an undemocratic organisation under far worse terms than before' strategy.'
Problem is that after abolition of tuition fees & votes for prisoners policies, the Lib Dems love of all things EU was there only other key policy that differentiated them from other parties.
WRT the 48%, a lot of people backed the status quo, but have no liking at all for the EU, and are not dismayed by the vote to Leave. People like Theresa May, Philip Hammond, Michael Fallon fall into this category.
The proportion of the population who want to reverse the vote is substantially less than 48%.
If the Lib Dems are going to become even more explicitly the EU (aka anti-UK) party, their demise is guaranteed I think.
Are 48% of the electorate anti-UK? It's a silly suggestion, admit it.
Yeah, it's a daft thing to say. One of the post-Brexit issues is that the Remain vote is as opaque as Leave. It's hard to split the federalists from the indifferent, the fearful, the risk-averse and the ignorant. However, it's not tenable to accuse people of a lack of patriotism.
I may not have surveyed many people before the vote, but I would say 20% were genuinely pro EU, 40% reluctant Remain, (the indifferent/fearful) 40% leave (my sample being somewhat biased to remain).
It's the 'let's ignore a democratic vote because we like the EU so much' strategy. And once we leave (if we do...) it becomes the 'let's join an undemocratic organisation under far worse terms than before' strategy.'
Problem is that after abolition of tuition fees & votes for prisoners policies, the Lib Dems love of all things EU was there only other key policy that differentiated them from other parties.
WRT the 48%, a lot of people backed the status quo, but have no liking at all for the EU, and are not dismayed by the vote to Leave. People like Theresa May, Philip Hammond, Michael Fallon fall into this category.
The proportion of the population who want to reverse the vote is substantially less than 48%.
I'd say only about 15-20% of voters in the EU referendum would have had an ideological commitment to the EU, and there would have been a strong overlap between this group and those who still want the UK to ultimately join the Euro.
Thing is, this group is disproportionately represented amongst the media and opinion formers.
And of those, a sizable number might like to reverse the result in theory but have no desire to do so at the moment because it would be at best politically impractical and at worst positively counter-productive.
For most of those years the Liberals /Lib Dems were the only option for a protest vote,now there is a wide choice,more importantly until 2010 the Lib Dems didn't have a record in government to defend.
UKIP were founded in 1991 and the Greens in 1985, so they were available to vote for. The record in Government is a two edged sword (tuition fees vs raising the income tax threshhold), to a certain extent it does away with the 'wasted vote' argument which still applies to UKIP and The Greens. Some on here have said that the Coalition was not a bad government.
Yes, but the LDs were the incumbent "they're both the same" party so naturally attracted many of those voters.
Until coalition, when it became "all three of them are the same". And it was noticeable on election night in a string of seats where the LDs had been either a poor second or third that the LD vote share drop was very similar to the UKIP vote share rise.
Possibly something that could be done even while in the EU.
Would it not fall foul of the non-discrimination provisions of EU law? In the same way that benefit restrictions cannot be applied just to non-British but EU citizens?
The article seems to think not, but I am no lawyer. In the EEA it may be more straightforward.
@EdConwaySky: All sector PMI (best unofficial measure of UK econ growth) dropped from 51.9 to 47.3 in Jul - biggest one-month fall 20yr history of survey
For most of those years the Liberals /Lib Dems were the only option for a protest vote,now there is a wide choice,more importantly until 2010 the Lib Dems didn't have a record in government to defend.
UKIP were founded in 1991 and the Greens in 1985, so they were available to vote for. The record in Government is a two edged sword (tuition fees vs raising the income tax threshhold), to a certain extent it does away with the 'wasted vote' argument which still applies to UKIP and The Greens. Some on here have said that the Coalition was not a bad government.
Yes, but the LDs were the incumbent "they're both the same" party so naturally attracted many of those voters.
Until coalition, when it became "all three of them are the same". And it was noticeable on election night in a string of seats where the LDs had been either a poor second or third that the LD vote share drop was very similar to the UKIP vote share rise.
Now UKIP have simultaneously achieved (and negated) their reason for existing and are self-destructing .
Possibly something that could be done even while in the EU.
Would it not fall foul of the non-discrimination provisions of EU law? In the same way that benefit restrictions cannot be applied just to non-British but EU citizens?
The article seems to think not, but I am no lawyer. In the EEA it may be more straightforward.
100% unlawful under EU law, restrictive interpretation or not.
Britain's best bet is a temporary measure, the EU likes temporary measures, even long ones.
It's the 'let's ignore a democratic vote because we like the EU so much' strategy. And once we leave (if we do...) it becomes the 'let's join an undemocratic organisation under far worse terms than before' strategy.'
Problem is that after abolition of tuition fees & votes for prisoners policies, the Lib Dems love of all things EU was there only other key policy that differentiated them from other parties.
WRT the 48%, a lot of people backed the status quo, but have no liking at all for the EU, and are not dismayed by the vote to Leave. People like Theresa May, Philip Hammond, Michael Fallon fall into this category.
The proportion of the population who want to reverse the vote is substantially less than 48%.
Agreed. My only interest now is in a soft landing post-Brexit. Not sure at all that the LD strategy will capture more new votes than they lose.
Mr. Royale, allowing the EU to dictate our tariffs (external to the EU) and their law to have primacy over ours would be a great reason for me to vote UKIP.
I'd really rather not. But Leave won. And Brexit means Brexit, May has said many times. It doesn't mean a foreign power having authority over us in the manner you outline (which is a plausible possibility).
I don't think UKIP goes away until the UK has meaningful independence and / or both the Conservative and Labour parties meaningfully incorporate the concerns of social conservatives into their mainstream, the most obvious measures being significant reductions in immigration, and ending any sense of culture wars.
For most of those years the Liberals /Lib Dems were the only option for a protest vote,now there is a wide choice,more importantly until 2010 the Lib Dems didn't have a record in government to defend.
UKIP were founded in 1991 and the Greens in 1985, so they were available to vote for. The record in Government is a two edged sword (tuition fees vs raising the income tax threshhold), to a certain extent it does away with the 'wasted vote' argument which still applies to UKIP and The Greens. Some on here have said that the Coalition was not a bad government.
Yes, but the LDs were the incumbent "they're both the same" party so naturally attracted many of those voters.
Until coalition, when it became "all three of them are the same". And it was noticeable on election night in a string of seats where the LDs had been either a poor second or third that the LD vote share drop was very similar to the UKIP vote share rise.
Now UKIP have simultaneously achieved (and negated) their reason for existing and are self-destructing .
Indeed, but there will still be a repository for the "they're all the same" vote. The LDs seem to think this will automatically pass back to them, but I'm not so sure.
But since we are where we are, currently the only political backdraught is against the Donald. No doubt as I type there are Trumpton elves desperately digging for Khan relatives that may have tweeted /Facebooked something not totally unsupportive of fundamental Islam.
Some people are trying to make something of Khizr Khan deleting his website in which he talks about his work as an immigration lawyer.
Khan is more visible in the media than Clinton at the moment. After a certain point her campaign will start hoping they can move on to the next issue as much as Trump.
htts://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aChQbLTAQbg
I'm not going to link to anything, but there does seem to be more to the Khans than meets the eye. This is now the War of Jennifer's Ear, only it's the War of Humayun's Life.
It's the 'let's ignore a democratic vote because we like the EU so much' strategy. And once we leave (if we do...) it becomes the 'let's join an undemocratic organisation under far worse terms than before' strategy.
I think a technical exit from the EU whilst practically changing very little - for example, remaining a member of the customs union, with large contributions, EU law primacy and little new on free movement - is a very real possibility.
If that happens, a lot of the big business community will be grateful, but May will be in serious political trouble.
Mr. Royale, I think if TM tried anything like that she would face a no-confidence vote from her back benches and be ousted in a trice.
On your later point about lobbyists, I would think TM is not a PM that the lobbyists will find easy to manipulate. I think she is very much her own lady. I am not certain of this but I have heard that even her senior civil servants at the Home Office had problems doing their usual CS conjuring trick on options.
It's the 'let's ignore a democratic vote because we like the EU so much' strategy. And once we leave (if we do...) it becomes the 'let's join an undemocratic organisation under far worse terms than before' strategy.'
Problem is that after abolition of tuition fees & votes for prisoners policies, the Lib Dems love of all things EU was there only other key policy that differentiated them from other parties.
WRT the 48%, a lot of people backed the status quo, but have no liking at all for the EU, and are not dismayed by the vote to Leave. People like Theresa May, Philip Hammond, Michael Fallon fall into this category.
The proportion of the population who want to reverse the vote is substantially less than 48%.
That's your assertion. Anybody else could say that a proportion of the 52% voted that way because they were told that the NHS would get £350m extra per week. Now that has been described as a 'mistake'. So the Leavers may get substantially less than 52% in any rerun.
I know a few Brexit regretters. Not least some of our Commonwealth staff whose remittances have lost 10% of their value.
It's the 'let's ignore a democratic vote because we like the EU so much' strategy. And once we leave (if we do...) it becomes the 'let's join an undemocratic organisation under far worse terms than before' strategy.'
Problem is that after abolition of tuition fees & votes for prisoners policies, the Lib Dems love of all things EU was there only other key policy that differentiated them from other parties.
WRT the 48%, a lot of people backed the status quo, but have no liking at all for the EU, and are not dismayed by the vote to Leave. People like Theresa May, Philip Hammond, Michael Fallon fall into this category.
The proportion of the population who want to reverse the vote is substantially less than 48%.
That's your assertion. Anybody else could say that a proportion of the 52% voted that way because they were told that the NHS would get £350m extra per week. Now that has been described as a 'mistake'. So the Leavers may get substantially less than 52% in any rerun.
We have some polling evidence to back it up, with the public rejecting a second referendum by 2:1.
It's the 'let's ignore a democratic vote because we like the EU so much' strategy. And once we leave (if we do...) it becomes the 'let's join an undemocratic organisation under far worse terms than before' strategy.
I think a technical exit from the EU whilst practically changing very little - for example, remaining a member of the customs union, with large contributions, EU law primacy and little new on free movement - is a very real possibility.
If that happens, a lot of the big business community will be grateful, but May will be in serious political trouble.
Remaining in the customs union is an absolute non-starter.
I agree, but I smell that Whitehall and the most powerful business lobbyists are whispering exactly that into May's ear, with just Fox and a few others posing the counter argument.
All shades of Brexit opinion oppose the customs union. The EU customs unions is a political tool, as customs unions have so often been.
The case for them in economic terms only really exists for small countries that conduct an overwhelming share of their trade with a larger neighbour. That is not the situation the UK is in, with only around 40% of our G&S trade with EU countries (and considerably less still in another 20 years).
Those arguing for staying in the customs union are a few firms engaged in special pleading (because they want a bit less paperwork, or, more worrying want continued trade protection) plus people obsessed with the Irish border issue.
It's the 'let's ignore a democratic vote because we like the EU so much' strategy. And once we leave (if we do...) it becomes the 'let's join an undemocratic organisation under far worse terms than before' strategy.
I think a technical exit from the EU whilst practically changing very little - for example, remaining a member of the customs union, with large contributions, EU law primacy and little new on free movement - is a very real possibility.
If that happens, a lot of the big business community will be grateful, but May will be in serious political trouble.
Mr. Royale, I think if TM tried anything like that she would face a no-confidence vote from her back benches and be ousted in a trice.
On your later point about lobbyists, I would think TM is not a PM that the lobbyists will find easy to manipulate. I think she is very much her own lady. I am not certain of this but I have heard that even her senior civil servants at the Home Office had problems doing their usual CS conjuring trick on options.
If Cameron were still PM, I'd be very concerned. He had a track record of letting down eurosceptics and it's quite possible that Whitehall and business are operating in a similar manner thinking May will be pretty much the same.
I don't think that's true but I don't rule it out, not least of which because I think May will prioritise not complicating the status quo of the Union over a decent Brexit deal.
OT I can't claim to have my finger on the Labour left pulse but something shifting?
Isn't Billy Bragg a Lib Dem?
He was LibDem / progressive-majority-tactical-vote-ist after the Iraq war, but I don't think he was wildly impressed by Clegg going into government with the Tories. Tweets to date seem very pro-Corbyn.
Labour and to a lesser extent the Tories have dodged a bullet if Woolfe is off the ballot.
A week ago UKIP were looking potentially very strong, but the electoral law and 'walk round the block' of Woolfe means they will either go with Diane James (Who won't appeal in the north) or some Lord o' 'Ties and blazers', which means they could head to obscurity.
It's the 'let's ignore a democratic vote because we like the EU so much' strategy. And once we leave (if we do...) it becomes the 'let's join an undemocratic organisation under far worse terms than before' strategy.'
Problem is that after abolition of tuition fees & votes for prisoners policies, the Lib Dems love of all things EU was there only other key policy that differentiated them from other parties.
WRT the 48%, a lot of people backed the status quo, but have no liking at all for the EU, and are not dismayed by the vote to Leave. People like Theresa May, Philip Hammond, Michael Fallon fall into this category.
The proportion of the population who want to reverse the vote is substantially less than 48%.
That's your assertion. Anybody else could say that a proportion of the 52% voted that way because they were told that the NHS would get £350m extra per week. Now that has been described as a 'mistake'. So the Leavers may get substantially less than 52% in any rerun.
I know a few Brexit regretters. Not least some of our Commonwealth staff whose remittances have lost 10% of their value.
Did they vote in EUref? I didn't follow details of Commonwealth citizens so genuinely don't know.
It's the 'let's ignore a democratic vote because we like the EU so much' strategy. And once we leave (if we do...) it becomes the 'let's join an undemocratic organisation under far worse terms than before' strategy.'
Problem is that after abolition of tuition fees & votes for prisoners policies, the Lib Dems love of all things EU was there only other key policy that differentiated them from other parties.
WRT the 48%, a lot of people backed the status quo, but have no liking at all for the EU, and are not dismayed by the vote to Leave. People like Theresa May, Philip Hammond, Michael Fallon fall into this category.
The proportion of the population who want to reverse the vote is substantially less than 48%.
That's your assertion. Anybody else could say that a proportion of the 52% voted that way because they were told that the NHS would get £350m extra per week. Now that has been described as a 'mistake'. So the Leavers may get substantially less than 52% in any rerun.
I know a few Brexit regretters. Not least some of our Commonwealth staff whose remittances have lost 10% of their value.
Did they vote in EUref? I didn't follow details of Commonwealth citizens so genuinely don't know.
Yes, the franchise was (correctly) the same as a general election: UK, Irish and Commonwealth citizens 18 and over.
It's the 'let's ignore a democratic vote because we like the EU so much' strategy. And once we leave (if we do...) it becomes the 'let's join an undemocratic organisation under far worse terms than before' strategy.
I think a technical exit from the EU whilst practically changing very little - for example, remaining a member of the customs union, with large contributions, EU law primacy and little new on free movement - is a very real possibility.
If that happens, a lot of the big business community will be grateful, but May will be in serious political trouble.
Mr. Royale, I think if TM tried anything like that she would face a no-confidence vote from her back benches and be ousted in a trice.
On your later point about lobbyists, I would think TM is not a PM that the lobbyists will find easy to manipulate. I think she is very much her own lady. I am not certain of this but I have heard that even her senior civil servants at the Home Office had problems doing their usual CS conjuring trick on options.
If Cameron were still PM, I'd be very concerned. He had a track record of letting down eurosceptics and it's quite possible that Whitehall and business are operating in a similar manner thinking May will be pretty much the same.
I don't think that's true but I don't rule it out, not least of which because I think May will prioritise not complicating the status quo of the Union over a decent Brexit deal.
I agree re Cameron but he is now history. TM is a very different cauldron of octopus and as I say she politically does not have full freedom of movement even if she did want to prioritise the interests of the EU over getting a decent deal for the UK.I doubt the cabinet would stand for it and I am damn certain the majority of her back benchers wouldn't. She would split the party and be out on her ear just as the run up to the next election starts. Political suicide.
OT I can't claim to have my finger on the Labour left pulse but something shifting?
Isn't Billy Bragg a Lib Dem?
He was LibDem / progressive-majority-tactical-vote-ist after the Iraq war, but I don't think he was wildly impressed by Clegg going into government with the Tories. Tweets to date seem very pro-Corbyn.
Dear Billy was very upset by the Coalition, many tears shed at his coastal mansion.
It's the 'let's ignore a democratic vote because we like the EU so much' strategy. And once we leave (if we do...) it becomes the 'let's join an undemocratic organisation under far worse terms than before' strategy.
I think a technical exit from the EU whilst practically changing very little - for example, remaining a member of the customs union, with large contributions, EU law primacy and little new on free movement - is a very real possibility.
If that happens, a lot of the big business community will be grateful, but May will be in serious political trouble.
Mr. Royale, I think if TM tried anything like that she would face a no-confidence vote from her back benches and be ousted in a trice.
On your later point about lobbyists, I would think TM is not a PM that the lobbyists will find easy to manipulate. I think she is very much her own lady. I am not certain of this but I have heard that even her senior civil servants at the Home Office had problems doing their usual CS conjuring trick on options.
If Cameron were still PM, I'd be very concerned. He had a track record of letting down eurosceptics and it's quite possible that Whitehall and business are operating in a similar manner thinking May will be pretty much the same.
I don't think that's true but I don't rule it out, not least of which because I think May will prioritise not complicating the status quo of the Union over a decent Brexit deal.
I agree re Cameron but he is now history. TM is a very different cauldron of octopus and as I say she politically does not have full freedom of movement even if she did want to prioritise the interests of the EU over getting a decent deal for the UK.I doubt the cabinet would stand for it and I am damn certain the majority of her back benchers wouldn't. She would split the party and be out on her ear just as the run up to the next election starts. Political suicide.
The obvious solution is not to have anything specific decided in the run-up to the next election. Four years isn't a long time to stall by British constitutional standards.
It's the 'let's ignore a democratic vote because we like the EU so much' strategy. And once we leave (if we do...) it becomes the 'let's join an undemocratic organisation under far worse terms than before' strategy.
I think a technical exit from the EU whilst practically changing very little - for example, remaining a member of the customs union, with large contributions, EU law primacy and little new on free movement - is a very real possibility.
If that happens, a lot of the big business community will be grateful, but May will be in serious political trouble.
Mr. Royale, I think if TM tried anything like that she would face a no-confidence vote from her back benches and be ousted in a trice.
On your later point about lobbyists, I would think TM is not a PM that the lobbyists will find easy to manipulate. I think she is very much her own lady. I am not certain of this but I have heard that even her senior civil servants at the Home Office had problems doing their usual CS conjuring trick on options.
If Cameron were still PM, I'd be very concerned. He had a track record of letting down eurosceptics and it's quite possible that Whitehall and business are operating in a similar manner thinking May will be pretty much the same.
I don't think that's true but I don't rule it out, not least of which because I think May will prioritise not complicating the status quo of the Union over a decent Brexit deal.
I agree re Cameron but he is now history. TM is a very different cauldron of octopus and as I say she politically does not have full freedom of movement even if she did want to prioritise the interests of the EU over getting a decent deal for the UK.I doubt the cabinet would stand for it and I am damn certain the majority of her back benchers wouldn't. She would split the party and be out on her ear just as the run up to the next election starts. Political suicide.
The obvious solution is not to have anything specific decided in the run-up to the next election. Four years isn't a long time to stall by British constitutional standards.
We could just tie in any constitutional reforms to Heathrow expansion. That should see us nicely into the 2050s.
Labour and to a lesser extent the Tories have dodged a bullet if Woolfe is off the ballot.
A week ago UKIP were looking potentially very strong, but the electoral law and 'walk round the block' of Woolfe means they will either go with Diane James (Who won't appeal in the north) or some Lord o' 'Ties and blazers', which means they could head to obscurity.
Farage is still the leader, and has the power to stop the leadership contest to prevent a Hamilton/Carswell coup.
Mr. Royale, allowing the EU to dictate our tariffs (external to the EU) and their law to have primacy over ours would be a great reason for me to vote UKIP.
I'd really rather not. But Leave won. And Brexit means Brexit, May has said many times. It doesn't mean a foreign power having authority over us in the manner you outline (which is a plausible possibility).
I don't think UKIP goes away until the UK has meaningful independence and / or both the Conservative and Labour parties meaningfully incorporate the concerns of social conservatives into their mainstream, the most obvious measures being significant reductions in immigration, and ending any sense of culture wars.
Labour and to a lesser extent the Tories have dodged a bullet if Woolfe is off the ballot.
A week ago UKIP were looking potentially very strong, but the electoral law and 'walk round the block' of Woolfe means they will either go with Diane James (Who won't appeal in the north) or some Lord o' 'Ties and blazers', which means they could head to obscurity.
Farage is still the leader, and has the power to stop the leadership contest to prevent a Hamilton/Carswell coup.
It's the 'let's ignore a democratic vote because we like the EU so much' strategy. And once we leave (if we do...) it becomes the 'let's join an undemocratic organisation under far worse terms than before' strategy.
I think a technical exit from the EU whilst practically changing very little - for example, remaining a member of the customs union, with large contributions, EU law primacy and little new on free movement - is a very real possibility.
If that happens, a lot of the big business community will be grateful, but May will be in serious political trouble.
Mr. Royale, I think if TM tried anything like that she would face a no-confidence vote from her back benches and be ousted in a trice.
On your later point about lobbyists, I would think TM is not a PM that the lobbyists will find easy to manipulate. I think she is very much her own lady. I am not certain of this but I have heard that even her senior civil servants at the Home Office had problems doing their usual CS conjuring trick on options.
If Cameron were still PM, I'd be very concerned. He had a track record of letting down eurosceptics and it's quite possible that Whitehall and business are operating in a similar manner thinking May will be pretty much the same.
I don't think that's true but I don't rule it out, not least of which because I think May will prioritise not complicating the status quo of the Union over a decent Brexit deal.
I agree re Cameron but he is now history. TM is a very different cauldron of octopus and as I say she politically does not have full freedom of movement even if she did want to prioritise the interests of the EU over getting a decent deal for the UK.I doubt the cabinet would stand for it and I am damn certain the majority of her back benchers wouldn't. She would split the party and be out on her ear just as the run up to the next election starts. Political suicide.
The obvious solution is not to have anything specific decided in the run-up to the next election. Four years isn't a long time to stall by British constitutional standards.
We could just tie in any constitutional reforms to Heathrow expansion. That should see us nicely into the 2050s.
"I have requested urgent discussions with Angela Merkel, which we will begin as soon as my plane is able to land at Berlin Brandenburg Airport".
Labour and to a lesser extent the Tories have dodged a bullet if Woolfe is off the ballot.
A week ago UKIP were looking potentially very strong, but the electoral law and 'walk round the block' of Woolfe means they will either go with Diane James (Who won't appeal in the north) or some Lord o' 'Ties and blazers', which means they could head to obscurity.
Farage is still the leader, and has the power to stop the leadership contest to prevent a Hamilton/Carswell coup.
No he isn't.
Sorry you're right, I was getting confused on the lack of acting leader.
It's the 'let's ignore a democratic vote because we like the EU so much' strategy. And once we leave (if we do...) it becomes the 'let's join an undemocratic organisation under far worse terms than before' strategy.
I think a technical exit from the EU whilst practically changing very little - for example, remaining a member of the customs union, with large contributions, EU law primacy and little new on free movement - is a very real possibility.
If that happens, a lot of the big business community will be grateful, but May will be in serious political trouble.
Mr. Royale, I think if TM tried anything like that she would face a no-confidence vote from her back benches and be ousted in a trice.
On your later point about lobbyists, I would think TM is not a PM that the lobbyists will find easy to manipulate. I think she is very much her own lady. I am not certain of this but I have heard that even her senior civil servants at the Home Office had problems doing their usual CS conjuring trick on options.
On lobbyists and picking up on our discussion yesterday about the WTO negotiations.
British livestock farmers are protected by quotas operated by the EU, where WTO countries are allowed to export a limited amount of meat and dairy products into the EU at a favourable tariff; any excess is prohibited or taxed at a punitive rate. I am not sure which, but the effect is the same - indigenous farmers can sell their produce outside the quotas without competition.
Britain will no longer be party to these quotas when it leaves the EU. The questions are whether the EU agrees to the UK sharing its quotas, whether third party WTO countries agree to quotas with Britain and whether EU farmers are allowed under WTO rules to be outside quotas that apply to other WTO states.
We can argue about how likely the quotas are to disappear, but given there is a possibility of this happening I am interested in the politics of it. Would the government say to farmers,live with it, it's the way we are doing things now? I presume a large number of livestock farmers will be wiped out if they have to face unrestricted imports. Rural Conservative MPs will certainly get their ear bent by these farmers - what are you doing about this? Will they think, actually I am less bothered about freedom of movement. We don't get a lot of immigration in Backofbeyondshire?
Add in lobbyists for the finance companies that largely fund the Conservative Party and are worried about the City being able doing business with the EU. Lobbyists for chemical companies that also benefit from the single market and EU quotas; for pharma companies worried about certification etc.
What an odd view! How can you be both democratically elected, and a threat to democracy. You either trust the people and have a democracy, or you don't
It's the 'let's ignore a democratic vote because we like the EU so much' strategy. And once we leave (if we do...) it becomes the 'let's join an undemocratic organisation under far worse terms than before' strategy.
I think a technical exit from the EU whilst practically changing very little - for example, remaining a member of the customs union, with large contributions, EU law primacy and little new on free movement - is a very real possibility.
If that happens, a lot of the big business community will be grateful, but May will be in serious political trouble.
Mr. Royale, I think if TM tried anything like that she would face a no-confidence vote from her back benches and be ousted in a trice.
On your later point about lobbyists, I would think TM is not a PM that the lobbyists will find easy to manipulate. I think she is very much her own lady. I am not certain of this but I have heard that even her senior civil servants at the Home Office had problems doing their usual CS conjuring trick on options.
On lobbyists and picking up on our discussion yesterday about the WTO negotiations.
Add in lobbyists for the finance companies that largely fund the Conservative Party and are worried about the City being able doing business with the EU. Lobbyists for chemical companies that also benefit from the single market and EU quotas; for pharma companies worried about certification etc.
It's all getting to be very hard work.
Sorry to make this brief (always slightly guilt inducing when responding to a small essay).
Take Mercosur as the example. They are currently subject to a beef tariff of 12.8% plus a flat tax of €1.4k per tonne. They are being offered a total beef quota of 78k tonnes of beef at a tariff of 7.5%, as long as the beef is hormone-free.
However, Mercosur imports have been MUCH higher in the past. The way you control flows is with technical measures (historically via requiring traceability paperwork, or stipulating permitted hormone or antibiotic regimes). That doesn't necessarily change outside the EU. It's the standard horse trading that occurs in FTAs and it's the reason they take so long to negotiate. Off the top of my head, I'd put quotas on permitted food-miles - that plays to the green lobby, encourages localism and so forth.
Whether we grandfather into existing FTAs on BRexit is a government decision. Laypeople just don't have the competence to decide.
However, while it's complex, it's not rocket science or groundbreaking in anyway.
I think the zero key on Shadsy's keyboard isn't working properly.
He's offering 50/1 on Owen Smith becoming PM in 2016
50-1 is about right. 500 would clearly be too large. Out of the test for the moment, was hoping Cook/Root would pile on a huge score but not happening atm..
On lobbyists and picking up on our discussion yesterday about the WTO negotiations.
British livestock farmers are protected by quotas operated by the EU, where WTO countries are allowed to export a limited amount of meat and dairy products into the EU at a favourable tariff; any excess is prohibited or taxed at a punitive rate. I am not sure which, but the effect is the same - indigenous farmers can sell their produce outside the quotas without competition.
Britain will no longer be party to these quotas when it leaves the EU. The questions are whether the EU agrees to the UK sharing its quotas, whether third party WTO countries agree to quotas with Britain and whether EU farmers are allowed under WTO rules to be outside quotas that apply to other WTO states.
We can argue about how likely the quotas are to disappear, but given there is a possibility of this happening I am interested in the politics of it. Would the government say to farmers,live with it, it's the way we are doing things now? I presume a large number of livestock farmers will be wiped out if they have to face unrestricted imports. Rural Conservative MPs will certainly get their ear bent by these farmers - what are you doing about this? Will they think, actually I am less bothered about freedom of movement. We don't get a lot of immigration in Backofbeyondshire?
Add in lobbyists for the finance companies that largely fund the Conservative Party and are worried about the City being able doing business with the EU. Lobbyists for chemical companies that also benefit from the single market and EU quotas; for pharma companies worried about certification etc.
It's all getting to be very hard work.
-------------------------------------------
It may be hard for you to imagine, but there are other ways of organising farm support other than the CAP.
For instance, the way we did it from WWII to 1973.
And lots of other models.
We choose which model we like most, and we implement it over a period of years.
Scary for people used to being told what to do from outside, I grant you. Perhaps less so for others.
And yes, it will be hard work. All things worth doing generally are.
I don't need to read the thread to know that there will be plenty of posts from the Corbynista-Trumpite–Leavers smearing Whitman as a big-business shill and telling us how this is good news for Trump.
To be honest I am not unhappy about Civil Servants having to work hard. It is what they are there for.
Now, as to our farmers being protected by the EU, that has only some validity. Consider what had happened to dairy farming in the UK. It has been decimated, not by imports from outside the EU but from inside. Pig farmers here have to maintain higher standards of animal welfare than do their opposite numbers in Denmark and Holland and so are frequently undercut. Then we have the absurd position where, due to EU subsidies distorting the market, we have grade A agricultural land being left fallow for years and years while agribusiness plough up and destroy the high downs to grow non-food crops.
It could be cogently argues that subsidies and quotas actually hurt our farmers, especially those of a one size fits all imposed from Brussels. One could also look at the experience of New Zealand, who dumped agricultural subsidies decades ago and seems to have done OK (they can sell lamb here cheaper than local producers can).
I think we have to work out what we want from our farmers and have policies in place to achieve that. Merely continuing with the current EU regime isn't doing anyone any favours at the moment and will not in the future.
As for the City, I have heard so many scare stories over the years that I have become immune to them. The City firms will try and lobby the government to do what is best for their businesses, it always has and it always will (and I can go back to at least the 14th century on this). The City must from time to time be told to get back in its box and get on with doing business as best it can (which to be fair is usually pretty well) within the structure decided upon by the government.
GSK announced a couple of days ago that they are to open a brand new research facility in the UK so they are obviously not to concerned about the future of pharma outside the EU.
Let's be honest big companies pay out lots of cash to try and influence events for their own advantage and that may not be (in fact quite likely isn't) to the advantage of the people of the UK. When Goldman Sachs is saying the UK should do X, the correct initial response is probably to say we should do Y.
Comments
"the month-on-month decline in the Index in the latest period, at 4.9 points, was the largest observed since the survey began in July 1996."
In a free country it is her right to choose. I only wish that the same freedom applied worldwide. There is a horrible case ongoing about a Saudi/Welsh dual citizen literally caged in in Jeddah ongoing.
The proportion of the population who want to reverse the vote is substantially less than 48%.
My prediction of a -0.4% contraction in Q3 looks about right on those figures.
Thing is, this group is disproportionately represented amongst the media and opinion formers.
If GDP does decline, whether over a single quarter or in a technical recession, some federalists will call more loudly for the vote to be ignored or re-run.
As if recessions don't happen all the time, or as if temporary prosperity is worth permanent erosion in sovereignty.
Dubai crash
Just got this from DXB https://t.co/PJWRGsZ7g2
Edit
Emirates Boeing 777 looks badly damaged and the fire is under control. Passengers safe https://t.co/AURQ8tUgcU
If that happens, a lot of the big business community will be grateful, but May will be in serious political trouble.
'UKIP were founded in 1991 and the Greens in 1985, so they were available to vote for.
The record in Government is a two edged sword (tuition fees vs raising the income tax threshhold), to a certain extent it does away with the 'wasted vote' argument which still applies to UKIP and The Greens.'
Both UKIP & The Greens until fairly recently were very minor players at GE's and only put up candidates in a handful of constituencies, so not available on a UK wide basis for a protest vote.
Difficult to argue that UKIP was a wasted vote as they have achieved their key policy objective with almost no representation at Westminster.
While you might feel I'm trying to hand wave bad news away, if you look at the PMI figures since 2014, I think we were heading towards at least a technical recession in 2017 whatever happened.
We've pumped our GDP numbers up via immigration rather than reaping the fruits of investment or improved productivity. That only gets you so far.
We're probably broadly in agreement (though I know we voted differently in EUref).
Anybody else could say that a proportion of the 52% voted that way because they were told that the NHS would get £350m extra per week. Now that has been described as a 'mistake'. So the Leavers may get substantially less than 52% in any rerun.
In the years ahead, the former part will melt away and that latter part will increasingly be seen as 'anti-UK', yes.
I'd really rather not. But Leave won. And Brexit means Brexit, May has said many times. It doesn't mean a foreign power having authority over us in the manner you outline (which is a plausible possibility).
Khan is more visible in the media than Clinton at the moment. After a certain point her campaign will start hoping they can move on to the next issue as much as Trump.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aChQbLTAQbg
Until coalition, when it became "all three of them are the same". And it was noticeable on election night in a string of seats where the LDs had been either a poor second or third that the LD vote share drop was very similar to the UKIP vote share rise.
Britain's best bet is a temporary measure, the EU likes temporary measures, even long ones.
https://twitter.com/billybragg/status/760773200192102400
Fingers crossed this remains the case.
On your later point about lobbyists, I would think TM is not a PM that the lobbyists will find easy to manipulate. I think she is very much her own lady. I am not certain of this but I have heard that even her senior civil servants at the Home Office had problems doing their usual CS conjuring trick on options.
The case for them in economic terms only really exists for small countries that conduct an overwhelming share of their trade with a larger neighbour. That is not the situation the UK is in, with only around 40% of our G&S trade with EU countries (and considerably less still in another 20 years).
Those arguing for staying in the customs union are a few firms engaged in special pleading (because they want a bit less paperwork, or, more worrying want continued trade protection) plus people obsessed with the Irish border issue.
I don't think that's true but I don't rule it out, not least of which because I think May will prioritise not complicating the status quo of the Union over a decent Brexit deal.
A week ago UKIP were looking potentially very strong, but the electoral law and 'walk round the block' of Woolfe means they will either go with Diane James (Who won't appeal in the north) or some Lord o' 'Ties and blazers', which means they could head to obscurity.
This could become the rallying cry from conservatives in the U.S and would be very powerful.
British livestock farmers are protected by quotas operated by the EU, where WTO countries are allowed to export a limited amount of meat and dairy products into the EU at a favourable tariff; any excess is prohibited or taxed at a punitive rate. I am not sure which, but the effect is the same - indigenous farmers can sell their produce outside the quotas without competition.
Britain will no longer be party to these quotas when it leaves the EU. The questions are whether the EU agrees to the UK sharing its quotas, whether third party WTO countries agree to quotas with Britain and whether EU farmers are allowed under WTO rules to be outside quotas that apply to other WTO states.
We can argue about how likely the quotas are to disappear, but given there is a possibility of this happening I am interested in the politics of it. Would the government say to farmers,live with it, it's the way we are doing things now? I presume a large number of livestock farmers will be wiped out if they have to face unrestricted imports. Rural Conservative MPs will certainly get their ear bent by these farmers - what are you doing about this? Will they think, actually I am less bothered about freedom of movement. We don't get a lot of immigration in Backofbeyondshire?
Add in lobbyists for the finance companies that largely fund the Conservative Party and are worried about the City being able doing business with the EU. Lobbyists for chemical companies that also benefit from the single market and EU quotas; for pharma companies worried about certification etc.
It's all getting to be very hard work.
Is there a difference between a 'friend' and a 'critical friend'?
Discuss.
Pakistan are one wicket away from the tail.
He's offering 50/1 on Owen Smith becoming PM in 2016
Take Mercosur as the example. They are currently subject to a beef tariff of 12.8% plus a flat tax of €1.4k per tonne. They are being offered a total beef quota of 78k tonnes of beef at a tariff of 7.5%, as long as the beef is hormone-free.
However, Mercosur imports have been MUCH higher in the past. The way you control flows is with technical measures (historically via requiring traceability paperwork, or stipulating permitted hormone or antibiotic regimes). That doesn't necessarily change outside the EU. It's the standard horse trading that occurs in FTAs and it's the reason they take so long to negotiate. Off the top of my head, I'd put quotas on permitted food-miles - that plays to the green lobby, encourages localism and so forth.
Whether we grandfather into existing FTAs on BRexit is a government decision. Laypeople just don't have the competence to decide.
However, while it's complex, it's not rocket science or groundbreaking in anyway.
Root out.
Pakistan into the tail.
My money is on them.
On lobbyists and picking up on our discussion yesterday about the WTO negotiations.
British livestock farmers are protected by quotas operated by the EU, where WTO countries are allowed to export a limited amount of meat and dairy products into the EU at a favourable tariff; any excess is prohibited or taxed at a punitive rate. I am not sure which, but the effect is the same - indigenous farmers can sell their produce outside the quotas without competition.
Britain will no longer be party to these quotas when it leaves the EU. The questions are whether the EU agrees to the UK sharing its quotas, whether third party WTO countries agree to quotas with Britain and whether EU farmers are allowed under WTO rules to be outside quotas that apply to other WTO states.
We can argue about how likely the quotas are to disappear, but given there is a possibility of this happening I am interested in the politics of it. Would the government say to farmers,live with it, it's the way we are doing things now? I presume a large number of livestock farmers will be wiped out if they have to face unrestricted imports. Rural Conservative MPs will certainly get their ear bent by these farmers - what are you doing about this? Will they think, actually I am less bothered about freedom of movement. We don't get a lot of immigration in Backofbeyondshire?
Add in lobbyists for the finance companies that largely fund the Conservative Party and are worried about the City being able doing business with the EU. Lobbyists for chemical companies that also benefit from the single market and EU quotas; for pharma companies worried about certification etc.
It's all getting to be very hard work.
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It may be hard for you to imagine, but there are other ways of organising farm support other than the CAP.
For instance, the way we did it from WWII to 1973.
And lots of other models.
We choose which model we like most, and we implement it over a period of years.
Scary for people used to being told what to do from outside, I grant you. Perhaps less so for others.
And yes, it will be hard work. All things worth doing generally are.
https://twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/status/760791362140647425
Mr. 43
To be honest I am not unhappy about Civil Servants having to work hard. It is what they are there for.
Now, as to our farmers being protected by the EU, that has only some validity. Consider what had happened to dairy farming in the UK. It has been decimated, not by imports from outside the EU but from inside. Pig farmers here have to maintain higher standards of animal welfare than do their opposite numbers in Denmark and Holland and so are frequently undercut. Then we have the absurd position where, due to EU subsidies distorting the market, we have grade A agricultural land being left fallow for years and years while agribusiness plough up and destroy the high downs to grow non-food crops.
It could be cogently argues that subsidies and quotas actually hurt our farmers, especially those of a one size fits all imposed from Brussels. One could also look at the experience of New Zealand, who dumped agricultural subsidies decades ago and seems to have done OK (they can sell lamb here cheaper than local producers can).
I think we have to work out what we want from our farmers and have policies in place to achieve that. Merely continuing with the current EU regime isn't doing anyone any favours at the moment and will not in the future.
As for the City, I have heard so many scare stories over the years that I have become immune to them. The City firms will try and lobby the government to do what is best for their businesses, it always has and it always will (and I can go back to at least the 14th century on this). The City must from time to time be told to get back in its box and get on with doing business as best it can (which to be fair is usually pretty well) within the structure decided upon by the government.
GSK announced a couple of days ago that they are to open a brand new research facility in the UK so they are obviously not to concerned about the future of pharma outside the EU.
Let's be honest big companies pay out lots of cash to try and influence events for their own advantage and that may not be (in fact quite likely isn't) to the advantage of the people of the UK. When Goldman Sachs is saying the UK should do X, the correct initial response is probably to say we should do Y.
Hampshire Police say they're looking into reports of an attempted abduction of a serviceman in #Aldershot. Listen to @BFBS Radio News at 12.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/36959218?client=ms-android-oneplus