Politics Thread (encompassing Brexit) - 21 June 2017 onwards

[Strokes]

37 minutes ago, Buce said:

 

We would be if we remained in the EU.

 

When are you people going to understand? On our own we represent a tiny trading opportunity. This idea that the world will be queuing up to do business with us is just pie in the sky. We don't have an empire any more - we are just a small, insignificant island off the coast of Europe.

Well the facts say different so I will never understand.

 

We have bigger trade to offer than most of these countries who have FTA.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_free_trade_agreements

[Realist Guy In The Room]

Arguably we're one of the biggest economies as we've been a part of the EU and more importantly, the single market.

 

Until there are some actual trade agreements on the table, everybody is just guessing as to how we'll cope and this is the whole issue.

 

By now, over a year since the referendum, there should at the very least be indications from trade areas outside of the single market as to what can be offered to the UK and vice versa.

 

The fact that there hasn't been is the biggest worry.  All this side of the bus bullshit that keeps getting re-hashed is purely a distraction tactic.

[Captain...]

1 hour ago, Foxin_mad said:

 

-The Germans will want to sell us cars

-The French will want to sell us Champagne

-The Spanish will want to sell us Veg

-The Italians Olive Oil etc etc

We want to buy German cars

We want to buy French champagne

We want to buy Italian oil

 

If the cost of importing these products goes up due import tariffs we will still want them because they are luxury products. 

 

The exception being Spanish veggies (chorizo on the other hand) we don't need Spanish veggies, we just need more veggies and unless we can get them cheaper outside the EU we will probably still need to buy Spanish veg.

 

Of course the EU will sell to us, it will just cost us more to buy from them, or it will cost them more to sell to us so they will need to put the price up. 

 

The only impact on EU sales to us is will be if we can find cheaper alternatives either in the UK or from other trading partners. The problem is you can only buy champagne from France, Mercedes from Germany and Italian extra virgin olive oil comes from Italy, as for veggies, sourcing from outside the EU will still incur import tariffs, unless we arrange some hasty free trade deals and will take longer (affecting shelf life for perishable goods such as vegetables) and be more expensive to ship.

 

The positive would be that UK products would be cheaper as there are no import duties and so more competitive which would benefit our economy, but we don't have anywhere near the capacity to provide for the whole country and if we did increase our production capacity guess what we would need?

 

Unskilled migrant labour to deal with the market growth!!!

 

Now the real impact will be on our exports which instantly become more expensive (doubly so if they rely on raw materials/machinery from the EU) and less desirable to our EU neighbours and we don't have many UK brands/products that people will buy regardless of cost, like champagne, Mercedes or olive oil. In fact quite the opposite when it comes to food, British beef is widely derided on the continent for being full of mad cow disease, our cheese is vastly inferior and our attempts at wine are laughed at. Rightly or wrongly the perception of British produce on the continent is quite poor and the French in particular can't wait for us to leave the EU so they can ban our beef and lamb.

 

There will be some companies that will continue to do well, Mr Dyson has been extolling the virtues of Brexit, well his products are highly sought after and people will pay the increase caused by import tariffs, but they most likely won't have to seeing as they are no longer in England. If he is half the business man he thinks he is he will have set up a a distribution centre in the EU send his vacuum cleaners direct to the EU from Malaysia and not via the UK.

 

There is no question that import tariffs will negatively impact U.K. trade, to not even accept that is pure ostrichism on a level that would drive Nigel Pearson crazy.

 

Tl;dr : Import tariffs bad for trade

 

Edited 6 July 2017 by Captain...

[Realist Guy In The Room]

They are gonna screw us.

[Buce]

32 minutes ago, Realist Guy In The Room said:

They are gonna screw us.

 

No.

 

We are screwing ourselves.

[Jacnah]

11 hours ago, Captain... said:

 

 

Please respond to the dishonourable member's point and not just trot out party rhetoric, if you have an opinion on the point discussed we all welcome it, but save the entrenched views and party chest thumping for the next General Election.

Captain, I don't understand? What are you asking? 

 

I'll willingly respond...opinions of course :-)

[Buce]

 

UK business leaders to call for indefinite delay in leaving single market

 

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/06/uk-business-leaders-to-call-for-indefinite-delay-in-leaving-single-market

[Nick]

7 hours ago, Buce said:

 

We would be if we remained in the EU.

 

When are you people going to understand? On our own we represent a tiny trading opportunity. This idea that the world will be queuing up to do business with us is just pie in the sky. We don't have an empire any more - we are just a small, insignificant island off the coast of Europe.

 Buce! 

 

Id love to have watch the expression on your face when you typed those immortality wrong words!

[Buce]

3 minutes ago, Swan Lesta said:

 Buce! 

 

Id love to have watch the expression on your face when you typed those immortality wrong words!

 

 

Please explain.

[Nick]

The blanket use of 'you people' !

[kushiro]

'People are engaging in politics. Because of the incandescent chink of light. Because of the super-f***ing- nova of possibilities.Social democracy and economic democracy - where everyone has a chance to ride on Jeremy Corbyn's gleaming beam of light.'

 

Magnificent.

 

 

[Buce]

9 hours ago, Swan Lesta said:

 Buce! 

 

Id love to have watch the expression on your face when you typed those immortality wrong words!

 

7 hours ago, Swan Lesta said:

The blanket use of 'you people' !

 

I'd have thought it obvious that I was referring to the Brexiters to whom I was replying.

 

In that regard, Brexiters is a relevant blanket term.

[Steven]

Theresa May accused of double standards over terrorism funding

PM enters G20 talks saying priority is to disrupt extremists accessing finance, but is criticised for position on Saudi Arabia

 

Hypocrisy more like but the Guardian is too polite to say.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/06/theresa-may-accused-of-double-standards-over-terrorism-funding

[lgfualol]

6 minutes ago, Steven said:

Theresa May accused of double standards over terrorism funding

PM enters G20 talks saying priority is to disrupt extremists accessing finance, but is criticised for position on Saudi Arabia

 

Hypocrisy more like but the Guardian is too polite to say.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/06/theresa-may-accused-of-double-standards-over-terrorism-funding

Ofc. Could you imagine the uproar if it was Corbyn in power and these reports came out, not to mention paying 1 billion to give power to a bunch of bible-bashing nutters with links to paramilitary groups.

[Steven]

8 minutes ago, lgfualol said:

Ofc. Could you imagine the uproar if it was Corbyn in power and these reports came out, not to mention paying 1 billion to give power to a bunch of bible-bashing nutters with links to paramilitary groups.

Quite. Though I believe that Corbyn is as disingenuous, unprincipled and weak as May. A sad commentary on the state of modern British politics.

Edited 7 July 2017 by Steven

[Guest Foxin_mad]

I think we can put the Guardian on a pedestal with the Daily Mail for the biggest pile of steaming biased shit. Here is some Daily Mail hyperbole to even it up a bit.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/qantas/article-4673356/QUENTIN-LETTS-umble-Jeremy-Monsieur-Cocky.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4667788/Corbyn-condemns-use-zero-hour-contracts-Glastonbury.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4674008/Hard-left-s-hit-list-Labour-MPs-critical-Corbyn.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4671924/Jeremy-Corbyn-heads-Brussels-meet-Barnier.html

 

All fact of course!

 

 

[Carl the Llama]

2 hours ago, Steven said:

Theresa May accused of double standards over terrorism funding

PM enters G20 talks saying priority is to disrupt extremists accessing finance, but is criticised for position on Saudi Arabia

 

Hypocrisy more like but the Guardian is too polite to say.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/06/theresa-may-accused-of-double-standards-over-terrorism-funding

 That's literally what the term "double standards" means

 

42 minutes ago, Foxin_mad said:

I think we can put the Guardian on a pedestal with the Daily Mail for the biggest pile of steaming biased shit. Here is some Daily Mail hyperbole to even it up a bit.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/qantas/article-4673356/QUENTIN-LETTS-umble-Jeremy-Monsieur-Cocky.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4667788/Corbyn-condemns-use-zero-hour-contracts-Glastonbury.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4674008/Hard-left-s-hit-list-Labour-MPs-critical-Corbyn.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4671924/Jeremy-Corbyn-heads-Brussels-meet-Barnier.html

 

All fact of course!

Just to get this clear your response is:  A journalist's malice-ridden polemic against the leader of the opposition (assuming that anybody who criticises the PM must be a Corbyn fan boy and therefore get as upset by it as you are); an article that actually kind of mirrors the one you're upset about by highlighting Corbyn's own double standards in the pursuit of power (well done); a piece which highlights pathetic behaviour by an interest group (which can only be seen to be a revelation about Jeremy's nastiness when viewed through a fog of partisan hatred for the man that lets one assign any and all wrongdoing by people on his side of the political spectrum to him regardless of accuracy... you'll probably find most Labour voters don't appreciate that kind of behaviour either but why let that get in the way of a good strop?); and lastly a piece condemning the man for simply doing his job of maintaining a shadow negotiating team (I'm guessing you weren't aware that there already is one and they've already been talking with the EU in case a snap election gets called and Labour are handed the reigns to the negotiation, preventing the need to go all the way back to square one in such a scenario).

 

I'm really not sure what you're hoping to achieve there because really you've just highlighted how much worse the Mail's journos are at making personal attacks on political figures and straight up distorting the truth when compared with the Guardian...  I guess you're trying to say those articles are equivalent to the standard of journalism present in the article you're responding to but anybody who can read is able to see that's not the case.

Edited 7 July 2017 by Carl the Llama

[Guest Foxin_mad]

25 minutes ago, Carl the Llama said:

 That's literally what the term "double standards" means

 

Just to get this clear your response is:  A journalist's malice-ridden polemic against the leader of the opposition (assuming that anybody who criticises the PM must be a Corbyn fan boy and therefore get as upset by it as you are); an article that actually kind of mirrors the one you're upset about by highlighting Corbyn's own double standards in the pursuit of power (well done); a piece which highlights pathetic behaviour by an interest group (which can only be seen to be a revelation about Jeremy's nastiness when viewed through a fog of partisan hatred for the man that lets one assign any and all wrongdoing by people on his side of the political spectrum to him regardless of accuracy... you'll probably find most Labour voters don't appreciate that kind of behaviour either but why let that get in the way of a good strop?); and lastly a piece condemning the man for simply doing his job of maintaining a shadow negotiating team (I'm guessing you weren't aware that there already is one and they've already been talking with the EU in case a snap election gets called and Labour are handed the reigns to the negotiation, preventing the need to go all the way back to square one in such a scenario).

 

I'm really not sure what you're hoping to achieve there because really you've just highlighted how much worse the Mail's journos are at making personal attacks on political figures and straight up distorting the truth when compared with the Guardian...  I guess you're trying to say those articles are equivalent to the standard of journalism present in the article you're responding to but anybody who can read is able to see that's not the case.

That's just your Guardian reading opinion though. In my opinion the Guardian is just as full of hate filled left wing bile.

 

What I am saying is both are shit, I have never said the Mail is a reliable source and agree it is awful. I just find it hilarious how the left wing equivalent is often posted as the font of all knowledge. The Guardian hates the government, its hates the right, it hates business, it hates everything it doesn't stand for.

 

Do I care personally? no its a free country, its just funny when posts come up with a Guardian link at the bottom, so of course it must be true!! Ironic!

 

The Guardian is a red top tabloid pretending to be a proper newspaper.

Edited 7 July 2017 by Foxin_mad

[lgfualol]

14 hours ago, Realist Guy In The Room said:

They are gonna screw us.

Good job we are leaving the EU so we can have free trade deals with Japan. Oh

[Nick]

16 minutes ago, lgfualol said:

Good job we are leaving the EU so we can have free trade deals with Japan. Oh

It's just the beginning... 

 

I doubt we'll leave as the negotiations will leave us with the worst deal ever and businesses will also not wait to see what happens they will re-locate over the next 2 years. Most have had a contingency foot out of the door since June last year. I don't think Parliament will go for it with the pressure that the public will put on the Tory deal.

[Carl the Llama]

53 minutes ago, Foxin_mad said:

That's just your Guardian reading opinion though. In my opinion the Guardian is just as full of hate filled left wing bile.

 

What I am saying is both are shit, I have never said the Mail is a reliable source and agree it is awful. I just find it hilarious how the left wing equivalent is often posted as the font of all knowledge. The Guardian hates the government, its hates the right, it hates business, it hates everything it doesn't stand for.

 

Do I care personally? no its a free country, its just funny when posts come up with a Guardian link at the bottom, so of course it must be true!! Ironic!

 

The Guardian is a red top tabloid pretending to be a proper newspaper.

 If you say so. Far be it from me to correct you on my reading habits.

 

I'm guessing you didn't read the Guardian article in question which to me just read like the facts of the matter framed in a fairly benign manner void of venom or sensationalism, if you don't like those facts then that's a different discussion.  If you want to have your point about journalistic equivalence taken seriously though you'll have to provide us with links to Guardian articles resorting to the same bitter ad hominem approach of the first Mail one you linked to or the same outrageous spinning of facts into propaganda as the 4th one you linked.  Nobody's going to argue that the Guardian hasn't got an editorial bias but I'm flabbergasted that you actually think it's anywhere near the Mail corporation's level of tabloid sleaze.  And just in case you didn't understand what I meant in my opening sentence this is the view of a man who if anything reads more Mail articles than Guardian ones (not through choice I hasten to add, it's just that people frequently cite it to support their opinion and I'm not going to respond to a person without reading their links to try and understand what their point is first).

Edited 7 July 2017 by Carl the Llama

[Steven]

 

As seen in the FT. 

 

Quote

Sir, I see from your Big Read article “Braced for the fall” (July 5) that the pro­ Brexit wing of the Conservative party are to be known as “****ers”, while they describe their opponents as “wankers”.

 

Surely this rhetoric inverts the truth? It is the Europhobes who shut themselves away in self ­gratifying fantasies, while the Remainers know that real life is possible only through interaction with others.

 

Nicholas Boyle Emeritus Schröder Professor of German,

University of Cambridge, UK

 

https://www.ft.com/content/0ad8d316-60e4-11e7-91a7-502f7ee26895

[James.]

Really starting to wonder if we will actually leave. As time goes on "the will of the people" which is nowadays pretty much the only good reason anyone can give for leaving the EU will fade away and the crushing reality of 1. how f*king insanely complicated and expensive it will be and 2. how shit everything will become will set in.

 

[Buce]

 

Fears for UK economy after trio of weaker-than-expected growth reports

Drop in manufacturing output, construction industry slowdown and widening of trade deficit knock the pound lower against the dollar and euro.

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jul/07/fears-for-uk-economy-after-trio-of-weaker-than-expected-growth-reports

 

A drop in manufacturing output, a slowdown for the construction industry and a widening in Britain’s trade deficit have added to fears that the economy will struggle to eke out much growth this year.

In the latest sign that the resilience seen after last summer’s Brexit vote has waned, a trio of weaker-than-expected reports from the Office for National Statistics knocked the pound lower against the dollar and the euro on Friday. The figures also dampened bets that the Bank of England could raise interest rates in coming months.

The Bank’s interest-rate setting committee has been divided over when to lift borrowing costs from their record low of 0.25% to keep inflation in check. Much of the debate has centred around whether stronger exports and business investment can offset a slowdown in consumer spending as households grapple with higher living costs.

 

The latest official figures showed exports did pick up between April and May but by less than imports. That meant the trade deficit widened more than expected, tempering hopes that the pound’s sharp drop since the Brexit vote would drive a revival in exports because it made UK goods cheaper in overseas markets.

Export volumes rose 2.5% in May while imports rose an even bigger 4.8%. That pushed the deficit on trade in goods to £11.86bn in May from £10.6bn in April, wider than the consensus forecast for £10.8bn in a Reuters poll of economists.

The figures on manufacturing and the wider industrial sector, which includes utilities and mining, were all below economists’ forecasts. Output fell on a monthly basis and also on the less volatile measure of three-months on three-months.

For May alone, a drop in car production helped knock overall manufacturing output down by 0.2% from April, confounding forecasts for a 0.5% rise.

Advertisement

The construction sector also suffered a slowdown in May, with output down 1.2% on the month, defying forecasts for a 0.7% pick-up.

The figures follow news that the economy slowed markedly in the opening months of 2017. Business surveys since then have suggested that activity continues to rise but at a more muted pace as companies grapple with higher costs, weaker consumer spending and skills shortages.

Overall, Friday’s figures painted “a rather bleak picture for the UK economy and underline the challenges lying ahead,” said Kay Daniel Neufeld, senior economist at the Centre for Economics and Business Research consultancy.

“So far, the depreciation in sterling has not led to a significant reduction in the trade deficit ... We have repeatedly stressed that the UK’s high-value-added exports are less price sensitive and that any rebalancing in the make-up of exports will take time to manifest,” he added.

“In the meantime the lack of clarity about future trading relationship with the EU – further exacerbated by the result of the general election – weighs on activity in the manufacturing sector.”

Ruth Gregory at the consultancy Capital Economics said the latest figures cast some doubt on the likely strength of a bounce-back in the second quarter after GDP growth slowed markedly in the first quarter. But she still expects growth to pick up to around 0.4% in the second quarter from 0.2% in the first.

She saw some encouraging signs in the trade figures with the three-month growth rate of goods export volumes in May outpacing growth in imports. “This suggests that net trade should make a stronger contribution to GDP growth in the second quarter,” Gregory added.

“Meanwhile, the production and construction sectors only account for around 20% of the economy, and the hard data available for the services sector so far suggests that growth has rebounded strongly after a poor start to the year.”

Economists will now be looking ahead to figures on wage growth next week to gauge how well consumers will be able to cope with higher costs. Inflation has picked up since the Brexit vote because the pound’s sharp drop has made imports to the UK more expensive. Official figures on household finances on Thursday suggested Britons had suffered the tightest squeeze on their incomes for more than five years.

 

 

Edited 7 July 2017 by Buce

[Guest MattP]

4 minutes ago, James. said:

Really starting to wonder if we will actually leave. As time goes on "the will of the people" which is nowadays pretty much the only good reason anyone can give for leaving the EU will fade away and the crushing reality of 1. how f*king insanely complicated and expensive it will be and 2. how shit everything will become will set in.

Of course we are leaving. 

 

The Conservative party are committed to leaving, the Labour front bench and leadership is committed to leaving and those two parties have the vast majority of the seats in parliament. 

Edited 7 July 2017 by MattP