Brexit watch

Are you really trying to suggest that there have been no difficult changes since the vote to leave and that things will be as if sprinkled by Disney wonder dust in the future?
I don't think that, I never said that, I just said that it was interesting to hear a different viewpoint - if you read many posts they are all doom and gloom.

Actually I am quite resentful at the tone of some of the posts in response to my reply to Washerwoman, to whom my post was addressed.

It has happened, it is not what many of us wanted, but we just have to get on with it, like it or not.

No slap on the wrist from me Washerwoman. What some people fail to understand is that brexiters have a plan, and that plan is to trade with the world and get the best deals we can without eu interference.
Where as the Eu are going down the swanny at a fast rate and the powers that be are running around like headless chickens.
Can you imagine what they are going to do next year if Marine la penne gets in next year, it will be hilarious watching from the sidelines.

Well, I will say that a lot of money which came from the EU (ultimately from us, the British taxpayer and generously given back to us) was mis-managed and went to people who did not really need it but were 'in the know'.
I know this from the horse's mouth from someone who fought this for much of their career and tried to do the right thing by people who really needed the funding but this person was consistently out-voted.

No Gracesgran and I voted to remain, but doom mongering is not going to push us forward, only hold us back.

Well I will get a big slap on the wrist when I say we didnt have a discussion on tariffs.How remiss.As one company was a marketing company -regional.Another organised science themed fun days for children.A local independent hotelier.(who was more concerned with the massive discrepancy between funding for visit Scotland and our regional tourist board )And a data analysis company already going great guns with established US clients and confident of further expansion.So what would I know.
I'm guessing in the couple of hours we were there we should have nailed down our trade deals with other non EU countries.Maybe next time but it was primarily about sponsoring a new sports facility.
Slight delay getting back as DD called to say her partner has lost his job today.But totally unrelated to Brexit and on the cards for a while.But my bin didn't get emptied today and I'm blaming that on Brexit.
Oh and was watching our regional news reporting that Sheffield is to get a 220 million investment in infrastructure from China but no doubt I will be told that's also bad news and I'm naive to think otherwise.

theconversation.com/how-to-build-a-low-carbon-industrial-strategy-62652

For you, whitewave. Do you think it will happen? Will it help your son for these departments to be linked?

Tim Martin is soooooo creepy

La la Land

I really resent the idea that people who can see the issues leaving the EU will bring are doom-mongers Jalima. Their businesses will, of course, face the challenges and they will do their best to succeed and grow - but they know if the vote to leave has made things better or worse now and they will know in the future. Are you really trying to suggest that there have been no difficult changes since the vote to leave and that things will be as if sprinkled by Disney wonder dust in the future?

We have to face what has happened but let's be realistic please.

Does everybody remember Tim Martin going on about how good it would be if we left the EU?

The figures on here don't appear to say that, even though he is still in favour of it.

theconversation.com/is-brexit-a-new-magna-carta-as-wetherspoons-boss-suggests-62718

www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2016/07/20/a-new-politics-forms-in-the-furnace-of-brexit

"Trump is a walking Brexit." It's not just here.

I'd like to ask the same question as Mamie. How specifically will leaving the EU help small businesses?

The people I know work at the coal face too, Jalima, and they would tell you a completely different story.

It would be nice to have Washerwoman answer Mamie's very interesting question, please- as I was wondering the same myself.

Very interesting Washerwoman, good to hear from someone who works at the coalface so to speak, not just the doom mongerers.

Can you give us a bit of detail about how the small businesses said they would profit from being out of the EU, Washerwoman? What were the specific bits of legislation that they found difficult? Did they talk about the impact of trade tariffs?
I am interested by this as we have run small businesses in the UK and in France and there are far more obstacles in France. Obviously nothing to do with the EU though, just local custom and practice.

@washerwoman

Good for you! Have you thought of becoming some kind of community organiser in Cornwall?

The British government won't replace the funding that's been lost.

History shows us that poor places become depopulated. People don't stick around to regenerate their communities. They move to where they can find work.

The EU sent money to deprived areas that central government wouldn't because they were probably areas where there were no votes to be gained . So now community projects will have to go cap in hand to local businesses for funding instead? Wahserwoman; as you seem to have contacts in the right places I'd like to be kept informed about cases when this happens please.

How about not being reliant on EU funding for deprived areas.How about all knuckling down, building a strong vibrant economy and sorting out the problems in those areas ourselves. Going cap in hand to the EU to ask for some of the money we have already sent to them is one of the reasons I voted Leave.
Before the Referendum someone posted a scary warning.Don't you want,schools parks and hospitals.Without EU funding they will all implode.I know because my job is to tender for EU grants - no vested interest there then!
No one said it would be easy.I don't for one minute think Leave voters in deprived areas all thought leaving the EU would magically regenerate their communities overnight.Being around some proactive,entrepreneurial local people recently has reminded me to ignore some of the sea of negativity about exiting the EU that is out there.But no doubt someone will be along to tell me I'm living in LaLa land so on a rare half day off I shall bake a cake and reflect on the fact that when I popped into my local supermarket earlier there was generally a nice buzzy feeling with folks old and young,all different ethnicities chatting,shopping and generally all getting on with life on a nice summers day.

Same for energy costs- as most energy and water companies have been sold down the river (no pun intended) by successive GVT since Maggie

I think that his last sentence give some insight into the attraction to some of both UKIP and Corbyn, Mamie and if the so called main parties do not begin to understand they will find something far more extreme has taken their place.

thatbags the points you highlight would have been very much the ones I would too but I would agree to a degree with "Lanchester's claim that there was silence on the subject of the benefits of immigration". There was certainly not silence on the subject but silence on how it could improve the lives of those who were saying they wanted to take take control or take back their country. No one could get over that point imo because the benefits of immigration had not benefited them. You had part of the country paying for the banking crisis while another part benefited from the EU and globalisation; one did not offset the other it was loose, loose for one group and win, win for another.

(I am sure I am 'teaching my grandmother to suck eggs' here so apologies but writing it up helps clarify my own thinking )

The saddest thing is that 'experts' warned about this before the referendum. It was always so blatantly obvious that the most disenchanted would lose it. How can anybody explain that areas with most EU funding tended to vote Leave?

Well broadly speaking Mamie as one very much still working I was at an event run by the Federation of Small Businesses last night and there was a refreshing sense of energy and optimism.Both a lecturer in Marketing and several other recent business starts ups had long chats with me,and whilst not asking how they voted proceeded to tell me they were firmly for leave and thought there were fantastic opportunities to be had and one said he despaired at the sea of negativity post referendum in some quarters that only see obstacles.These are all grassroots companies looking to generate jobs and boost the local econnomy,alongside actively sponsoring local community projects.

Well one thing I kept hearing from those interviewed was, "it can't make it any worse".
Unfortunately increased food prices hit everyone, don't they? My neighbour was shocked by the fact that the UK imports roughly 50% of its food.

Excellent article Mamie, thanks. Had a very similar conversation this morning with my physiotherapist ... she kept saying 'but how could so many people misunderstand the issues so badly- and think Brexit would solve their totally unrelated problems?

Yes, the saddest bit, of course, is his final sentence about the most likely outcome of Brexit,
"So the likeliest outcome, I’d have thought, is a betrayal of the white working class. They should be used to it by now.".
I have also just read that 30% of tax revenues come from the City of London. That rather reinforces the view that Brexit will have to consider their needs as a priority, doesn't it.
Have just had a long walk discussing all this with my French neighbour. A lot of it really does seem to boil down to how you find a meaningful existence for everyone in a world where a lot of jobs have gone for ever.
I keep coming back to the fact that the biggest difference between the two groups of voters was that (broadly speaking) that those in work voted remain and those not working voted for Brexit. It seems like an extraordinary irony that those who didn't want it now have to deliver it (whatever "it" is).

Thanks for the link, mamie. Good article and very interesting. I was pleased to see within it many of the arguments that also appeared in links to articles that I provided prior to the referendum vote. e.g:

"new work doesn’t do what the old work did: it doesn’t offer a sense of identity or community or self-worth

"The white working class is correct to feel abandoned: it has been.

"Making economic arguments to voters who feel oppressed by economics is risky: they’re quite likely to tell you to go fuck yourself. That in effect is what the electorate did to the almost comic cavalcade of sages and bigshots who took the trouble to explain that Brexit would be ruinous folly:

"Take back control: Whoever came up with that slogan had spent more time listening than talking. The Remain campaign failed to do that."

———

I don't agree with Lanchester's claim that there was silence on the subject of the benefits of immigration. I heard the economic arguments in favour of it that Lanchester makes now before the referendum, and I agree with those arguments. I also empathised with the people voting Leave who wanted to register a protest against the non-beneficial to them (as they see it) economic status quo. What I hadn't realised is just how strong that was. The referendum result was as much a surprise to me as it was to anyone else.

I shall read it again sometime.