Regret it Brexit?

I do and I don't agree with Heseltine. In fact Cameron had won for us a commitment for us never having to join the euro. If we leave and then rejoin some time in the future I suspect we will have to join it as a condition of entry. Which makes the decision to leave now all the more ridiculous. One of our strengths is having our own sovereign currency, and thus complete control over our economic policy, and it is one we would be foolish to lose.

As one of the three most influential countries in the EU we were in a position to counterbalance Germany, but we've blown it now.; neo-liberal economic theory, on which EU policy (strongly influenced by Germany but backed by our neo-lib favouring govt), towards Greece was based, is slowly but surely becoming discredited. EU economic policies could well change over the next decade or two... Nothing lasts for ever....

Well, I am one Leave voter (twice!) that does not look back to our past, the glorious or the inglorious. It is gone and the future is all we have. My concern is that the future of the EU government (not necessarily the culture if that can be defined) is centralising as it has been over the past 40 years. I do not see ceding more sovereignty to an inflexible EU as the right thing to do for ourselves or those who follow us.

If we were to stay in the EU, how do Remainers on Gransnet see our position within the future EU? Do you agree with Heseltine that ultimately we would have to join the euro to help counterbalance the power of Germany? If not, how do you see the future of the EU? I am genuinely interested to know.

Careful we’ll be accused of -ganging up and being nasty- criticising. But nothing personal here no playing the man to use the simplistic analogy, we’re criticising the ball playing -But doubtless there will be the “ good post” acolytes.

It isn't testing our commitment to our parliamentary democracy. though, however the Leavers try to spin it. Or even democracy, really.

When judges give a verdict which annoys the rightwing media they claim that they are 'enemies of the people', even though the Rule of Law is one of the key pillars of our constitution. When the House of Lords exercise their constitutional duty in scrutinising and amending a Bill in a way that the RW media don't like they scream for its abolition, and when MPs put their duty to act for the good of the country before their party's need for them to prop up a weak government they are labelled Saboteurs. As are ordinary people exercising their democratic right to peacefully oppose actions and legislation they disagree with.

It seems to be a moot point as to whether the media lead or follow the views of their readers, but it is certain that echoes of the anti-constitutional stories published in the RW press can be found in the discourse of Leavers everywhere, on here, in real life and on social media.

Decrying the actual constitution is not democratic, it is revolutionary. Revolutions have very nasty effects; any historian will tell you that. The Constitution has evolved over hundreds of years; it is the foundation of our orderly society. It may be imperfect (it most certainly is) but to destroy it at a stroke, as the fervent rightwingers behaviours and ideas are inciting the populace to do (all this 'will of the people' stuff is extraordinarily dangerous) is sheer madness.

If you think I'm exaggerating try studying the aftermath of the French Revolution or the Russian Revolution. Or look at the chaos in countries such as Iraq or Afghanistan where 'regime change' left a power vacuum with many factions fighting to fill it.

The only people who enjoy revolutions are the ringleaders (well, unless they are deposed by malcontents with stronger fighting forces) and those who can make money out of them. The rest of the population endures.

But, as we see from Allyg's post this morning, endurance under 'difficult' circumstances is awfully good for us...

So roll on Brexit and embrace that re-invigorating pain.

No one is in mortal combat, no one is being bombed, their homes and belongings destroyed. They can go into a supermarket with full shelves and choose what they want to eat. They have medical attention through the NHS something that had to be paid for pre 1947. They get free prescriptions subsidy's on dental treatment and eye tests, all whilst debating Brexit.

Their grandchildren and great grandchildren have great education compared to most of them. University is open to all who want to get there. Vocational qualifications and training and life long learning for returners to the work place, or those wishing to progress in their jobs, all not available before 1977. People have work, they remember when their Fathers didn't -recession without benefits.

Well, well, well. to precis the above - I'm all right Jack.

It must be lovely to live in such a comfortable bubble, where everyone can go to Uni, get instant health care without waiting, and a job of their choosing.

No fear of bombing? ask Manchester and London.

Work for all? ask those on Jobseekers or Zero Hours Contracts or those with disabilities.

No vocational Training till 1977? ask me and the millions like me who gained our qualifications free via night-school.

I could go on for as long as you did but have more pressing things to do. Not much point anyway as your 'Bubble' is impenetrable.

Allygran wrote:

Brexit is no small thing, it is more than the sum of us here in the UK I sense. It is testing our commitment to our Parliamentary electoral system, and democracy itself as we know it.

I like democracy but it is such that some people sometimes reflect that perhaps intellectuals should get to have an extra vote.
Optimists are scary.

‘Centralising culture’ - what is that about - Europe certainly does not have a centralised culture.

I have to say that I am certainly not looking at the past -the only people I have heard speaking like that are those who voted leave as they carry on talking about Britain’s glorious past (colonial much of it) and how we can have that again!

I managed to read some of the ramble. It's Cargo Cult stuff. Catharsis is good for the nation; it will make it better and stronger.

Frightening stuff.

I wonder what publication Allyg writes for... Or is it another copy/paste job?

Mark Carney from the Bank of England has just confirmed that household incomes are now £900 lower than forecast just before the EU Referendum.

Life is too short to read all of the above post just looked at the end bit. ““If your not of the time then your of the past”??? Sorry. I didn’t understand the ramblings. Must be of the past. Good luck.

The comparison was between the predictions of the 'project fear' and the actuality of the current situation which is so much better than the doom and gloom of the remain campaign.

The GDP figures you show which I can't read (too small) are comparing EEA countries. That is not the point of my post. The actuality of the current state of the Country is good, despite pre Brexit and post Brexit remain campaigns negative propaganda.

I should say that the people (ordinary people like me) who voted leave or remain, friends, neighbours, people I socialise with and play crown green bowls with, are content. They just want to get on with it. They are Parliamentary democrats above all else, they are from all political preferences and believe in the Parliamentary system of majority.

They realise that change means upheaval, most of them have been through at least one WW. redundancy, unemployment at various times. Change they know comes with some cost and disruption. Believe me Brexit disruption is nothing to them.

No one is in mortal combat, no one is being bombed, their homes and belongings destroyed. They can go into a supermarket with full shelves and choose what they want to eat. They have medical attention through the NHS something that had to be paid for pre 1947. They get free prescriptions subsidy's on dental treatment and eye tests, all whilst debating Brexit.

Their grandchildren and great grandchildren have great education compared to most of them. University is open to all who want to get there. Vocational qualifications and training and life long learning for returners to the work place, or those wishing to progress in their jobs, all not available before 1977. People have work, they remember when their Fathers didn't -recession without benefits.

They enjoy their leisure in peace without fear. They can speak their minds openly without fear. So Brexit has no fears for them or me.

They know that to survive change has to take place, this has been a revolution, it is a revolution, largely a non violent one, so we have learned so much that we don't have to kill each other when we disagree. We have suffered, all of us remain and leave, the slings and arrows and venom of some because we believe different things. How far we have come.

Brexit is a revolution it's battles have been fought on the field of propaganda - the media in all it's forms, the internet, in all it's forms. Out of it will come the birth of the twenty first centuries political, economic, social, technical and Industrial landscape of the future. Brexit is no small thing, it is more than the sum of us here in the UK I sense. It is testing our commitment to our Parliamentary electoral system, and democracy itself as we know it. We are yet to see if it survives, my view is it will come out the other side perhaps not unscathed. Issues that have long seemed insurmountable just lying under the surface, because of entrenched historical, cultural and religious beliefs are being re-evaluated because of Brexit. Ireland, Scotland, Wales and our relationship are being reviewed. It's uncomfortable, it's a bit scary, but no one died.

The EU was of it's time, it too has to re-evaluate the discontent that has been developing and will overcome it if they do not adjust to the needs of the member states.

The policy of neutralising, and centralising culture, economy and trade in the EEA is not working. The face of Europe has changed, it has evolved as it should. The changes that have been most instrumental in this, as always, come from what Weber described as the 'unintended consequences" in this case of a rigid plan that had to be fulfilled by the EU . A plan is just that, it has to change, it has to be adjusted it has to meet the current need. Once an organisation gets too big, as the EU has, the problems of scale and ratio's starts to degrade each other. The result is one area of operation that is successful being drained by others that are not, leading to the inevitable collapse. Unless one decentralises at the right time.

We shall never agree on this Varian. Remain campaign propaganda has been unrelenting, delivered by activist who have a different agenda' to us, me, them the ordinary person. It is we the ordinary person who are the worst enemy of the activist because our lives are good on the whole, and we know what a bad life is, we have either been there or know people who have.

When words have proven somewhat different to the facts. People do know. Just telling people relentlessly that something is untrue, or not as we see, or we don't understand it, or we are being lied to, works only when people want to believe it. Most of us remain or leave, ordinary people, with good lives, good health, pensions and benefits if we need them don't feel that Britain is a bad place. What we do know is there is a degradation of the support systems as we discussed earlier having to cope with volumes that were never envisaged because of EU policies.

The future is technology, information, knowledge, robots taking the place of people, giving us more and more self development time and leisure. Future generations will see replicators being used instead of manufacturing as we know it as the norm, I suspect in the next 25 year. It could happen now the only obstacle is the need for vast energy sources for replication of large items such as cars or a washing machine or an engine parts. Once the potential pollution is controlled or a new energy source found replication will be the norm. Sadly I won't see it, but our descendants will.
I truly believe if Brexit is handle properly not only will we be preparing for the twenty first century but also the EU will also.

If your not of the time then your of the past and now is looking to the future with all the problems, that we cannot envisage or imagine. Up and coming generations will be equipped to deal with the developments and problems of their time. A time that we are setting the foundations for as we leave the EU.
This is a super long post. Sorry!

Varian this is much too small to read and goes out of focus if enlarged.

It does not matter how often the Express, Sun and Daily Mail headline the "brexit bounce" or "brexit bonus" the truth is that the threat of brexit has already had an overwhelmingly negative effect on the British economy. Just look how badly we are doing compared to the rest of the EU. It gives a glimpse of how much worse we could fare if we jumped off that cliff.

The Brexit bounce making a mockery of George Osborne’s Project Fear
Ross Clark Coffee House, The Spectator:

"We are now just two months away from the second anniversary of the Brexit vote and therefore in a position to judge the apocalyptic forecast made by the Treasury in May 2016 in the run-up to the vote. In a paper signed off by George Osborne, which neither the former chancellor nor anyone else who has made a grim prognosis for Britain’s departure from the EU should be allowed to forget, the finest minds in the Treasury came up with two scenarios for the aftermath of a vote to leave the EU. In the ‘shock’ scenario, GDP would be 3.6 per cent lower after two years (compared with if the country had voted to remain), the pound would fall by 12 per cent and unemployment would rise by 520,000. In the ‘severe shock’ scenario GDP would be six per cent lower, the pound would fall by 15 per cent and unemployment would rise by 820,000. But even this could prove to be optimistic, the authors claimed, adding:
“There are significant downside risks which imply that the impact could be even larger”.
How are we getting on? A slew of data released this morning shows just how wide of the mark these predictions were. As for GDP, it is now 3.3 per cent higher than it was this time two years ago. I appreciate that the Treasury’s forecast for shrinkage of 3.6 to 6.0 per cent was relative to what GDP would have been had we voted to remain – something we cannot possibly know. Nevertheless, for the Treasury forecast to have been correct the economy would have had to grow by between 6.9 per cent and 9.3 per cent in the two years following a remain vote – something which is highly improbable as it would have way outstripped economic growth in recent times.

As for the predictions for the pound, the Treasury didn’t actually give a reference currency for its prediction of a fall, but let’s take the dollar. The pound did fall sharply after the referendum but has since staged a strong recovery, especially this year when it has grown by eight per cent against the dollar. On 23 June 2016, while the country was voting, the pound peaked at $1.49. This morning it was at 1.437, which is 3.5 per cent lower. Referendum day saw a spike in the pound, however. Two years ago today the dollar was actually a little lower against the pound than it is today. Against the Euro there has been a decline in the pound. On 23 June 2016, it was 1.31 Euros, compared with 1.157 Euros this morning – a fall of 11.6 per cent. As against the dollar, however, there was a spike on 23 June 2016 (possibly when the result was expected to go the other way). Over exactly two years the decline has been 9.5 per cent.

On unemployment, the gulf between the Treasury’s forecast and the actual out-turn has been astonishing. In June 2016, the unemployment rate was 4.9 per cent, and the number of people in work 31.7 million. Figures released today show the unemployment rate at 4.2 per cent – the lowest since 1975. The employment rate, at 75.4 per cent is the highest ever recorded. The number of people in work is 32.26 million – over half a million more than in June 2016. So much for job losses.
Some Remainers continue to bleat that the referendum was ‘stolen’ by a Leave campaign which told lies and misused data. Yet again the Today programme covered the Cambridge Analytica story this morning. But isn’t it a far bigger scandal how the Treasury sought to bounce the country into a Remain vote by publishing (just before the official campaign began and government departments had to fall silent) an apocalyptic prediction which has proved so unfounded? George Osborne set up the Office for Budgetary Responsibility supposedly to take the Treasury out of the role of economic prediction. But then, when it suited him, used its full muscle to pump out what increasingly looks like a piece of campaigning propaganda. But for some reason this story hasn’t yet reached the Guardian, the BBC, the FT – and least of all the Evening Standard."
blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/04/the-brexit-bounce-making-a-mockery-of-george-osbornes-project-fear/

I suppose this is something that one would not expect from a man in high office of Chancellor, however, it happened.

Just as one would not expect spoiling tactics from the head of the HMRC. The simple and generous answer might be it was thought to be true or a less generous thought is it is self interest it. Once the head of HMRC's guesstimate has been analysed and compared to what it cost business now, I for one will reserve judgement. I expect even now that analyst's will be interrogating his figures and then we shall have a better view of the situation.

Brexiteers clutching at straws perhaps?

Rather misleading headline.

The split was 32% against 33% rather a narrow margin - even less than the Referendum itself. The poll was carried out by a biased organisation so why would anyone trust it?

While 32 per cent feared jobs may move from the UK to EU, far fewer said they themselves were considering moving too.

Only 13 per cent saying they were considering leaving the country as a result of Brexit “as I feel there are more career opportunities for me outside of the UK”.

Note that only 33% disagreed that high skill jobs would move abroad.

When asked “do you believe high-skilled jobs will leave the UK for the EU?”, 37 per cent of respondents in London said yes.

A NEW poll released today has rung an economic death knell for Project Fear, with only a minority of Britons surveyed concerned about negative consequences for the country's economy.
By JOEY MILLAR
PUBLISHED: 00:00, Thu, May 24, 2018 | UPDATED: 07:05, Thu, May 24, 2018
But with EISA’s poll revealing confidence in the future, Mrs May can point towards an increasingly supportive public - especially regarding issues repeatedly raised by arch-Remainers in their Project Fear campaign.
The so-called Brexodus - a huge wave of highly-skilled British workers fleeing the UK for Europe - appears particularly unlikely.
www.express.co.uk/news/politics/964240/brexit-news-economy-single-market-customs-union-brexit-poll

James O’Brien on LBC today about the £20 billion pounds HMRC costings for a “max fac” Border.

James O'Brien's Response To People Who Claim "Project Fear" On Brexit

He said: "What's going to happen if we come out on the terms that Boris Johnson and Michael Gove are still telling you are preferential?

"The only other response you get now is just repetition of the scaremongering and the Project Fear line.

"It's not, it's the head of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs explaining to you his field of expertise, Customs. That's not Project Fear or scaremongering. That's listening to the bloke that runs our customs about what he thinks is going to happen to our customs.

"How have we become such a such a bovine population that we now think some no-mark backbencher knows more about customs than a bloke who spent his whole life working with them and has ended up at the very top of the organisation responsible for them?

www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/james-obrien/james-obriens-response-to-project-fear/

Allygran

Varian

The posting re Baldwin and Gudgin is not about border control.

I refer you to the posting in response to your plea for response about border control.
Allygran1 Thu 24-May-18 17:22:16
Graham Gudgin outlines an EU Report on border control and innovative technology.

Varian good -interesting.

Lemongrove I have come to a thought today. It's more fool me for not realising that some people need a foil. It ain't going to be me.

Personal comments included in posts and I won't play. This is not the real world and today the sun is shining I am sat in the garden with a cool drink a good book and in between glancing at this site. How glorious is Britain when the suns out!

Graham Gudgin is one of a tiny number of brexitextremist economists, who are totally out of line with the mainstream. Last year his report which attacked the Treasury analysis and was promoted by the right wing press, was condemned by economic experts.

“The HMT [Treasury] use of gravity model was perfectly in line with best practice. It was classic evidence-based policy analysis”, said Richard Baldwin, Professor of International Economics at The Graduate Institute of Geneva.

Professor Baldwin went on to accuse Mr Gudgin himself of engaging in “policy-based evidence making” and “using evidence the way a drunk uses a lamp post – for support, not illumination”. Other trade economists also endorsed the Treasury’s methodology.

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/brexiteers-favoured-economic-study-shot-down-by-other-trade-economists-a7519596.html

See below
www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/05/23/blow-max-fac-brexiteer-ministers-hmrc-reveals-20bn-cost-businesses/

Your link refers to a news item from February allyg
This week’s news, as has been referred to several times in this thread today, is that the high tech max fac border system would cost £20 billion a year (way more than UKs annual contributions to the EU) to run. That is according to HMRC figures.

You may have missed this earlier today.

Boris Johnson’s favoured scheme for trade after Brexit could cost businesses up to £20bn a year through extra customs declarations, HM Revenue and Customs has warned.

The ‘maximum facilitation’ system, or max fac, seeks to avoid border delays by using new technology and by pre-approving big exporters through a trusted trader scheme