Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Josquius]

I would think there's it's not about the protests themselves but the chance of violence.

You could have millions of people protesting every day or one guy protesting sporadically - but if those millions are peaceful and the one violent then he's going to get harsher treatment.

Far right protestors do tend to be significantly more violent than left wing protestors.
Get 3 socialists together and you'll get 6 different takes on socialism out of it.
Get 3 fascists together and you'll get 6 black eyes out of it.

As I said earlier though the optics of the villa thing are bad as the government stormed in and made it about Palestine when it was a simple sensible football hooliganissm decision.

I mention that because there are also apparently similar social media channels targeted at migrants explaining claims etc within the asylum system (there's also TikTok videos on routes through the Balkans etc). And what the guy who's just come back from France has said sounds almost exactly like the claim made by the asylum seeker who got his deportation to France blocked because it was not safe for him to be removed. So I can't help but wonder if that has been picked up and disseminated as a potentially effective argument for why you can't stay in France.

Yeah I've heard of these. I've had African guys I know asking me about them.
Some seem quite suspect. Basically selling rhe UK as the land of milk and honey where you show up one day and you're loaded the next.
I wonder if smugglers have a hand in this or if people just know it's what gets clicks.

I've mentioned before people in general tend to be really ignorant about differences in cost of living. So £50 a week sounds amazing to many.
These days it's largely African ran (or at least presenting so) channels getting the attention. But I do ponder historically whether it was the constant media barrage about how the UK was open doors and a soft touch that sold the place to them.
And again.... Seems like a good area where a bit of money could be sensibly spent to counter this stuff. Recruit some charasmatic immigrants from those countries to speak about the reality, take down the salesmen, etc...

[Tamas]

You would have salesmen selling what people want to hear (make it to the UK and you are sorted for life) and salesmen selling what they don't want to hear (it's not that great, with all the other risks you might as well build your life in the third world shithole you are in)

It's easy to guess which one people would choose to believe.

I am afraid if the aim is to stop people wanting to risk coming here then a punitive measure like the Uganda thing was meant to be is the only real option.

[Josquius]

On the stuff Sheilbh mentioned a few weeks back on the UK not being the US and unable to do the same things they can on finance....
Randomly listened to this one today. Richard Murphy, who is I suppose a less flashy more grounded Gary Stephenson, seems to know his stuff, speaking to Zack Polanski (he largely keeps quiet in the relevant part so its not just Green promotion). Not too far in he talks about how the Truss crash wasn't actually her fault, that institutions are desperate for British debt, etc...

I don't understand economics well enough to give much comment, though it sounds convincing

You would have salesmen selling what people want to hear (make it to the UK and you are sorted for life) and salesmen selling what they don't want to hear (it's not that great, with all the other risks you might as well build your life in the third world shithole you are in)

It's easy to guess which one people would choose to believe.

I am afraid if the aim is to stop people wanting to risk coming here then a punitive measure like the Uganda thing was meant to be is the only real option.

Go in with realistic expectations. The idea illegal immigration can be stopped is insane. Not happening. Though that a lot can be dissuaded.... This is one technique towards that.

The Rwanda policy was dumb and backwards. It didn't work on anyone. To go on like a broken record it should have worked whereby you can go to Rwanda, no need to treck to Britain, and get a fair hearing for asylum in the UK there.

[Sheilbh]

He is right about Truss to a point. A really important part of what happened there was to with the pension system and the BofE - this is the thing Truss keeps talking about when she refers to the "deep state". And I think there is overlap of Truss and people like Murphy in basically thinking that the BofE needed to be more supportive of their policies to give space for what they were doing which would work.

My view is very simply that the UK is not in a position to do MMT in the way that, say, the US might be able to. It's large about creation of money and how money gets its value. But about 60% of currency reserves in the world are US dollars. In addition about 40% of the world's debt is dollar denominated. That means demand for dollars is incredibly high relative to any other currency, which is a huge boon for the US (and an "exorbitant privilege"). For as long as the dollar is in that position I think there's a possibility MMT might work.

On the other hand Sterling represents about 5% of currency reserves and we also run a current account deficit so we import more than export (often in other currencies). There is not vast demand for Sterling that we can rely on if we were to print money. Instead we rely on the international markets far more than the US (and this is only going to increase in coming years with the changes to DB pension schemes starting to wind down). The other point which is really important is the City - the key point here I think is basically that global financial markets are incredibly internationalised and are dollar-dominated. That means British, European, Chinese etc banks have lots of liabilities in dollars. But they're not in the US so they don't have access to the Federal Reserve printing money. The consequence of that is again we need dollars (as does the rest of the world) arguably more than Sterling even domestically. During the crisis and during covid, it was the Federal Reserve extending swap lines to supply dollars to our financial system at profitable but rock-bottom rates that kept things going.

I have yet to see any convincing argument for how MMT would work for a non-dollar economy, particularly one with significant liabilities.

Go in with realistic expectations. The idea illegal immigration can be stopped is insane. Not happening. Though that a lot can be dissuaded.... This is one technique towards that.

I don't believe that and I don't think people would accept, particularly when you're an island, that the state cannot realistically be expected to control its borders. I think that's one of the basic state functions people expect it to do.

I also don't think it's an argument you can make after two years of record high levels of illegal and legal immigration. You cannot have immigration running at four times the rate it was for the previous decade and just say "we need to be realistic, there's not much we can do here".

But also I think the really big challenge with this is Trump. Southern border crossings are now at their lowest since the 60s. Since he came in they have reduced by 85-95%. It's been done with brutal and cruel policies (plus I think that ICE are being set up for broader coercive powers) - but I do not think at the next elections Democrats will be saying that the US should go back to how it was before. They might make the policies more rational, less cruel etc but I think it's the new normal.

And I think in Britain or the rest of Europe whenever people say that there are things we "can't" do around immigration or that we can't realistically cut rates. The argument from people like Farage and others will be Trump's cut it by 90%. Deterrence works and we need to do it - and I think that's a winning argument when people keep voting for something and not getting it.

If we are incapable of fixing it on our terms people will point to Trump and it'll be fixed hard and brutally on theirs.

[Josquius]

He is right about Truss to a point. A really important part of what happened there was to with the pension system and the BofE - this is the thing Truss keeps talking about when she refers to the "deep state". And I think there is overlap of Truss and people like Murphy in basically thinking that the BofE needed to be more supportive of their policies to give space for what they were doing which would work.

My view is very simply that the UK is not in a position to do MMT in the way that, say, the US might be able to. It's large about creation of money and how money gets its value. But about 60% of currency reserves in the world are US dollars. In addition about 40% of the world's debt is dollar denominated. That means demand for dollars is incredibly high relative to any other currency, which is a huge boon for the US (and an "exorbitant privilege"). For as long as the dollar is in that position I think there's a possibility MMT might work.

On the other hand Sterling represents about 5% of currency reserves and we also run a current account deficit so we import more than export (often in other currencies). There is not vast demand for Sterling that we can rely on if we were to print money. Instead we rely on the international markets far more than the US (and this is only going to increase in coming years with the changes to DB pension schemes starting to wind down). The other point which is really important is the City - the key point here I think is basically that global financial markets are incredibly internationalised and are dollar-dominated. That means British, European, Chinese etc banks have lots of liabilities in dollars. But they're not in the US so they don't have access to the Federal Reserve printing money. The consequence of that is again we need dollars (as does the rest of the world) arguably more than Sterling even domestically. During the crisis and during covid, it was the Federal Reserve extending swap lines to supply dollars to our financial system at profitable but rock-bottom rates that kept things going.

I have yet to see any convincing argument for how MMT would work for a non-dollar economy, particularly one with significant liabilities.

His argument doesn't work?
As he says there clearly was demand for British debt. Not on a scale of the US at all. But on enough of a scale to say our current view of things is flawed?

I don't believe that and I don't think people would accept, particularly when you're an island, that the state cannot realistically be expected to control its borders. I think that's one of the basic state functions people expect it to do.

I also don't think it's an argument you can make after two years of record high levels of illegal and legal immigration. You cannot have immigration running at four times the rate it was for the previous decade and just say "we need to be realistic, there's not much we can do here".

You're running into the Faragist trap here though. Reading its daft to think we can eliminate illegal immigration as there's nothing we can do about illegal immigration.
The entire point of what I was saying there was quite the opposite. There's lots of things we can do. Just because alone none of them are going to completely fix everything doesn't mean they're no good.


Also that Britain is an island makes it harder to police irregular entry. Not easier.
People are a lot more willing to accept physical fences, security cameras and legal controls on movement in remote mountains and forests than they are around the coast.

But also I think the really big challenge with this is Trump. Southern border crossings are now at their lowest since the 60s. Since he came in they have reduced by 85-95%. It's been done with brutal and cruel policies (plus I think that ICE are being set up for broader coercive powers) - but I do not think at the next elections Democrats will be saying that the US should go back to how it was before. They might make the policies more rational, less cruel etc but I think it's the new normal.

And I think in Britain or the rest of Europe whenever people say that there are things we "can't" do around immigration or that we can't realistically cut rates. The argument from people like Farage and others will be Trump's cut it by 90%. Deterrence works and we need to do it - and I think that's a winning argument when people keep voting for something and not getting it.

If we are incapable of fixing it on our terms people will point to Trump and it'll be fixed hard and brutally on theirs.

The Trump deterrence is more about secret police on the streets of America however. Not physical hard borders to stop further people entering. His border wall stuff is just for show and you don't hear much of it this time around.
I wouldn't take the Trump approach at all but I actually do think tighter enforcement in the UK is a better approach than trying to make entry harder.

[The Minsky Moment]

Jos has a point; Trump isn't really pursuing a "border security" policy anymore.  He is deterring entry by unleashing a lawless reign of terror in the interior.  It's not a sustainable policy unless the state tips over into a permanent authoritarian regime.

[Sheilbh]

Jos has a point; Trump isn't really pursuing a "border security" policy anymore.  He is deterring entry by unleashing a lawless reign of terror in the interior.  It's not a sustainable policy unless the state tips over into a permanent authoritarian regime.

I think that's sort of my point and to Jos' comment that it's not border security but the terror is producing deterrence.

People in Europe are even more dissatisfied with immigration than in the US, they keep voting for anti-immigration parties consistently but the outcome of their policy (despite that politics and rhetoric) is that there's not been a significant change. My point on Trump as a model is at some point someone's basically going to do the No Country For Old Men, "if this is where your rules have brought you" thing and say that Trump shows we can solve it we just need to be brutal and cruel enough to have a deterrent effect. And I think they'd win.

I've said before but I think there is a perverse incentive at the heart of the European system on this that we make it incredibly dangerous and cruel to get here (all the border security deterrence) - whether it's paying Libyan generals to stop migrants or just the deaths in the Med, Channel and around the Canary Islands - but if you get over those hurdles, then there's very low rates of people being removed. I think either we find a way of fixing that in line with our values or something far worse is coming down the line which will be pointing at Trump and saying "terror works".

I'd also add that my general view is that if you believe in a liberal and relatively relaxed immigration policy, which I do, I think that relies on the public trusting that you are broadly in control of your borders so you know who is coming in and can remove people who are no longer entitled to be here. I don't really think it's possible to have both a liberal immigration policy a sense that the borders are pretty porous and not under control.

[Josquius]

Jos has a point; Trump isn't really pursuing a "border security" policy anymore.  He is deterring entry by unleashing a lawless reign of terror in the interior.  It's not a sustainable policy unless the state tips over into a permanent authoritarian regime.

I think that's sort of my point and to Jos' comment that it's not border security but the terror is producing deterrence.

People in Europe are even more dissatisfied with immigration than in the US, they keep voting for anti-immigration parties consistently but the outcome of their policy (despite that politics and rhetoric) is that there's not been a significant change. My point on Trump as a model is at some point someone's basically going to do the No Country For Old Men, "if this is where your rules have brought you" thing and say that Trump shows we can solve it we just need to be brutal and cruel enough to have a deterrent effect. And I think they'd win.

I've said before but I think there is a perverse incentive at the heart of the European system on this that we make it incredibly dangerous and cruel to get here (all the border security deterrence) - whether it's paying Libyan generals to stop migrants or just the deaths in the Med, Channel and around the Canary Islands - but if you get over those hurdles, then there's very low rates of people being removed. I think either we find a way of fixing that in line with our values or something far worse is coming down the line which will be pointing at Trump and saying "terror works".

Exactly.
Hence do Rwanda right.
Setup some safe countries where people can apply for European asylum without having to treck across the world.
Set things up so we take a majority women and children.

I'd also add that my general view is that if you believe in a liberal and relatively relaxed immigration policy, which I do, I think that relies on the public trusting that you are broadly in control of your borders so you know who is coming in and can remove people who are no longer entitled to be here. I don't really think it's possible to have both a liberal immigration policy a sense that the borders are pretty porous and not under control.

It works fine well.
My ideal (i.e. not expecting it to be happen overnight) system is one of minimal border controls. Britain in Schengen basically. Less draconian visa restrictions on visitors from outside the most developed countries.
But have far more controls to do things in Britain. Follow basically everywhere else and have ID cards and residence registration.
Far stricter punishments on employers for employing people without the right to work.
Better rights for foreign workers themselves, less need to pay gigantic fees, more freedom to switch jobs- not something which will attract many here but certainly something which will make them far less a cheap and easy option to exploit.
I think Switzerland presents a decent example here. Very little border controls. Just stroll right in. But illegal immigration numbers are actually rather small as there's not much of a niche for illegal workers.

[The Minsky Moment]

My point on Trump as a model is at some point someone's basically going to do the No Country For Old Men, "if this is where your rules have brought you" thing and say that Trump shows we can solve it we just need to be brutal and cruel enough to have a deterrent effect.
...
 but if you get over those hurdles, then there's very low rates of people being removed. I think either we find a way of fixing that in line with our values or something far worse is coming down the line which will be pointing at Trump and saying "terror works".

I'd also add that my general view is that if you believe in a liberal and relatively relaxed immigration policy, which I do, I think that relies on the public trusting that you are broadly in control of your borders so you know who is coming in and can remove people who are no longer entitled to be here. I don't really think it's possible to have both a liberal immigration policy a sense that the borders are pretty porous and not under control.

What you have on both sides of the ocean is a engineered policy failure.

The underlying fundamentals are declining working age populations in the OECD world and mounting shortages in key areas of the labor market.  AI isn't going to pick strawberries or tend lawns or fill the construction trades or help care for grandma.

All the OECD countries are going to need a good deal more legal immigration if they want to keep their economies running in an orderly way.  We are seeing this in the US where the Trumpers are making quiet compromises on farm and hospitality labor. 

The legislatures aren't passing laws to allow the necessary expanded immigration in a rational controlled way, because of the nativist veto.  But the powerful push-pull forces remain, so people are going to come, proper documented or no.  Hence the resort to extra-legal measures.

In the US at least, I fear that the way this plays out is the economy tips over into severe recession once the AI bubble bursts, exposing the weak fundamentals underneath.  Maybe at that point the political cycle tips back left and coercive measures go away, but at that point immigration is controlled because the push-pull dynamic isn't there anymore. 

In Europe harder to say because different political and economic factors for each country.  But in much of Europe the demographic decline is even more severe.

[Sheilbh]

I'll come back to this and the protests point but on the whole double standard point I find the story with Professor Michael Ben-Gad pretty concerning (and think it's getting attention now but deserves more).

He's a Professor of Economics at City University in London (where I went to law school - and a very interesting university). I think he's Israeli (not sure) but he did serve in the IDF in the 80s. He's being subjected to protests in his work. Yesterday one of his lectures was disrupted by protesters - this clip is from TRT (Turkish broadcaster) so explaining by one of the protesters - that's because I just couldn't see an embeddable clip from a UK broadcaster:

He was apparently threatened by a masked protester who said he was going to "behead him". Professor Ben-Gad is so far saying he will not be "cowed" and compares the protesters to the brownshirts.

Again I think there is a double standard in how seriously we are taking the threats to the security of the Jewish community and the fears they, understandably, have. I think that is being weaponised by Trump in the US to threaten dissent but it is also a real issue and one that I don't think the government or police are taking seriously enough.

[Valmy]

Yeah obviously protesting the actions of Israel is one thing. Protesting individuals is something else. Particularly for having served in a conscript army.

You might as well go protest every Palestinian as a terrorist or some shit.

But it is tricky isn't it? How do you police something like this with freedom of speech?

[The Minsky Moment]

Interestingly, Ben-Gad has done macro research into immigration, although that seems not to be a cause of the hostility against him.

[Admiral Yi]

Jos has a point; Trump isn't really pursuing a "border security" policy anymore.  He is deterring entry by unleashing a lawless reign of terror in the interior.  It's not a sustainable policy unless the state tips over into a permanent authoritarian regime.

It's only lawless if the court says it's lawless.

[HVC]

Jos has a point; Trump isn't really pursuing a "border security" policy anymore.  He is deterring entry by unleashing a lawless reign of terror in the interior.  It's not a sustainable policy unless the state tips over into a permanent authoritarian regime.

It's only lawless if the court says it's lawless.

Isn't that every law?

[Admiral Yi]

Isn't that every law?

Sure.  What's your point?