Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[garbon]

Martinus, man of the people. Well not that he'd actually associate with the people unless said people happened to male and would be willing to toe twinkle with him.

[Martinus]

Martinus, man of the people. Well not that he'd actually associate with the people unless said people happened to male and would be willing to toe twinkle with him.

I'm just interested in the masses not rising up in revolt - so it helps not to screw them over too badly.

[Tamas]

I think it is very hard to paint an easy class-picture on this debate.

Seems to me there are plenty of rich sponsors and loud supporters of Brexit, which is only natural: some has business interests in staying within the EU, others must have business interest in leaving.

More importantly, coming here from the outside and trying to make sense of this (very welcoming and very pleasant, mind you) society, I have the feeling the benefits of immigration do reach down to basically all the classes.

Maybe not down to the very bottom, but it's not like it is ever anything but a struggle to be at the very bottom anywhere, regardless of the presence of immigrants or not. And of course the when it comes to advantages vs. disadvantages the rich has it the best but that is again true to any situation in any country of the world: wealth and power can shield you from many disadvantages. Neither of these (poorest of the poor having it the hardest and rich having it the easiest) is tied to migration: these both would be true if no pesky foreigner ever set foot on the fair shores of Albion.


On the strains, I can see that for housing prices. Everyone is yelling at rich Russians etc buying homes to leave them empty and such leaving poor British families stranded. Leaving aside the point that a thousand or so homes in the best parts of London would hardly solve the problem of people being forced to stay renters, to me it seems like most landlords making a killing out of the lack of housing space to rent, are middle class British families.
I am fairly certain, the real issue isn't foreigners buying: the issue is: Brits buying, foreigners renting, and nobody building because building cuts into the business and perceived lifestyle of too many natives.

I can also imagine it is a strain on education, although the actual migrants arriving are hardly basic education age. Their offspring are, but then again their parents must be paying taxes don't they? So maybe in absolute terms the education budget might not be enough but in relative terms, raising it can't be that hard of a strain now can it? But I admit I don't know the details.

The part I am not buying, is the strain on the NHS. IDK people of what age and health migrate from the rest of the world, but to claim that the working-age Europeans arriving to the UK are a net negative for the NHS must be a load of bull.
Almost all developed countries face a crisis in terms of the population living longer with no birthrates to match it, the UK and it's national health service being in the very lucky situation of people arriving to bolster up the system, and there is all this whining about it?

And while I am working myself up to  a bit of a rant, may I say, I find many of the British attitudes toward this question different shades of arrogant. Even those wanting to stay do so with a frown and with their pinkies held away from the tea cup. And sure there is plenty to disdain about the EU, but come on:
The UK has been a major part of it for about 60 years now, the British middle class and upwards is all around the continent taking advantage of free access and their superior wealth, and when you live in the UK you have to wonder, seeing who sweeps the streets, stands at the cashiers, or cleans the flats of Brits hardly classifying as middle class, what would happen if all the migrants and easy access to European products disappeared from the country overnight.

[garbon]

I just saw that wetherspoons has a guide to both sides of the argument.

[Sheilbh]

Just to be clear, I am anti-Brexit. I think the EU membership is good for Britain overall and it is good for Europe, obviously. But the UK government has done a lousy job making sure the benefits (and pains) of EU membership are shared more or less equally by the populace. So (similarly to the situation with Trump and US trade deals), I have some sympathy for the "populist" side - they are popular because the "mainstream elites" failed so badly.

I broadly agree on populists. They are normally a corrective because of a failure of the elite. But for all the talk of Brexit I think contintental Europe needs to look at itself over this. The EU is full of people like Grillo, Iglesias, Tsipras, Hofer, Le Pen, Wilders, the True Finns, AAA or Sinn Fein in Ireland, AFD etc getting record results and in some cases actually winning. The EU is an elite project that people across the EU feel is failing them. Aside from holding a referendum the only difference with the UK is that, in general, the centre is holding up better here than in most of Europe.

I've always said the rise of UKIP isn't that odd, it's the Europeanisation of British politics from a very stable 2 party system. Now we've got populist right and Green and regionalist spoilers like any other good European country

I think it is very hard to paint an easy class-picture on this debate.

AB social class support remain 68-32. DE support leave 67-33. There's rich people who support anything but you're kidding yourself if you don't think there's a class element. Also education and age, I was surprised to see that the age at which Brits become pro-leave is only 40 and it gets to 60-40 pretty quickly.

And in terms of the poor the economic research absolutely says in general immigration is great for a country, but there is an observable rise in competition and pressure on wages of the lowest. I think that's a legitimate concern for a society to have and if you're in that group I can understand why you're angry about it.

Agreed on housing the real answer is to build more fucking houses

Yeah you're right on education that people contributing, but I don't think there's been any real focus on maybe investing that budget in areas where there has been a lot of immigration relative to the population (like Boston), whereas in my view they should be flooded with cash to avoid any strains. I would also point out that we were building thousands of new school buildings every year before the Tories cancelled it on day one of the coalition for austerity.

And while I am working myself up to  a bit of a rant, may I say, I find many of the British attitudes toward this question different shades of arrogant. Even those wanting to stay do so with a frown and with their pinkies held away from the tea cup. And sure there is plenty to disdain about the EU, but come on:

I think the EU should be torn down in its current state. I think the Old Labour argument against it turned out to be pretty accurate, I'm angry about the European response to the migration crisis and I think the Euro needs dismantling as soon as possible before it causes any more harm - Finland is the latest.

The UK has been a major part of it for about 60 years now, the British middle class and upwards is all around the continent taking advantage of free access and their superior wealth, and when you live in the UK you have to wonder, seeing who sweeps the streets, stands at the cashiers, or cleans the flats of Brits hardly classifying as middle class, what would happen if all the migrants and easy access to European products disappeared from the country overnight.

40 years

The definition of who is covered by free movement has expanded radically in those 40 years, especially since EU citizenship. Also we've only really had mass migration from Europe since 2004. Before then European migration was a tiny proportion and it was people moving with work: Frenchmen who'd go and live in South Ken and work in SocGen. So the answer to your question is often lots of other types of people who weren't European until very recently

Immigration was still a big issue back in 2004 but I remember it being largely about bogus assylum seekers etc. But what makes the argument work for UKIP is that they can say, 'if you want to cut immigration there is nothing you can do while you're part of the EU. The only way to be able to elect a government to cut immigration and then see that happen is to leave the EU.' And they're right.

People generally want immigration cut and the Tories have been campaigning on getting it down to the tens of thousands not hundreds of thousands in the last two elections they've won. About half of our immigration comes from the EU (around 200k per year) and there's nothing to do about that. Instead there's a lot of pressure on the non-EU bit, but even if we got that to zero there'd be 200k that the elected government couldn't do anything about.

[Sheilbh]

I just saw that wetherspoons has a guide to both sides of the argument.

May have to go and have a look.

[Valmy]

I'm angry about the European response to the migration crisis

Yeah but that was the national governments doing not the EU. And the UK is not even in the Euro. How the UK leaving would positively impact either of these scenarios is beyond me

[Zanza]

Makes sense. Same for Northern Ireland (though Ireland would also be fucked if we left), I don't really care in either case. But it is odd that so many of the English people who are probably most unionist and fond of Gibraltar care so little about the effect this would have there.

Ireland would be an interesting one.
Short term they're of course screwed, they're heavily tied into the UK economy, we're their biggest trade partner.
Longer term though...some big money to be made in poaching those businesses wanting a bridge to Europe that would normally go to the UK.

I thought the idea of the Leave campaign is that Britain would quickly secure a new deal with the EU...why would Ireland be screwed then?

[Josquius]

Makes sense. Same for Northern Ireland (though Ireland would also be fucked if we left), I don't really care in either case. But it is odd that so many of the English people who are probably most unionist and fond of Gibraltar care so little about the effect this would have there.

Ireland would be an interesting one.
Short term they're of course screwed, they're heavily tied into the UK economy, we're their biggest trade partner.
Longer term though...some big money to be made in poaching those businesses wanting a bridge to Europe that would normally go to the UK.

I thought the idea of the Leave campaign is that Britain would quickly secure a new deal with the EU...why would Ireland be screwed then?

They can't decide what they want.
Generally the idea is they'll quickly get a new deal with europe..... that gives them full trade rights but excludes freedom of movement.
Which is impossible.

[Capetan Mihali]

John Major of all people is proving the voice of reason. I almost suspect he's read my blog so aligned are his points.

I don't know, I was thought John Major seemed like a decent guy who got dealt a bad hand, somewhat like an inverse Jimmy Carter.  Is that perception of him way off by UK standards?

[Sheilbh]

I don't know, I was thought John Major seemed like a decent guy who got dealt a bad hand, somewhat like an inverse Jimmy Carter.  Is that perception of him way off by UK standards?

No I think that's fair. There's actually a bit of nostalgia within the Tory party for him. That poster from 92 of 'What does the Conservative party offer a working class kid from Brixton? They made him Prime Minister' has a lot of appeal when we're watching Osborne (St Pauls, Oxford) and Boris (Eton, Oxford ) fight to take over the party leadership from Cameron (Eton, Oxford).

Like Carter he's also been a pretty good ex-PM. He doesn't stir up trouble for his predecessors (Maggie, arguably Blair) or seem corrupt (Blair) or threaten us with an 800 page tome on the economic crisis (Brown). He makes interventions that are generally supportive of the current leadership and spends most of his time in the cricket world.

Yeah but that was the national governments doing not the EU. And the UK is not even in the Euro. How the UK leaving would positively impact either of these scenarios is beyond me

The EU's got a big role in the migration crisis because of Schengen and in trying to find a European solution which is the right approach. Those national governments make up some of the institutions of the EU and I think Merkel's the only leader to have credit left after it. And weirdly I've a few Italian and Spanish friends who all want me to vote leave in a sort of 'kill yourself to save us' way because they think the impact of a UK leave vote would force reform within the EU in general - they had hoped the Greek referendum would, I'm less optimistic.

But it's also the direction of travel. I used to be very Europhile in the 90s and the early 00s because I think the direction we were going in was more positive. I think it was open to the world, while still trying to integrate and to create a distinctive European model. Now it seems very insular, I think it's strengthening populism (and again UKIP got 14% - look at the polls in the Netherlands, France, Italy) and I don't see any positive European model that we're working towards.

Right now we've got member states facing a genuine humanitarian issue on the border of Europe and the response is just to say Islam has no place in their country and they have to prevent the creation of a Muslim community there. Similarly we're six years into the Eurozone crisis and no closer to any change of policy. Finland a fiscal saint, facing external shocks to their economy is having to impose idiotic pro-cyclical policies because of the Euro and, unlike in the 90s, their currency can't depreciate 40%. I don't see any left wing argument for a Europe that's going in this direction, but I think there are pragmatic reasons to stay in for now. If, in ten years, we're still a Europe of Fico and Schaeuble then I think we should leave. That's not a club I'd want to be part of.

Maybe it'll change. I've a lot of time for Tusk at least.

[garbon]

Like Carter he's also been a pretty good ex-PM.

In what way has Carter been a good ex-president?

[Sheilbh]

Like Carter he's also been a pretty good ex-PM.

In what way has Carter been a good ex-president?

I thought that was his reputation. Pretty dreadful President, pretty exemplary ex-President

[garbon]

Like Carter he's also been a pretty good ex-PM.

In what way has Carter been a good ex-president?

I thought that was his reputation. Pretty dreadful President, pretty exemplary ex-President

I thought his reputation was that he was and is pretty poor all around. Someone that even other ex-presidents can't stand.

[Admiral Yi]

JC was a perfect ex-president when he was just hammering nails.  He went off the rails when he started opining on current events.  My impression is that was around the time of Katrina.  Or when he fibbed about the Venezuelan election, whichever came first.