It was never a central strand of Brexit. That is a lie, pure and simple.
OK, it was THE central strand of Brexit
No. It was nothing. It is a fiction of your imagination.
Philip, I have a list and you're forcing me (against my better instincts) to share. It's of the undeniables that you deny and the untenables that you tenab. Highlights as below (I've left a few out) -
Priti Patel is a social liberal. Boris Johnson did not break his promise for no border in the Irish Sea. Boris Johnson did not send a letter to the EU requesting an extension. The Brexit vote was not one iota about reducing immigration. The level of government debt does not matter if the Cons are in power. Boris Johnson looks like Daniel Craig.
This is a bit worrying. Do I have to make a Data Access Request to see your list on me?
Do I even want to??
No, it's nothing creepy. I'm just fascinated by people and things stick in my mind.
Like, let's see - with you - 'shoes' is what springs to mind. You have done more posts on shoes than any other poster.
I was assisted by Plato. Since her demise, I rarely do shoe posts these days....
Ah OK. Before my time on here, she was. Sadly died, I understand, at not such a great age.
I could try to chat to you about shoes but you'd soon suss me out as a fake.
Dishwashers (down from 2.7%) Freezers (down from 2.5%) Sanitary products and tampons (down from 6.3%) Paints (down from 6.5%) and screwdrivers (down from 2.7%) Mirrors (down from 4%) Scissors and garden shears (down from 4.7%) Padlocks (down from 2.7%) Cooking products such as baking powder (down from 6.1%), yeast (down from 12%), bay leaves (down from 7%), ground thyme (down from 8.5%) and cocoa powder (down from 8%) Christmas trees (down from 2.5%)
Most of these are easily within the range of currency fluctuation, and of course apply to the delivered cost, not the retail price - so anyone who think's they're going to get fiver off their £200 dishwasher is in for a disappointment. I wish people would stop fetishising "trade deals" and focus more on educating a work force "to make the stuff the world actually wants".
This seems an odd step. As you say these tariffs are not particularly an inhibition to trade but they will certainly be an inhibition to a free trade agreement with the EU. They cannot have a situation where goods that should bear such tariffs can be imported tariff free to the UK and then have free access to the EU. It therefore seems to be a ploy to make a FTA with the EU more difficult at a time when the negotiations are already struggling. Unhelpful.
Quite the opposite - it will make a prompt deal more attractive.
"But tariffs will remain on UK-produced cars - at 10% - and on agricultural products including lamb, beef and butter at their current levels, following concerns that these industries could be decimated by Brexit.
These new tariffs will be applied to trade with any country with which the UK has not negotiated a trade deal by the time the transition period ends on 31 December."
Don't understand the reference to UK-produced cars. If that is supposed to be non UK produced cars we are presumably saying that would apply to EU cars in the absence of a trade deal?
Its badly phrased, whoever wrote that but I understand what they were trying to say.
What they're trying to say is that goods we don't produce (dishwashers etc) are going to be permitted tariff-free, but goods we produce ourselves like cars will see tariffs for that sector.
So we are discouraging the manufacture of dishwashers in this country. Why? We urgently need import substitution to reduce our trade deficit.
Ive been saying that for years
You have indeed. And you are right. We cannot restrict our production to what we produce now. Bluntly, we just don't produce nearly enough to pay for our current standard of living.
I too like the idea of more self-sufficiency. But I'm not sure replacing cheap imports with expensive homegrown goods leads to a sustainable rise in our living standards.
Everything is a matter of degree but for the last 20 years these "cheap imports" have caused us to run a serious trade deficit with the result that we have switched from a creditor nation receiving more income from abroad than repatriated profits to a debtor nation where other countries own more and more of our assets and charge us rent for their use. In the longer term this will diminish the standard of living in this country. Indeed, it already has. So the true cost of "cheap imports" is much higher than it appears.
If we were finding better things to do than make these imports and were able to sell our skills abroad it would not matter. I don't have a particular fetish about manufacturing. But the sad truth is we don't, not by a long way. So we either accept a falling standard of living or we do something about it. Import substitution is one obvious way to address the problem but we need to improve investment, reduce consumption, improve training, education, productivity and our attitude towards engineers and applied scientists. Governments of all shades have failed to address this since the 70s. It is increasingly urgent.
I do agree with much of what you say here. But classic trade theory says that if things are made where it is cheapest to do so, it leads to an optimum material result for the whole. Of course this neglects incredibly important issues such as wealth distribution and environmental concerns. But that is the theory driving globalization and I believe it is widely accepted to be true. Meaning that if the process is reversed the world will be the (materially) poorer for it. Perhaps we can get richer in a world getting poorer, as opposed to (as now) getting poorer in one getting richer - talking relative rather than absolute - but my sense is it will be a big ask.
There is also the issue of financial incentive to create large-scale manufacturing businesses in the UK now. If people did not invest when we were an integral part of a market of 450 milion, what will drive them to do it when we are a much smaller market of 65 million?
Not fussed either way personally Not outraged like FBPE sorts who have had 4 years to get round the fact it was happening. I suppose most people are just happy when a government delivers on promises.
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
Every year in the EU we lost "freedoms" as new regulations came in too.
The language is pretty poorly chosen, some would say almost embarrassingly so... OK
But the point not quite made is that the EU restricted immigration of non-EU citizens, and Britain can now choose to not do that, so we can have immigrants from all over as we see fit. And we can of course still choose to have immigration from the EU if we want.
I'm a fan of free movement actually. But that can't be true because as a Brexit voter apparently I am definitely a massive racist. Also thick as mince.
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
Every year in the EU we lost "freedoms" as new regulations came in too.
Aren't immigrants usually foreigners, Richard? Let's see if the examples you give work if we swap the two words.
Oh look, they do.
No, this is wrong.
To take an illustration I've used before, suppose a nice Swedish family come and live in a small English village. They would be welcomed. There would be no anti-Swedish sentiment. But if 100 Swedish families buy up half the houses in the village, the school starts teaching in Swedish, the pub gives up on English beer and ham, egg and chips, and instead serves only vodka and Smörgåsbord, then the locals would not unreasonably feel that their community is no longer recognisable, and resent it. They might even start hating the Swedish incomers themselves, although it's important to realise that that is a secondary effect.
There is nothing xenophobic or intolerant about this; it's perfectly reasonable. And whilst my example is artificial, it's not really very different to the impact of incoming EU workers in some specific towns and areas,
Failure to admit this perfectly natural and unobjectionable sentiment, and equating it with 'racism', is a big mistake - one of the mistakes which led to the disaster of Brexit.
No No No. The only possible thing is to shout "Racist" at the locals louder. Eventually they will suddenly embrace your beliefs on the matter. Just keep getting louder.....
Aren't immigrants usually foreigners, Richard? Let's see if the examples you give work if we swap the two words.
Oh look, they do.
No, this is wrong.
To take an illustration I've used before, suppose a nice Swedish family come and live in a small English village. They would be welcomed. There would be no anti-Swedish sentiment. But if 100 Swedish families buy up half the houses in the village, the school starts teaching in Swedish, the pub gives up on English beer and ham, egg and chips, and instead serves only vodka and Smörgåsbord, then the locals would not unreasonably feel that their community is no longer recognisable, and resent it. They might even start hating the Swedish incomers themselves, although it's important to realise that that is a secondary effect.
There is nothing xenophobic or intolerant about this; it's perfectly reasonable. And whilst my example is artificial, it's not really very different to the impact of incoming EU workers in some specific towns and areas,
Failure to admit this perfectly natural and unobjectionable sentiment, and equating it with 'racism', is a big mistake - one of the mistakes which led to the disaster of Brexit.
It's a stupid example and unlike you to cite it.
Because at the moment the main population centres are a) the ones with the most immigrants; and b) the ones most strongly remain. For the vast majority of other places we are still at the one nice Swedish family, if that.
Perhaps isolated places there was a preponderance - some Lincs towns perhaps. But what did that mean? A couple more Polish supermarkets? Really? That's it? And for that we throw out the baby?
The language is pretty poorly chosen, some would say almost embarrassingly so... OK
But the point not quite made is that the EU restricted immigration of non-EU citizens, and Britain can now choose to not do that, so we can have immigrants from all over as we see fit. And we can of course still choose to have immigration from the EU if we want.
I'm a fan of free movement actually. But that can't be true because as a Brexit voter apparently I am definitely a massive racist. Also thick as mince.
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
Every year in the EU we lost "freedoms" as new regulations came in too.
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
That's a shame. But we'll enjoy more in other areas.
The language is pretty poorly chosen, some would say almost embarrassingly so... OK
But the point not quite made is that the EU restricted immigration of non-EU citizens, and Britain can now choose to not do that, so we can have immigrants from all over as we see fit. And we can of course still choose to have immigration from the EU if we want.
I'm a fan of free movement actually. But that can't be true because as a Brexit voter apparently I am definitely a massive racist. Also thick as mince.
There was never any EU rule telling the UK that it had to restrict immigration from non-EU countries.
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
Every year in the EU we lost "freedoms" as new regulations came in too.
Win some lose some.
You, of course, are losing no freedoms.
Arguable.
But I don't worry too much about the theoretical ones. Brexit was largely an exercise in the people who ran the country in their own interest getting a vote of no confidence from the rest.
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
That's a shame. But we'll enjoy more in other areas.
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
Every year in the EU we lost "freedoms" as new regulations came in too.
Win some lose some.
You, of course, are losing no freedoms.
Arguable.
But I don't worry too much about the theoretical ones. Brexit was largely an exercise in the people who ran the country in their own interest getting a vote of no confidence from the rest.
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
If those freedoms were so important, why have many more Brits gone to other Anglophone countries than the EU? Where they had no automatic right of entry and faced immigration controls. Also by orders of magnitude the largest single EU country for expat Brits is Spain - where many are pensioners. The "lure of the EU" has been wonderful in theory but minor in practice.
The language is pretty poorly chosen, some would say almost embarrassingly so... OK
But the point not quite made is that the EU restricted immigration of non-EU citizens, and Britain can now choose to not do that, so we can have immigrants from all over as we see fit. And we can of course still choose to have immigration from the EU if we want.
I'm a fan of free movement actually. But that can't be true because as a Brexit voter apparently I am definitely a massive racist. Also thick as mince.
There was never any EU rule telling the UK that it had to restrict immigration from non-EU countries.
No, but assuming immigration is finite, free movement from the EU necessarily restricts immigration from elsewhere. Only if you have a compile free-for-all does it make no difference
Dishwashers (down from 2.7%) Freezers (down from 2.5%) Sanitary products and tampons (down from 6.3%) Paints (down from 6.5%) and screwdrivers (down from 2.7%) Mirrors (down from 4%) Scissors and garden shears (down from 4.7%) Padlocks (down from 2.7%) Cooking products such as baking powder (down from 6.1%), yeast (down from 12%), bay leaves (down from 7%), ground thyme (down from 8.5%) and cocoa powder (down from 8%) Christmas trees (down from 2.5%)
Most of these are easily within the range of currency fluctuation, and of course apply to the delivered cost, not the retail price - so anyone who think's they're going to get fiver off their £200 dishwasher is in for a disappointment. I wish people would stop fetishising "trade deals" and focus more on educating a work force "to make the stuff the world actually wants".
This seems an odd step. As you say these tariffs are not particularly an inhibition to trade but they will certainly be an inhibition to a free trade agreement with the EU. They cannot have a situation where goods that should bear such tariffs can be imported tariff free to the UK and then have free access to the EU. It therefore seems to be a ploy to make a FTA with the EU more difficult at a time when the negotiations are already struggling. Unhelpful.
Quite the opposite - it will make a prompt deal more attractive.
"But tariffs will remain on UK-produced cars - at 10% - and on agricultural products including lamb, beef and butter at their current levels, following concerns that these industries could be decimated by Brexit.
These new tariffs will be applied to trade with any country with which the UK has not negotiated a trade deal by the time the transition period ends on 31 December."
Don't understand the reference to UK-produced cars. If that is supposed to be non UK produced cars we are presumably saying that would apply to EU cars in the absence of a trade deal?
Its badly phrased, whoever wrote that but I understand what they were trying to say.
What they're trying to say is that goods we don't produce (dishwashers etc) are going to be permitted tariff-free, but goods we produce ourselves like cars will see tariffs for that sector.
So we are discouraging the manufacture of dishwashers in this country. Why? We urgently need import substitution to reduce our trade deficit.
Ive been saying that for years
You have indeed. And you are right. We cannot restrict our production to what we produce now. Bluntly, we just don't produce nearly enough to pay for our current standard of living.
I too like the idea of more self-sufficiency. But I'm not sure replacing cheap imports with expensive homegrown goods leads to a sustainable rise in our living standards.
Everything is a matter of degree but for the last 20 years these "cheap imports" have caused us to run a serious trade deficit with the result that we have switched from a creditor nation receiving more income from abroad than repatriated profits to a debtor nation where other countries own more and more of our assets and charge us rent for their use. In the longer term this will diminish the standard of living in this country. Indeed, it already has. So the true cost of "cheap imports" is much higher than it appears.
If we were finding better things to do than make these imports and were able to sell our skills abroad it would not matter. I don't have a particular fetish about manufacturing. But the sad truth is we don't, not by a long way. So we either accept a falling standard of living or we do something about it. Import substitution is one obvious way to address the problem but we need to improve investment, reduce consumption, improve training, education, productivity and our attitude towards engineers and applied scientists. Governments of all shades have failed to address this since the 70s. It is increasingly urgent.
I do agree with much of what you say here. But classic trade theory says that if things are made where it is cheapest to do so, it leads to an optimum material result for the whole. Of course this neglects incredibly important issues such as wealth distribution and environmental concerns. But that is the theory driving globalization and I believe it is widely accepted to be true. Meaning that if the process is reversed the world will be the (materially) poorer for it. Perhaps we can get richer in a world getting poorer, as opposed to (as now) getting poorer in one getting richer - talking relative rather than absolute - but my sense is it will be a big ask.
As I have said before free trade and the laws of comparative advantage worked very well for us when we were the machine shop of the world. When China has that title it may not work as well. Sure, overall, over 1m Chinese have been lifted out of poverty but this is not necessarily good for us or indeed western liberal values.
The second legend is that tariff driven beggar my neighbour policies caused the great depression in the early 1930s. It certainly didn't help although tariffs were much higher then but there were many more important causes. Domestic monetary policy (particularly in the US) and adherence to the gold standard caused much bigger problems.
I do think that we need to rethink some of this. I accept that this involves careful consideration of who our true friends are and that Brexit was not necessarily consistent with that.
Free trade and competitive advantage should benefit all parties, not just one, according to Ricardian economics.
The issue isn't competitive advantage, its that we've gone decades now without reaching an equilibrium. Under competitive advantage we should specialise in what we're relatively good at and export that - but the problem is we're importing lots and what are we specialising in to balance those imports?
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
That's a shame. But we'll enjoy more in other areas.
Festivals of Brexit and new 50ps? Though I daresay the former is very much on the backburner to the point of being consumed by flames.
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
That's a shame. But we'll enjoy more in other areas.
On freedom of movement, or not - let's get real here. The Gov't has shown it's completely either unable or unwilling to track anyone entering or exiting the country even when there might have been a really good reason to do so. Nothing whatsoever to do with the EU. Frankly, and I can only speak for myself immigration numbers don't concern me - the recording of such statistics and tracking who, and for what reason people are entering and exiting the country does. And that's not just with the onset of COVID-19, it's good housekeeping that we should have implemented long ago perhaps just for the possibility of another resurgence of swine flu, Hong Kong flu or as it turned out COVID-19 as well as monitoring for potential terrorist threats and whatnot. But the Gov't is either unable or unwilling. A shambles even before the whole pandemic mess started. Take back control ? Laughable.
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
That's a shame. But we'll enjoy more in other areas.
Name 10, from any future year of your choice.
The freedom to elect a government to shape our laws. The freedom to eject a government that shapes laws we dislike. The freedom to elect a government to spend money on what we want it to do so. The freedom to eject a government that spends our money on things we dislike. The freedom to elect a government to raise taxes on what we want it to raise. The freedom to eject a government that raises taxes on that which we didn't want it to do so. The freedom to elect a government to lower taxes on what we want it to lower taxes on. The freedom to eject a government that lowers taxes on that which we didn't want it to do so. The freedom to elect a government that sets migration policy that we approve of. The freedom to eject a government that sets migration policy that we disapprove of.
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
If those freedoms were so important, why have many more Brits gone to other Anglophone countries than the EU? Where they had no automatic right of entry and faced immigration controls. Also by orders of magnitude the largest single EU country for expat Brits is Spain - where many are pensioners. The "lure of the EU" has been wonderful in theory but minor in practice.
There are plenty of rights I have not used that I consider to be very important. There are also penty of ways that freedom of movement is used that do not involve permanent emigration. We will be finding out a lot more about these in the near future when people suddenly discover they can no longer do things they used to take for granted.
Dishwashers (down from 2.7%) Freezers (down from 2.5%) Sanitary products and tampons (down from 6.3%) Paints (down from 6.5%) and screwdrivers (down from 2.7%) Mirrors (down from 4%) Scissors and garden shears (down from 4.7%) Padlocks (down from 2.7%) Cooking products such as baking powder (down from 6.1%), yeast (down from 12%), bay leaves (down from 7%), ground thyme (down from 8.5%) and cocoa powder (down from 8%) Christmas trees (down from 2.5%)
Most of these are easily within the range of currency fluctuation, and of course apply to the delivered cost, not the retail price - so anyone who think's they're going to get fiver off their £200 dishwasher is in for a disappointment. I wish people would stop fetishising "trade deals" and focus more on educating a work force "to make the stuff the world actually wants".
This seems an odd step. As you say these tariffs are not particularly an inhibition to trade but they will certainly be an inhibition to a free trade agreement with the EU. They cannot have a situation where goods that should bear such tariffs can be imported tariff free to the UK and then have free access to the EU. It therefore seems to be a ploy to make a FTA with the EU more difficult at a time when the negotiations are already struggling. Unhelpful.
Quite the opposite - it will make a prompt deal more attractive.
"But tariffs will remain on UK-produced cars - at 10% - and on agricultural products including lamb, beef and butter at their current levels, following concerns that these industries could be decimated by Brexit.
These new tariffs will be applied to trade with any country with which the UK has not negotiated a trade deal by the time the transition period ends on 31 December."
Don't understand the reference to UK-produced cars. If that is supposed to be non UK produced cars we are presumably saying that would apply to EU cars in the absence of a trade deal?
Its badly phrased, whoever wrote that but I understand what they were trying to say.
What they're trying to say is that goods we don't produce (dishwashers etc) are going to be permitted tariff-free, but goods we produce ourselves like cars will see tariffs for that sector.
So we are discouraging the manufacture of dishwashers in this country. Why? We urgently need import substitution to reduce our trade deficit.
Ive been saying that for years
You have indeed. And you are right. We cannot restrict our production to what we produce now. Bluntly, we just don't produce nearly enough to pay for our current standard of living.
I too like the idea of more self-sufficiency. But I'm not sure replacing cheap imports with expensive homegrown goods leads to a sustainable rise in our living standards.
Everything is a matter of degree but for the last 20 years these "cheap imports" have caused us to run a serious trade deficit with the result that we have switched from a creditor nation receiving more income from abroad than repatriated profits to a debtor nation where other countries own more and more of our assets and charge us rent for their use. In the longer term this will diminish the standard of living in this country. Indeed, it already has. So the true cost of "cheap imports" is much higher than it appears.
If we were finding better things to do than make these imports and were able to sell our skills abroad it would not matter. I don't have a particular fetish about manufacturing. But the sad truth is we don't, not by a long way. So we either accept a falling standard of living or we do something about it. Import substitution is one obvious way to address the problem but we need to improve investment, reduce consumption, improve training, education, productivity and our attitude towards engineers and applied scientists. Governments of all shades have failed to address this since the 70s. It is increasingly urgent.
I do agree with much of what you say here. But classic trade theory says that if things are made where it is cheapest to do so, it leads to an optimum material result for the whole. Of course this neglects incredibly important issues such as wealth distribution and environmental concerns. But that is the theory driving globalization and I believe it is widely accepted to be true. Meaning that if the process is reversed the world will be the (materially) poorer for it. Perhaps we can get richer in a world getting poorer, as opposed to (as now) getting poorer in one getting richer - talking relative rather than absolute - but my sense is it will be a big ask.
Where's the benefit in making Jeff Bezos richer and Hartlepool poorer ? Free trade works for the benefit of the local hegemon. We lost that position 100 years ago. Now it's questionable if it is in our interest.
Globalization has reduced the gap between "us and them" in global terms (good IMO) but increased the gap between rich and poor in the west (bad IMO). Conundrum.
In general I'd like to see more focus on how wealth is distributed and less on how it's made. I think the distribution issue is the more interesting and challenging.
The language is pretty poorly chosen, some would say almost embarrassingly so... OK
But the point not quite made is that the EU restricted immigration of non-EU citizens, and Britain can now choose to not do that, so we can have immigrants from all over as we see fit. And we can of course still choose to have immigration from the EU if we want.
I'm a fan of free movement actually. But that can't be true because as a Brexit voter apparently I am definitely a massive racist. Also thick as mince.
There was never any EU rule telling the UK that it had to restrict immigration from non-EU countries.
No, but assuming immigration is finite, free movement from the EU necessarily restricts immigration from elsewhere. Only if you have a compile free-for-all does it make no difference
Especially if, as Remainers like Cameron and May wanted to do, you're trying to restrict net migration to "tens of thousands". That necessarily entails restricting overly harshly on the rest of the world.
Thankfully this Vote Leave government of ours dropped that asinine pledge as soon as they took over. Our government is less anti-immigration than Cameron's was in numerical terms.
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
That's a shame. But we'll enjoy more in other areas.
Name 10, from any future year of your choice.
The freedom to elect a government to shape our laws. The freedom to eject a government that shapes laws we dislike. The freedom to elect a government to spend money on what we want it to do so. The freedom to eject a government that spends our money on things we dislike. The freedom to elect a government to raise taxes on what we want it to raise. The freedom to eject a government that raises taxes on that which we didn't want it to do so. The freedom to elect a government to lower taxes on what we want it to lower taxes on. The freedom to eject a government that lowers taxes on that which we didn't want it to do so. The freedom to elect a government that sets migration policy that we approve of. The freedom to eject a government that sets migration policy that we disapprove of.
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
That's a shame. But we'll enjoy more in other areas.
Not as individual citizens or businesses.
Yes as individuals. There is no freedom more important for an individual than the freedom to elect those who set your laws. Or the freedom to replace those who do it badly and get it reversed which is just as important and forgotten about by pro-Europeans.
The language is pretty poorly chosen, some would say almost embarrassingly so... OK
But the point not quite made is that the EU restricted immigration of non-EU citizens, and Britain can now choose to not do that, so we can have immigrants from all over as we see fit. And we can of course still choose to have immigration from the EU if we want.
I'm a fan of free movement actually. But that can't be true because as a Brexit voter apparently I am definitely a massive racist. Also thick as mince.
There was never any EU rule telling the UK that it had to restrict immigration from non-EU countries.
No, but assuming immigration is finite, free movement from the EU necessarily restricts immigration from elsewhere. Only if you have a compile free-for-all does it make no difference
Yes, but free movement inside the EU also gave UK citizens plenty of rights and opportunities. Given that we are very unlikely to be significantly cutting the overall number of immigrants all that we are doing (and it is happening already) is upping the number of immigrants from outside Europe with no reciprocal upside for Brits. I am also puzzled why we did not want non-EU engineers, doctors and the like coming here before. That makes no sense to me.
Would that the same could be said of some of those replying....
That's John Smith's daughter isn't it?
yes , elite and entitled sent up to support the Raj
Sent up? Her father was a Scottish advocate who lived all his life in Scotland before becoming a politician. She would presumably have been brought up here.
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
That's a shame. But we'll enjoy more in other areas.
Not as individual citizens or businesses.
Yes as individuals. There is no freedom more important for an individual than the freedom to elect those who set your laws. Or the freedom to replace those who do it badly and get it reversed which is just as important and forgotten about by pro-Europeans.
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
Every year in the EU we lost "freedoms" as new regulations came in too.
Win some lose some.
Name 10, from any year of your choice.
Fish your own waters, control your won borders, reduce VAT rates to suit yourself, CE marking, control social security, public procurement, set international tariffs, legal jurisdiction, cross border taxation, straight bananas.
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
That's a shame. But we'll enjoy more in other areas.
Name 10, from any future year of your choice.
The freedom to elect a government to shape our laws. The freedom to eject a government that shapes laws we dislike. The freedom to elect a government to spend money on what we want it to do so. The freedom to eject a government that spends our money on things we dislike. The freedom to elect a government to raise taxes on what we want it to raise. The freedom to eject a government that raises taxes on that which we didn't want it to do so. The freedom to elect a government to lower taxes on what we want it to lower taxes on. The freedom to eject a government that lowers taxes on that which we didn't want it to do so. The freedom to elect a government that sets migration policy that we approve of. The freedom to eject a government that sets migration policy that we disapprove of.
There you go. Ten.
All based on the false principle that the UK hasn't been electing governments of its own for its entire democratic history - since 1832 if you like, 1928 may be more realistic, 1973 if you want to inlcude local elections in the whole of the UK - up until today and including the whole period of UK membership of the EU.
All of them are subjective at best as is the case in any representative democracy of any large size, especially one with FPTP. No one feels them taken, no one feels them given. Brexit makes the country poorer, less influential and will harm the people of the UK. None of your Political Science extemporising will change that.
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
Every year in the EU we lost "freedoms" as new regulations came in too.
Win some lose some.
You, of course, are losing no freedoms.
Arguable.
But I don't worry too much about the theoretical ones. Brexit was largely an exercise in the people who ran the country in their own interest getting a vote of no confidence from the rest.
And yet the same people are still in charge.
of course but their freedom of movement is now restricted and the next generation will change the terms of argument.
The language is pretty poorly chosen, some would say almost embarrassingly so... OK
But the point not quite made is that the EU restricted immigration of non-EU citizens, and Britain can now choose to not do that, so we can have immigrants from all over as we see fit. And we can of course still choose to have immigration from the EU if we want.
I'm a fan of free movement actually. But that can't be true because as a Brexit voter apparently I am definitely a massive racist. Also thick as mince.
There was never any EU rule telling the UK that it had to restrict immigration from non-EU countries.
No, but assuming immigration is finite, free movement from the EU necessarily restricts immigration from elsewhere. Only if you have a compile free-for-all does it make no difference
Yes, but free movement inside the EU also gave UK citizens plenty of rights and opportunities. Given that we are very unlikely to be significantly cutting the overall number of immigrants all that we are doing (and it is happening already) is upping the number of immigrants from outside Europe with no reciprocal upside for Brits. I am also puzzled why we did not want non-EU engineers, doctors and the like coming here before. That makes no sense to me.
If we are getting the best and brightest regardless of origin and overall numbers don't change, but some EU migrants get replaced with non-EU migrants, then that simply means that we have replaced some migrants with better and brighter migrants doesn't it?
It was bonkers we were putting such restrictions on non-EU migrants but it was the inevitable consequences of combining the asinine policy of seeking tens of thousands of migrants, with free movement from Europe.
Thankfully along with Theresa May the asinine tens of thousands pledge of hers (and Cameron's sadly) has gone.
I was a big fan of Cameron but his permitting Theresa May to be in the Home Office, not sacking her after the Go Home vans and the tens of thousands pledge are a mark of shame on Cameron's legacy. Our government now is more liberal than Cameron's was.
I mean there are a zillion surveys about this but you want me to find Michael Gove saying "we hate foreigners"?
Your denial about the role anti-foreigner sentiment played in Brexit would be touching. In a five-year old. But in a grown man able on his own to log in to PB? Scary.
The curious thing about this argument is that reducing the excessive level of immigration into the UK was in fact the only positive and respectable argument the Leave campaign had.
(Mind you, that's not necessarily the same as 'anti-foreigner sentiment', so on that point @Philip_Thompson is partly right).
"Immigration" was critical as an issue motivating the leave vote.
People can of course call it what they want but "anti-foreigner sentiment" I think encapsulates it well enough.
Immigration was an issue.
"Ending immigration" was not.
LOL x2.
That depends on what your definition of the word is is.
I think the definition of "ending" is quite clear but if you have some newfangled definition that makes "ending immigration" consistent with "we can have a strong and robust immigration system that lets the brightest and the best in from around the world and treats people more fairly" then I'd love to hear it.
Please explain how you reconcile "we can have a strong and robust immigration system that lets the brightest and the best in from around the world and treats people more fairly" with "ending immigration".
In my eyes "ending immigration" would be a system that does not let the brightest and the best in from around the world, but if you have a different definition please explain it.
"In your eyes" - of course. Because you are not a racist.
What do you think those people who cited "immigration" as their primary reason for voting Leave thought about immigration?
I don't care about them.
I care about the politicians who would have to implement it and the rights or wrongs of the decision. That's why quoting the politicians is what matters. Politicians who want to let in the best and brightest is a good thing.
That why the first lot were Romanian fruit pickers then
Dishwashers (down from 2.7%) Freezers (down from 2.5%) Sanitary products and tampons (down from 6.3%) Paints (down from 6.5%) and screwdrivers (down from 2.7%) Mirrors (down from 4%) Scissors and garden shears (down from 4.7%) Padlocks (down from 2.7%) Cooking products such as baking powder (down from 6.1%), yeast (down from 12%), bay leaves (down from 7%), ground thyme (down from 8.5%) and cocoa powder (down from 8%) Christmas trees (down from 2.5%)
Most of these are easily within the range of currency fluctuation, and of course apply to the delivered cost, not the retail price - so anyone who think's they're going to get fiver off their £200 dishwasher is in for a disappointment. I wish people would stop fetishising "trade deals" and focus more on educating a work force "to make the stuff the world actually wants".
This seems an odd step. As you say these tariffs are not particularly an inhibition to trade but they will certainly be an inhibition to a free trade agreement with the EU. They cannot have a situation where goods that should bear such tariffs can be imported tariff free to the UK and then have free access to the EU. It therefore seems to be a ploy to make a FTA with the EU more difficult at a time when the negotiations are already struggling. Unhelpful.
Quite the opposite - it will make a prompt deal more attractive.
"But tariffs will remain on UK-produced cars - at 10% - and on agricultural products including lamb, beef and butter at their current levels, following concerns that these industries could be decimated by Brexit.
These new tariffs will be applied to trade with any country with which the UK has not negotiated a trade deal by the time the transition period ends on 31 December."
Don't understand the reference to UK-produced cars. If that is supposed to be non UK produced cars we are presumably saying that would apply to EU cars in the absence of a trade deal?
Its badly phrased, whoever wrote that but I understand what they were trying to say.
What they're trying to say is that goods we don't produce (dishwashers etc) are going to be permitted tariff-free, but goods we produce ourselves like cars will see tariffs for that sector.
So we are discouraging the manufacture of dishwashers in this country. Why? We urgently need import substitution to reduce our trade deficit.
Ive been saying that for years
You have indeed. And you are right. We cannot restrict our production to what we produce now. Bluntly, we just don't produce nearly enough to pay for our current standard of living.
I too like the idea of more self-sufficiency. But I'm not sure replacing cheap imports with expensive homegrown goods leads to a sustainable rise in our living standards.
Everything is a matter of degree but for the last 20 years these "cheap imports" have caused us to run a serious trade deficit with the result that we have switched from a creditor nation receiving more income from abroad than repatriated profits to a debtor nation where other countries own more and more of our assets and charge us rent for their use. In the longer term this will diminish the standard of living in this country. Indeed, it already has. So the true cost of "cheap imports" is much higher than it appears.
If we were finding better things to do than make these imports and were able to sell our skills abroad it would not matter. I don't have a particular fetish about manufacturing. But the sad truth is we don't, not by a long way. So we either accept a falling standard of living or we do something about it. Import substitution is one obvious way to address the problem but we need to improve investment, reduce consumption, improve training, education, productivity and our attitude towards engineers and applied scientists. Governments of all shades have failed to address this since the 70s. It is increasingly urgent.
I do agree with much of what you say here. But classic trade theory says that if things are made where it is cheapest to do so, it leads to an optimum material result for the whole. Of course this neglects incredibly important issues such as wealth distribution and environmental concerns. But that is the theory driving globalization and I believe it is widely accepted to be true. Meaning that if the process is reversed the world will be the (materially) poorer for it. Perhaps we can get richer in a world getting poorer, as opposed to (as now) getting poorer in one getting richer - talking relative rather than absolute - but my sense is it will be a big ask.
Where's the benefit in making Jeff Bezos richer and Hartlepool poorer ? Free trade works for the benefit of the local hegemon. We lost that position 100 years ago. Now it's questionable if it is in our interest.
Globalization has reduced the gap between "us and them" in global terms (good IMO) but increased the gap between rich and poor in the west (bad IMO). Conundrum.
In general I'd like to see more focus on how wealth is distributed and less on how it's made. I think the distribution issue is the more interesting and challenging.
I agree, but currently the politicians are still fighting the last war. I suspect the shakeout from corona virus will force them to think the unthinkable.
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
That's a shame. But we'll enjoy more in other areas.
Not as individual citizens or businesses.
Yes as individuals. There is no freedom more important for an individual than the freedom to elect those who set your laws. Or the freedom to replace those who do it badly and get it reversed which is just as important and forgotten about by pro-Europeans.
I already do both those things.
Who did you elect who could eg abolish VAT on tampons?
On freedom of movement, or not - let's get real here. The Gov't has shown it's completely either unable or unwilling to track anyone entering or exiting the country even when there might have been a really good reason to do so. Nothing whatsoever to do with the EU. Frankly, and I can only speak for myself immigration numbers don't concern me - the recording of such statistics and tracking who, and for what reason people are entering and exiting the country does. And that's not just with the onset of COVID-19, it's good housekeeping that we should have implemented long ago perhaps just for the possibility of another resurgence of swine flu, Hong Kong flu or as it turned out COVID-19 as well as monitoring for potential terrorist threats and whatnot. But the Gov't is either unable or unwilling. A shambles even before the whole pandemic mess started. Take back control ? Laughable.
Back when we were talking about Brexit on PB, rather than RNA viruses, I queried the lack of proposed immigration controls on the Irish border ensuing if we Brexited. Ignoring for the moment that the Good Friday Agreemnet was the original reason for this, it seemed daft.
I pointed out the illogicality given that increased controls over immigrants were a central plank of their policy and motivation for their voters. So what was the point of controls at Dover or Heathrow if you don't have them near Dundalk and Derry? Or Stranraer? Anyone can get a plane to Dublin and the bus to Belfast ...
I was howled down for asking a stupid question, but nobody said why they though it was stupid.l persisted in demanding an explanation, and to his/her credit one of them gave it.
It turned out (I paraphrase slightly) that the Tories/Brexiters on PB had long accepted that their UK Government was pish at border controls and wasn't even even trying - the solution was simply to keep shovelling the immigrants out of the country with the hostile environment policy.
Of course this is completely useless when you are dealing with Covid-19 and whatnot, as you say.
I think we are seeing exactly the same mentality when it comes to airport controls and quarantines ...
Would that the same could be said of some of those replying....
That's John Smith's daughter isn't it?
yes , elite and entitled sent up to support the Raj
Sent up? Her father was a Scottish advocate who lived all his life in Scotland before becoming a politician. She would presumably have been brought up here.
Born in Edinburgh, went to Glasgow University, joined BBC Scotland, posts in Ulster, London, Washington - returned to Edinburgh in 2014.
On freedom of movement, or not - let's get real here. The Gov't has shown it's completely either unable or unwilling to track anyone entering or exiting the country even when there might have been a really good reason to do so. Nothing whatsoever to do with the EU. Frankly, and I can only speak for myself immigration numbers don't concern me - the recording of such statistics and tracking who, and for what reason people are entering and exiting the country does. And that's not just with the onset of COVID-19, it's good housekeeping that we should have implemented long ago perhaps just for the possibility of another resurgence of swine flu, Hong Kong flu or as it turned out COVID-19 as well as monitoring for potential terrorist threats and whatnot. But the Gov't is either unable or unwilling. A shambles even before the whole pandemic mess started. Take back control ? Laughable.
Back when we were talking about Brexit on PB, rather than RNA viruses, I queried the lack of proposed immigration controls on the Irish border ensuing if we Brexited. Ignoring for the moment that the Good Friday Agreemnet was the original reason for this, it seemed daft.
I pointed out the illogicality given that increased controls over immigrants were a central plank of their policy and motivation for their voters. So what was the point of controls at Dover or Heathrow if you don't have them near Dundalk and Derry? Or Stranraer? Anyone can get a plane to Dublin and the bus to Belfast ...
I was howled down for asking a stupid question, but nobody said why they though it was stupid.l persisted in demanding an explanation, and to his/her credit one of them gave it.
It turned out (I paraphrase slightly) that the Tories/Brexiters on PB had long accepted that their UK Government was pish at border controls and wasn't even even trying - the solution was simply to keep shovelling the immigrants out of the country with the hostile environment policy.
Of course this is completely useless when you are dealing with Covid-19 and whatnot, as you say.
I think we are seeing exactly the same mentality when it comes to airport controls and quarantines ...
If you want my answer here it is: You don't control migration at the border.
Aren't immigrants usually foreigners, Richard? Let's see if the examples you give work if we swap the two words.
Oh look, they do.
No, this is wrong.
To take an illustration I've used before, suppose a nice Swedish family come and live in a small English village. They would be welcomed. There would be no anti-Swedish sentiment. But if 100 Swedish families buy up half the houses in the village, the school starts teaching in Swedish, the pub gives up on English beer and ham, egg and chips, and instead serves only vodka and Smörgåsbord, then the locals would not unreasonably feel that their community is no longer recognisable, and resent it. They might even start hating the Swedish incomers themselves, although it's important to realise that that is a secondary effect.
There is nothing xenophobic or intolerant about this; it's perfectly reasonable. And whilst my example is artificial, it's not really very different to the impact of incoming EU workers in some specific towns and areas,
Failure to admit this perfectly natural and unobjectionable sentiment, and equating it with 'racism', is a big mistake - one of the mistakes which led to the disaster of Brexit.
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
That's a shame. But we'll enjoy more in other areas.
Name 10, from any future year of your choice.
The freedom to elect a government to shape our laws. The freedom to eject a government that shapes laws we dislike. The freedom to elect a government to spend money on what we want it to do so. The freedom to eject a government that spends our money on things we dislike. The freedom to elect a government to raise taxes on what we want it to raise. The freedom to eject a government that raises taxes on that which we didn't want it to do so. The freedom to elect a government to lower taxes on what we want it to lower taxes on. The freedom to eject a government that lowers taxes on that which we didn't want it to do so. The freedom to elect a government that sets migration policy that we approve of. The freedom to eject a government that sets migration policy that we disapprove of.
There you go. Ten.
All based on the false principle that the UK hasn't been electing governments of its own for its entire democratic history - since 1832 if you like, 1928 may be more realistic, 1973 if you want to inlcude local elections in the whole of the UK - up until today and including the whole period of UK membership of the EU.
All of them are subjective at best as is the case in any representative democracy of any large size, especially one with FPTP. No one feels them taken, no one feels them given. Brexit makes the country poorer, less influential and will harm the people of the UK. None of your Political Science extemporising will change that.
Being able to control some laws and some taxes, doesn't make us able to democratically control those determined at the EU level.
The language is pretty poorly chosen, some would say almost embarrassingly so... OK
But the point not quite made is that the EU restricted immigration of non-EU citizens, and Britain can now choose to not do that, so we can have immigrants from all over as we see fit. And we can of course still choose to have immigration from the EU if we want.
I'm a fan of free movement actually. But that can't be true because as a Brexit voter apparently I am definitely a massive racist. Also thick as mince.
There was never any EU rule telling the UK that it had to restrict immigration from non-EU countries.
No, but assuming immigration is finite, free movement from the EU necessarily restricts immigration from elsewhere. Only if you have a compile free-for-all does it make no difference
Yes, but free movement inside the EU also gave UK citizens plenty of rights and opportunities. Given that we are very unlikely to be significantly cutting the overall number of immigrants all that we are doing (and it is happening already) is upping the number of immigrants from outside Europe with no reciprocal upside for Brits. I am also puzzled why we did not want non-EU engineers, doctors and the like coming here before. That makes no sense to me.
I was a big fan of Cameron but his permitting Theresa May to be in the Home Office, not sacking her after the Go Home vans and the tens of thousands pledge
The "tens of thousands" pledge was Cameron's. May's fault lies in not challenging it.
Failure to admit this perfectly natural and unobjectionable sentiment, and equating it with 'racism', is a big mistake - one of the mistakes which led to the disaster of Brexit.
I seem to recall though that in polling those most exercised by this phenomena and most inclined to vote for Brexit as a result were from places where this happened the least...
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
Every year in the EU we lost "freedoms" as new regulations came in too.
Win some lose some.
Yes, one the one hand, I can no longer go and live in France or retire to Spain. But I am no longer enslaved by the EU directive governing the use of pallets in the building sector. Freedom! (Note to Brexiteers, I am being sarcastic. You have stolen my European birthright and that of my children, and you will feel my wrath until the day you die).
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
Every year in the EU we lost "freedoms" as new regulations came in too.
Win some lose some.
Name 10, from any year of your choice.
Fish your own waters, control your won borders, reduce VAT rates to suit yourself, CE marking, control social security, public procurement, set international tariffs, legal jurisdiction, cross border taxation, straight bananas.
Fish your own waters: the UK government (of its own volition) sold the rights to EU fisherman with no mechanism for taking the licences back. The EU fishermen now have loans from UK banks secured against the rights so there is no means of recovering them without cuasing commerical harm. But it can be done whether a member or not. Will the UK have the same sway to do so as an ex-member as it would have had as a contributing member - thats a good question?
UK VAT rates differ to the UK in absolute terms and by product and service - it sounds like they can be set to suit the UK.
CE Marking is an international standard: UK manufactuers will keep it even after Brexit to sell into that market. Member or not the UK has to play by the rules.
What does control Social Security mean? The UK uses NI, in Germany they have insurance companies for example, can you point me to the EU directive harmonising this?
The UK today published a set of international tarrifs copy and pasted from the ones already used by the EU. Also as a member of the EU council the UK had the right to infuence the rates of the entire continent. Now it will be a rule taker from the trade deal it signs or from the WHO - which one is better?
What does legal jurisdiction mean? The UK has different laws to the rest of the EU, can you point me to the EU directive harmonising this?
What does cross border taxation mean? The UK is missing the right to lay claim to all income earned by UK citizens as the US does?
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
Every year in the EU we lost "freedoms" as new regulations came in too.
Win some lose some.
Name 10, from any year of your choice.
Fish your own waters, control your won borders, reduce VAT rates to suit yourself, CE marking, control social security, public procurement, set international tariffs, legal jurisdiction, cross border taxation, straight bananas.
Fish your own waters: the UK government (of its own volition) sold the rights to EU fisherman with no mechanism for taking the licences back. The EU fishermen now have loans from UK banks secured against the rights so there is no means of recovering them without cuasing commerical harm. But it can be done whether a member or not. Will the UK have the same sway to do so as an ex-member as it would have had as a contributing member - thats a good question?
UK VAT rates differ to the UK in absolute terms and by product and service - it sounds like they can be set to suit the UK.
CE Marking is an international standard: UK manufactuers will keep it even after Brexit to sell into that market. Member or not the UK has to play by the rules.
What does control Social Security mean? The UK uses NI, in Germany they have insurance companies for example, can you point me to the EU directive harmonising this?
The UK today published a set of international tarrifs copy and pasted from the ones already used by the EU. Also as a member of the EU council the UK had the right to infuence the rates of the entire continent. Now it will be a rule taker from the trade deal it signs or from the WHO - which one is better?
What does legal jurisdiction mean? The UK has different laws to the rest of the EU, can you point me to the EU directive harmonising this?
What does cross border taxation mean? The UK is missing the right to lay claim to all income earned by UK citizens as the US does?
Straight bananas - try and stay serious.
EDIT - That should be WTO not WHO - I have them on the brain.
On freedom of movement, or not - let's get real here. The Gov't has shown it's completely either unable or unwilling to track anyone entering or exiting the country even when there might have been a really good reason to do so. Nothing whatsoever to do with the EU. Frankly, and I can only speak for myself immigration numbers don't concern me - the recording of such statistics and tracking who, and for what reason people are entering and exiting the country does. And that's not just with the onset of COVID-19, it's good housekeeping that we should have implemented long ago perhaps just for the possibility of another resurgence of swine flu, Hong Kong flu or as it turned out COVID-19 as well as monitoring for potential terrorist threats and whatnot. But the Gov't is either unable or unwilling. A shambles even before the whole pandemic mess started. Take back control ? Laughable.
Back when we were talking about Brexit on PB, rather than RNA viruses, I queried the lack of proposed immigration controls on the Irish border ensuing if we Brexited. Ignoring for the moment that the Good Friday Agreemnet was the original reason for this, it seemed daft.
I pointed out the illogicality given that increased controls over immigrants were a central plank of their policy and motivation for their voters. So what was the point of controls at Dover or Heathrow if you don't have them near Dundalk and Derry? Or Stranraer? Anyone can get a plane to Dublin and the bus to Belfast ...
I was howled down for asking a stupid question, but nobody said why they though it was stupid.l persisted in demanding an explanation, and to his/her credit one of them gave it.
It turned out (I paraphrase slightly) that the Tories/Brexiters on PB had long accepted that their UK Government was pish at border controls and wasn't even even trying - the solution was simply to keep shovelling the immigrants out of the country with the hostile environment policy.
Of course this is completely useless when you are dealing with Covid-19 and whatnot, as you say.
I think we are seeing exactly the same mentality when it comes to airport controls and quarantines ...
If you want my answer here it is: You don't control migration at the border.
No better place to actually COUNT & RECORD it though ?!
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
Every year in the EU we lost "freedoms" as new regulations came in too.
Win some lose some.
You, of course, are losing no freedoms.
Arguable.
But I don't worry too much about the theoretical ones. Brexit was largely an exercise in the people who ran the country in their own interest getting a vote of no confidence from the rest.
And them replacing them with another group of people who run the country in their own interest. Seems an awful lot of effort for an illusory result.
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
Every year in the EU we lost "freedoms" as new regulations came in too.
Win some lose some.
Name 10, from any year of your choice.
Fish your own waters, control your won borders, reduce VAT rates to suit yourself, CE marking, control social security, public procurement, set international tariffs, legal jurisdiction, cross border taxation, straight bananas.
Straight bananas - try and stay serious.
Welcome - you may want to check the batteries in your irony meter....
The language is pretty poorly chosen, some would say almost embarrassingly so... OK
But the point not quite made is that the EU restricted immigration of non-EU citizens, and Britain can now choose to not do that, so we can have immigrants from all over as we see fit. And we can of course still choose to have immigration from the EU if we want.
I'm a fan of free movement actually. But that can't be true because as a Brexit voter apparently I am definitely a massive racist. Also thick as mince.
There was never any EU rule telling the UK that it had to restrict immigration from non-EU countries.
No, but assuming immigration is finite, free movement from the EU necessarily restricts immigration from elsewhere. Only if you have a compile free-for-all does it make no difference
Yes, but free movement inside the EU also gave UK citizens plenty of rights and opportunities. Given that we are very unlikely to be significantly cutting the overall number of immigrants all that we are doing (and it is happening already) is upping the number of immigrants from outside Europe with no reciprocal upside for Brits. I am also puzzled why we did not want non-EU engineers, doctors and the like coming here before. That makes no sense to me.
I was a big fan of Cameron but his permitting Theresa May to be in the Home Office, not sacking her after the Go Home vans and the tens of thousands pledge
The "tens of thousands" pledge was Cameron's. May's fault lies in not challenging it.
I agree it was Cameron's, it was wrong and I opposed it all along.
May's faults are much greater than not challenging it and didn't she keep it after she replaced Cameron? It was Boris with Home Secretary Patel who dropped the insane tens of pledge.
May's sending Go Home vans into minority areas was simply disgusting and I'm curious to see @Scott_xP or @TheScreamingEagles or anyone else who backed Cameron's government but opposes this one to defend it.
Failure to admit this perfectly natural and unobjectionable sentiment, and equating it with 'racism', is a big mistake - one of the mistakes which led to the disaster of Brexit.
I seem to recall though that in polling those most exercised by this phenomena and most inclined to vote for Brexit as a result were from places where this happened the least...
Strangely, on speaking to the people in question, their concern was to avoid what had happened at nearby localities.
On freedom of movement, or not - let's get real here. The Gov't has shown it's completely either unable or unwilling to track anyone entering or exiting the country even when there might have been a really good reason to do so. Nothing whatsoever to do with the EU. Frankly, and I can only speak for myself immigration numbers don't concern me - the recording of such statistics and tracking who, and for what reason people are entering and exiting the country does. And that's not just with the onset of COVID-19, it's good housekeeping that we should have implemented long ago perhaps just for the possibility of another resurgence of swine flu, Hong Kong flu or as it turned out COVID-19 as well as monitoring for potential terrorist threats and whatnot. But the Gov't is either unable or unwilling. A shambles even before the whole pandemic mess started. Take back control ? Laughable.
Back when we were talking about Brexit on PB, rather than RNA viruses, I queried the lack of proposed immigration controls on the Irish border ensuing if we Brexited. Ignoring for the moment that the Good Friday Agreemnet was the original reason for this, it seemed daft.
I pointed out the illogicality given that increased controls over immigrants were a central plank of their policy and motivation for their voters. So what was the point of controls at Dover or Heathrow if you don't have them near Dundalk and Derry? Or Stranraer? Anyone can get a plane to Dublin and the bus to Belfast ...
I was howled down for asking a stupid question, but nobody said why they though it was stupid.l persisted in demanding an explanation, and to his/her credit one of them gave it.
It turned out (I paraphrase slightly) that the Tories/Brexiters on PB had long accepted that their UK Government was pish at border controls and wasn't even even trying - the solution was simply to keep shovelling the immigrants out of the country with the hostile environment policy.
Of course this is completely useless when you are dealing with Covid-19 and whatnot, as you say.
I think we are seeing exactly the same mentality when it comes to airport controls and quarantines ...
If you want my answer here it is: You don't control migration at the border.
No better place to actually COUNT & RECORD it though ?!
No better place to count and record it than the Northern Ireland border?
I can't think of a worse place to count and record it than there.
Sunak and Patel's ratings make sense. Johnson's enduring popularity is just a mystery to me - I assume it's some kind of weird English class thing. But why are Raab and Hancock still holding up? They've hardly covered themselves in glory the last few weeks. Hancock's just an empty suit, and Raab looks kind of sweaty and anxious every time he appears in public.
Not a particular fan but I dont mind Hancock, he has done reasonably.
As for why Raab is holding up I think its the comparables. He is rubbish but clearly better than Shapps, Sharma, Patel, Jenrick who in turn are clearly better than Williamson.
Shapps might be more competent than people think. Judging people on appearances is unfair but people do it, and Shapps looks about 12. He's effectively stiffed Khan on TfL which, I fear, will be bad for passengers but it does show a certain political nous. While discussing shallow appearances, I fear Patel's shortness does not help her, and have written before about how the box for the lectern infantilises her.
I'd say its about time TFL had some reasonable cost control applied. It's been in a perfect position to bloat over 20 years, and it is time for reality to be asserted.
For a start £75-80k on average for Tube Drivers still cannot be justified. They aren't all needed in a properly run network, and they are significantly overpaid.
Sunak and Patel's ratings make sense. Johnson's enduring popularity is just a mystery to me - I assume it's some kind of weird English class thing. But why are Raab and Hancock still holding up? They've hardly covered themselves in glory the last few weeks. Hancock's just an empty suit, and Raab looks kind of sweaty and anxious every time he appears in public.
Not a particular fan but I dont mind Hancock, he has done reasonably.
As for why Raab is holding up I think its the comparables. He is rubbish but clearly better than Shapps, Sharma, Patel, Jenrick who in turn are clearly better than Williamson.
Shapps might be more competent than people think. Judging people on appearances is unfair but people do it, and Shapps looks about 12. He's effectively stiffed Khan on TfL which, I fear, will be bad for passengers but it does show a certain political nous. While discussing shallow appearances, I fear Patel's shortness does not help her, and have written before about how the box for the lectern infantilises her.
I'd say its about time TFL had some reasonable cost control applied. It's been in a perfect position to bloat over 20 years, and it is time for reality to be asserted.
For a start £75-80k on average for Tube Drivers still cannot be justified. They aren't all needed in a properly run network, and they are significantly overpaid.
I've not seen a justification for not making the trains driverless.
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
Every year in the EU we lost "freedoms" as new regulations came in too.
Win some lose some.
Yes, one the one hand, I can no longer go and live in France or retire to Spain. But I am no longer enslaved by the EU directive governing the use of pallets in the building sector. Freedom! (Note to Brexiteers, I am being sarcastic. You have stolen my European birthright and that of my children, and you will feel my wrath until the day you die).
Damn! I was just about to applaud you for the very valid point about pallets in the building sector, and now you say you weren't being serious.
How very typical of the meterosexual, Westminster-bubble, Twitterati, Islington/Hampstead vegan-type "thinkers" to patronise ordinary working people and devalue the very real concerns of patriotic British builders about this issue.
On freedom of movement, or not - let's get real here. The Gov't has shown it's completely either unable or unwilling to track anyone entering or exiting the country even when there might have been a really good reason to do so. Nothing whatsoever to do with the EU. Frankly, and I can only speak for myself immigration numbers don't concern me - the recording of such statistics and tracking who, and for what reason people are entering and exiting the country does. And that's not just with the onset of COVID-19, it's good housekeeping that we should have implemented long ago perhaps just for the possibility of another resurgence of swine flu, Hong Kong flu or as it turned out COVID-19 as well as monitoring for potential terrorist threats and whatnot. But the Gov't is either unable or unwilling. A shambles even before the whole pandemic mess started. Take back control ? Laughable.
Back when we were talking about Brexit on PB, rather than RNA viruses, I queried the lack of proposed immigration controls on the Irish border ensuing if we Brexited. Ignoring for the moment that the Good Friday Agreemnet was the original reason for this, it seemed daft.
I pointed out the illogicality given that increased controls over immigrants were a central plank of their policy and motivation for their voters. So what was the point of controls at Dover or Heathrow if you don't have them near Dundalk and Derry? Or Stranraer? Anyone can get a plane to Dublin and the bus to Belfast ...
I was howled down for asking a stupid question, but nobody said why they though it was stupid.l persisted in demanding an explanation, and to his/her credit one of them gave it.
It turned out (I paraphrase slightly) that the Tories/Brexiters on PB had long accepted that their UK Government was pish at border controls and wasn't even even trying - the solution was simply to keep shovelling the immigrants out of the country with the hostile environment policy.
Of course this is completely useless when you are dealing with Covid-19 and whatnot, as you say.
I think we are seeing exactly the same mentality when it comes to airport controls and quarantines ...
If you want my answer here it is: You don't control migration at the border.
No better place to actually COUNT & RECORD it though ?!
Exactly. And you would catch at least some of those trying to break the rules, whatsoever these rules might be.
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
Every year in the EU we lost "freedoms" as new regulations came in too.
Win some lose some.
Name 10, from any year of your choice.
Fish your own waters, control your won borders, reduce VAT rates to suit yourself, CE marking, control social security, public procurement, set international tariffs, legal jurisdiction, cross border taxation, straight bananas.
Straight bananas - try and stay serious.
Welcome - you may want to check the batteries in your irony meter....
Haha - I thought my response was reasonably flippant. In any case: I did ask for 10!
Dishwashers (down from 2.7%) Freezers (down from 2.5%) Sanitary products and tampons (down from 6.3%) Paints (down from 6.5%) and screwdrivers (down from 2.7%) Mirrors (down from 4%) Scissors and garden shears (down from 4.7%) Padlocks (down from 2.7%) Cooking products such as baking powder (down from 6.1%), yeast (down from 12%), bay leaves (down from 7%), ground thyme (down from 8.5%) and cocoa powder (down from 8%) Christmas trees (down from 2.5%)
Most of these are easily within the range of currency fluctuation, and of course apply to the delivered cost, not the retail price - so anyone who think's they're going to get fiver off their £200 dishwasher is in for a disappointment. I wish people would stop fetishising "trade deals" and focus more on educating a work force "to make the stuff the world actually wants".
This seems an odd step. As you say these tariffs are not particularly an inhibition to trade but they will certainly be an inhibition to a free trade agreement with the EU. They cannot have a situation where goods that should bear such tariffs can be imported tariff free to the UK and then have free access to the EU. It therefore seems to be a ploy to make a FTA with the EU more difficult at a time when the negotiations are already struggling. Unhelpful.
Quite the opposite - it will make a prompt deal more attractive.
"But tariffs will remain on UK-produced cars - at 10% - and on agricultural products including lamb, beef and butter at their current levels, following concerns that these industries could be decimated by Brexit.
These new tariffs will be applied to trade with any country with which the UK has not negotiated a trade deal by the time the transition period ends on 31 December."
Don't understand the reference to UK-produced cars. If that is supposed to be non UK produced cars we are presumably saying that would apply to EU cars in the absence of a trade deal?
Its badly phrased, whoever wrote that but I understand what they were trying to say.
What they're trying to say is that goods we don't produce (dishwashers etc) are going to be permitted tariff-free, but goods we produce ourselves like cars will see tariffs for that sector.
So we are discouraging the manufacture of dishwashers in this country. Why? We urgently need import substitution to reduce our trade deficit.
Ive been saying that for years
You have indeed. And you are right. We cannot restrict our production to what we produce now. Bluntly, we just don't produce nearly enough to pay for our current standard of living.
I too like the idea of more self-sufficiency. But I'm not sure replacing cheap imports with expensive homegrown goods leads to a sustainable rise in our living standards.
Everything is a matter of degree but for the last 20 years these "cheap imports" have caused us to run a serious trade deficit with the result that we have switched from a creditor nation receiving more income from abroad than repatriated profits to a debtor nation where other countries own more and more of our assets and charge us rent for their use. In the longer term this will diminish the standard of living in this country. Indeed, it already has. So the true cost of "cheap imports" is much higher than it appears.
If we were finding better things to do than make these imports and were able to sell our skills abroad it would not matter. I don't have a particular fetish about manufacturing. But the sad truth is we don't, not by a long way. So we either accept a falling standard of living or we do something about it. Import substitution is one obvious way to address the problem but we need to improve investment, reduce consumption, improve training, education, productivity and our attitude towards engineers and applied scientists. Governments of all shades have failed to address this since the 70s. It is increasingly urgent.
I do agree with much of what you say here. But classic trade theory says that if things are made where it is cheapest to do so, it leads to an optimum material result for the whole. Of course this neglects incredibly important issues such as wealth distribution and environmental concerns. But that is the theory driving globalization and I believe it is widely accepted to be true. Meaning that if the process is reversed the world will be the (materially) poorer for it. Perhaps we can get richer in a world getting poorer, as opposed to (as now) getting poorer in one getting richer - talking relative rather than absolute - but my sense is it will be a big ask.
As I have said before free trade and the laws of comparative advantage worked very well for us when we were the machine shop of the world. When China has that title it may not work as well. Sure, overall, over 1m Chinese have been lifted out of poverty but this is not necessarily good for us or indeed western liberal values.
The second legend is that tariff driven beggar my neighbour policies caused the great depression in the early 1930s. It certainly didn't help although tariffs were much higher then but there were many more important causes. Domestic monetary policy (particularly in the US) and adherence to the gold standard caused much bigger problems.
I do think that we need to rethink some of this. I accept that this involves careful consideration of who our true friends are and that Brexit was not necessarily consistent with that.
Typo, I think. One billion Chinese. But, yes, at a cost to us. Or to some of us at least. Others here have benefited greatly. Have enough people here benefited? Have many of those outside privileged locations and sectors benefited? No and no. I totally get that. Part of Brexit. Misguided, IMO, but the more PC side of the argument for it.
Re last para, when "Trump's America" reverts on Nov 4th to "America" it will hopefully become a little clearer how in general we should align. Right now, when I look at China and the US, I feel like one of Orwell's creatures looking from man to pig, and from pig to man ...
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
Every year in the EU we lost "freedoms" as new regulations came in too.
Win some lose some.
Yes, one the one hand, I can no longer go and live in France or retire to Spain. But I am no longer enslaved by the EU directive governing the use of pallets in the building sector. Freedom! (Note to Brexiteers, I am being sarcastic. You have stolen my European birthright and that of my children, and you will feel my wrath until the day you die).
People lived and retired in France and Spain before we joined the EU. Non EU nationals stills do.
On freedom of movement, or not - let's get real here. The Gov't has shown it's completely either unable or unwilling to track anyone entering or exiting the country even when there might have been a really good reason to do so. Nothing whatsoever to do with the EU. Frankly, and I can only speak for myself immigration numbers don't concern me - the recording of such statistics and tracking who, and for what reason people are entering and exiting the country does. And that's not just with the onset of COVID-19, it's good housekeeping that we should have implemented long ago perhaps just for the possibility of another resurgence of swine flu, Hong Kong flu or as it turned out COVID-19 as well as monitoring for potential terrorist threats and whatnot. But the Gov't is either unable or unwilling. A shambles even before the whole pandemic mess started. Take back control ? Laughable.
Back when we were talking about Brexit on PB, rather than RNA viruses, I queried the lack of proposed immigration controls on the Irish border ensuing if we Brexited. Ignoring for the moment that the Good Friday Agreemnet was the original reason for this, it seemed daft.
I pointed out the illogicality given that increased controls over immigrants were a central plank of their policy and motivation for their voters. So what was the point of controls at Dover or Heathrow if you don't have them near Dundalk and Derry? Or Stranraer? Anyone can get a plane to Dublin and the bus to Belfast ...
I was howled down for asking a stupid question, but nobody said why they though it was stupid.l persisted in demanding an explanation, and to his/her credit one of them gave it.
It turned out (I paraphrase slightly) that the Tories/Brexiters on PB had long accepted that their UK Government was pish at border controls and wasn't even even trying - the solution was simply to keep shovelling the immigrants out of the country with the hostile environment policy.
Of course this is completely useless when you are dealing with Covid-19 and whatnot, as you say.
I think we are seeing exactly the same mentality when it comes to airport controls and quarantines ...
If you want my answer here it is: You don't control migration at the border.
No better place to actually COUNT & RECORD it though ?!
No better place to count and record it than the Northern Ireland border?
I can't think of a worse place to count and record it than there.
So? Your lot were the ones worried about immigration, and now you tell me you can't even count them, never mind even try to stop them. And you knew asll about the Irish Border. Or should have. It was always blindingly obvious, even to me 2 full years before the vote.
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
Every year in the EU we lost "freedoms" as new regulations came in too.
Win some lose some.
You, of course, are losing no freedoms.
Arguable.
But I don't worry too much about the theoretical ones. Brexit was largely an exercise in the people who ran the country in their own interest getting a vote of no confidence from the rest.
And them replacing them with another group of people who run the country in their own interest. Seems an awful lot of effort for an illusory result.
Replacing the people who run the country has never produced Nirvana. Indeed, the main reason for replacing them is changing to a different set of selfish interests for a bit.
You could say that the big advantage of democracy is that we can have a revolution, have the revolution betrayed, have another revolution etc every 5 years or so. Without the civil war, death squads and other annoying features of revolutions.
On freedom of movement, or not - let's get real here. The Gov't has shown it's completely either unable or unwilling to track anyone entering or exiting the country even when there might have been a really good reason to do so. Nothing whatsoever to do with the EU. Frankly, and I can only speak for myself immigration numbers don't concern me - the recording of such statistics and tracking who, and for what reason people are entering and exiting the country does. And that's not just with the onset of COVID-19, it's good housekeeping that we should have implemented long ago perhaps just for the possibility of another resurgence of swine flu, Hong Kong flu or as it turned out COVID-19 as well as monitoring for potential terrorist threats and whatnot. But the Gov't is either unable or unwilling. A shambles even before the whole pandemic mess started. Take back control ? Laughable.
Back when we were talking about Brexit on PB, rather than RNA viruses, I queried the lack of proposed immigration controls on the Irish border ensuing if we Brexited. Ignoring for the moment that the Good Friday Agreemnet was the original reason for this, it seemed daft.
I pointed out the illogicality given that increased controls over immigrants were a central plank of their policy and motivation for their voters. So what was the point of controls at Dover or Heathrow if you don't have them near Dundalk and Derry? Or Stranraer? Anyone can get a plane to Dublin and the bus to Belfast ...
I was howled down for asking a stupid question, but nobody said why they though it was stupid.l persisted in demanding an explanation, and to his/her credit one of them gave it.
It turned out (I paraphrase slightly) that the Tories/Brexiters on PB had long accepted that their UK Government was pish at border controls and wasn't even even trying - the solution was simply to keep shovelling the immigrants out of the country with the hostile environment policy.
Of course this is completely useless when you are dealing with Covid-19 and whatnot, as you say.
I think we are seeing exactly the same mentality when it comes to airport controls and quarantines ...
If you want my answer here it is: You don't control migration at the border.
No better place to actually COUNT & RECORD it though ?!
Exactly. And you would catch at least some of those trying to break the rules, whatsoever these rules might be.
Failure to admit this perfectly natural and unobjectionable sentiment, and equating it with 'racism', is a big mistake - one of the mistakes which led to the disaster of Brexit.
I seem to recall though that in polling those most exercised by this phenomena and most inclined to vote for Brexit as a result were from places where this happened the least...
Didn't Lincolnshire have one of the highest leave votes as well as being well known for low skilled immigration on a large scale? What about parts of the home counties with high leave votes where people had moved out of London in the past 20 years?
Ultimately those Brits that moan the most are the ones that EU countries probably wouldn't want anyway who live in their ex pat bubbles and offer no new skills. If you have something to offer then you'll have no problem getting job offers within the EU.
On freedom of movement, or not - let's get real here. The Gov't has shown it's completely either unable or unwilling to track anyone entering or exiting the country even when there might have been a really good reason to do so. Nothing whatsoever to do with the EU. Frankly, and I can only speak for myself immigration numbers don't concern me - the recording of such statistics and tracking who, and for what reason people are entering and exiting the country does. And that's not just with the onset of COVID-19, it's good housekeeping that we should have implemented long ago perhaps just for the possibility of another resurgence of swine flu, Hong Kong flu or as it turned out COVID-19 as well as monitoring for potential terrorist threats and whatnot. But the Gov't is either unable or unwilling. A shambles even before the whole pandemic mess started. Take back control ? Laughable.
Back when we were talking about Brexit on PB, rather than RNA viruses, I queried the lack of proposed immigration controls on the Irish border ensuing if we Brexited. Ignoring for the moment that the Good Friday Agreemnet was the original reason for this, it seemed daft.
I pointed out the illogicality given that increased controls over immigrants were a central plank of their policy and motivation for their voters. So what was the point of controls at Dover or Heathrow if you don't have them near Dundalk and Derry? Or Stranraer? Anyone can get a plane to Dublin and the bus to Belfast ...
I was howled down for asking a stupid question, but nobody said why they though it was stupid.l persisted in demanding an explanation, and to his/her credit one of them gave it.
It turned out (I paraphrase slightly) that the Tories/Brexiters on PB had long accepted that their UK Government was pish at border controls and wasn't even even trying - the solution was simply to keep shovelling the immigrants out of the country with the hostile environment policy.
Of course this is completely useless when you are dealing with Covid-19 and whatnot, as you say.
I think we are seeing exactly the same mentality when it comes to airport controls and quarantines ...
If you want my answer here it is: You don't control migration at the border.
No better place to actually COUNT & RECORD it though ?!
No better place to count and record it than the Northern Ireland border?
I can't think of a worse place to count and record it than there.
So? Your lot were the ones worried about immigration, and now you tell me you can't even count them, never mind even try to stop them. And you knew asll about the Irish Border. Or should have. It was always blindingly obvious, even to me 2 full years before the vote.
Absolutely we can't count them at the border. There was never any intention to do so.
There was never any intention to control migration at the border, nor should there be. Migration isn't controlled at the border.
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
Every year in the EU we lost "freedoms" as new regulations came in too.
Win some lose some.
You, of course, are losing no freedoms.
Arguable.
But I don't worry too much about the theoretical ones. Brexit was largely an exercise in the people who ran the country in their own interest getting a vote of no confidence from the rest.
And them replacing them with another group of people who run the country in their own interest. Seems an awful lot of effort for an illusory result.
Then you should avoid politics. The same bunch of people increasingly run things, that's one of the major problems the UK is facing.
Aren't immigrants usually foreigners, Richard? Let's see if the examples you give work if we swap the two words.
Oh look, they do.
No, this is wrong.
To take an illustration I've used before, suppose a nice Swedish family come and live in a small English village. They would be welcomed. There would be no anti-Swedish sentiment. But if 100 Swedish families buy up half the houses in the village, the school starts teaching in Swedish, the pub gives up on English beer and ham, egg and chips, and instead serves only vodka and Smörgåsbord, then the locals would not unreasonably feel that their community is no longer recognisable, and resent it. They might even start hating the Swedish incomers themselves, although it's important to realise that that is a secondary effect.
There is nothing xenophobic or intolerant about this; it's perfectly reasonable. And whilst my example is artificial, it's not really very different to the impact of incoming EU workers in some specific towns and areas,
Failure to admit this perfectly natural and unobjectionable sentiment, and equating it with 'racism', is a big mistake - one of the mistakes which led to the disaster of Brexit.
An excellent illustration. It's the difference between the existing culture being enhanced and it being replaced - a distinction that makes all the difference between a happy multifaceted society and one rushing for the Brexit door, and yet the concept is completely lost on some people.
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
That's a shame. But we'll enjoy more in other areas.
Not as individual citizens or businesses.
Yes as individuals. There is no freedom more important for an individual than the freedom to elect those who set your laws. Or the freedom to replace those who do it badly and get it reversed which is just as important and forgotten about by pro-Europeans.
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
That's a shame. But we'll enjoy more in other areas.
Not as individual citizens or businesses.
Yes as individuals. There is no freedom more important for an individual than the freedom to elect those who set your laws. Or the freedom to replace those who do it badly and get it reversed which is just as important and forgotten about by pro-Europeans.
Would that the same could be said of some of those replying....
That's John Smith's daughter isn't it?
yes , elite and entitled sent up to support the Raj
Sent up? Her father was a Scottish advocate who lived all his life in Scotland before becoming a politician. She would presumably have been brought up here.
Born in Edinburgh, went to Glasgow University, joined BBC Scotland, posts in Ulster, London, Washington - returned to Edinburgh in 2014.
Just another establishment unionist up to remind the natives they are just plebs for Westminster. Lady Haw Haw in Scotland working for the State Propaganda Unit and part of the Raj that overlords Scotland.
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
Every year in the EU we lost "freedoms" as new regulations came in too.
Win some lose some.
You, of course, are losing no freedoms.
Arguable.
But I don't worry too much about the theoretical ones. Brexit was largely an exercise in the people who ran the country in their own interest getting a vote of no confidence from the rest.
And them replacing them with another group of people who run the country in their own interest. Seems an awful lot of effort for an illusory result.
Then you should avoid politics. The same bunch of people increasingly run things, that's one of the major problems the UK is facing.
plus ca change etc.
If you believe there was ever much variation in who runs things.....
We have a new Upper 10,000 - just this lot think they are entitled by virtue of... being virtuous.
Unlike the old lot, who thought that they got entitlement from their... titles.
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
That's a shame. But we'll enjoy more in other areas.
Not as individual citizens or businesses.
Yes as individuals. There is no freedom more important for an individual than the freedom to elect those who set your laws. Or the freedom to replace those who do it badly and get it reversed which is just as important and forgotten about by pro-Europeans.
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
Every year in the EU we lost "freedoms" as new regulations came in too.
Win some lose some.
Yes, one the one hand, I can no longer go and live in France or retire to Spain. But I am no longer enslaved by the EU directive governing the use of pallets in the building sector. Freedom! (Note to Brexiteers, I am being sarcastic. You have stolen my European birthright and that of my children, and you will feel my wrath until the day you die).
People lived and retired in France and Spain before we joined the EU. Non EU nationals stills do.
Yawn. I have no interest in fighting the Brexit battles again, you morons have won. You should be out there enjoying your freedoms instead of still trying to convince us that you've not done something stupid. But what you're turning this country into, it's not really my country anymore.
Sunak and Patel's ratings make sense. Johnson's enduring popularity is just a mystery to me - I assume it's some kind of weird English class thing. But why are Raab and Hancock still holding up? They've hardly covered themselves in glory the last few weeks. Hancock's just an empty suit, and Raab looks kind of sweaty and anxious every time he appears in public.
Not a particular fan but I dont mind Hancock, he has done reasonably.
As for why Raab is holding up I think its the comparables. He is rubbish but clearly better than Shapps, Sharma, Patel, Jenrick who in turn are clearly better than Williamson.
Shapps might be more competent than people think. Judging people on appearances is unfair but people do it, and Shapps looks about 12. He's effectively stiffed Khan on TfL which, I fear, will be bad for passengers but it does show a certain political nous. While discussing shallow appearances, I fear Patel's shortness does not help her, and have written before about how the box for the lectern infantilises her.
I'd say its about time TFL had some reasonable cost control applied. It's been in a perfect position to bloat over 20 years, and it is time for reality to be asserted.
For a start £75-80k on average for Tube Drivers still cannot be justified. They aren't all needed in a properly run network, and they are significantly overpaid.
Who cares? There are 4,000 tube drivers on £75k (which btw includes overtime; base salary is £55k) so if you knock off, say, £20k for each driver you will save only £80 million which won't get you onto the Sunday Times Rich List.
Would that the same could be said of some of those replying....
That's John Smith's daughter isn't it?
yes , elite and entitled sent up to support the Raj
Sent up? Her father was a Scottish advocate who lived all his life in Scotland before becoming a politician. She would presumably have been brought up here.
Born in Edinburgh, went to Glasgow University, joined BBC Scotland, posts in Ulster, London, Washington - returned to Edinburgh in 2014.
Just another establishment unionist up to remind the natives they are just plebs for Westminster. Lady Haw Haw in Scotland working for the State Propaganda Unit and part of the Raj that overlords Scotland.
Just curious: how many generations does one's family have to have lived there for, before you accept them as Scottish?
Aren't immigrants usually foreigners, Richard? Let's see if the examples you give work if we swap the two words.
Oh look, they do.
No, this is wrong.
To take an illustration I've used before, suppose a nice Swedish family come and live in a small English village. They would be welcomed. There would be no anti-Swedish sentiment. But if 100 Swedish families buy up half the houses in the village, the school starts teaching in Swedish, the pub gives up on English beer and ham, egg and chips, and instead serves only vodka and Smörgåsbord, then the locals would not unreasonably feel that their community is no longer recognisable, and resent it. They might even start hating the Swedish incomers themselves, although it's important to realise that that is a secondary effect.
There is nothing xenophobic or intolerant about this; it's perfectly reasonable. And whilst my example is artificial, it's not really very different to the impact of incoming EU workers in some specific towns and areas,
Failure to admit this perfectly natural and unobjectionable sentiment, and equating it with 'racism', is a big mistake - one of the mistakes which led to the disaster of Brexit.
An excellent illustration. It's the difference between the existing culture being enhanced and it being replaced - a distinction that makes all the difference between a happy multifaceted society and one rushing for the Brexit door, and yet the concept is completely lost on some people.
But the existing society/culture is ShitEvulBigottedThickScum. And any other society/culture is AwesomeInAllRespects.
If you shout out loud enough the ShitEvulBigottedThickScum will love you for it.
On freedom of movement, or not - let's get real here. The Gov't has shown it's completely either unable or unwilling to track anyone entering or exiting the country even when there might have been a really good reason to do so. Nothing whatsoever to do with the EU. Frankly, and I can only speak for myself immigration numbers don't concern me - the recording of such statistics and tracking who, and for what reason people are entering and exiting the country does. And that's not just with the onset of COVID-19, it's good housekeeping that we should have implemented long ago perhaps just for the possibility of another resurgence of swine flu, Hong Kong flu or as it turned out COVID-19 as well as monitoring for potential terrorist threats and whatnot. But the Gov't is either unable or unwilling. A shambles even before the whole pandemic mess started. Take back control ? Laughable.
Back when we were talking about Brexit on PB, rather than RNA viruses, I queried the lack of proposed immigration controls on the Irish border ensuing if we Brexited. Ignoring for the moment that the Good Friday Agreemnet was the original reason for this, it seemed daft.
I pointed out the illogicality given that increased controls over immigrants were a central plank of their policy and motivation for their voters. So what was the point of controls at Dover or Heathrow if you don't have them near Dundalk and Derry? Or Stranraer? Anyone can get a plane to Dublin and the bus to Belfast ...
I was howled down for asking a stupid question, but nobody said why they though it was stupid.l persisted in demanding an explanation, and to his/her credit one of them gave it.
It turned out (I paraphrase slightly) that the Tories/Brexiters on PB had long accepted that their UK Government was pish at border controls and wasn't even even trying - the solution was simply to keep shovelling the immigrants out of the country with the hostile environment policy.
Of course this is completely useless when you are dealing with Covid-19 and whatnot, as you say.
I think we are seeing exactly the same mentality when it comes to airport controls and quarantines ...
If you want my answer here it is: You don't control migration at the border.
No better place to actually COUNT & RECORD it though ?!
Exactly. And you would catch at least some of those trying to break the rules, whatsoever these rules might be.
At the Northern Ireland land border?
No thanks! Not with a ten foot barge poll.
We can work with Varadkar on that particular one:
Even Ireland itself is treating Northern Ireland differently to the rest of the EU on this one.
Irish Health authorities require anyone entering Ireland from abroad, except Northern Ireland, to either self-quarantine or self-isolate on arrival for 14 days.
Now if Dublin is open to the rest of the world then that might undermine a quarantine strategy we put in place but it's not because the Irish have more sense than our Gov't.
Would that the same could be said of some of those replying....
That's John Smith's daughter isn't it?
yes , elite and entitled sent up to support the Raj
Sent up? Her father was a Scottish advocate who lived all his life in Scotland before becoming a politician. She would presumably have been brought up here.
Just another establishment unionist sent up to sneer at the peasants David.
It was never a central strand of Brexit. That is a lie, pure and simple.
OK, it was THE central strand of Brexit
No. It was nothing. It is a fiction of your imagination.
Philip, I have a list and you're forcing me (against my better instincts) to share. It's of the undeniables that you deny and the untenables that you tenab. Highlights as below (I've left a few out) -
Priti Patel is a social liberal. Boris Johnson did not break his promise for no border in the Irish Sea. Boris Johnson did not send a letter to the EU requesting an extension. The Brexit vote was not one iota about reducing immigration. The level of government debt does not matter if the Cons are in power. Boris Johnson looks like Daniel Craig.
This is a bit worrying. Do I have to make a Data Access Request to see your list on me?
Do I even want to??
No, it's nothing creepy. I'm just fascinated by people and things stick in my mind.
Like, let's see - with you - 'shoes' is what springs to mind. You have done more posts on shoes than any other poster.
I was assisted by Plato. Since her demise, I rarely do shoe posts these days....
Ah OK. Before my time on here, she was. Sadly died, I understand, at not such a great age.
I could try to chat to you about shoes but you'd soon suss me out as a fake.
You should have spent your youth reading Manolo. Made him a 6 figure income.
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
Every year in the EU we lost "freedoms" as new regulations came in too.
Win some lose some.
Name 10, from any year of your choice.
Fish your own waters, control your won borders, reduce VAT rates to suit yourself, CE marking, control social security, public procurement, set international tariffs, legal jurisdiction, cross border taxation, straight bananas.
Fish your own waters: the UK government (of its own volition) sold the rights to EU fisherman with no mechanism for taking the licences back. The EU fishermen now have loans from UK banks secured against the rights so there is no means of recovering them without cuasing commerical harm. But it can be done whether a member or not. Will the UK have the same sway to do so as an ex-member as it would have had as a contributing member - thats a good question?
UK VAT rates differ to the UK in absolute terms and by product and service - it sounds like they can be set to suit the UK.
CE Marking is an international standard: UK manufactuers will keep it even after Brexit to sell into that market. Member or not the UK has to play by the rules.
What does control Social Security mean? The UK uses NI, in Germany they have insurance companies for example, can you point me to the EU directive harmonising this?
The UK today published a set of international tarrifs copy and pasted from the ones already used by the EU. Also as a member of the EU council the UK had the right to infuence the rates of the entire continent. Now it will be a rule taker from the trade deal it signs or from the WHO - which one is better?
What does legal jurisdiction mean? The UK has different laws to the rest of the EU, can you point me to the EU directive harmonising this?
What does cross border taxation mean? The UK is missing the right to lay claim to all income earned by UK citizens as the US does?
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
That's a shame. But we'll enjoy more in other areas.
Not as individual citizens or businesses.
Yes as individuals. There is no freedom more important for an individual than the freedom to elect those who set your laws. Or the freedom to replace those who do it badly and get it reversed which is just as important and forgotten about by pro-Europeans.
When will Scotland be Free.
Were all asking that, it costs us a fortune :-)
Most parts of England are bigger spongers off London's money than Scotland is. And yet we have to come begging to the UK govt to get our money back to fund TfL.
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
Every year in the EU we lost "freedoms" as new regulations came in too.
Win some lose some.
Name 10, from any year of your choice.
Fish your own waters,
That is fucking great. I'll get my stern trawler out this weekend.
On freedom of movement, or not - let's get real here. The Gov't has shown it's completely either unable or unwilling to track anyone entering or exiting the country even when there might have been a really good reason to do so. Nothing whatsoever to do with the EU. Frankly, and I can only speak for myself immigration numbers don't concern me - the recording of such statistics and tracking who, and for what reason people are entering and exiting the country does. And that's not just with the onset of COVID-19, it's good housekeeping that we should have implemented long ago perhaps just for the possibility of another resurgence of swine flu, Hong Kong flu or as it turned out COVID-19 as well as monitoring for potential terrorist threats and whatnot. But the Gov't is either unable or unwilling. A shambles even before the whole pandemic mess started. Take back control ? Laughable.
Back when we were talking about Brexit on PB, rather than RNA viruses, I queried the lack of proposed immigration controls on the Irish border ensuing if we Brexited. Ignoring for the moment that the Good Friday Agreemnet was the original reason for this, it seemed daft.
I pointed out the illogicality given that increased controls over immigrants were a central plank of their policy and motivation for their voters. So what was the point of controls at Dover or Heathrow if you don't have them near Dundalk and Derry? Or Stranraer? Anyone can get a plane to Dublin and the bus to Belfast ...
I was howled down for asking a stupid question, but nobody said why they though it was stupid.l persisted in demanding an explanation, and to his/her credit one of them gave it.
It turned out (I paraphrase slightly) that the Tories/Brexiters on PB had long accepted that their UK Government was pish at border controls and wasn't even even trying - the solution was simply to keep shovelling the immigrants out of the country with the hostile environment policy.
Of course this is completely useless when you are dealing with Covid-19 and whatnot, as you say.
I think we are seeing exactly the same mentality when it comes to airport controls and quarantines ...
If you want my answer here it is: You don't control migration at the border.
No better place to actually COUNT & RECORD it though ?!
Exactly. And you would catch at least some of those trying to break the rules, whatsoever these rules might be.
At the Northern Ireland land border?
No thanks! Not with a ten foot barge poll.
We can work with Varadkar on that particular one:
Even Ireland itself is treating Northern Ireland differently to the rest of the EU on this one.
Irish Health authorities require anyone entering Ireland from abroad, except Northern Ireland, to either self-quarantine or self-isolate on arrival for 14 days.
Now if Dublin is open to the rest of the world then that might undermine a quarantine strategy we put in place but it's not because the Irish have more sense than our Gov't.
I thought we were talking about migration in general in the context of Brexit?
Would that the same could be said of some of those replying....
That's John Smith's daughter isn't it?
yes , elite and entitled sent up to support the Raj
Sent up? Her father was a Scottish advocate who lived all his life in Scotland before becoming a politician. She would presumably have been brought up here.
Just another establishment unionist sent up to sneer at the peasants David.
Celebrating treating people "based on their skills, not where they're from" is a very good thing.
Or would you rather treat people based on where they're from, not their skills?
We are losing freedoms. That is the point. As from 1st January 2021, UK businesses and citizens (who do not hold dual nationality) will enjoy fewer freedoms than they do today.
Every year in the EU we lost "freedoms" as new regulations came in too.
Win some lose some.
You, of course, are losing no freedoms.
Arguable.
But I don't worry too much about the theoretical ones. Brexit was largely an exercise in the people who ran the country in their own interest getting a vote of no confidence from the rest.
And them replacing them with another group of people who run the country in their own interest. Seems an awful lot of effort for an illusory result.
Then you should avoid politics. The same bunch of people increasingly run things, that's one of the major problems the UK is facing.
plus ca change etc.
If you believe there was ever much variation in who runs things.....
We have a new Upper 10,000 - just this lot think they are entitled by virtue of... being virtuous.
Unlike the old lot, who thought that they got entitlement from their... titles.
The English middle classes have swapped Hyancinth Bucket for Harriet Harman
Comments
I could try to chat to you about shoes but you'd soon suss me out as a fake.
Later peeps!
Win some lose some.
But the point not quite made is that the EU restricted immigration of non-EU citizens, and Britain can now choose to not do that, so we can have immigrants from all over as we see fit. And we can of course still choose to have immigration from the EU if we want.
I'm a fan of free movement actually. But that can't be true because as a Brexit voter apparently I am definitely a massive racist. Also thick as mince.
Because at the moment the main population centres are a) the ones with the most immigrants; and b) the ones most strongly remain. For the vast majority of other places we are still at the one nice Swedish family, if that.
Perhaps isolated places there was a preponderance - some Lincs towns perhaps. But what did that mean? A couple more Polish supermarkets? Really? That's it? And for that we throw out the baby?
You sound like this guy:
https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/man-claims-hius-life-being-ruined-by-immigration-but-cant-explain-how-20170227122932
But I don't worry too much about the theoretical ones. Brexit was largely an exercise in the people who ran the country in their own interest getting a vote of no confidence from the rest.
The issue isn't competitive advantage, its that we've gone decades now without reaching an equilibrium. Under competitive advantage we should specialise in what we're relatively good at and export that - but the problem is we're importing lots and what are we specialising in to balance those imports?
Though I daresay the former is very much on the backburner to the point of being consumed by flames.
The Gov't has shown it's completely either unable or unwilling to track anyone entering or exiting the country even when there might have been a really good reason to do so.
Nothing whatsoever to do with the EU.
Frankly, and I can only speak for myself immigration numbers don't concern me - the recording of such statistics and tracking who, and for what reason people are entering and exiting the country does. And that's not just with the onset of COVID-19, it's good housekeeping that we should have implemented long ago perhaps just for the possibility of another resurgence of swine flu, Hong Kong flu or as it turned out COVID-19 as well as monitoring for potential terrorist threats and whatnot.
But the Gov't is either unable or unwilling. A shambles even before the whole pandemic mess started.
Take back control ? Laughable.
The freedom to eject a government that shapes laws we dislike.
The freedom to elect a government to spend money on what we want it to do so.
The freedom to eject a government that spends our money on things we dislike.
The freedom to elect a government to raise taxes on what we want it to raise.
The freedom to eject a government that raises taxes on that which we didn't want it to do so.
The freedom to elect a government to lower taxes on what we want it to lower taxes on.
The freedom to eject a government that lowers taxes on that which we didn't want it to do so.
The freedom to elect a government that sets migration policy that we approve of.
The freedom to eject a government that sets migration policy that we disapprove of.
There you go. Ten.
In general I'd like to see more focus on how wealth is distributed and less on how it's made. I think the distribution issue is the more interesting and challenging.
Thankfully this Vote Leave government of ours dropped that asinine pledge as soon as they took over. Our government is less anti-immigration than Cameron's was in numerical terms.
All of them are subjective at best as is the case in any representative democracy of any large size, especially one with FPTP. No one feels them taken, no one feels them given. Brexit makes the country poorer, less influential and will harm the people of the UK. None of your Political Science extemporising will change that.
Well this is strange. For a while I havent been able to log in through the website, only through Vanilla but now I can. Wierd!
It was bonkers we were putting such restrictions on non-EU migrants but it was the inevitable consequences of combining the asinine policy of seeking tens of thousands of migrants, with free movement from Europe.
Thankfully along with Theresa May the asinine tens of thousands pledge of hers (and Cameron's sadly) has gone.
I was a big fan of Cameron but his permitting Theresa May to be in the Home Office, not sacking her after the Go Home vans and the tens of thousands pledge are a mark of shame on Cameron's legacy. Our government now is more liberal than Cameron's was.
I pointed out the illogicality given that increased controls over immigrants were a central plank of their policy and motivation for their voters. So what was the point of controls at Dover or Heathrow if you don't have them near Dundalk and Derry? Or Stranraer? Anyone can get a plane to Dublin and the bus to Belfast ...
I was howled down for asking a stupid question, but nobody said why they though it was stupid.l persisted in demanding an explanation, and to his/her credit one of them gave it.
It turned out (I paraphrase slightly) that the Tories/Brexiters on PB had long accepted that their UK Government was pish at border controls and wasn't even even trying - the solution was simply to keep shovelling the immigrants out of the country with the hostile environment policy.
Of course this is completely useless when you are dealing with Covid-19 and whatnot, as you say.
I think we are seeing exactly the same mentality when it comes to airport controls and quarantines ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Smith_(news_reporter)
Still, at least I suppose he's not Chinese ...
2 - Depends on the detailed timings.
(3 - Worth a check whether your rent payments are on the arrangement that informs your Credit Rating.)
(Note to Brexiteers, I am being sarcastic. You have stolen my European birthright and that of my children, and you will feel my wrath until the day you die).
UK VAT rates differ to the UK in absolute terms and by product and service - it sounds like they can be set to suit the UK.
CE Marking is an international standard: UK manufactuers will keep it even after Brexit to sell into that market. Member or not the UK has to play by the rules.
What does control Social Security mean? The UK uses NI, in Germany they have insurance companies for example, can you point me to the EU directive harmonising this?
The UK today published a set of international tarrifs copy and pasted from the ones already used by the EU. Also as a member of the EU council the UK had the right to infuence the rates of the entire continent. Now it will be a rule taker from the trade deal it signs or from the WHO - which one is better?
What does legal jurisdiction mean? The UK has different laws to the rest of the EU, can you point me to the EU directive harmonising this?
What does cross border taxation mean? The UK is missing the right to lay claim to all income earned by UK citizens as the US does?
Straight bananas - try and stay serious.
Seems an awful lot of effort for an illusory result.
May's faults are much greater than not challenging it and didn't she keep it after she replaced Cameron? It was Boris with Home Secretary Patel who dropped the insane tens of pledge.
May's sending Go Home vans into minority areas was simply disgusting and I'm curious to see @Scott_xP or @TheScreamingEagles or anyone else who backed Cameron's government but opposes this one to defend it.
England is in collective suspended disbelief.
I can't think of a worse place to count and record it than there.
For a start £75-80k on average for Tube Drivers still cannot be justified. They aren't all needed in a properly run network, and they are significantly overpaid.
How very typical of the meterosexual, Westminster-bubble, Twitterati, Islington/Hampstead vegan-type "thinkers" to patronise ordinary working people and devalue the very real concerns of patriotic British builders about this issue.
Re last para, when "Trump's America" reverts on Nov 4th to "America" it will hopefully become a little clearer how in general we should align. Right now, when I look at China and the US, I feel like one of Orwell's creatures looking from man to pig, and from pig to man ...
You could say that the big advantage of democracy is that we can have a revolution, have the revolution betrayed, have another revolution etc every 5 years or so. Without the civil war, death squads and other annoying features of revolutions.
No thanks! Not with a ten foot barge poll.
Ultimately those Brits that moan the most are the ones that EU countries probably wouldn't want anyway who live in their ex pat bubbles and offer no new skills. If you have something to offer then you'll have no problem getting job offers within the EU.
There was never any intention to control migration at the border, nor should there be. Migration isn't controlled at the border.
plus ca change etc.
https://twitter.com/Govgg/status/1262691971170291712?s=20
We have a new Upper 10,000 - just this lot think they are entitled by virtue of... being virtuous.
Unlike the old lot, who thought that they got entitlement from their... titles.
But, bloody hell, the Romani had better stay away.
Or is it an ethnicity thing?
If you shout out loud enough the ShitEvulBigottedThickScum will love you for it.
Even Ireland itself is treating Northern Ireland differently to the rest of the EU on this one.
Irish Health authorities require anyone entering Ireland from abroad, except Northern Ireland, to either self-quarantine or self-isolate on arrival for 14 days.
Now if Dublin is open to the rest of the world then that might undermine a quarantine strategy we put in place but it's not because the Irish have more sense than our Gov't.
https://www.wendybrandes.com/blog/2016/09/fond-memories-of-manolo-the-shoeblogger/
You lost.
Yes we should cooperate with the Irish.