Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[garbon]

yet most foreigners I've ran into speaking about it actively want them.

Why? I can see not being bothered by them but I don't understand why a migrant would want a physical ID? After all, until government went to eVisa, all migrants already had an ID card which was called the biometric residence permit. And I can definitely see why a person would want a BRP over an eVisa as the latter is atrocious.

[Josquius]

yet most foreigners I've ran into speaking about it actively want them.

Why? I can see not being bothered by them but I don't understand why a migrant would want a physical ID? After all, until government went to eVisa, all migrants already had an ID card which was called the biometric residence permit. And I can definitely see why a person would want a BRP over an eVisa as the latter is atrocious.

Peace of mind they've got actual proof they're legally meant to be in the UK, cutting out the fuss of needing to find physical utility bills and crap like that.
I remember getting started was an absolute nightmare when my girlfriend first came here. She couldn't get a bank account without a utility bill but she couldn't get her name on a utility bill without a bank account .

[garbon]

Peace of mind they've got actual proof they're legally meant to be in the UK, cutting out the fuss of needing to find physical utility bills and crap like that.
I remember getting started was an absolute nightmare when my girlfriend first came here. She couldn't get a bank account without a utility bill but she couldn't get her name on a utility bill without a bank account .

Okay but that is assuming some pretty quick overhauls:
1) That you'll get a national ID immediately (I don't know how quickly BRPs were given as I arrived before they existed but National Insurance numbers as proxy, are not immediately assigned. You had to call to request one and then wait for it).
2) Banks quickly change to only require National ID and wouldn't still want verification of address (which is what utility bill was doing). Based on what we know about proposal, address may not be on the National ID (it was never on visa/BRP/eVisa and BBC article on it doesn't list that).
3) Same but that Utilities are happy to proceed without a bank account. I don't think that would change so would really cycle back to point 2.

Also, I don't think 'legally meant to be in the UK' is the source of many of these things. Like I don't think my council library is checking that I have a right to be in the UK when they request utility bills. They want proof of address so they know how to go after me were I to break the rules.

With the exception showing as proof of right to work, proof of right to study and crossing at customs, I lived here 10 years and never needed to show anyone else my visa/BRP/eVisa. Not sure what sort of circumstances your wife would come across where that would be necessary.

On the whole, it feels like what you've detected is continental Europeans happy to have a national ID because of its structure and utility in their home countries. I don't think would be a given with its implementation in the UK.

[Josquius]

Sure, there's lot of criticisms to be made of the specifics of what we know about this and the natural pessimism of the UK doing anything. But the base idea of ID cards is fine and not at all the big threat to freedom it is being painted as.
Really we should just chat to some friendly European country and see about copying them.

[garbon]

Really we should just chat to some friendly European country and see about copying them.

I think if we are in a place where the government is pence pinching (is that a thing? ) about what to spend money on...I would suggest we directly spend money on things that make an immediate impact to people's lives. That is what is going to turn them off Reform and back to Labour.

Bread and Circuses!

[Sheilbh]

I know you've said this before. The far right might actually be right as the world descends into an apocalyptic dystopia.
But really that's a self fulfilling prophecy. Elect people who actively want to destroy the world and that's the world we will get. Its really not too late though to make changes that avoid the worst effects- and doing this will make for a more prosperous country and world in itself.

I think my point isn't that the far-right are right, it's that the relatively benign, consensual/there's no difference between the parties politics was produced by a benign economic environment of broad strong growth, supporting strong revenue receipts, growing employment and low inflation. I think it also reflected a world where the G7 accounted for 50%+ of the world economy and we were in a moment of American unipolarity and engagement in Europe/the World.

Those material conditions have gone and they're not coming back. We can no more will back the politics of that era than we can will back the social and gender politics of the 1950s.

The British economy and fiscal situation is in a bad situation (this is also true in Europe - and as I say I think there's a risk the next big shock will be a French or British political/fiscal crisis, unless Trump does something really severe first). In both cases aging and dependency ratios are big issues. That has a constraining impact on British politics - and this is a "we are not America" point because especially on the left you see a lot of people in the UK who seem to think America's discourse/never caring about debt applies here. It really doesn't they've got the world's reserve currency. We don't have the Sterling zone post-imperial buffer, it's a third tier currency and our industry is less than 2% of global output. Globally I think we are moving into a period of volatility and external shocks: the impacts of climate around the world is producing multiple new shocks each year, there's great power competition, there's war in Europe, there are energy shocks, the still unrolling impact of the sheer scale of China's growth and supply and power.

My point isn't that the far-right are right. It's that the underlying reality has and is shifting - it will produce different politics. Maybe the generous thing you could say about them is that I think the left and the centre and the mainstream right did have a bit of an end of history/"there is no alternative" mindset with neoliberalism. There's Mark Fisher's Capitalist Realism on the impossibility of even imagining an alternative system. I think the far-right were less keen on that moment and model so were imagining (often quite alarming) alternatives. That means that as the system goes through a crisis, they have a set of answers and other imaginings in a way that the rest of politics doesn't. And I think there is still a vast amount of restorationist, clinging to precious norms and modes of politics from the recent past - which needs to be jettisoned about ten years ago to start urgently re-thinking what a sustainable model is in a more volatile, vulnerable world).

I think, again of the Marx essay on 18th Brumaire:

Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language. Thus Luther put on the mask of the Apostle Paul, the Revolution of 1789-1814 draped itself alternately in the guise of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, and the Revolution of 1848 knew nothing better to do than to parody, now 1789, now the revolutionary tradition of 1793-95. In like manner, the beginner who has learned a new language always translates it back into his mother tongue, but he assimilates the spirit of the new language and expresses himself freely in it only when he moves in it without recalling the old and when he forgets his native tongue.

True the world economy is in a worse state than in the 90s.... but this need not necessarily spell doom for working people. Globalisation unravelling does provide opportunities for jobs at home.
One big opportunity is in renewables. Places that best stand to benefit from these are pretty poor - coastal towns? hilly rural mining areas?
The idea of different energy charges for those who have the infrastructure near them makes a lot of sense and really should be pushed forth. With water too- there's a current little story in the news with people whinging about a reservoir near them which was promised would be nicely landscaped but...isn't.
Blyth one example of somewhere that is amazingly well placed with the Norwegian connector and very robust grid connections from the old power plant there.

Yeah I mean this is the Boris Johnson view, right. It's attractive. I'm not actually sure if it's as transformativeas we need it to be. There are some indications that basically the economies of scale etc that is absolutely transforming renewables is primarily about solar and to a lesser extent on-shore wind. The costs off-shore wind seem pretty sticky. So if the renewable future is increasingly solar, that's not great for the UK. I'm also not really sure there will be enough of those jobs for it to make a significant swing. It's better to have than nothing and it's a starting point.

I'd also say Britain's economy is in a worse state than in the 90s - so is Europe's. There's slightly different reasons and peculiarities but I think a lot of overlap as you'd expect. I'm not sure that it's right to say the world economies in a worse place. Vastly fewer people are in absolute poverty, child mortality has declined, people are living for longer, people are more educated, there are fewer people experiencing food insecurity - a lot of that has basically been powered by China and to a lesser extent India. It's the elephant chart - and we're just in the trunk. And, frankly, I think most of the world experiences the ebbing of American and Western power over the world system as a relief. I think for much of the world now is actually a more optimistic, positive moment than the 90s were.

There's definitely aspects of its just distribution even in this. Less of the millionaire telling the man with £10 the man with £5 wants his money. Even just slightly more equal distribution to lower earners would have massive positive ripple effects.

Yeah but it's a trade off and an argument to be had in a democratic society.

The example I was thinking of was that state pensions will rise by 4.7% next year because of the triple lock. That's more than GDP and it's higher than inflation. So it will take a larger share of revenue to pay for those pensions. That might be the right thing - but it means there is less revenue to spend everywhere else. As European economies stay stuck in low growth, with aging populations - and ambitions to become relatively self-sustaining in defence - then the questions are how (and from who) do you raise more revenue or what do you spend less on. Or do you have to make changes you might not like to increase growth, reduce benefits for the old or be less ambitious on defence.

My concern is that I'm not sure European leaders (including in Britain) are really facing up to these choice, or preparing the public for them. We're still living in fantasy politics and, sadly at the minute, I think that'll last until the next shock whether that's a fiscal crisis here or in France, an economic crash started in the US because Trump does something mad, Taiwan or Russia attacking somewhere else in Europe - or whatever else.

Again it all comes down to planning doesn't it. Make British infrastructure more affordable and housing denser.

I think that's the biggest cheapest lever the government has got. I think it requires a government willing to spend a lot of political capital, make a really strong argument and take on a lot of vested interests (from owner occupiers, to the RSPB) who have strong natural support in the media.

It's not easy and I'm not sure this government is up to it. I know they talk about "five years to save mainstream politics" but I don't think they've got the urgency, radicalism or political ability to make really significant change. I hope I'm wrong.

On the whole, it feels like what you've detected is continental Europeans happy to have a national ID because of its structure and utility in their home countries. I don't think would be a given with its implementation in the UK.

Yes - and there is already an ID system in the UK's immigration system.

I'd add that I'm not sure it would necessarily be used any differently. Very, very hardline Interior Ministers in France have said the UK's problem is that we don't have an ID system so the police can't check people's papers - and the French police have a reputation for doing that around train stations etc.

But that is assuming the state's able to pull of a major IT project in the first place. On the one hand I am kind of reassured that the government ministers have been saying the goal of IDs would be to get it working for "right to work" checks by the end of this parliament as that seems like a realistic timeline - but it's not exactly the transformative project that actually has any impact in most people's lives. And I think there's a strong chance we have a government spending a lot of political capital, and money to basically reinvent eVisas (which they've literally only just introduced).

[Admiral Yi]

"When New Labour came into office the ... national debt was at 37.5% of GDP."

Mind boggling

[Valmy]

"we now have debt as a share of GDP at between 95-100%"

Damn. So much for austerity.

[Sheilbh]

A huge mistake not to take advantage of low interest rates for capital investment - and a mistake repeated more brutally across the Eurozone (I think not an insignificant part of Europe's weakness now). But you can see the impact of the financial crisis and then covid (plus Ukraine/energy support) here:


One of the challenges for the current government is their self-imposed fiscal rules. But also they want to do capital investment now at a time when rates are at their highest rate for 30 years (basically back to New Labour levels) which makes it more expensive - and the ONS is reluctant to follow the government's approach of considering it separate to wider debt. Plus, in any event, we're running a real deficit on current spending. I opposed disability benefit cuts and Winter Fuel Allowance cuts but it is not great that a government with a majority of 170 has not been able to push through relatively minor cuts to current spending. And I think getting that under control is helpful for supporting the more expansive approach on capital spending.

[HVC]

How do you even dig out of that as a sovereign nation? I'm assuming the UK isn't planning on defaulting anytime soon.

[The Minsky Moment]

And, frankly, I think most of the world experiences the ebbing of American and Western power over the world system as a relief. I think for much of the world now is actually a more optimistic, positive moment than the 90s were.

I don't think India is experiencing their 50 percent tariffs as a relief . . . the problem is that American power isn't just ebbing like a tide gradually going out on a still and quiet evening.  It is flailing about spasmodically and unpredictably.  Not to mention loud and obnoxiously.

The experience of a multipolar world is also not uniform.  It's been quite unpleasant for Ukraine and increasingly nerve-wracking for Taiwan.  Freedom from superpower meddling may feel bracing until you realize that the next country over has the same freedom and their idea of that freedom involves doing something rather nasty to you.

[Richard Hakluyt]

UK national debt was 250% of GDP in 1950,falling to around 50% by 1970. Growth was also good in those two decades. We could easily get the 100% down if we were still a serious country.

Part of the problem is the narrowing of the tax base. Too much of the burden is placed on the incomes of the working middle class. Wealthier pensioners, property owners and landlords need to pay more.

The benefits system also needs a complete review, it has become too expensive for an economy on the ropes.

There were massive cuts to public spending after the IMF were called in back in 1976. We can still make our own arrangements if we take the hard decisions now, one more crisis without us taking action and the cuts will be dictated to us.

[Josquius]

Yes, if any middling country can make it then it really should be Britain. We've so many natural advantages.
But the state of our government is such that all this boost is doing is pushing us up from absolute failed state to getting by, constantly scraping a C.

The British economy and fiscal situation is in a bad situation (this is also true in Europe - and as I say I think there's a risk the next big shock will be a French or British political/fiscal crisis, unless Trump does something really severe first). In both cases aging and dependency ratios are big issues. That has a constraining impact on British politics - and this is a "we are not America" point because especially on the left you see a lot of people in the UK who seem to think America's discourse/never caring about debt applies here. It really doesn't they've got the world's reserve currency. We don't have the Sterling zone post-imperial buffer, it's a third tier currency and our industry is less than 2% of global output. Globally I think we are moving into a period of volatility and external shocks: the impacts of climate around the world is producing multiple new shocks each year, there's great power competition, there's war in Europe, there are energy shocks, the still unrolling impact of the sheer scale of China's growth and supply and power.

What about Japan?
The Yen is vaguely comparable to the pound for % of global reserves et al and they hang on with fantastic debt. Yes, they have a very different economic setup which is key there- Japan inc and the massively incestuous relationship between business and government. But there are some lessons.
The pound is in nowhere near the same league as the dollar or even euro, but its not nothing. Its solidly a best of the rest competitor.

Yeah I mean this is the Boris Johnson view, right. It's attractive. I'm not actually sure if it's as transformativeas we need it to be.

I'm not saying its the best case. Its the Trump approach too.
Better to keep your links with the world rather than cut them deliberately in the hope of a decent patch job at home.
But it isn't completely without some logic in the reasoning. Switzerland is the example that I think the Brexiters had most in mind; quite heavy import barriers so quite a lot of made in Switzerland business with things that you really wouldn't expect to be made domestically in such a wealthy country being made there.
My issue is that the UK is a fair bit bigger than Switzerland and the Swiss have a certain quite parasitical world niche that keeps up their economy cannot be imitated by many.

There are some indications that basically the economies of scale etc that is absolutely transforming renewables is primarily about solar and to a lesser extent on-shore wind. The costs off-shore wind seem pretty sticky. So if the renewable future is increasingly solar, that's not great for the UK. I'm also not really sure there will be enough of those jobs for it to make a significant swing. It's better to have than nothing and it's a starting point.

From what I've read the price of off shore wind is competitive with other methods.
Sure the equipment itself isn't borderline free as solar is getting, but all-in, its competitive.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-record-low-uk-offshore-wind-cheaper-than-existing-gas-plants-by-2023/


Definitely true the number of jobs won't 'bring back industry'. This is often forgotten by those who want to blame foreigners, that a far bigger factor in the decline of industry as a mass employer is mechanisation. There's that stat I always mention, now a few years old and no longer true, that Britain is making more cars than it did in the 70s but with something like 10% of the workforce (actual number is forgotten).

More needs to be done there. The decline of work is a problem in the world at large that AI is threatening to drastically worsen (though I'm increasingly skeptical we're near that key point). We do need a different way of thinking.
The far right of course doesn't offer that. They want us to stop shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic just so they can throw dark skinned people overboard and half the chairs with them.

My concern is that I'm not sure European leaders (including in Britain) are really facing up to these choice, or preparing the public for them. We're still living in fantasy politics and, sadly at the minute, I think that'll last until the next shock whether that's a fiscal crisis here or in France, an economic crash started in the US because Trump does something mad, Taiwan or Russia attacking somewhere else in Europe - or whatever else.

There's definitely big stay clenched until Trump is gone and we get America back thinking going on at the moment.
I can understand it to an extent. That would be lovely.
But given everything going on in America I'm not so confident that's something we can rely on. I really hope behind the scenes at least (it can't be too public as Fox News will tell Trump about it) other plans are underway.

I think that's the biggest cheapest lever the government has got. I think it requires a government willing to spend a lot of political capital, make a really strong argument and take on a lot of vested interests (from owner occupiers, to the RSPB) who have strong natural support in the media.

It's not easy and I'm not sure this government is up to it. I know they talk about "five years to save mainstream politics" but I don't think they've got the urgency, radicalism or political ability to make really significant change. I hope I'm wrong.

Really we need to be making common cause with the environmental groups.
We don't want to just open the floodgates to get back to doing what we were doing in the 1930s and have been doing on a far more start-stop basis since then.
This didn't work. Its key to many of the problems we're dealing with today.
We need a fundamentally different approach to building.
We really need to sell the key point that if we build more sensibly this would actually be better for the environment.

Yes - and there is already an ID system in the UK's immigration system.

I'd add that I'm not sure it would necessarily be used any differently. Very, very hardline Interior Ministers in France have said the UK's problem is that we don't have an ID system so the police can't check people's papers - and the French police have a reputation for doing that around train stations etc.

But that is assuming the state's able to pull of a major IT project in the first place. On the one hand I am kind of reassured that the government ministers have been saying the goal of IDs would be to get it working for "right to work" checks by the end of this parliament as that seems like a realistic timeline - but it's not exactly the transformative project that actually has any impact in most people's lives. And I think there's a strong chance we have a government spending a lot of political capital, and money to basically reinvent eVisas (which they've literally only just introduced).

Again no immigrants I know have this.

I'd have no problem with the police having the ability to check papers under certain explicitly defined circumstances. Not around public transport, though that is the norm in Europe.
But at places of work?
This is where the digital aspect is useful- no "I haven't got my card today" excuse.

Though of course this needs to be done in a carrot and stick sort of way. Let asylum seekers work legally again.

[Tamas]

One thing I am not getting about the "you can't tax the rich they'll just move out" (which is to a large extent true and I used to think it) argument is... sure you can't tax their money reserves and investments, but what about their properties? They can't just upend those, and if you tax based on the value of the property, not based on how much value of properties an individual or company holds, then divvying up the loot between the family and cronies won't help much either.

The challenge is to put official values on properties so anything past a certain value (let's say 1 million pounds so 200 years old mid-terrace London hovels won't fall under it) could be hit with an annual tax.

I mean, actually, you could just, say, take your 3 million pounds piece of land and divide it up between 4 people, then you are done. Meh, maybe it is hard.

[Josquius]

One thing I am not getting about the "you can't tax the rich they'll just move out" (which is to a large extent true and I used to think it) argument is... sure you can't tax their money reserves and investments, but what about their properties? They can't just upend those, and if you tax based on the value of the property, not based on how much value of properties an individual or company holds, then divvying up the loot between the family and cronies won't help much either.

Yes, we've talked about this one before.
If you're Belgium or Hungary then this might be a valid worry to have. But when you've got London and you ensure that if they want to move overseas they actually have to move overseas....
Then I do think a lot of rich people will take the blow of higher taxes but getting to keep living their life over having to move to some Swiss village.
International collaboration should still be key here really though.

The challenge is to put official values on properties so anything past a certain value (let's say 1 million pounds so 200 years old mid-terrace London hovels won't fall under it) could be hit with an annual tax.

I mean, actually, you could just, say, take your 3 million pounds piece of land and divide it up between 4 people, then you are done. Meh, maybe it is hard.

I've yet to be dissuaded on my idea for taxing property.
Do it based on local property values, the amount of ground covered and with what.
Ensure the various reductions for low earners are setup in such a way to take into account net worth, overseas earnings, etc....