Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Tamas]

It's nothing to do with his confidence. More that despitd all logic and people's best interest he was able to get not just brexit but an extreme ultra stupid version of it over the line.
You can't do that without understanding a bit of how to push people's buttons.

2%. Two percent of voters vote differently and he'd be still yelling from the fringes.

And it was Tory extremists and incompetent opposition MPs who got through the (almost) stupidest version of Brexit.

Come on guys it's been just a couple of years ago could you not fall to Boris' charm just yet, and continue to remember how it happened just a while longer? All he and his team did was to agree to what May wasn't willing to agree to with the EU. They did so fully expecting to lie and cheat their way out of the resulting obligations, which is unfolding now.

[garbon]

Even if you give Cummings the win there, not sure how/why that justifies a continuing platform for him.

[Sheilbh]

Lately I'm seeing a lot of stuff about the mess the haulage industry is in. So much lexiter nonsense being spread around. It does stink of something being organised from somewhere.

Basically they're arguing that the reason there's a shortage of drivers isn't due to the pingdemic (duh) but due to brexit meaning employers have to pay more since they can't exploit Eastern Europeans anymore.

This just doesn't add up though.
There are 320k hgv drivers in the UK. 15k from Europe have left due to brexit.... But the shortfall is estimated at 60-90k.

This really seems to be trying to hijack those pushing back against the corona blaming by saying its brexit to twist brexit into something good.

I think there's a bit of both. It's really difficult to untangle people leaving, Brexit and corona because all over Europe in 2020 millions of people went back to their "home" country - I think the large driver was corona because if you have to self-isolate you probably want to be near your loved ones (especially if they are elderly or needed care). I think in the UK there is also Brexit as an aggravating factor.

But then there's all the definitely covid bits: 30k delayed tests due to no HGV (or driving) licence tests for big chunks of the last 18 months; loads of workers with accrued annual leave from furlough; higher than normal domestic demand because people aren't going on holiday overseas and there's been re-opening of hospitality at the same time.

I think the Lexiteer point isn't that Brexit created this crisis, but rather that it stops employers addressing a temporary shortage by hiring temporary agency workers from Eastern Europe. And it's clear this is what they want to do: they are still pushing for a temporary exemption from visa rules for truck drivers and that's not because they want to help lots of people move to the UK, it's because they want to hire temporary agency workers on temporary contracts to skate over this crisis. And those temp contracts could be on pretty good wages because a short term cost like that (on a temporary contract) would be worth paying to avoid the long-term cost of a general industry-wide wage increase.

And I think that doesn't necessarily matter if you are in the Nordics, or Germany, or the Netherlands where industrial relations are sensible and employers and employees tend to work together. But that'st not the British model of industrial relations So instead there's a crisis and rather than trying to work with employees to fix it employers are digging in their heels and seeking temporary solutions, and the position of workers/employees tends to advance by taking advantage of crises. So they should get theirs - and as I say the same goes for nurses, shop workers, gigi delivery drivers etc.

Even if you give Cummings the win there, not sure how/why that justifies a continuing platform for him.

Who else is talking about this point? Also I just don't understand why he wouldn't have a platform - Alastair Campbell does. I don't think what Cummings is saying here is interesting because he won the 2016 referendum - he was saying this before that campaign when he was just a fired special advisor and it was interesting then. And as I say what interested me was that it chimed with my experience of working in a law firm that did a lot of work for the government and there were lots of left-liberal people I saw saying something along the lines of "Cummings is a dick, but this was my experience as a civil servant/special adviser".

I don't think the last 20 years have been an uninterrupted triumph for the British state - and I think the problems are deeper than the politics. The Tories are bad and generally trying to do bad things. I think it would be better if you swapped out the 200-250 ministers and their political appointees with 200-250 Labour ministers and politicial appointees. Because Labour would generally be trying to do good things. I don't think that would be sufficient.

There will be another pandemic - and if not a pandemic there will be another crisis. We may have better politicians in charge making the big decisions, but ultimately they all rely on the same machinery of state that deals with the vast majority of issues that never cross a minister's desk because they're not serious enough or that is responsible for actually implementing/making policy decisions real. But it also affects things like the ability to deliver planning reform or social care reform (tried by three governments I can remember) or national infrastructure (HS2 was announced in 2009). And there will probably the same or similar systemic failures even when the politicians are trying to do good things and making better decisions.

[Josquius]

I think there's a bit of both. It's really difficult to untangle people leaving, Brexit and corona because all over Europe in 2020 millions of people went back to their "home" country - I think the large driver was corona because if you have to self-isolate you probably want to be near your loved ones (especially if they are elderly or needed care). I think in the UK there is also Brexit as an aggravating factor.

But then there's all the definitely covid bits: 30k delayed tests due to no HGV (or driving) licence tests for big chunks of the last 18 months; loads of workers with accrued annual leave from furlough; higher than normal domestic demand because people aren't going on holiday overseas and there's been re-opening of hospitality at the same time.

I think the Lexiteer point isn't that Brexit created this crisis, but rather that it stops employers addressing a temporary shortage by hiring temporary agency workers from Eastern Europe.

This is all missing the primary cause of the problem hoeever: brexit has massively increased inefficiencies in haulage so due to brexit more drivers are needed.

It's particularly weird then they talk about foreigners driving down wages in this industry as it is(/was) such an international industry by default. Its totally standard you'd see European trucks in Britain and vice versa, stuff doesn't just stop at borders.
I think this is a big area where the sheer ignorance of pro brexit types about how the world works really shines through.

It's nothing to do with his confidence. More that despitd all logic and people's best interest he was able to get not just brexit but an extreme ultra stupid version of it over the line.
You can't do that without understanding a bit of how to push people's buttons.

2%. Two percent of voters vote differently and he'd be still yelling from the fringes.

And it was Tory extremists and incompetent opposition MPs who got through the (almost) stupidest version of Brexit.

Come on guys it's been just a couple of years ago could you not fall to Boris' charm just yet, and continue to remember how it happened just a while longer? All he and his team did was to agree to what May wasn't willing to agree to with the EU. They did so fully expecting to lie and cheat their way out of the resulting obligations, which is unfolding now.

This underlines the point though. They squeezed through by the most wafer thin of margins and were able to push through an ultra extreme and idiotic version of brexit that was nothing close to what was promised.
That they were able to get this result is also something considering how little valid reasons they had going for them.
As I say, they built a good understanding of the issues of the country and were able to figure out the right lies to tell the right people to get them to side with the hard right against their best interests.

Brexit was an absolute fucking disaster, but it is worth examining for just how they pulled it off. Kind of like the nazis.

[Sheilbh]

This underlines the point though. They squeezed through by the most wafer thin of margins and were able to push through an ultra extreme and idiotic version of brexit that was nothing close to what was promised.
That they were able to get this result is also something considering how little valid reasons they had going for them.
As I say, they built a good understanding of the issues of the country and were able to figure out the right lies to tell the right people to get them to side with the hard right against their best interests.

I think you can go back and forth on what was or wasn't promised - the entire point of Vote Leave was they weren't in government so there were no real promises of "what next". This was criticised by many Remainers that Johnson etc (with the exception of Gove) basically abdicated responsibility for running the country after they won - in reality they failed to win the Tory leadership contest so it was left to a Remainer in Theresa May. But I think that was an advantage for Vote Leave (and any side in a referendum that isn't in power) - that they only need to criticise because it's not an election and just because they win a referendum doesn't mean they win power.

The other side is on the core issue with Brexit I think they have delivered what was "promised" the core issue - as everyone pointed out at the time was free movement. Remainers like me, rightly, said that you can't end free movement without leaving the single market - it turned that wasn't the fait accompli argument we thought it was. We have left the single market to end free movement.

So they have addressed the core part of the campaign and, as I've said before, the importance of free movement in the campaign made it very difficult to argue that a softer Brexit worked in addressing the referendum. It would have been my preference and you try to build a coalition of remainers and soft Brexiteers/stockbroker belt leavers around a soft Brexit - but I don't know if it would've been politically sustainable or if free movement would have just been an unexploded bomb that would go off at some point in the future. I think it's a big unknown.

Brexit was an absolute fucking disaster, but it is worth examining for just how they pulled it off. Kind of like the nazis.

Adding one to Tamas's list of enraging Guardian property pieces

The pandemic property boom is pricing locals out of the British countryside
Jade Angeles Fitton
Rural areas suffer from an undersupply of affordable housing. Cracking down on second homes is one part of the solution

New housing in Newhaven, UK
'Demand is pushing up the average cost of housing in rural areas beyond what locals are able to pay, and amplifying a pre-existing housing crisis.' Photograph: Photofusion/Rex
Sun 1 Aug 2021 12.25 BST

Devon, where I grew up and have lived on and off my whole life, always had a surplus of affordable places to live. Even a couple of years ago many private rentals stood empty for months. This year, when my husband and I needed to move back from Lundy, an island off the north Devon coast, things were very different.

There was such a dearth of long-term rentals that I found myself jumping on anything listed. We competed with 50 others for an overpriced place that had flooded the previous winter, and had our application rejected for a bungalow with a scoreboard above the bed. For most properties, we didn't even get to the application process. Many listed in the morning would be fully booked for viewings by lunchtime. Soon, we expanded our search from north Devon to the entire county, and then to Cornwall, Somerset and Dorset. Wherever we looked, I heard the same story: "Fully booked for viewings."

Over the past 18 months, the pandemic has triggered a reappraisal of city living. Many of those who began working from home desired more space; those without gardens craved access to the outdoors. This has caused a boom in rental and buying markets in rural areas, which are now seeing an influx of what the property website Rightmove calls "cash-rich relocators". Last summer, inquiries for village properties on the website from city residents – primarily from Liverpool, Edinburgh, Birmingham and London – more than doubled. The only areas where rents have decreased since the pandemic began are the north-east and Greater London. Where I live, it sometimes feels as though every derelict barn has an estate agent's sign on it.

This sudden demand is pushing up the average cost of housing in rural areas beyond what some locals are able to pay, and amplifying a pre-existing housing crisis. Although these problems are particularly acute in the south-west, which has seen one of the highest annual rental price rises as of June 2021, the problem has reached as far as the Hebrides, where locals recently wrote an open letter describing an "economic clearance" where young islanders could no longer compete with offers being made by people from elsewhere in the UK.

Rural areas suffer from a historic undersupply of affordable housing. Government data shows that over the past 15 years, for every six private houses built in rural areas in England, just one affordable dwelling has been added. The ratio in urban areas is not much better, at just five to one, but it is only recently this gap between rural and urban areas has been closed. In 2004-05, the first year the government started recording this data, just one affordable dwelling was built for every 12 private houses in rural areas, compared with one for every seven in cities.

Emma Dee Hookway, a housing activist who set up a Facebook group for people seeking homes in north Devon and Torridge, says that people who are working multiple jobs have posted in the group searching for eight-person tents to house whole families. Linda, a farmer by trade, told me that she has lived in the area her whole life with her husband, who now has terminal cancer. She is his full-time carer. Her landlord gave her a section 21(6A) eviction notice, and the rental crisis means she has been unable to find anywhere to live. At the time of writing, she has just five days to find a home.

The answer to this crisis doesn't lie in building thousands more homes and damaging the already fragile ecosystems that made the countryside an attractive place to live in the first place, but in addressing the paucity of homes available for social and affordable rent. One obvious solution would be to clamp down on second home ownership in the rural areas with the worst shortages. Sales of countryside second homes to London-based buyers more than doubled in 2020. The government has yet to close the council tax loophole that allows owners to register second homes as businesses to avoid paying council tax. In Wales, plans to review second home ownership were recently announced, while in Salcombe on Devon's south coast the council is considering banning second home purchases. More immediately, those with second homes sitting empty should be obliged to provide affordable rental accommodation for people who need it.

Of course, an influx of former urban dwellers could bring some real benefits to rural areas, particularly if people are relocating and therefore contributing to the local economy in a meaningful way. But more has to be done to address the pricing out of people from their local areas, particularly younger renters. It seems that, four months into our search, we have finally found somewhere to live. But if I were on my own, earning what I earn, I fear I would be a friend's sofa away from having nowhere to live. Scrolling through Rightmove and Zoopla for months, I saw eye-watering prices, and DSS payments – or housing benefits – were not accepted, which is what people on low incomes often rely on to survive. Many already have nowhere to go.

    Jade Angeles Fitton is a writer based in Devon

I will never get how - in the context of 3-4 decades of new building being below new household formation - the answer isn't building thousands more housing but somehow "addressing social and affordable rent" (presumably without any new building). I mean, sure, social rent is a part of the solution and I'm a big fan of bringing back universalist council housing - but that still involves building, no?

I'd also note the extraordinary turn from what provoked this article (not being able to find an affordable holiday rental home in their preferred location) to the solution: end second (holiday) homes.

[Tamas]

  Indeed, I need to laugh at all this because I don't want to cry.

[Sheilbh]

Maybe semi-related - but this is not what I would have predicted at the start of the pandemic (and as in this chart, a global trend)

[Tamas]

To be fair there were clear signs of it slowing down here as we approached March but the tax holiday has been extended by the government before the catastrophy of stagnating property prices hit us.

[Sheilbh]

Interesting and slightly more nuanced take on a Scottish indy ref than previously set out by Gove (the minister in charge of this/"the union"):

Scottish independence vote will happen if public wants it, says Michael Gove
Gove says referendum will occur if there is 'a settled will in favour', as Ian Blackford says voters have already spoken

Participants at an Indyref 2020 rally in Glasgow in 2019. After about six months of polling showing support for independence last year, the tide began to turn at the start of 2021. Photograph: Andrew Milligan/PA
PA Media
Sun 1 Aug 2021 14.20 BST

The UK government would not stand in the way of another vote on Scottish independence if it is the "settled will" of voters, Michael Gove has said.

Westminster has repeatedly rejected requests from the Scottish government for the necessary powers to hold another vote but the Cabinet Office minister said if the public desire a second referendum, "one would occur".

The comment follows a decline in support for independence. After about six months of consistent polling showing majority support for separation last year – with one poll going as high as 58% in favour – the tide began to turn at the beginning of 2021.

The most recent survey by Panelbase for the Sunday Times found 48% of the 1,287 respondents supported leaving the UK.

Gove told the Sunday Mail: "The principle that the people of Scotland, in the right circumstances, can ask that question again is there.

"I just don't think that it is right, and the public don't think it is right, to ask that question at the moment.

"If it is the case that there is clearly a settled will in favour of a referendum, then one will occur."

It is unclear what would convince the UK government that another vote is the "settled will" of Scots but it could mean positive election results for independence parties or continuous polling in favour for a certain period of time.

The SNP's Westminster leader, Ian Blackford, said he believed May's election to be an indicator that the "settled will" of the Scottish people was in favour of independence.

The SNP fell just one seat short of a majority in Holyrood in the election and are in talks with the Scottish Greens over an alliance on certain issues.

Blackford said: "It should not be news that the Tories are finally waking up to the fact that the people of Scotland have expressed their democratic wishes in an election that they want their future to be put into their hands.

"The fundamental point Michael Gove missed is that the people of Scotland have spoken and expressed their settled will that they want to hold a referendum when they elected a majority of independence-supporting MSPs to the Scottish parliament just over two months ago.

"If Boris Johnson continues to ignore the mandate given by the people of Scotland to hold a referendum then he will continue to tell the people of Scotland that their opinion does not matter. That will only push support for independence up."

Gove also rejected the chance of a third tilt at the leadership of the Conservatives, after failing in 2016 and 2019.

"Historically, people who have run to be prime minister in the Tory party and don't make it don't subsequently make it," he said.

"I've had two goes and got bronze both times. I don't think I'll get the gold medal and I have to recognise that.

"I think Boris will be prime minister for a good while yet and there is a crop of younger people coming up who would be much better equipped than me.

"I won't spoil their future by naming them but there comes a point where you have to recognise you've had your shot."

This is also basically the same as the (legal) position in relation to Northern Ireland where a maority will happen "if it appears likely" that a majority would want to leave the UK. I think you can definitely say the Scottish election doesn't produce a "settled will" or make it appear likely. The unionist and nationalist parties both won about 50% of the vote (in both constituency and regional list votes - there was a lot of tactical voting) - and similarly the polls are trending back to 50/50.

But this also strikes me as politically canny - it's not just Westminster saying "no".

As mentioned before I'm really not as pessmistic about the survival of the union as others and as I was a year or two ago (I think actually have left the EU changes things) - and if it can survive Johnson who, as a personality, does not travel well in Scotland then I think it will survive for the foreseeable. I still feel the most likely outcome is probably Catalanisation (maybe Quebecisation?) of the nationalist parties having enough support to stay in office, but not enough to get or win a referendum. And my suspicion is that the shift in Sturgeon's approval rating into negative territory is possibly the most important trend/story in British politics right now.

Incidentally I knew drug deaths had been climbing in Scotland for the last 10 years or so - I hadn't realised quite how much. It looks like they went from a bit higher than the UK average (but around about that level) to an extreme outlier in Europe - and I don't know why. In 2013 there were 527 drug deaths in Scotland, it's been a new record high every year since and in 2020 reached 1300. It is extraordinary and a real public health and public policy crisis - I don't know what caused it or why it has diverged so much from the rest of the UK in the last 10 years or so and, because it is quite recent, is another reason I'm not sure "poverty and de-industrialisation" works as a reason.

[Tamas]

Sound strategy.

Now that support for independence dipped from slightly ahead to slightly behind, previous reason for the government to oppose it seems to be gone, since now they run an almost 60% chance of not destroying Britain and Scotland with it.

If they act quickly and get a referendum underway while support for independence remains firmly between 48% and 49% in the highly reliable polls, they will get the "no" result they want, which will not only deliver the double whammy of distracting people from Brexit and pandemic after effects & a victory to their side in a referendum, BUT more importantly, should settle the issue of Scottish independence up until the SNP is able to find the slightest excuse to start demanding the 3rd referendum, which I don't think they will be able to before November 2021.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I have to say I find the belief that the UK continues on to be fairly wishful thinking. You've established that all that is required to dissolve the Union is a 50+1 referendum. You have additionally established that said referendum can be held repeatedly until that result is obtained. To me that is basically a guaranteed roadmap to dissolution, not just for the UK but for virtually any country which permitted it of sub-national units. The U.S. would be a collection of independent city-states or smaller entities even if it had followed a similar course.

[garbon]

I have to say I find the belief that the UK continues on to be fairly wishful thinking. You've established that all that is required to dissolve the Union is a 50+1 referendum. You have additionally established that said referendum can be held repeatedly until that result is obtained. To me that is basically a guaranteed roadmap to dissolution, not just for the UK but for virtually any country which permitted it of sub-national units. The U.S. would be a collection of independent city-states or smaller entities even if it had followed a similar course.

Agreed. Matter of when not if with current approach.

[Sheilbh]

I have to say I find the belief that the UK continues on to be fairly wishful thinking. You've established that all that is required to dissolve the Union is a 50+1 referendum. You have additionally established that said referendum can be held repeatedly until that result is obtained. To me that is basically a guaranteed roadmap to dissolution, not just for the UK but for virtually any country which permitted it of sub-national units. The U.S. would be a collection of independent city-states or smaller entities even if it had followed a similar course.

Agreed. Matter of when not if with current approach.

I think it's 50/50 on Scotland - I do think if the union survives Brexit and Prime Minister Johnson then it's not under threat for the foreseeable because I can't imagine conditions more likely to cause nationalist feelings. It's less clear on Northern Ireland because there are so many factors - and because that referendum is under the GFA and UK law framed as a choice between staying in the UK or joining Ireland.

But I just disagree on a bigger level because I think the consequence of what you're saying is basically that union of consent is not possible and will, inevitably, end in collapse. And that might be right in a very longue duree approach but I'm not sure that doesn't also apply to a union based on a legal framework from which you cannot opt out or a union based on the use of force. They'll just collapse in different ways.

There has been a history of this point though that fundamentally Scotland (and Ireland) were incorporated into a union by decisions of their parliaments and the English parliament. There was no creation of a new federal state and, unlike in Wales, the union was voluntary. As creating the union was a choice of England and Scotland, Scotland has the right to withdraw and in the 21st century that means a referendum as a way to validate or end the consent of Scottish voters.

I think it is probably unusual for a state to acknowledge its contingency on referendums from its constituent members. But I don't think it necessarily dooms that state and my own view is that democratic consent is a better, more durable basis for common political projects than legal frameworks or force.

[Tamas]

If we have 50+1 votes in independence every 5 years then it is inevitable that independence will happen. Which mean it will constantly loom over politics. Either stop these ridiculous simple majority life-changing referendums, or let Scotland go now and be done with it.

[Sheilbh]

If we have 50+1 votes in independence every 5 years then it is inevitable that independence will happen. Which mean it will constantly loom over politics. Either stop these ridiculous simple majority life-changing referendums, or let Scotland go now and be done with it.

But I don't think we will have them every 5 years. The reason we're not just "letting Scotland go" is because a majority voted to stay in the union - that would be forcing independence on a country that had rejected it.

The government disagree with this and want a clear indication that a referendum is the "settled will" of the Scottish people - but my view is that Brexit is basically a material change in the terms of the union. So it was perfectly right to ask voters in Scotland if they wanted independence in 2014 and, in my view, it would be reasonable to ask them again - in light of Brexit, do you want to become independent. But unless there is some sort of material change I don't really think there's a need to constantly validate consent - so if the constitutional position of the UK doesn't change (as it did with Brexit) or there's no indications of a clear majority in favour of a referendum (as there was from 2011 when the SNP won a majority in a voting system designed to make majorities impossible) then I don't think there's any need for a referendum. So it might not come up again in the next 5, 10, 20 years.

On the other hand if English politics means the union is constantly being re-jigged or the SNP consistently poll above 50% or win majorities in the Scottish Parliament then I think there's a good reason to have fairly regular referendums.

It's similarly why I think it's right that in 2015 both Labour and Tories were promising an in-out referendum on the EU (the Tories unconditionally, Labour conditionally) because the EU of 2016 (post-Maastricht, post-Nice, post-Lisbon) was fundamentally different to the EEC of 1975 and there was a strong argument to, in effect, re-fresh the consent for staying in that union.