Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[The Larch]

What separates Leave voters from Remain voters? The results of YouGov's quirkier questions:

Sex, slang, steak: views that show remainers and leavers are worlds apart
YouGov's quirkier survey questions reveal a nation divided on everything from homosexuality to cooking – not just Brexit

Leave voters want well-done steaks
Nearly a quarter of leave voters (23%) say they prefer their steaks well done, compared with only 12% of remain voters. The most popular way to cook steak for remain voters is "medium rare".


They really like eating meat
Surveyed in April 2017 about the environmental impact of eating meat, 24% of leave voters said they were "very unwilling" to consider "eating less meat and fewer meat products in the future". Only 9% of remain voters felt so strongly carnivorous.


Leave voters are twice as likely to want to ban the burqa
Seventy percent of leave voters told YouGov they supported "a law against wearing a full body and face veil" aimed at Muslim women. Only 32% of remain voters felt the same way.


And half as likely to think that gollies are offensive
Asked "Do you think it is or is not acceptable to sell or display a golliwog doll?", 71% of leave voters said "acceptable". Remain voters scored 37%.


More leave voters thought Donald Trump would be a good president
Asked on the weekend of his inauguration whether Trump would make a "great" or "good" president of the US, 30% of leave voters said they believed he would.

Zero percent of remain voters said they thought Trump would be a "great" president. Three pecent said he would be "good".


They are more likely to want to leave the Paris climate change agreement
Pulling out of the Paris accord would mean the UK joining the US as the only major nations outside the global agreement. That's where 26% of leave voters would prefer to be. Only 5% of remain voters want to quit.


Leave voters also want out of Eurovision
Forty-one percent of leave voters say they have made their mind up that the UK should permanently exit the Eurovision song contest.


They are less likely to think prison is about rehabilitation
Leave and remain voters have very different views on the purpose of prison. Asked what should be the primary reason for prison, leave voters said "to punish the criminal" (35%), to "act as a deterrent" (24%) or to "get violent criminals off the street" (20%).

By contrast, 41% of remain voters said the main purpose of prison should be to "rehabilitate the morals and skills of criminals".


They think the BBC should be privatised
Leave voters are twice as likely as remain voters to think the BBC should be privatised. Thirty-two percent of leave voters would prefer a privately run corporation.


Almost half of leave voters consider gay sex unnatural
Asked "personally speaking, do you think gay sex is or is not natural?" just under a half of leave voters – 47% – say they believe gay sex is unnatural. Twenty-one percent of remain voters agree with them.

More stuff in the article, I just cherry picked the ones that were more clear cut.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/nov/14/sex-slang-steak-views-leave-remain-worlds-apart

[The Larch]

And an offshoot from that one, which parties would fictional characters vote for, according to the polled?

(% excluding "don't know" and "wouldn't vote" results)

Dr. Who: Green (32%)

David Brent: Conservative (46%)

Professor McGonagall: Conservative (32%)

Postman Pat: Labour (33%)

Fireman Sam: Labour (39%)

Bob the Builder: Labour (61%)

James Bond: Conservative (83%)

Sherlock Holmes: Conservative (64%)

Ali G: Labour (43%)

Mary Poppins: Conservative (38%)

Groundskeeper Willie: SNP (46%)

Mr. Bean: Lib Dem (26%)

Bridget Jones: Tie between Conservative and Lib Dem (28%)

Arthur Dent: Lib Dem (27%)

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Conservative (91%)

Cruella de Vil: Conservative (57%)

Basil Fawlty: Conservative (60%)


Results for even more characters from British shows in the link: https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/c5uqocezp4/InternalResults_170522_fictional_characters_voting_w.pdf

[crazy canuck]

And an offshoot from that one, which parties would fictional characters vote for, according to the polled?

(% excluding "don't know" and "wouldn't vote" results)

Dr. Who: Green (32%)

David Brent: Conservative (46%)

Professor McGonagall: Conservative (32%)

Postman Pat: Labour (33%)

Fireman Sam: Labour (39%)

Bob the Builder: Labour (61%)

James Bond: Conservative (83%)

Sherlock Holmes: Conservative (64%)

Ali G: Labour (43%)

Mary Poppins: Conservative (38%)

Groundskeeper Willie: SNP (46%)

Mr. Bean: Lib Dem (26%)

Bridget Jones: Tie between Conservative and Lib Dem (28%)

Arthur Dent: Lib Dem (27%)

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Conservative (91%)

Cruella de Vil: Conservative (57%)

Basil Fawlty: Conservative (60%)


Results for even more characters from British shows in the link: https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/c5uqocezp4/InternalResults_170522_fictional_characters_voting_w.pdf

Who wouldn't support such a stellar slate of candidates?

[Josquius]

The telegraphs front page playing 2 minutes of hate today

These brexiters truly are swine.

[garbon]

Such fun they will have when Britannia is swept under the waves.

[Gups]

Basil Fawlty is obviously UKIP.

[Richard Hakluyt]

..........and Blackadder would be in charge of the brexit negotiations, with expert assistance from Baldric of course.

[Jacob]

Not Brexit related, but British politics: study says austerity is associated with 45,000 excess deaths between 2012 and 2014, and are trending to 120,000 excess deaths from 2010 to 2017.

This study demonstrates that recent constraints in PEH and PES spending in England were associated with nearly 45 000 higher than expected numbers of deaths between 2012 and 2014. If these trends continue, even when considering the increased planned funding as of 2016, we estimate approximately 150 000 additional deaths may arise between 2015 and 2020. Combining these projected excess deaths and the observed deaths prior to 2015 translates to around 120 000 excess deaths from 2010 to 2017. Contemporaneous reductions in life expectancy and excesses in measures of preventable death both validated our mortality findings.

http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/7/11/e017722

[Gups]

Not Brexit related, but British politics: study says austerity is associated with 45,000 excess deaths between 2012 and 2014, and are trending to 120,000 excess deaths from 2010 to 2017.

This study demonstrates that recent constraints in PEH and PES spending in England were associated with nearly 45 000 higher than expected numbers of deaths between 2012 and 2014. If these trends continue, even when considering the increased planned funding as of 2016, we estimate approximately 150 000 additional deaths may arise between 2015 and 2020. Combining these projected excess deaths and the observed deaths prior to 2015 translates to around 120 000 excess deaths from 2010 to 2017. Contemporaneous reductions in life expectancy and excesses in measures of preventable death both validated our mortality findings.

http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/7/11/e017722

Can't see how you can determine causation for a study like this.

NB also NHS budgets have increased every year in real terms throughout the austerity period. So the constraints referred to aren't cuts, but relate to insatiable demand for healthcare.

[crazy canuck]

NB also NHS budgets have increased every year in real terms throughout the austerity period. So the constraints referred to aren't cuts, but relate to insatiable demand for healthcare.

Yep it is the rhetorical game of public sector lobby groups who want more funding.  There are lots of examples of complaints of "cutbacks" or decreased funding when in fact funding has increased.  It is just that funding has not increased as fast as that particularly lobby group would like, or their piece has been cut.

Imo the problem is that often a group has a good point to make about needing more funding for a particular area in addition to the increase they may have already been provided. But that does not have the same rhetorical impact and so the real public policy discussion rarely takes place.  As a result we get systems where overall funding is increased rather than politicians and senior administrators making the tough decisions about preferring certain areas of a public institution over others.

[Josquius]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/nov/20/london-loses-european-medicines-agency-amsterdam-brexit-relocation

The jobs hemorrhage picks up speed.
The UK will never recover from this wound, even when we inevitably rejoin.

London loses EU agencies to Paris and Amsterdam in Brexit relocation

London is losing the European Medicines Agency to Amsterdam and the European Banking Authority to Paris, in one of first concrete signs of Brexit as the UK prepares to leave the European Union.

The two cities were selected to host the agencies after tie breaks that saw the winner selected by drawing a name from the ballot box.

The Dutch capital beat Milan when lots were drawn after three rounds of Eurovision-style voting on Monday had resulted in a dead heat.

Paris won the race to take the European Banking Authority from London, after the favourite Frankfurt was knocked out in the second round.

Why losing the European Medicines Agency is bad news for patients, jobs – and the NHS
Daniel Zeichner
Read more
The EU's 27 European affairs ministers, minus the UK, took less than three hours to decide the new home of the agency, which employs 900 people in Canary Wharf, London. The decision on the banking agency, which employs 150 and is also based in Canary Wharf, was made in little more than an hour.

After a five-month beauty contest, Amsterdam beat competition from 18 cities ranging from fancied contenders such as Copenhagen and Bratislava to outsiders such as Bucharest and Sofia.

The British government was powerless to stop the relocation of these two prized regulatory bodies, secured by previous Conservative prime ministers. The Department for Exiting the European Union had claimed the future of the agencies would be subject to the Brexit negotiations, a claim that caused disbelief in Brussels.

Speaking before the vote on Monday, the EU's chief negotiator on Brexit, Michel Barnier, said "ardent advocates of Brexit" had contradicted themselves on EU rules.

"Brexit means Brexit," he said, turning Theresa May's line back on her. "The same people who argue for setting the UK free also argue that the UK should remain in some EU agencies. But freedom implies responsibility for building new UK administrative capacity," he told a Brussels conference hosted by the Centre for European Reform.

"The 27 will continue to deepen the work of those agencies, together," he said. "They will share the costs for running those agencies. Our businesses will benefit from their expertise. All of their work is firmly based on the EU treaties which the UK decided to leave."

The Guardian view on European agencies: lost to a myth
Editorial: The Medicines agency and the Banking Authority are the latest EU agencies that must leave Britain because of Theresa May's insistence that the European court of justice must have no say in these islands
Read more
The EU has set the UK a two week-deadline to increase its offer on the Brexit divorce bill and spell out how it hopes to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland, in order to progress to trade talks.

The European Medicines Agency opened in 1995, having been secured for London by John Major's government. Seen as one of the EU's most important agencies, it carries out assessments and issues approvals for medicines across the union. The agency is also a boon for hoteliers, as 36,000 scientists and regulators visit each year.

The European Banking Authority started work in 2011 under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition to tighten up financial supervision after the 2008 crash.

Malta, which had bid as a country, Zagreb and Dublin dropped out of the race for the medicines agency before voting began. The first two gave up any hope of getting an agency, while Ireland hoped to boost its chances of winning the European Banking Authority.

Barcelona's chances went up in smoke after Catalonia's contested independence vote on 1 October plunged the wealthy region into crisis.

EU ministers promised before the vote not to contest the results. The cities were judged against their ability to have the agency running before the UK leaves the EU on 29 March 2019. However, a date has not been set for the official opening of the new office, and arrangements during any Brexit transition remain unclear.

Although the relocation was agreed relatively quickly by EU standards, the move will inevitably cause disruption. In the run-up to the vote, the EMA said that even a move to the staff's top-choice city would prompt some workers to quit. Under the best-case scenario, 19% of staff are expected to resign rather than move.

The agency had argued that a move to less popular cities threatened "a public health crisis", with "permanent damage" to the European system of drug approval.

The EU laid down six criteria to judge the bids, including the city's ability to get the agency up and running on time, transport accessibility, school places and job opportunities for spouses.

Some newer member states had complained that the EU was reneging on a 2003 promise to give priority to countries without an EU agency, as "geographical spread" was only one of the elements to judge the bids. Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Cyprus and Slovakia do not have an EU agency.

[Grey Fox]

You will never leave. Before Brexit is complete, you'll ask to be let back in. The new deal will end up costing you the Pound.

[Josquius]

You will never leave. Before Brexit is complete, you'll ask to be let back in. The new deal will end up costing you the Pound.

Dream scenario.
Don't see it going that well though. We may drop a few concessions but I doubt the pound will be one. Europe also appreciates having a non eurozone doorway.

[Tamas]

You will never leave. Before Brexit is complete, you'll ask to be let back in. The new deal will end up costing you the Pound.

Dream scenario.
Don't see it going that well though. We may drop a few concessions but I doubt the pound will be one. Europe also appreciates having a non eurozone doorway.

The UK has got the most special treatment within the EU, yet hissy fits were constantly thrown, culminating in Brexit and Leavers demanding their cake and eat it too deal. The most the EU will ever have to do with Britain again is a Norway style setup.

Which to be fair would be the best thing for everyone

[Josquius]

If the UK leaves and has to rejoin it will be on standard terms. All special treatment gone.
If however we can pull back from the abyss and avoid leaving, then I don't see much being lost.