Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Josquius]

To be clear - all migrants (with some weird exceptions like seasonal labour) have the exact same employment rights and protections as any British worker. Those laws apply to workers, not to citizens. In general my understanding is citizenship isn't tied to very much in the UK (not even voting) - the area where your visa would be relevant is around benefit entitlement/access to public services.

In reality non-EU workers are disproportionately in sectors that are heavily unionised or where you have highly skilled and educated workers who are fairly able to take advantage of their rights; EU workers are disproprtionately in sectors that have weaker unioninisation and are a little bit more lump of labour (e.g. hospitality, retail - construction is different but has a lot of exploitation). So in theory non-EU workers have less access to rights and that's true around certain points - in practice looking at the workers who have come to the UK and the sectors they're in, I think despite protections in theory, EU workers have possibly been more exploited. Migrants from the EU 10 accession countries are the lowest earning migrant communities in the UK behind every other group - that doesn't necessarily mean they can't access their rights, but I think it does make it less likely.

One caveat with that is that I think that applies to work and study visas - it's less likely to apply to family reunification visas although, my understanding, is that people on those visas are less likely to enter the workforce.

Technically foreign workers have many of the same rights as Brits, albeit not at all.
What they actually feel comfortable enough to use in practice due to the key right they are missing- far less.
British workers and others with the permanent right to be here don't have their visa status resting on a single job. This is a very big deal.
For Europeans its not the end of the world, they have the right to visit whenever they want anyway and its a short, cheap journey home. For Indians or SS Africans however? This is a very big deal. Their employment is tenuous and they know not to rock the boat because of this. I've seen this first hand.

Just the other day I was reading about a Nigerian doctor being exploited (https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63141929 is the link, the first one I found when googling was this which is interesting in its own way- https://www.bbc.com/pidgin/articles/c3g9r191egqo)

As to British employment not being at will...in your first 2 years its pretty easy to be fired. And then again, perception is key. Even many Brits don't know how the British system works.
But it need not go all the way to firing for a job to be horrid. The example in the link for instance. The key is if a job sucks they can't just get a new one.

[Tamas]

Eurozone industrial output jumps in sharp contrast to UK
Industrial output in the eurozone rose sharply in August as manufacturers boosted investment despite fears of a recession, official figures have shown.

Industrial production in the 19 countries sharing the euro rose 1.5% in August from July, according to Eurostat, and was much better than the 0.6% gain forecast by economists. This is in sharp contrast with UK manufacturing, which fell 1.6% in August, contributing to an overall economic decline of 0.3%.

In the eurozone, output of capital goods such as machinery rose 2.8% in August, suggesting companies ramped up investment. They also produced more consumer goods while energy output was cut.

Among the biggest economies, France's industrial production rose 2.5%, while Italy's increased by 2.3%, and output in Germany – normally the eurozone's economic powerhouse – declined by 0.5%.

So we have higher inflation but lower growth than the EU. Is it allowed yet to blame Brexit for this, or it is still too soon to admit that the UK public can be duped into making a mistake?

[garbon]

Eurozone industrial output jumps in sharp contrast to UK
Industrial output in the eurozone rose sharply in August as manufacturers boosted investment despite fears of a recession, official figures have shown.

Industrial production in the 19 countries sharing the euro rose 1.5% in August from July, according to Eurostat, and was much better than the 0.6% gain forecast by economists. This is in sharp contrast with UK manufacturing, which fell 1.6% in August, contributing to an overall economic decline of 0.3%.

In the eurozone, output of capital goods such as machinery rose 2.8% in August, suggesting companies ramped up investment. They also produced more consumer goods while energy output was cut.

Among the biggest economies, France's industrial production rose 2.5%, while Italy's increased by 2.3%, and output in Germany – normally the eurozone's economic powerhouse – declined by 0.5%.

So we have higher inflation but lower growth than the EU. Is it allowed yet to blame Brexit for this, or it is still too soon to admit that the UK public can be duped into making a mistake?

What a remoaner. Just wait, Sheilbh will be along presently to set you straight.

[Sheilbh]

What a remoaner. Just wait, Sheilbh will be along presently to set you straight.

I don't think people were duped anymore than any election or referendum is duping the public. I think they made a choice I think was the wrong option.

But I disagreed with Brexit and I think it was a mistake - but it's a fact. It has happened. So I don't really know what to do with this is a bad idea because we've passed that point. There's no time machine so observing that Brexit was bad is pointless.

The question is what now because Brexit was a fundamental, irreversible decision (following a referendum and two elections). We can move towards re-joining for sure - but I think that has to be a positive argument about now and the future.

Having said all that my basic view is that Brexit has an effect but it's not as big as other factors right now - on inflation, for example, BofE estimates are that Brexit effects are about 10-20% of the total in the UK. In my view it will tend to reinforce or intensify things like inflation or low growth. But I think fundamentally - and this is part of why I supported Remain - whether the UK thrived or not, largely depends on UK politics and decisions. That was true when we were in the EU and it's true now.

Technically foreign workers have many of the same rights as Brits, albeit not at all.
What they actually feel comfortable enough to use in practice due to the key right they are missing- far less.
British workers and others with the permanent right to be here don't have their visa status resting on a single job. This is a very big deal.
For Europeans its not the end of the world, they have the right to visit whenever they want anyway and its a short, cheap journey home. For Indians or SS Africans however? This is a very big deal. Their employment is tenuous and they know not to rock the boat because of this. I've seen this first hand.

Just the other day I was reading about a Nigerian doctor being exploited (https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63141929 is the link, the first one I found when googling was this which is interesting in its own way- https://www.bbc.com/pidgin/articles/c3g9r191egqo)

As to British employment not being at will...in your first 2 years its pretty easy to be fired. And then again, perception is key. Even many Brits don't know how the British system works.
But it need not go all the way to firing for a job to be horrid. The example in the link for instance. The key is if a job sucks they can't just get a new one.

Yeah I've seen the Nigerian Pidgin World Service before. It's really interesting - and hopefully survives given that the World Service is being gutted

As I say I don't dispute exploitation - but you're not tied to a job. You can change employer although it might be more difficult to change sector. I agree on perception and support which is why I think unionisation and union presence is really important. But it's not easy to fire people in the UK - except for the probation period of, normally, three months. It's not indentured service or anything like that - it's the same as visas in most of the world (except for Home Office price gouging) but comparatively the UK system is relatively liberal.

I get the point on EU citizens having rights - but I think it ignores the reality of the sectors many are working in and the ability and ease of accessing those rights. I worked in hospitality in the 2010s my colleagues were overwhelmingly Europeans - there were some (especially with a bit more skill like the chefs) who were relatively relaxed. But lots had all of the anxieties of low-paid work, insecure work, zero hour contracts on the whim of a manager etc but also had the fact that often they couldn't really just go home because there were no jobs etc. It was maybe easier to find another similar job in London or elsewhere in the UK - but that was basically the only option people had.

Separately - and possibly for Jos - I saw this piece on banning short-haul flights in the UK. It's a really good idea, but the article doesn't mention that our rail system is basically at capacity:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/oct/12/banning-flights-on-uk-routes-with-fast-rail-links-could-cut-flight-emissions-by-third

It feels like another example of the British public wanting to achieve net zero but absolutely not being willing to countenance any building or new infrastructure. Given the way it's worked out with, say, energy, we'll no doubt end up banning the flights, not expanding the rail and then being furious and baffled at more carbon and car journeys.

[Sheilbh]

Also - just seen Andrew Bailey's commments on the BofE stopping support for long-dated gilts on Friday and the pension sector needs to re-balance and get it done by then.

I know he was seen as a safe pair of hands pick for the BofE. He's worked there his entire life and been in various senior roles. I've no doubt he's a very smart economist - but it feels like he's really bad at the comms piece which I think is really important for central bankers.

Because I don't know what the market is supposed too do with comments like that other than slightly panic and I don't know that three days notice is really that helpful. Maybe I'm wrong and it makes sense but it feels like he has a habit of making quite blunt comments that don't seem very helpful and I'm not sure that's a great thing fora  central banker?

[Tamas]

Also - just seen Andrew Bailey's commments on the BofE stopping support for long-dated gilts on Friday and the pension sector needs to re-balance and get it done by then.

I know he was seen as a safe pair of hands pick for the BofE. He's worked there his entire life and been in various senior roles. I've no doubt he's a very smart economist - but it feels like he's really bad at the comms piece which I think is really important for central bankers.

Because I don't know what the market is supposed too do with comments like that other than slightly panic and I don't know that three days notice is really that helpful. Maybe I'm wrong and it makes sense but it feels like he has a habit of making quite blunt comments that don't seem very helpful and I'm not sure that's a great thing fora  central banker?

Fair but also it is safe to assume the funds will not rebalance toward smaller profits if they think the BoE will continue to QE and underpin their market. There needs to be a deadline because the BoE has inflation to contend with as well and channeling new money into bond market participants ain't gonna' make that one better.

[garbon]

Having said all that my basic view is that Brexit has an effect but it's not as big as other factors right now - on inflation, for example, BofE estimates are that Brexit effects are about 10-20% of the total in the UK. In my view it will tend to reinforce or intensify things like inflation or low growth. But I think fundamentally - and this is part of why I supported Remain - whether the UK thrived or not, largely depends on UK politics and decisions. That was true when we were in the EU and it's true now.

Maybe but as a foreigner it isn't lost on me that the pound has never traded as well versus the dollar since that momental day in 2016.

[Josquius]

Yeah I've seen the Nigerian Pidgin World Service before. It's really interesting - and hopefully survives given that the World Service is being gutted

As I say I don't dispute exploitation - but you're not tied to a job. You can change employer although it might be more difficult to change sector. I agree on perception and support which is why I think unionisation and union presence is really important. But it's not easy to fire people in the UK - except for the probation period of, normally, three months. It's not indentured service or anything like that - it's the same as visas in most of the world (except for Home Office price gouging) but comparatively the UK system is relatively liberal.

They can't just switch job though. Its a big problem.
I've mentioned before a former colleague from a really shitty job I had a few years ago. He's Indian, has been in the UK less than 5 years. Where I was able to quit and move onto something new he was stuck there for longer as though he had lots of experience and people who would have hired him if he was British, because of the need to cough up £2000 and engage in a visa process many employers don't understand at all, so many just weren't willing to take a chance on him.
The subsequent places he went weren't ideal either- all big corporations with a particular way of working that doesn't gel with him where his experience from India and his aims are for a job in a smaller startup style company.

I've been on the other side of it too, as the foreign employee. It really can't be understated just how much better the EU situation is for all concerned.

Separately - and possibly for Jos - I saw this piece on banning short-haul flights in the UK. It's a really good idea, but the article doesn't mention that our rail system is basically at capacity:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/oct/12/banning-flights-on-uk-routes-with-fast-rail-links-could-cut-flight-emissions-by-third

It feels like another example of the British public wanting to achieve net zero but absolutely not being willing to countenance any building or new infrastructure. Given the way it's worked out with, say, energy, we'll no doubt end up banning the flights, not expanding the rail and then being furious and baffled at more carbon and car journeys.

It needs to be done.
Though I do wonder where that leaves connecting flights.
I'm all for building more railways and would personally break the noses of all the anti-HS2 people were I inclined to violence so...
But yes. True, the British way is worst of both worlds. Especially with neo-libs in charge. Race to the bottom weeeee.

I do wonder what the maths are on flying vs. driving to London though. Obviously the plane is worse but spread over 100 people?...

Having said all that my basic view is that Brexit has an effect but it's not as big as other factors right now - on inflation, for example, BofE estimates are that Brexit effects are about 10-20% of the total in the UK. In my view it will tend to reinforce or intensify things like inflation or low growth. But I think fundamentally - and this is part of why I supported Remain - whether the UK thrived or not, largely depends on UK politics and decisions. That was true when we were in the EU and it's true now.

The worst will likely come not with our suffering more than most from the other stuff going on (which is happening albeit not massively), but rather when it comes time to recover.

[crazy canuck]

The notion that the Brexit referendum was just as fundamentally dishonest has any other election is, to put it bluntly, daft.

[alfred russel]

Is it? The debts incurred seem like they were causing serious social problems for very little reward. Indebting young people and limiting their access to housing and slowing family formation and all that. And for what? A tiny bit of money to the government? The principal in almost all those loans were already paid, it wasn't like we took a huge loss except for future interest. It was such a huge problem that it became a political issue so vital that Biden had to promise to do something about it to be elected. So is it stupid to do something that has enormous political support behind it? It would strike me as stupid to not address that issues from a political standpoint. Especially since the kind of promised to do so. So the wise policy is to ignore your base and instead sell them out? I guess if there were compelling reasons to do so, but what are these?

It is an illogical and disastrous policy.

-If you were to design a program with $379 billion to alleviate "serious social problems" and provide better housing and family options to young people, why in god's name would you only give funds to college educated people making up to $125k or whatever the limit was?
-If you are concerned about college affordability, this does zero for anyone in college or about to enter college, but sets a precedent that makes them more likely to take on debt--I'd be much more inclined for a child of mine to take on college debt rather than contribute directly because of the precedent the debt may just get forgiven.
-The government just took a $379 billion loss on college education without efforts to reform the system and contain costs.
-If you are worried about inflation at the current time, relieving $379 billion of debt is going to contribute to the problem.

[Sheilbh]

The notion that the Brexit referendum was just as fundamentally dishonest has any other election is, to put it bluntly, daft.

How so? The big "lie" is the £350 million per week figure. The Leave campaign used the gross figure, not the net figure. I think that is well within the realm of general political spin.

I think the stuff about Turkey joining the EU was more dishonest - but, again, the policy of the British government and of the Labour Party was that Turkey should join the EU. We were the biggest supporters of expansion, so while it's untrue that Turkey was about to join that was British policy supported by most of the Remain leadership.

It all seems like the strategy of the Tories counting spending pledges in a Labour manifesto and then running a campaign on "Labour's tax bombshell" about the x million pounds they need to raise to pay for it (or vice versa about Tory tax and spending cuts).

I've always thought the bigger problem on that dishonest/misleading side was the economic projections George Osborne was waving around (normally based on mad assumptions like Britain leaving the day after the vote with no deal). I felt they were far more corrosive because he was relasing them on Treasury letterhead documents as Chancellor when they were very, very political. I didn't like it when they did it for the Scottish referendum (even though it worked) and I didn't like it in 2016 either. I think you can as Chancellor release a range of projections and separately make the political argument it's not worth the risk, but that's not what Osborne was doing.

Edit: Although I am aware I can't stand Osborne and blame him for almost everything so...

[crazy canuck]

The 350 was just one of the lies.  A simple google search will send you to multiple pages of the rest of the lies.  Since you made the claim that this level of dishonesty is par for the course, please give me a counter example which proves your claim. 

edit: the US doesn't count - we are only talking about liberal democracies here.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Less than 3 years to the sunlit uplands so memorably evoked by Daniel Hannan :

https://reaction.life/britain-looks-like-brexit/

I can't wait 

[Sheilbh]

The 350 was just one of the lies.  A simple google search will send you to multiple pages of the rest of the lies.  Since you made the claim that this level of dishonesty is par for the course, please give me a counter example which proves your claim. 

The £350 million is the widest used example. As I say it is using a gross figure rather than a net figure. That's not a lie - it's not accurate or complete but it's not a lie.

As I say my example would be the approach of the Tories in 1992 or Labour in 2005.

Happy to look at any of the other examples but they're normally Leave campaigners saying what would happen when we left. Again that's not a lie, certainly not if they weren't in office after the vote. It might be a broken promise (not unheard of) - but generally I'm not even sure it's that.

It's a bit like, if the vote went the other way, accusing David Cameron/"Remain" of lying because it didn't result in a democratic socialist Europe as outlined by Yanis Varoufakis doing Another Europe Is Possible campaign events with Corbyn.

edit: the US doesn't count - we are only talking about liberal democracies here.

The US is my worry on this stuff to be honest.

I personally think a lot of it was just a coping mechanism for losing an election. But I think letting this stuff spread and get embedded is dangerous - because it's not true or there's no evidence for it. Whether it's "unprecedented deceit", unevidenced allegations about Russia or stuff about microtargeting (which is actually contradicted by the evidence in the Information Commissioner's investigation) - it all attacks the legitimacy of a democratic event. Which, while I don't like the result, had the highest participation in years and millions of non-voters turning out for the first time. I don't think it was illegitimate. I think there was about as much spin as in any other election on both sides, there wasn't Russian meddling and, while there were unlawful data practices, there wasn't the type of microtargeting people worry about conspiratorially.

There's been some research and around 65% of Remain voters don't think the government should have accepted the result which I think is really worrying, but I think they justify by these theories about why it wasn't a legitimate vote. The 35% of Remainers/losers who accept the result are as satisfied with democracy as the Leavers/winners, the two thirds who reject the result are 20% less satisfied with democracy.

I think once you start down that path of attacking the legitimacy of democratic events you lose, then you end up like the US where losers' consent has more or less vanished - how could this possibly be the result when no-one I know voted for Biden.

[Josquius]

The "Lying" that pissed me off about the brexit campaign wasn't any one big lie but the myriad of little lies in offering every possible vision of brexit under the sun simultaneously.
Brexit or not brexit is an absolutely terrible thing to have a vote on. There's bound to have been enough brexit voters who prefer remain to the version of brexit that we did get- those who idealised a Swiss style arrangement for instance.
A big one that sticks in my mind is how they offered easier visas for Pakistan to British Pakistanis whilst at the same time making it about Islamophobia with white dregs.