Politics Thread (encompassing Brexit) - 21 June 2017 onwards

[Carl the Llama]

6 minutes ago, Webbo said:

You do know unemployment has fallen by around 500,000 since the vote?

I didn't, but that's probably a contributing factor to how since 2016 there's been a 58% increase in statistics which sound like a valid point at first but aren't actually relevant to the discussion being had.

[Strokes]

6 minutes ago, Carl the Llama said:

I didn't, but that's probably a contributing factor to how since 2016 there's been a 58% increase in statistics which sound like a valid point at first but aren't actually relevant to the discussion being had.

Down 15% since the same point last year, interesting.....

[Webbo]

15 minutes ago, Carl the Llama said:

I didn't, but that's probably a contributing factor to how since 2016 there's been a 58% increase in statistics which sound like a valid point at first but aren't actually relevant to the discussion being had.

You said;

Quote

Not true: We're supposed to care that we're creating a scenario where businesses are genuinely put off investing within the country as opposed to the fictional loss of business from increased taxes within the paradigm where a special-dispensation flaunting EU member is still an attractive enough prospect to merit the increased tax expenditure for most companies.  

If there are 500,000 more people in work then business has invested, it's expanded, it's paying 500,000 more wages every week, there are new businesses opened, That's fact as opposed to fictional threats to leave.

 

Now I can't be bothered to re fight the referendum again. these arguments always drag on and I always get the blame for that. Whatever further points you have I'm sure you'll find my answer in the previous pages.

[Carl the Llama]

3 minutes ago, Webbo said:

You said;

Now if thee are 500,000 more people in work then business has invested, it's expanded, it's paying 500,000 more wages every week, there are new businesses opened, That's fact as opposed to fictional threats to leave.

 

Now I can't be bothered to re fight the referendum again. these arguments always drag on and I always get the blame for that. Whatever further points you have I'm sure you'll find my answer in the previous pages.

Technically it means that - if those figures are correct, I've not found them after 5 seconds on google but I'm not going to stay up all night researching - there are 500,000 less people over the age of 16 actively seeking work in the past month according to HMRC or ONS or whoever compiles these figures and there could actually be a lot of explanations for that beyond the simplistic "500,000 less unemployed therefore 500,000 more jobs". It may be that that you're right but you've not offered the relevant evidence just a figure out of context.

[Innovindil]

6 minutes ago, Carl the Llama said:

Technically it means that - if those figures are correct, I've not found them after 5 seconds on google but I'm not going to stay up all night researching - there are 500,000 less people over the age of 16 actively seeking work in the past month according to HMRC or ONS or whoever compiles these figures and there could actually be a lot of explanations for that beyond the simplistic "500,000 less unemployed therefore 500,000 more jobs". It may be that that you're right but you've not offered the relevant evidence just a figure out of context.

https://fullfact.org/economy/more-people-work-brexit-vote/

 

Figures are close to correct (as of feb this year)

 

There are an estimated 450,000 more people in employment now compared to the three months from May to July 2016—around the time of the EU referendum. The figure is slightly higher or lower depending on when you start counting from. It was about 31.8 million then, and as of November last year it was 32.2 million.

[Carl the Llama]

8 minutes ago, Innovindil said:

https://fullfact.org/economy/more-people-work-brexit-vote/

 

Figures are close to correct (as of feb this year)

 

There are an estimated 450,000 more people in employment now compared to the three months from May to July 2016—around the time of the EU referendum. The figure is slightly higher or lower depending on when you start counting from. It was about 31.8 million then, and as of November last year it was 32.2 million.

Thanks, according to that page Both measures have been following a fairly consistent trend since 2012 so there's a good case for saying that it's the status quo continuing more or less as it was for now as everyone waits for the final decision on what kind of changes Brexit will enforce, which makes sense when you consider we're talking about the potential threats of business reactions to Brexit... ie. it's still fairly irrelevant  

Edited 27 June 2018 by Carl the Llama

[Innovindil]

2 minutes ago, Carl the Llama said:

Thanks, according to that page Both measures have been following a fairly consistent trend since 2012 so there's a good case for saying that it's the status quo continuing more or less as it was for now as everyone waits for the final decision on what kind of changes Brexit will enforce, which makes sense when you consider we're talking about the potential threats of business reactions to Brexit... ie. it's still fairly irrelevant  

 

Definitely. They are a positive for now, but as you said, irrelevant as an indicator to how "well" brexit is doing. Even after a deal/no deal it will be years before they matter. 

[Webbo]

2 minutes ago, Innovindil said:

Definitely. They are a positive for now, but as you said, irrelevant as an indicator to how "well" brexit is doing. Even after a deal/no deal it will be years before they matter. 

It indicates that investment hasn't stopped. 

 

I agree though, we won't know whether it's a success or not for years, and then people will still disagree.

[Carl the Llama]

1 minute ago, Webbo said:

It indicates that investment hasn't stopped. 

 

I agree though, we won't know whether it's a success or not for years, and then people will still disagree.

Yet.  If it represented a surge in investment then there may be pause for thought about the private sector's outlook on Brexit compared with what they're saying in the papers, but as it is it just tells us that business is mostly continuing as normal for now and contributes nothing to the conversation we're having about how we're building a scenario where companies are considering upping sticks when Brexit hits depending on the deal struck.

[Strokes]

6 minutes ago, Webbo said:

It indicates that investment hasn't stopped. 

 

I agree though, we won't know whether it's a success or not for years, and then people will still disagree.

No they won’t.

[lifted*fox]

It could be a catastrophic failure with stats and everything and Webbo would still be backing Brexit. 

[Guest MattP]

42 minutes ago, lifted*fox said:

It could be a catastrophic failure with stats and everything and Webbo would still be backing Brexit. 

Webbo has backed up his point perfectly. 

 

Fullfact literally gives you the answer here.

 

1 hour ago, Innovindil said:

https://fullfact.org/economy/more-people-work-brexit-vote/

 

Figures are close to correct (as of feb this year)

 

There are an estimated 450,000 more people in employment now compared to the three months from May to July 2016—around the time of the EU referendum. The figure is slightly higher or lower depending on when you start counting from. It was about 31.8 million then, and as of November last year it was 32.2 million.

 

[Webbo]

8 hours ago, lifted*fox said:

It could be a catastrophic failure with stats and everything and Webbo would still be backing Brexit. 

Have you actually got an argument other than  ?

[Buce]

8 hours ago, lifted*fox said:

It could be a catastrophic failure with stats and everything and Webbo would still be backing Brexit. 

 

#takingbackcontrolofcatastrophicfailure

[bovril]

What constitutes a 'successful' Brexit is very different for different people. 

[Finnegan]

2 minutes ago, bovril said:

What constitutes a 'successful' Brexit is very different for different people. 

 

Let's be honest, if it stops the free movement of all them foreigners getting in then most of the people that voted Leave will consider it pretty ****ing successful. 

[Strokes]

Early indications point to racist day again 

[Finnegan]

Just now, Strokes said:

Early indications point to racist day again 

 

 

 

[Guest Foxin_mad]

The most amusing part is when Corbyn starts pretending to care about Business  what a charlatan. 

 

 

[Buce]

5 minutes ago, Foxin_mad said:

The most amusing part is when Corbyn starts pretending to care about Business  what a charlatan. 

 

 

 

Your obsession with Corbyn is as unhealthy as it is weird.

[Buce]

Europe's migration crisis: Could it finish the EU?

 

Hardened Eurosceptics might love to think the EU's in trouble, but as leaders gather in Brussels for their summer summit on Thursday, dedicated Europhiles are also sounding the alarm.

"The fragility of the EU is increasing," warns EU Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker. "The cracks are growing in size."

It's been easy to get distracted this last couple of weeks by the new Italian government and its headline-grabbing rejection of NGO migrant rescue boats.

But Mr Juncker is right: EU fissures go deeper and are more widespread.

Migration pits southern Europe against the north.

Italy and Greece smoulder with resentment at having been left alone to deal with migrant arrivals. Meanwhile, northern countries blame the south for not patrolling their Mediterranean borders better and for having, at least in the past, enabled migrants to "slip away" northwards towards richer Germany, Austria and Sweden.

Read more from Katya: EU's Med migrant crisis: Just a mess or cynical politics?

Migration slashes the EU from east to west too.

Newer member states from Central and Eastern Europe never signed up to the post World War Two "all for one and one for all" vision.

When it comes to EU solidarity and burden-sharing, they are fervent non-believers. They determinedly turn their backs when Italy and Germany plead for migrant quotas.

High-stakes summer for Merkel

The number of migrants arriving illegally in Europe may be down, but so is voter tolerance of the problem.

The rise and rise across the EU of tough-on-migration politicians has emboldened hardliners such as Hungary's Victor Orban and Austria's Sebastian Kurz, who takes over the six-month rotating presidency of the EU this Sunday and will push migration as a top priority.

"Keep Them Out" is Austria's main aim and while Europe's (still) most influential leader, Angela Merkel, arrives in Brussels on Thursday pushing - and praying - for compromise on burden-sharing and prevention, the number of EU leaders pushing single-mindedly on the migrant deterrence button is growing.

 

 

Which brings me to the next layer of European splits provoked by migration: within national governments as well as between countries.

Germany is the most dramatic example.

• UK told 'little time left' for Brexit deal
• Merkel's Bavarian ally threatens migration mutiny
• Can the EU reach a new deal on migrants?

Mrs Merkel has clearly been weakened at home by her previous open-door migrant policy.

Formerly viewed as politically untouchable, the German chancellor has now been given an ultimatum by her own interior minister.

"By the end of this Brussels summit, you need to come home with a workable pan-European solution to stop irregular migrants bleeding into Germany," Horst Seehofer has threatened her. "Or I will unilaterally slam Germany's borders shut."

The Austrian government told me this week it would then immediately follow suit, causing a border-closing domino effect across Europe - with a seismic impact on the EU's prize political and economic project: the open-border Schengen agreement.

What a blow for Brussels and nightmare for Europe's export-king Germany that would be.

Of course we're not there yet.

Push for migrant centres outside EU

In true European Union style, once gathered round a table here in Brussels, there will undoubtedly be emphasis on what unites rather than divides member countries.

On migration, EU leaders will easily agree to beef up their Frontex border guard.

 

There's also growing convergence around the idea of setting up so-called disembarkation centres outside the EU to identify economic migrants, who in theory could be sent home. Those with a right to asylum or refugee status could then be given safe and legal passage to Europe.

And there's much talk of closer co-operation (read: money) with migrant countries of origin and the transit countries (read: Libya and its coastguard) that migrants cross to make their way to people smuggler boats.

But these ideas are easier to formulate than to carry out.

You would need a lot of EU border guards to truly patrol southern Europe's thousands of miles of open coastline. You would need permission from African countries such as Niger and Chad to set up processing centres, for example. So far that's a distant goal.

'Time is short'

In the meantime, there is no whiff of EU agreement over what to do with migrants who do reach Europe.

Which brings us back to the threat to Schengen.

 

Gloomy German government sources told me they gave the project a three out of 10 chance of survival thanks to the increasingly nationalistic nature of many European governments.

"And if Schengen does fail," they predict, "that would be the beginning of the end of the European Union."

It's too early really to herald the demise of the EU or even the end of Mrs Merkel's career in government as a result of this very political migrant crisis in Europe.

But, as EU summit host Donald Tusk said to EU leaders on the eve of their arrival: "The stakes are very high. And time is short."

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-44632471

[Guest Foxin_mad]

22 minutes ago, Buce said:

 

Your obsession with Corbyn is as unhealthy as it is weird.

Like many on here unhealthy obsession with Tories, Teresa May and Doom and Gloom. 

 

I just think Corbyn is a massive disingenuous lying cvnt.

 

He changes his mind in whatever direction the wind is blowing.

 

People claiming he is a good honest principled man of the people wanting a better world. I have never heard so much bollocks come from one corduroy wearing twat.  Wonder if the nob sits in the cheap seats at Arsenal.....no thought not. 

Edited 28 June 2018 by Foxin_mad

[David Guiza]

1 minute ago, Foxin_mad said:

Like many on here unhealthy obsession with Tories, Teresa May and Doom and Gloom. 

 

I just think Corbyn is a massive disingenuous lying cvnt.

 

He changes his mind in whatever direction the wind is blowing.

 

People claiming he is a good honest principled man of the people wanting a better world. I have never heard so much bollocks come from one corduroy wearing twat.  Wonder if the nob sits in the cheap seats at Arsenal.....no thought not. 

 

 

 

[Guest Foxin_mad]

13 minutes ago, Buce said:

Europe's migration crisis: Could it finish the EU?

 

Hardened Eurosceptics might love to think the EU's in trouble, but as leaders gather in Brussels for their summer summit on Thursday, dedicated Europhiles are also sounding the alarm.

"The fragility of the EU is increasing," warns EU Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker. "The cracks are growing in size."

It's been easy to get distracted this last couple of weeks by the new Italian government and its headline-grabbing rejection of NGO migrant rescue boats.

But Mr Juncker is right: EU fissures go deeper and are more widespread.

Migration pits southern Europe against the north.

Italy and Greece smoulder with resentment at having been left alone to deal with migrant arrivals. Meanwhile, northern countries blame the south for not patrolling their Mediterranean borders better and for having, at least in the past, enabled migrants to "slip away" northwards towards richer Germany, Austria and Sweden.

Read more from Katya: EU's Med migrant crisis: Just a mess or cynical politics?

Migration slashes the EU from east to west too.

Newer member states from Central and Eastern Europe never signed up to the post World War Two "all for one and one for all" vision.

When it comes to EU solidarity and burden-sharing, they are fervent non-believers. They determinedly turn their backs when Italy and Germany plead for migrant quotas.

High-stakes summer for Merkel

The number of migrants arriving illegally in Europe may be down, but so is voter tolerance of the problem.

The rise and rise across the EU of tough-on-migration politicians has emboldened hardliners such as Hungary's Victor Orban and Austria's Sebastian Kurz, who takes over the six-month rotating presidency of the EU this Sunday and will push migration as a top priority.

"Keep Them Out" is Austria's main aim and while Europe's (still) most influential leader, Angela Merkel, arrives in Brussels on Thursday pushing - and praying - for compromise on burden-sharing and prevention, the number of EU leaders pushing single-mindedly on the migrant deterrence button is growing.

 

 

Which brings me to the next layer of European splits provoked by migration: within national governments as well as between countries.

Germany is the most dramatic example.

• UK told 'little time left' for Brexit deal
• Merkel's Bavarian ally threatens migration mutiny
• Can the EU reach a new deal on migrants?

Mrs Merkel has clearly been weakened at home by her previous open-door migrant policy.

Formerly viewed as politically untouchable, the German chancellor has now been given an ultimatum by her own interior minister.

"By the end of this Brussels summit, you need to come home with a workable pan-European solution to stop irregular migrants bleeding into Germany," Horst Seehofer has threatened her. "Or I will unilaterally slam Germany's borders shut."

The Austrian government told me this week it would then immediately follow suit, causing a border-closing domino effect across Europe - with a seismic impact on the EU's prize political and economic project: the open-border Schengen agreement.

What a blow for Brussels and nightmare for Europe's export-king Germany that would be.

Of course we're not there yet.

Push for migrant centres outside EU

In true European Union style, once gathered round a table here in Brussels, there will undoubtedly be emphasis on what unites rather than divides member countries.

On migration, EU leaders will easily agree to beef up their Frontex border guard.

 

There's also growing convergence around the idea of setting up so-called disembarkation centres outside the EU to identify economic migrants, who in theory could be sent home. Those with a right to asylum or refugee status could then be given safe and legal passage to Europe.

And there's much talk of closer co-operation (read: money) with migrant countries of origin and the transit countries (read: Libya and its coastguard) that migrants cross to make their way to people smuggler boats.

But these ideas are easier to formulate than to carry out.

You would need a lot of EU border guards to truly patrol southern Europe's thousands of miles of open coastline. You would need permission from African countries such as Niger and Chad to set up processing centres, for example. So far that's a distant goal.

'Time is short'

In the meantime, there is no whiff of EU agreement over what to do with migrants who do reach Europe.

Which brings us back to the threat to Schengen.

 

Gloomy German government sources told me they gave the project a three out of 10 chance of survival thanks to the increasingly nationalistic nature of many European governments.

"And if Schengen does fail," they predict, "that would be the beginning of the end of the European Union."

It's too early really to herald the demise of the EU or even the end of Mrs Merkel's career in government as a result of this very political migrant crisis in Europe.

But, as EU summit host Donald Tusk said to EU leaders on the eve of their arrival: "The stakes are very high. And time is short."

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-44632471

Goodness me. That there highlights the huge problem we have in Western Europe.

 

This is not sustainable.

 

Will the EU finally be able to tackle this issue?

 

It is probably one of the major factors in the UKs exit. Thing like this really do highlight the need for serious reform, institutions need to modernise or they will eventually fail if they refuse to accept their failings.

[Guest Foxin_mad]

1 minute ago, David Guiza said:

 

 

Fair dos!