Brexit.

[Innula Zenovka]

Back in 1992, this was comedy. It could now, sadly, be a mainstream Tory MP:

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Then again, the In The Thick Of It team seem to have been responsible for much of Boris Johnson's tenure as Foreign Secretary

 

[Kara Spengler]

Also Donald Trump is not pleased about the Brexit-deal EU-UK. It "will harm Britain’s ability to trade with America after leaving the European Union. "

Donald Trump slams Theresa May's Brexit deal as 'great for the EU' but warns it will harm UK-US trade


Trump: PM's Brexit deal 'great' for EU but not UK-US trade

How can it harm trade? After all, he can unilaterally set up a trade agreement with them, right?

 

[Sid]

How can it harm trade? After all, he can unilaterally set up a trade agreement with them, right?

As long as the UK is part of the EU market: No.
Just as the EU can't arrange special trade deals with for instance California or Virginia. It is with the USA or nothing.

 

[Kara Spengler]

December 11, following a 5 day (!) debate.

What is the point of a 5 day debate? Either they accept it or they decide they like diving off cliffs, it is WELL past the point where they can do anything else. Pretty soon even the option of a 2nd vote will be legally off the table no matter how much hurrying they do. Assuming a majority realizes a cliff-edge brexit is not even an option at this point they have to hope they can withdraw article 50 and do so if May's deal will not get enough votes.

 

[Kara Spengler]

If you'd said Putin, I'd wholeheartedly agree. With Trump, however, I'm not sure how far his strategic thinking goes.

Every time I am tempted to forget that country has produced a lot of chess masters I am reminded of the fact. If he were not so evil some of what Putin has done is almost worth congratulations. Just his continual game of who has the most power in the country and *surprise* he happens to hold the position.

[I gave up on chess when I realized I had become farsighted about it. I was playing several moves ahead but was always missing the next one. So I could do well against other people that knew the game but lousy against newbs.]

 

[Innula Zenovka]

What is the point of a 5 day debate? Either they accept it or they decide they like diving off cliffs, it is WELL past the point where they can do anything else. Pretty soon even the option of a 2nd vote will be legally off the table no matter how much hurrying they do. Assuming a majority realizes a cliff-edge brexit is not even an option at this point they have to hope they can withdraw article 50 and do so if May's deal will not get enough votes.

What happens next if Theresa May's Brexit deal is voted down?

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

What is the point of a 5 day debate? Either they accept it or they decide they like diving off cliffs, it is WELL past the point where they can do anything else. Pretty soon even the option of a 2nd vote will be legally off the table no matter how much hurrying they do. Assuming a majority realizes a cliff-edge brexit is not even an option at this point they have to hope they can withdraw article 50 and do so if May's deal will not get enough votes.

As far as I do understand it is a beloved and also much hated tradition.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The government didn't want a vote. They wanted to be able to accept (or not) whatever deal they negotiated. Opposition MPs and some Tory rebels forced them to concede a "meaningful vote" on the agreement before it was accepted.

If it's rejected, then the government has to come back within 14 days with its proposals for what do next.

 

[Tigger]

It has to be voted down, it is our only chance to get a 2nd ref. Not even May is loopy enough to take on the blame for no deal.

 

[detrius]

Also Donald Trump is not pleased about the Brexit-deal EU-UK. It "will harm Britain’s ability to trade with America after leaving the European Union. "

Donald Trump slams Theresa May's Brexit deal as 'great for the EU' but warns it will harm UK-US trade


Trump: PM's Brexit deal 'great' for EU but not UK-US trade

When Angela Merkel visited Trump in Washington in 2017, he wanted to negotiate a trade deal with Germany and she had to explain to him eleven times that he can't negotiate trade deals with individual EU member states but has to go through the EU.

I guess Angela Merkel succeeded in getting that concept through his thick skull and he's still stuck with the idea of the UK being part of the EU.

Maybe someone should tell him that Israel, Saudi Arabia and Russia are EU member states as well.

 

[danielravennest]

December 11, following a 5 day (!) debate.

That means they're starting the debate on "A day that will live in infamy" (Dec 7th, Pearl Harbor Day). Does not bode well.

 

[Khamon]

It has to be voted down, it is our only chance to get a 2nd ref. Not even May is loopy enough to take on the blame for no deal.

Wouldn't want to be counted as having voted for it. Brexit and Trumpism seem similar in their reliance on immigration issues. Foreigners stealing your jobs and federal benefits is the primary Republican selling point to rural America. Acceptance of national economic control, however, has slowly taken hold in the US over the past hundred years and will eventually lead to socialized health care, hopefully in my lifetime, like 2020, before retirement. Some of our states tried to break ties with the federated economy in the nineteenth century and had to be forcibly put down by the others. The EU is thankfully able to wield trade agreements rather than guns.

 

[Tigger]

It was partly "foreigners stealing our jobs" but mostly people have been noting the huge degradation in our public services and a perceived increase in immigration (although EU citizens living in an EU state isn't immigration per se) and they, wrongly, concluded that the two things were connected.

The blame for our collapsing services however lies squarely at the feet of tory austerity policy and has bugger all to do with romanians, muslims or polish plumbers.

The services that many leave voters believe will become foreigner free and therefore perfect will just collapse all the faster due to the economic damage of brexit, where reducing their budgets through austerity was a choice of the tories, a reduced level of government income will ensure that budgets continue to fall.

 

[Porsupah Ree]

Britain will be poorer if MPs back Theresa May’s Brexit deal, Philip Hammond admits

Britain will be poorer if MPs back Theresa May’s Brexit deal, Philip Hammondhas admitted, as he prepared to publish new official forecasts.
In an extraordinary interview, the chancellor acknowledged that “remaining in the single market” – rejected by the prime minister – was the best way to secure the country’s economic future.

Asked if the fresh analysis would show that leaving the EU would be “detrimental”, he replied: “Yes, you are right in that analysis.”

Who could have guessed?

*sigh* I've never felt less interested in remaining in the UK.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Boris prepares for a meeting with the French


Boris Johnson video shows 'excruciating' exchange with Foreign Office adviser

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

It was partly "foreigners stealing our jobs" but mostly people have been noting the huge degradation in our public services and a perceived increase in immigration (although EU citizens living in an EU state isn't immigration per se) and they, wrongly, concluded that the two things were connected.

What the poors of many countries were experiencing was a politically willed influx of foreigners, which were willing to take over their already cheap work for most of the time even cheaper loans. So it was either for them accepting cheaper payments from which they are even more unable to live for the same or even more work, or getting jobless.

So this undercutting happened in many services, and of course it lead to a massive increase of poorness, frustration and such opinions.

The underlying problem is the neoliberal agenda of many countries, which have been in action for at least 30+ years - and this degradation of services and their quality is a result of this.

 

[Tigger]

What the poors of many countries were experiencing was a politically willed influx of foreigners, which were willing to take over their already cheap work for most of the time even cheaper loans. So it was either for them accepting cheaper payments from which they are even more unable to live for the same or even more work, or getting jobless.

So this undercutting happened in many services, and of course it lead to a massive increase of poorness, frustration and such opinions.

The underlying problem is the neoliberal agenda of many countries, which have been in action for at least 30+ years - and this degradation of services and their quality is a result of this.

That's what many believe but there are no studies that back up those suppositions.

Studies into the impact of foreign labour have found no appreciable impact on wages as a result. Nor is there any reason to believe that services have been impacted. Figures show that the average foreign worker contributes more in taxes and takes less in services than the average native born.

Further more the workforce of our services is heavily dependant on foreign workers. The NHS for example makes extensive use of non-native born staff and since the brexit referendum applications for nursing positions has dropped by 98% from EU countries and this at a time when we have in the region of 100,000 job vacancies in the NHS, many tens of thousands of which are for nurses.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Well I am always sceptical about studies, it always boils down for me to who paid for it in the end. Either way, backed up by studies or not, this is how the poor working class does perceive it mostly, and a major reason for them to drift to the right/more nationalist approaches.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Generally in the UK, immigrants (whether from the EU or elsewhere) do either unskilled work British workers don't want to do (e.g. migrant agricultural labour) or skilled jobs where there's a shortage of qualified people locally (either skilled trades or professional jobs).

Yes, "the poor working class" do frequently perceive it differently, and this is hardly surprising since successive governments and the media have been all too happy to encourage people to blame immigrants, rather than the government, for the consequences of failing economic policies.

If people are worried about low wages, then the solutions, to my mind, are rigorous enforcement of the law on minimum wages and a strong trades union movement, not blaming immigrants. If people are worried about over-large classes in schools, then the solution is to increase the number of teachers (whether recruited in the UK or elsewhere) and to build more schools, not complain about the children of immigrants taking up places. If people are worried about hospital waiting lists (in hospitals that rely on immigrant medical and non-medical staff) or difficulties making an appointment with their GP (again, frequently from abroad), then the solution is to build more hospitals and both train and recruit more doctors, not to complain about immigrants taking all the appointments.

There's also a fundamental structural problem, in that as industries develop and change, that affects the communities that have grown up around them. Problems with unemployment in the older industrial and mining areas in England, for example, are caused not by immigrants taking the jobs but with either the industry closing completely over the last 30-odd years (e.g. mining) or the jobs being taken either by workers in China or by machines, and those jobs aren't coming back.

That means that, in a lot of cases, there's no reason for many towns and cities to be anything like as large as they used to be, and it's not the sort of problem that's susceptible to simple fixes, either from the right or the left.