Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[crazy canuck]

I would no more call an Inuit an Eskimo than i would call a Lokata a Sioux.  But I do use idioms, and if CC is personally offended by reading the word "Eskimo" I can, as I noted, do my best to avoid disturbing his sensibilities by using that particular idiom here.

Eskimo isn't, by and large, considered a slur.  It's not like redskin, and certainly not like the n-word.

But Eskimo isn't their preferred term.  It's other people's name for them.  And like many people, both groups or individuals, they should be called what they prefer to be called.

You are wrong.  If you had read the link I posted, you would realize your mistake.  But, it is apparent you have decided be childish and not read or respond to my posts.

Like Grumbler, I would not bother with you further, but stop with this nonsense of perpetuating the use of a word like that.  The Edmonton Eskimos were not forced to change their name because it is merely not the preferred term.

[Josquius]

I'd always thought Eskimo was offensive in the US but not Canada, it being in Canada where the non Inuit Eskimo were to be found along with Inuit.

What is the proper term then? I know Inuit is wrong as that's a specific group. Is there no common unifying term for them?


More on the British class point -
The traditional class boundaries mean very little today.
It matters little whether someone is lower middle class or working class in practice.
To my mind the true boundaries are the new upper class, where nobility is no barrier and even new money is accepted if they are true 1%ers.
The new working class. Which includes much of the middle class.
And the non working class. The lumpen proletariat. The generationally unemployed who have given up on ever aspiring for more. This is a new development of our age and it is a key factor in the politics of our time, such as brexit.

[Grey Fox]

There is no unifying term. It's multiple people spread across 5000km of tundra.

[Valmy]

Inuit also has the disadvantage of only carrying the name of one tribe.

Yeah once you start using tribal names you get into loads of complications.

Ah well. It is not like it is a huge deal unless you go to Alaska.

[Sheilbh]

So this is a fascinating piece from the New Statesman (left-wing magazine) in 1951. Wildly wrong on some points (European integration = war with the East for German unification) but in other ways strangely prescient, or playing on themes that would keep going for the next 65 years:

From the NS archive: Paved with good intentions
22 December 1951: Churchill, Eden and the European Army.
BY ANONYMOUS

The Conservatives won the snap general election in 1951, called by Labour with the intention of increasing their parliamentary majority. It marked the beginning of a 13-year stint in opposition for Labour — and the return to power of Winston Churchill. Following the Second World War, countries across Western Europe — including Western Germany — were in conversation about forming a European Army, designed to strengthen Western Europe against the Soviet Union without directly rearming Germany and risking another nationalist uprising. If it were to go ahead, "the unification of Germany can only take place by act of war", according to our correspondent. It fell on foreign secretary Anthony Eden to navigate these choppy diplomatic waters and steer Britain away from a plan that this writer considered dangerous and rash.

***

Time takes its toll. Seven years ago, when Mr Churchill and Mr Eden last went travelling together as Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, there was no doubt who was the boss. At Yalta the foreign secretaries danced attendance on the great men, and Mr Eden, like Mr Stettinius, was more noted for his looks than for his influence. Now the position is being quietly reversed. In Paris this week, while Mr Churchill gave the V signs and took the salute of the Garde Republicaine, it was the Foreign Secretary who led the serious discussions. His task was a delicate one. First, to assure the French that he and the Foreign Office have a firm hold of Mr Churchill and can prevent him restaging his role as a great Anglo-American war leader when he crosses the Atlantic; and, secondly, to remove the fear lest British policy should in any way be influenced by the various utterances of Mr Churchill as Leader of the Opposition.

These assurances were urgently necessary. Since 1945, Mr Churchill has played on two themes. The Leitmotiv of his Fulton speech was the special connection of Britain and America as English-speaking peoples. To this he added at Zurich the need to revive a German national army to fight alongside the glorious French army in the cause of freedom and democracy. On French ears both themes jarred and, when woven into a single Churchillian fugue, they produced a uniquely distasteful dissonance. The French are always suspicious that Britain is seeking to achieve an exclusive Anglo-American partnership and to persuade the Americans that continentals who speak no English belong to a lesser breed. Their suspicion of our perfidy is confirmed when the concept of English-speaking union is combined with the proposal for a revived German army.

It was no doubt in order to soften this discord that Mr Churchill travelled to Strasbourg in the summer of 1950, and personally launched the project for a European Army under a European political authority. This Strasbourg oration had been preceded a few weeks previously by a debate in the Commons on the Schuman Plan. On this occasion Mr Churchill divided the House in order to register his protest against the Labour government's negative attitude to proposals for European economic integration. A few innocents at Strasbourg, therefore, may have imagined that he had now seen the error of his ways and was discarding both the special Anglo-American connection and the German national army in order to become a good European Federalist.

It is doubtful, however, whether anyone concerned with high policy in Paris ever took Mr Churchill's Strasbourg oration quite as seriously as that. By the summer of last year it was clear enough that, whatever party were in power, Britain would refuse to accept any proposal which could lead her into a European Federal Union. It was also clear that the Foreign Office favoured the "Little Federation" — that is, a United States of Europe based on Franco-German collaboration, but excluding Britain.

At first sight this concept has its obvious conveniences — for Britain. If national sovereignty has become an anachronism in continental Europe, then why not let the continentals create their own United States of Europe? If France fears the revival of German militarism, then let Frenchmen initiate their own continental plans for economic and military integration of the Western Germans into the European community. In this way German rearmament could be begun, and the American Congressional pressure satisfied, without any sacrifice on the part of Britain. This was the Foreign Office plan, first evolved under Mr Ernest Bevin, then tentatively put over by Mr Morrison during his tenure of office, and now inherited by Mr Anthony Eden.

The trouble about the plan is that it is a too palpable example of sacred egoism. It demands everything of our allies and nothing of ourselves. Even more serious, it evades the desperately dangerous German problem which unites our interests with those of French democracy. So long as the European Army and the Schuman Plan exclude Britain, they give no security whatsoever against the re-emergence of an aggressive German nationalism. On the contrary, they provide a highly convenient framework under which the German nationalists and the Ruhr magnates can take control of Western Europe and mould it to their aggressive ambitions. The only French supporters of the "Little Federation" and the "Little European Army" are those reactionary forces which welcomed Ribbentrop in Paris before the war and collaborated under Petain in Hitler's anti-Communist crusade. No wonder every European Socialist Party is opposed to the idea. No wonder that the Benelux countries are now nearly as suspicious of it as the sturdy Scandinavians.

Mr Eden is the first Foreign Secretary since 1945 who understands the German problem sufficiently clearly to see the danger of an insular British support for the "Little Federation" and the "Little European Army." He knows the pressure which General Eisenhower is putting on M. Schuman, and he appreciates the validity of the French Foreign Minister's plea that Britain's role is to provide a makeweight in Europe against German power. As a good European, therefore, he will be sorely tempted to meet M. Schuman by contriving some form of British co-operation in the European Army, sufficient not only to make the project palatable to the French Assembly and to the Benelux countries, but also to soften the American accusation that Britain is once again sabotaging European unity. Why not, for instance, lock up one British division and part of our tactical Air Force in the European Army, if that will create concord when the Atlantic Powers meet at Lisbon in February?

Before the Foreign Secretary succumbs to this temptation, he should recall the origin of this project. Its sole purpose, both in Mr Churchill's and General Eisenhower's mind, is to prepare the way politically for the rearmament of Western Germany. It would be a tragedy if Mr Eden's first action as Foreign Secretary were to provide the good intentions whose use as paving stones was described by Dr Dalton in his vigorous and refreshing broadcast last Saturday. Dr Dalton indicated convincingly why German rearmament is the road to hell. If we are concerned with the purely military problems of Western European defence, we now know as a fact that they can be solved without a German contribution. By the end of next year the NATO forces in Western Europe will be strong enough to resist any Russian adventures and, if the Red Army were mad enough to move, those forces — so long as there were no German element in them — could make a fighting withdrawal across the German glacis to prepared positions on the Rhine. But, once German divisions are integrated into the European Army, this defensive strategy is denied us. For the  Germans will quite legitimately demand, as the price of their participation, the defence of the Oder line and a counter-attack to the Vistula. Hence the integration of German divisions in a European Army, so far from reducing the commitments of the other Atlantic powers, enormously increases them.

This purely strategic argument is reinforced by even more powerful political considerations. Sooner or later, the present arbitrary and intolerable division of Germany must be ended. But the integration of Western Germany into a "Little Federation," strongly backed by the US, would exclude any agreed solution of the German problem. Once it is accomplished, the unification of Germany can only take place by act of war. And, whatever we may say or think today, the task of a European Army, once it has been built, will be to liberate the Germans of the Eastern Zone and restore Koenigsberg and Breslau to the Reich.

There is still time for Britain to block this fatal road, down which our neighbours in Europe are being slowly driven under insistent American pressure. Instead of facilitating the formation of the European Army, Mr Eden should go to Washington in order to demand on behalf of every nation in Western Europe, including the Germans, that one more effort should be made to solve the German problem by agreement with the Soviet Union. And if Mr Acheson replies that no such agreement is possible, Mr Eden will have a full and sufficient reason for taking Mr Churchill on yet another conducted tour — this time to Moscow.

[Sheilbh]

A thought on the UK-EU vaccine comparison - it feels like the only way that people in the UK understand the relationship with the EU (before Brexit) is fundamentally sort of parasitical. It's a really basic perspective. And the difference is just that the pro-Brexit/FBPE wings disagree on who's the parasite. While actually both the UK and the EU benefited, but maybe the balance was different depending on what the issue was.

So on vaccines specifically it feels to me like the most likely outcome - absent Brexit - would be that the EU vaccine program might be in a better place if the UK was involved because the UK government tapped into local expertise in that sector (especially research and venture capital), was perhaps a bit more aggressive with companies and would have shifted the risk profile. But it feels like no-one really wants to think about that because for pro-Brexiters the UK had minimal/no influence so nothing would have changed and for the FBPE the UK added nothing of value to the EU so nothing would have changed.

There's something very weird about the way people have divided after this vote, but both basically in lines where the UK is fundamentally sort of passive victim that either gets saved from or by the EU.

[Tamas]

it feels like the only way that people in the UK understand the relationship with the EU (before Brexit) is fundamentally sort of parasitical. It's a really basic perspective. And the difference is just that the pro-Brexit/FBPE wings disagree on who's the parasite.

That's certainly true for Leavers, but thinking that comparatively the UK will lose more with Brexit than the EU is equal to thinking we parasited on the EU.

[Sheilbh]

it feels like the only way that people in the UK understand the relationship with the EU (before Brexit) is fundamentally sort of parasitical. It's a really basic perspective. And the difference is just that the pro-Brexit/FBPE wings disagree on who's the parasite.

That's certainly true for Leavers, but thinking that comparatively the UK will lose more with Brexit than the EU is equal to thinking we parasited on the EU.

But that's not what I mean - it's that the UK really contributed nothing/added no value to the EU. We were the ones who received all the benefits of sort of saving us from ourselves. On the one side we had no say, on the other side we added nothing. Both are just passive parasites just different sides.

So it's more that leavers cannot accept that that the UK benefited from being in the EU, the FBPE wing cannot accept that the EU benefited from having the UK in it.

Edit: And I think that is actually where the truth is.

[Tamas]

I haven't seen anyone claiming the EU did not benefit from a massive economy being among its members, but for sure I have not been following discussions in detail.

[Richard Hakluyt]

The January UK trade figures are out and are appalling as predicted :

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/balanceofpayments/bulletins/uktrade/january2021

Imports of goods from the EU were down 28.8% (£6.6bn) while exports of goods to the EU were down 40% (£5.6bn).

Services were far less affected with a 2% drop in imports and 1% in exports.

This all backs the idea that remainer areas will suffer less than brexiter areas. It is a very weird month though due to covid and teething problems at the border.

[Sheilbh]

I haven't seen anyone claiming the EU did not benefit from a massive economy being among its members, but for sure I have not been following discussions in detail.

But again that's not quite what I mean - it's more that both seem to view UK in the EU is basically entirely zero sum. And I don't necessarily mean purely around economics and trade but rule-making etc. The UK is either put upon and sort of oppressed, or benighted and saved from itself (and especially from the Tory governments we keep electing) - in neither case was the UK seen as a creative part/contributor to the EU that was shaping it. It just seems like a really weird gap.

And in fairness it goes both ways. So I think in the EU-UK vaccine comparison there's a reasonably strong possibility that if the UK was still a member the EU program would be in a better place; on the other hand I think the EU recovery fund is essential and positive, and I don't know if it would have been possible with the UK as a member. But with the FBPE/Brexit wings that possibility just doesn't seem to entertain that idea.

[Sheilbh]

This all backs the idea that remainer areas will suffer less than brexiter areas. It is a very weird month though due to covid and teething problems at the border.

Yeah there will be weirdness in these figrues and the trend will be key - but this is likely to be the direction. But I think you're totally right - the areas that voted remain will suffer less than the areas that voted leave. I think that's kind of the tragedy of it all.

[Tamas]

It's ok there's no amount of problems that can't be dismissed by blaming the pandemic.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Oh I've given up on the general public, the Tories are 10% ahead in the polls and labour just seem so lacklustre. I posted the trade figures mainly so that we could grumble about them 

[Josquius]

First I've seen in this direction, I'm surprised it hasn't been shouted about more.
From a financesy investy angle rather than political but the expected is beginning:

https://citymonitor.ai/economy/investment/belfast-looks-to-play-to-its-brexit-advantage

Belfast looks to play to its Brexit advantage
The UK's departure from the EU left Northern Ireland, and its capital Belfast, in a unique position, given its border with member state Ireland. This offers the city an appealing message to take to investors.

Belfast – Northern Ireland's capital city – was built on its shipyard and linen textile trades, although to say it has a rich and complex history would be something of an understatement. Since the partition of Ireland in 1921, Belfast has acted as the seat of government for Northern Ireland, although the Assembly has suffered a series of disruptions amid the country's civil unrest. Throughout this time, however, the capital city has been the most significant investment location within Northern Ireland.

In fact, Belfast is crucial to Northern Ireland's success as a destination for foreign direct investment (FDI). The 2020 EY UK Attractiveness Survey cited Belfast as the most important regional FDI hub in the UK between 2018 and 2019.

During 'The Troubles' of the 1970s and 1980s, Belfast gained a reputation as a dangerous, fractured city, as loyalist and republican groups such as the UVF and IRA waged terror campaigns across Northern Ireland and, in the case of the IRA, in England. Ever since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, however, which all but ended the violence in the country, much work has gone into shifting that perception of Belfast. The city has gone from building ships – most famously the RMS Titanic – to building peace and, with it, profits.

No stranger to resilience and reinvention, Belfast is looking to handle the economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic through growth in innovative sectors ranging from film production to cybersecurity. It also benefits from a unique position post-Brexit, with trade powers that other UK cities cannot utilise.

The Belfast Region City Deal
A driving force for Belfast's rejuvenation is the Belfast Region City Deal (BRCD). The deal includes a £350m investment from the UK government, which was then matched by the Northern Ireland Executive, with a further £150m being invested by the BRCD's partners.

The deal includes an investment plan that will focus on four key investment pillars – infrastructure, tourism and regeneration, innovation and digital. It will also work to ensure that Belfast has within it the skills to help these pillars thrive. Ultimately, the deal plans to provide 20,000 jobs with a projected annual gross value added (GVA) impact of £470m.

How will Brexit impact Belfast?
With Brexit causing headaches for cities across the UK, Belfast finds itself with exclusive powers across both the UK and EU. Steve Harper, executive director of international business at Invest Northern Ireland, is optimistic about Belfast's position.

"If you are trading goods, Northern Ireland is the place to come and set up access to both [the UK and the EU]," he says. "Undoubtedly, there are still issues [regarding the] supply chain from Great Britain into Northern Ireland, and it would be wrong of me to say there aren't issues. But selling something from Northern Ireland into Great Britain? There are zero issues. There is no paperwork or exit declarations needed."

Joe O'Neill, chief executive of Belfast Harbour and chair of the Renewed Ambition initiative, mirrors this sentiment. "We would advocate that Northern Ireland now has a unique proposition in terms of capability and capacity to serve both marketplaces with a minimal administrative burden," he says.

Selling something from Northern Ireland into Great Britain? There are zero issues. There is no paperwork or exit declarations needed.
Steve Harper, Invest Northern Ireland
This strengthened supply chain could boost Belfast's manufacturing industry. Manufacturing and engineering have remained important to the city despite a more widespread industrial decline in Northern Ireland and the wider UK. The industry boasts a long list of sub-sectors including aerospace, automotive, electronics, energy and consumer products.

Harper says: "Manufacturing is growing massively; we have a really strong history in engineering in Northern Ireland. One in every three aircraft seats [globally] is made in Northern Ireland.

"[We are looking] to really drive innovation in manufacturing. How can we take a lot of the artificial intelligence that is being used in our software sectors, and all of the knowledge that is in the data analytics, and apply that to our traditional manufacturing? Not only to create new products, but to keep us competitive."

Another sector that could see a potential benefit from Belfast's position in a post-Brexit UK is life sciences.

Harper says: "If you are a pharmaceutical company, you come to Northern Ireland, you develop a new drug and you licence it here, it will be certified to EU standards, and vice versa with the UK.

"We now have that extra string to our bow. We could actually save companies an awful lot of time and an awful lot of certification and all of those non-financial barriers."

Finance and insurance services see the biggest GVA growth
When looking at GVA growth in Belfast between 2000 and 2018, finance and insurance services have skyrocketed.

Belfast is considered to be one of the eight UK financial centres, with Citi, Liberty Mutual, Baker McKenzie, KPMG, PwC and Deloitte all having a presence in the city. Fintech, in particular, has been cited as an important growing sector for Belfast.



Meanwhile, information and communications technology (ICT) has also experienced strong growth in Belfast since the turn of the millennium, as the above graph shows.

Alistair Reid, the strategic director for place and economy at Belfast City Council, says: "Cyber tech is our lead sector in terms of new industries. We are the number one international investment location for cybersecurity development projects and one of the top ten tech cities in the UK. We are in the UK top four for tech clusters for digital job density and digital tech turnover."

BT, PwC, Deloitte and EY all have cybersecurity operations based in Northern Ireland, and in 2020, Microsoft chose Belfast as the location for a new cybersecurity hub, creating 85 new jobs.

We have two first-class universities, bringing forward the supply of talent, much of which is quite happy to stay in the city.
Alistair Reid, Belfast City Council
Reid stresses that the city's universities offer key support to not just the growing ICT sector, but for life sciences and manufacturing.

"We have two first-class universities, bringing forward the supply of talent, much of which is quite happy to stay in the city," he says. "In terms of the specialisms of these universities, there is an alignment between the growth areas – cyber tech, life sciences and advanced manufacturing."

Harper explains the synergy between Belfast's universities – namely Queens University and Ulster University – and government and industry. "We are really joined up in Northern Ireland," he says. "Businesses, academia and government are so closely linked. We talk about the companies that are in our pipeline.

"The universities will ask us: 'What skills are investors looking for?' The executive can then switch and add more funding into the universities to allow them to have more software grants coming through and the universities can tweak their curriculums to match. It is a really joined-up approach to making sure that the talent is there for the investors."

How Belfast benefits from strong transport connections
Belfast's industrial roots and port have created a legacy for the city, with its port continuing to act as an important commercial and industrial area, with the famous Harland and Wolff shipyard still in operation.

Reid highlights just how well-connected Belfast remains in present day. "Belfast City Airport is 20 minutes from the city centre, and you can fly into London in an hour," he says. "We have two airports, but it is really three if you count South Belfast airport [which is Dublin]. But hey, if London can count Luton."

Chris Conway, CEO of Translink, Northern Ireland's transport holding company, goes into more detail. "We have got a number of infrastructure projects in the city deal. For example, we successfully implemented the rapid bus transit system, which is effectively a tram on rubber wheels, which connects the east and west of Belfast."

Conway highlights that this is a symbolic development for the city, saying: "It has connected parts of Belfast that were typically politically apart and brought them together culturally."

The Weavers Cross project
Alongside these developments, the Weavers Cross project is a transport-led regeneration initiative that sits within Belfast City Council's agenda for a new vision for the city by 2035. The project has lofty aims to create 50,000 jobs and attract a further £1bn of investment into the city.

Conway stresses that Weaver's Cross is more than a transport project, however.

"[Alongside the transport hub aspect] it will be a significant development site," he says. "We estimate it to be about 120,000m² of development space, with a gross development value of about £380m. Translink owns the majority of that land, and we plan to enter into a joint venture with a private sector partner to develop the land."

The project will also create Saltwater Square, which will serve as a community space. Conway says: "This used to be the centre of Belfast; it is a key part of the city. It is much in need of regeneration now and this is the opportunity and the catalyst to do that."

Belfast harbour – the most diverse port in the UK?
The Belfast port – along with the city quays – are undergoing a spell of regeneration under the BRCD.

O'Neill highlights that as well as being the largest port in Northern Ireland and handling 70% of seaborne trade for the country, this is also the largest single harbour state in the UK. "We have a 810ha harbour state – a significant landbank – that is available for non-marine use," he says.

Nicole Kidman put out some fantastic, complimentary media messaging around her experience of filming here, in effect saying she would love to come back and live in Belfast. That is priceless.
Joe O'Neill, Belfast Harbour
This landbank has allowed Belfast Harbour to wildly diversify its offerings, from manufacturing to movie-making. O'Neill highlights the sectors involved.

"We have got just about every imaginable land use on the state, through big box retail through to significant manufacturing companies," he says. "There are 760 entities based on the harbour state."

One of the most unusual developments is the Belfast Harbour film studios. Belfast, and more broadly Northern Ireland, have seen their soft influence rise significantly as a location for TV and films. Game of Thrones and Line of Duty have both been hugely popular and were filmed in and around the city. This has attracted the attention of big names such as Netflix, Universal and Paramount. Now, alongside Belfast's two existing stages, a further six are in the pipeline.

For O'Neill, the TV and film sector brings with it for the kind of publicity and tourist interest that money can't buy. "Nicole Kidman put out some fantastic, complimentary media messaging around her experience of filming here, in effect saying she would love to come back and live in Belfast. That is priceless," he says.

Skills + low cost = attractive proposition
When asked for the key points of what makes Belfast attractive to investors, Harper lists access to talent, good infrastructure and low operating costs as key.

"We are joined up between business, academia and government, and we are able to turn that tap on and off for the skills that are needed by investors," he says. "When you put that level of high-performing talent against a cost basis, it is really unbeatable – it is a really strong proposition."

Reid mirrors this sentiment, saying: "Your labour will be 30% cheaper, and your operating costs will be up to 50% cheaper than London or Dublin. We have a great track record. Some 900 international companies are operating from the city, and 75% of those who are invested, reinvest."