Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[The Brain]

The EU getting directly involved in a national election doesn't seem very sound to me.

[Admiral Yi]

Taxpayers paid roughly the same, but state services withered.

I don't think your writer understands the concept of deficit reduction.

[Sheilbh]

I don't want to raise your blood pressure further, but imagine a household of 2 reasonably well-off pensioners both on 30k pensions and with stocks and shares isas that bring in another £20k in a typical year.

On an income of £80k their tax liability would be a mere £7k. And they would have no rent/mortgage to pay and (usually) no dependants.

The comparison with a working couple paying rent/mortgage is stark.

We have to tax this large and growing group. I would suggest the gradual imposition of National Insurance on their incomes.

The inequity of the current situation is simply grotesque.

I know it's something every government looks at and then decides not to do because it's politically very challenging - but there's really no justification for keeping National Insurance as separate from income tax.

Although it's very odd - it's only paid by workers and there's a lower rate above a certain income. But it's probably the most popular tax and the one people seem comfortable raising (Brown and Sunak). I genuinely think it's just because of the name "National Insurance" and the branding from back in the Lloyd George days so people basically think of it as just going to pensions/the NHS as opposed to just being a tax like any other. Which is why I think we should merge it with income tax and re-name it "our precious NHS levy"

The good thing I suppose is that while there's still inequality among pensioners for the past 25 years pensioner poverty has been falling a huge extent through Brown's more targeted benefits aiming to help the poorest pensioners and then Osborne's general largesse for pensioners. And the other good thing is that according to international comparisons we have a pretty well-funded and sustainable pension system, especially with auto-enrollment now in place - UK pension funds hold about the same value of assets as Eurozone pension funds (£2.5-2.7 v €3 trillion), though obviously Euro area state pensions are typically more generous so less need for the occupational/private bit.

That is the least of it though.  Workers pay the highest taxes because employment income is the thing that all governments tax at the highest rate once you get to the higher end of the tax thresholds.  But it does not take much effort for a lot people to convert that employment income into something else which is taxed at a much lower rate - individual corporate consultants, individual professional corps, etc etc etc.  And with effective tax and investment planning, greatly reduce the amount of taxes paid compared to if the income was all taxed at the same rate as a poor working stiff.

Yes - although that's been clamped down on pretty heavily. The big tax they get out of is National Insurance. So the number of self-employed as a share of the workforce are increasing - but the courts have held that gig workers are generally workers and HMRC have basically said they interpret an awful lot of "self-employed" corporations as employees by any other name and will tax them accordingly. It was definitely a thing but the scope for that is narrowing to more genuine consultants/free-lancers.

We need to tax wealth and we need to build housing.

MEPs believe they could have swung the vote for Remain if they had campaigned and warned the "often misled" British voters of the risks of leaving.

Yes. If only Guy Verhofstadt had hit the campaign trail. At least Leave would have hit a super-majority. It's worth pointing out that Obama is very popular in Britain - his intervention polled incredibly badly as interfering. Jean-Claude Juncker and European parliamentarians are less popular than Obama.

MEPs regretted the "restraint and limited engagement of the European Parliament and its committees in the run-up to the UK referendum", saying it had left UK citizens "without full access to information on the functioning of the EU and the implications of the withdrawal".

I can't think of anything that's happened since Brexit that wasn't predicted or raised as a risk by the Remain campaign. They talk about Northern Ireland - one of the most high profile interventions in the campaign was John Major and Tony Blair doing a joint event entirely about Northern Ireland and predicting broadly what has happened. Maybe people didn't take it seriously enough or didn't care enough, but I think it's just wrong to pretend the information wasn't there and wasn't being covered.

The report said any other country wanting to trigger the Article 50 process should also have to provide a "a blueprint of the future relationship that the withdrawing Member State has in mind".

But that takes two sides to negotiate what the future relationship looks like and the EU was absolutely clear on sequencing. You cannot discuss the future relationship until the terms of the withdrawal are agreed.

Unless what they're proposing is some sort of legal block on a country activating Article 50 unless they have a blueprint for the future relationship which would be quite the choice.

[Sheilbh]

Incidentally looks like Ukraine crisis has triggered some movements on kleptocracy - Patel has shut down the "golden visa" route which was basically a way to get residence if you had a lot of money. Government's also announced a ban on Russian companies raising capital in the City (though still waiting for details) and the draft sanctions for Russia (in case of invasion) have been published, which are pretty sweeping.

It's a start but more promising than we've seen from any previous government since 1990 on the flood of Russian (and Ukrainian etc) oligarch money - and what's particularly encouraginig is Labour are really pushing for more on this. Though I would note that Yvette Cooper who said ending the "golden visa" is long overdue probably would have been involved in launching them in 2008 when she was Chief Secretary of the Treasury and it was a money-spinning scheme post-financial crisis.

Rumours of other measures that sounds promising in the next Parliament (especially around beneficial ownership of property, including through shell companies) - but again my understanding is the UK actually has quite good laws already, the issue is monitoring and enforcing them so we need something on that not more "best in practice" laws that aren't meaningfully enforced and no-one even checks.

Just on the "golden visa" this isn't actually the first move and does seem like an interesting shift in immigration policy - and it's one that I think sounds promising. The government previously shut off a visa scheme that was basically for very wealthy people if they invested £x million into UK companies. The theory was it would help encourage start-ups and VC investment in the UK, but in effect I think it mainly helped financiers which was maybe not the goal. Instead they've been opening new visa routes that are more aimed at people who either have started a business or have an "innovative idea" for a business and are being sponsored by a university or a business with a history of investing in start-ups. It might not work but it sounds sensible if you want to encourage innovation to move from the old schemes which mainly targeted investors to ones that target the founders.

[Zanza]

UK citizens were 'not fully informed on implications of Brexit', EU report concludes

Oh please. There was enough information out there before the referendum to know that Brexit was a poor policy. The British voters wanted it nevertheless. It was then confirmed by MPs who also knew it was a poor policy. Let's not pretend that it was somehow not knowable.

[The Brain]

Yeah. And it's not like Theresa May was uninformed about the negative consequences of Brexit when she activated it. The people, Parliament, and the Government all agreed on Brexit.

[Josquius]

The point about it being legally necessary to present an actual version of XXXXit and not just throw out a everything under the sun vs remain vote is very valid however.
Its truly an affront to democracy that this was able to go ahead. Its not a stretch to say at least 2% of brexit voters would rather have remained than had a hard brexit.
The primary problem with the vote was in presenting a non-binary issue as a binary-choice.

[HVC]

UK citizens were 'not fully informed on implications of Brexit', EU report concludes

Oh please. There was enough information out there before the referendum to know that Brexit was a poor policy. The British voters wanted it nevertheless. It was then confirmed by MPs who also knew it was a poor policy. Let's not pretend that it was somehow not knowable.

" no one informed me about the stuff I was told about but ignored"

[HVC]

The point about it being legally necessary to present an actual version of XXXXit and not just throw out a everything under the sun vs remain vote is very valid however.
Its truly an affront to democracy that this was able to go ahead. Its not a stretch to say at least 2% of brexit voters would rather have remained than had a hard brexit.
The primary problem with the vote was in presenting a non-binary issue as a binary-choice.

It was democratic, just stupid. If stay won by the same margin I doubt you'd claim it was an affront to democracy.

[Sheilbh]

The point about it being legally necessary to present an actual version of XXXXit and not just throw out a everything under the sun vs remain vote is very valid however.

How would that work? The EU refuses to recognise your invocation of Article 50 because your exit plans are insufficiently serious/thought through?

I don't quite get that language or how it would actually work in practice. As it's the European Parliament they are looking at it from an EU legal perspective but I think you're starting to lose the principle of it being a voluntary union you can withdraw from if actually you need to get approval etc. I know there's excitement and questions about whether Europe's had its Hamiltonian moment, but it seems a bit of a leap to be looking for its Lincolnian moment too.

Its truly an affront to democracy that this was able to go ahead. Its not a stretch to say at least 2% of brexit voters would rather have remained than had a hard brexit.
The primary problem with the vote was in presenting a non-binary issue as a binary-choice.

Maybe - I think there's a good argument there should have been a second referendum. But I have less of an issue with the binary/non-binary because to me the referendum was on the principle and it was basically about consent: do you consent to continuing to be in the EU. That is a binary question, partly prompted by fraying consent which is why at least one of the main three parties has promised a referendum on the EU in every election since 1987.

The practicality of doing that is up to politicians. Because that is difficult and non-binary and there are multiple options so I think it makes sense that goes back to parliament. It should have been easier in a hung parliament to work out a compromise position. The reality is the 2017 parliament had the votes for a soft Brexit but for a variety of reasons those politicians couldn't or wouldn't cooperate. I always go back to the first vote on May's deal when there was a hard-core Brexiteer rally being addressed by Jacob Rees-Mogg and a hard-core Remainer rally being addressed by Chuka Umuna. I remember thinking at the time that both sides have bet the house on absolute victory and one of them has made a catastrophic decision. As it turns out it was the Remainers.

[garbon]

Its truly an affront to democracy that this was able to go ahead. Its not a stretch to say at least 2% of brexit voters would rather have remained than had a hard brexit.
The primary problem with the vote was in presenting a non-binary issue as a binary-choice.

Maybe - I think there's a good argument there should have been a second referendum. But I have less of an issue with the binary/non-binary because to me the referendum was on the principle and it was basically about consent: do you consent to continuing to be in the EU. That is a binary question, partly prompted by fraying consent which is why at least one of the main three parties has promised a referendum on the EU in every election since 1987.

The practicality of doing that is up to politicians. Because that is difficult and non-binary and there are multiple options so I think it makes sense that goes back to parliament. It should have been easier in a hung parliament to work out a compromise position. The reality is the 2017 parliament had the votes for a soft Brexit but for a variety of reasons those politicians couldn't or wouldn't cooperate. I always go back to the first vote on May's deal when there was a hard-core Brexiteer rally being addressed by Jacob Rees-Mogg and a hard-core Remainer rally being addressed by Chuka Umuna. I remember thinking at the time that both sides have bet the house on absolute victory and one of them has made a catastrophic decision. As it turns out it was the Remainers.

I agree with this. It was parliament that decided what Brexit would be and they whiffed it.

[Josquius]

The problem is this approach still presents European relations as a binary with the line drawn at EU membership.
I would argue that if there is a binary line anywhere that this isn't the right place for it, that the EFTA countries have far more in common with EU members than they do with completely unrelated 3rd nations.
There is a perfectly valid choice of whether to be in the EU or EU-lite or whether to have anything to do with the EU or not. The referendum merged these two completely seperate decisions into one on which there would absolutely never be a majority for changing the status quo.
Keeping things as they were was beyond a shadow of a doubt the most popular option. And through various dodgy tactics it was stolen.

As to how it could work in practice - some kind of guideline for the sort of exit you are going for. No need to do the impossible and have an exact treaty already prepared. But if its at least in the ball park of one of the options the EU laid out immediately post brexit then that gives everyone something to go off.
Maybe in negotiations things will go a step to the left or to the right. This is fine.
But to present every single option as simultaneously being the one is flatly wrong.

[garbon]

The problem is this approach still presents European relations as a binary with the line drawn at EU membership.
I would argue that if there is a binary line anywhere that this isn't the right place for it, that the EFTA countries have far more in common with EU members than they do with completely unrelated 3rd nations.
There is a perfectly valid choice of whether to be in the EU or EU-lite or whether to have anything to do with the EU or not. The referendum merged these two completely seperate decisions into one on which there would absolutely never be a majority for changing the status quo.
Keeping things as they were was beyond a shadow of a doubt the most popular option. And through various dodgy tactics it was stolen.

As to how it could work in practice - some kind of guideline for the sort of exit you are going for. No need to do the impossible and have an exact treaty already prepared. But if its at least in the ball park of one of the options the EU laid out immediately post brexit then that gives everyone something to go off.
Maybe in negotiations things will go a step to the left or to the right. This is fine.
But to present every single option as simultaneously being the one is flatly wrong.

What is the point of a legislature if you want the populace to decide upon granular issues?

Parliament didn't have to interpret the referedum result to mean that all ties must be severed with EU (aka hard brexit), they chose that.

[Sheilbh]

The problem is this approach still presents European relations as a binary with the line drawn at EU membership.
I would argue that if there is a binary line anywhere that this isn't the right place for it, that the EFTA countries have far more in common with EU members than they do with completely unrelated 3rd nations.
There is a perfectly valid choice of whether to be in the EU or EU-lite or whether to have anything to do with the EU or not. The referendum merged these two completely seperate decisions into one on which there would absolutely never be a majority for changing the status quo.
Keeping things as they were was beyond a shadow of a doubt the most popular option. And through various dodgy tactics it was stolen.

But surely the key question is do you want to stay in the EU or not?  I think if this government won the same majority on an explicit manifesto pledge to leave the EU or, say, if Blair had included joining the Euro in his manifesto - I would have more issue democratically with them doing that without a referendum. The technicalities and working out how to realise that vote is the job of politicians.

This also applies to independence. There's a spectrum of options of how close say, Scotland, would be to rUK from more or less entirely aligned and prioritising that relationship, keeping the monarchy and shared institutions, all the way to leaving the Commonwealth, declaring a republic, moving very significantly from English politics etc. Those are all secondary questions to whether or not you stay in the union or declare independence.

I don't necessarily think the exact nature of a state post-independence is right for referendums. But I think the core principle of independence or not is. And I think the same broadly applies to joining or leaving the EU. Both implementing the acquis in a way that satisfies the EU and is politically do-able or shaping how we leave is stuff that we elect MPs to do. I don't think referendums should be used on detailed policy questions but I think they make sense for an issue of principle/general direction on a really important issue like staying in the EU or not, independence or not.

As to how it could work in practice - some kind of guideline for the sort of exit you are going for. No need to do the impossible and have an exact treaty already prepared. But if its at least in the ball park of one of the options the EU laid out immediately post brexit then that gives everyone something to go off.
Maybe in negotiations things will go a step to the left or to the right. This is fine.
But to present every single option as simultaneously being the one is flatly wrong.

Although ultimately the UK did end up with broadly what the EU said from the UK's "red lines". This is where I think the logic comes in - as the campaign was about free movement it makes the first two options very difficult politically, so it comes down to the degree of regulatory autonomy, role of CJEU and customs union or not. But where the EU said we would end up in 2017 because of those political red lines is basically where we ended up in 2021 - because it's where you inevitably end up if those are your red lines. If they're not and what people were really voting and really cared about in the referendum was, say, anti-CJEU feelings because of some controversial rulings - then you end up somewhere else.

It was basically one of those options - this was the Commission's slide from, I think, before Article 50 was triggered:

[Josquius]

What is the point of a legislature if you want the populace to decide upon granular issues?

Parliament didn't have to interpret the referedum result to mean that all ties must be severed with EU (aka hard brexit), they chose that.

Well yes. Referenda are stupid and shouldn't happen.
But if they are to happen, and they are, there should be clear rules and guidelines about acceptable practice.
If it wasn't for the referendum giving parliament a "Do anything as long as its leaving the EU" excuse theres no way they would have done what they did.

But surely the key question is do you want to stay in the EU or not?  I think if this government won the same majority on an explicit manifesto pledge to leave the EU or, say, if Blair had included joining the Euro in his manifesto - I would have more issue democratically with them doing that without a referendum. The technicalities and working out how to realise that vote is the job of politicians.

No.
As said actual EU membership is overrated in importance.
What we had was the UK on e.g. level 8 European integration- Norway and Switzerland on 7 and 6 are in a far more similar situation to this than Canada all the way down on level 1.
The referendum basically gave the government carte blanche for moving things to the right however much they wanted when all many wanted was to go a notch or two down. Indeed many of the same politicians wanting to go all the way to 1 were making promises about how great 6 is.
Though the question of membership puts a handy label on things, allowing them to phrase "Do you want to downgrade" in a voter-friendly way, it didn't actually mean much and served only to mislead.

Take this graph...


And the blue circle really doesn't mean all that much. Really a vote to leave that blue circle should not have also busted us out of every other circle ( I believe some nuts were even pushing for leaving  the council of europe?)

It was basically one of those options - this was the Commission's slide from, I think, before Article 50 was triggered:

That's the one  I was referring to. It should be explicit in the referendum which one they're shooting for. A vague "Any one of these" should be illegal. Its nothing but a trick.