EU Referendum: The result and aftermath...

[DynamicSpirit]

Isnt that what Bill Gates does with his foundation?? Isnt that what our own government is doing by withdrawing from the EU thus saving £350 million per week which subsidises the likes of poorer EU countries such as Romania?

Aside from the issue that, as NajaB has pointed out, there is no £350M a week. That was one of the many lies spread by the leave campaign, didn't you just imply that those who are wealthier should support those who are poorer? Doesn't that mean that relatively rich countries like the UK should be seeking to help poorer countries such as Romania? (Or is that what you meant anyway?)

As you say, the issue is house price inflation - particularly in London and the South East.

We've gone from a situation where a typical suburban semi has gone from around £200k in the 1990s to anything around £1million today. Whichever way one looks at it, this requires quite a hefty income to be able to afford, whereas in the 1990s could be affordable on relatively modest incomes. Then there is the added issue that those already on the ladder see their investment accruing in value, whilst those not on the ladder (either renting or living with parents) just see their savings lose real value with low interest rates and increasing inflation. The alternative is to move further away from London, which is exactly what is happening, but eventually these more outlying areas will suffer the same effect, meanwhile placing massive strain on the transport system. Railways at capacity a familiar story?

No matter how charitable one tries to be, it's hard not to conclude that the millions of EU citizens living in London has contributed to this problem.

I agree with you on almost all of that... until you got to the final paragraph.

Firstly, do millions of EU citizens live in London? I don't know for certain. But... there are 2.9 million in the UK as a whole, so - even allowing for a higher concentration in London, it would seem surprising if there were 'millions' just in London - which constitutes only about 1/6 of the UK population. Also, if you want to start looking at population and migration, you'd also have to account for the number of UK citizens who have moved to Europe - many of whom may well not have been able to move there if it hadn't been for our EU membership.

Secondly, I wonder if you've thought through the 'contributed significantly to the problem' reasoning fully? Most people living in the UK aren't merely consumers, but are also workers, producing stuff. Some of the EU citizens in the UK will be builders and similar tradesmen who therefore build houses. If the economy is well-balanced and the people coming in are representative cross-section of the population, that ought to roughly cancel out the impact of increased demand for housing (at least on any timescale longer than the year or two so it ought to take to build houses). In fact, we tend to export a large number of retired people (who definitely won't be building any houses) and import people of working age - so in a well-functioning economy that looks like a very favourable balance to us from the point of view of building things (like houses).

And if the economy isn't well-balanced and functioning properly... then the fault probably lies with the UK Government, not with the migrants. In fact, housebuilding in the UK has massively declined over the last few decades: In the 1970s we typically built about 300K houses per year. These days, just over 100K/year is more typical. The housing shortage is a huge problem - but that's where you need to look to find the main cause, not at immigration.

 

[najaB]

And if the economy isn't well-balanced and functioning properly... then the fault probably lies with the UK Government, not with the migrants. In fact, housebuilding in the UK has massively declined over the last few decades: In the 1970s we typically built about 300K houses per year. These days, just over 100K/year is more typical. The housing shortage is a huge problem - but that's where you need to look to find the main cause, not at immigration.

Not to mention that the demand is for affordable housing to buy, where migrants are more likely to be in the rental market than wanting to buy (at least initially) since they are, after all, migrants.

 

[northwichcat]

Aside from the issue that, as NajaB has pointed out, there is no £350M a week. That was one of the many lies spread by the leave campaign

There also isn't a fixed amount we either put in or get out so any figure should have been accompanied by the date it was relevant for.

I actually found the Montenegro claim more amusing. In one of their campaign broadcasts which I saw (not intentionally) then implied 700,000 people could come here when Montenegro joins the EU. Apart from that the entire population of Montenegro being less than that and even if everyone left the country and came here there would be over 5,000 square miles of land with no-one living there which could then be attractive for Britains wanting to move to a warmer climate.

 

[northwichcat]

So David Davies is going to put all the EU laws affecting the UK in to UK law with the option to vote on changing some of those laws in UK parliament being available from 2019.

 

[meridian2]

The BBC went into a tizz this morning about security being part of the negotiations. I'm not sure why security should be removed from a bargaining position in which EU representatives are talking about the UK being "punished" for leaving. Like the mutually assured destruction of nuclear weapons, if member states believe the proper response to a country leaving is to economically ruin it, then security intelligence is undoubtedly a bargaining chip. If the EU is such an instinctively brilliant idea and membership is unequivocally advantageous, it would not need to be draconian about departures, the advantages would speak for themselves. Presenting a country as aberrant is guaranteed t make it behave in transgressive ways.

 

[Barn]

The BBC went into a tizz this morning about security being part of the negotiations. I'm not sure why security should be removed from a bargaining position in which EU representatives are talking about the UK being "punished" for leaving. Like the mutually assured destruction of nuclear weapons, if member states believe the proper response to a country leaving is to economically ruin it, then security intelligence is undoubtedly a bargaining chip. If the EU is such an instinctively brilliant idea and membership is unequivocally advantageous, it would not need to be draconian about departures, the advantages would speak for themselves. Presenting a country as aberrant is guaranteed t make it behave in transgressive ways.

EU (one breath): "Don't you dare blackmail us."
EU (next breath): "Agree to pay us tens of billions of euro before we even start to talk about trade."

 

[Tim R-T-C]

...EU representatives are talking about the UK being "punished" for leaving.

I suspect this will come down to interpretation. There is a very fine line between Britain being better, worse or neutrally off from the resulting deal.

It is in the interests of the EU member states not to give Britain any 'advantages' for leaving or it will inevitably behind cries for exodus from other countries.

 

[meridian2]

EU (one breath): "Don't you dare blackmail us."
EU (next breath): "Agree to pay us tens of billions of euro before we even start to talk about trade."

Spot on. I've never bought into the idea of the EU as a progressive, liberal minded, right-on organisation spreading sweetness and light among the people of the continental landmass. It's as hard headed and self interested as any political grouping. A German commentator even admitted that one of the reasons for the EU was to save Germany from itself. If Germany hasn't grown out of its C20th thinking it needs to look beyond the EU as a mood suppressant.

 

[meridian2]

It is in the interests of the EU member states not to give Britain any 'advantages' for leaving or it will inevitably behind cries for exodus from other countries.

If that's the case - and it may well be - the EU needs to look at what it's offering member states for forfeits like border control. If the UK deal turned out to be business as before except for customs sovereignty, most members would opt out IMO, which suggests the problem is a real one not a figment of xenophobic imagination.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

EU (one breath): "Don't you dare blackmail us."
EU (next breath): "Agree to pay us tens of billions of euro before we even start to talk about trade."

Is that definitely blackmail? The EU position appears to be that this is money that the UK had already (as a member) implicitly agreed to pay, and therefore legally owes. If that's correct, the demand would be somewhat more analogous to something like:

• Person: I want to cancel my mobile phone contract and negotiate a cheaper contract:
• Phone company: Sure, but you when you took out the contract, you agreed to X months upfront. Therefore you still owe us for Y months before we can talk about putting you on a cheaper contract.

That's not really blackmail.

(I don't know enough details to have much idea which interpretation is correct. I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out there was a mixture of money that we do reasonably owe the EU (for things like pension plans), and money that is less justified that the EU has thrown in as a negotiating starting position)

 

[Barn]

Is that definitely blackmail? The EU position appears to be that this is money that the UK had already (as a member) implicitly agreed to pay, and therefore legally owes. If that's correct, the demand would be somewhat more analogous to something like:

• Person: I want to cancel my mobile phone contract and negotiate a cheaper contract:
• Phone company: Sure, but you when you took out the contract, you agreed to X months upfront. Therefore you still owe us for Y months before we can talk about putting you on a cheaper contract.

That's not really blackmail.

If all they ask us for is for us to continue to pay our 'membership fee' until we leave in 2019, or even until the end of the multiannual financial framework in 2020, I don't think we'll have much cause to complain.

We'll see.

 

[fowler9]

If all they ask us for is for us to continue to pay our 'membership fee' until we leave in 2019, or even until the end of the multiannual financial framework in 2020, I don't think we'll have much cause to complain.

We'll see.

I reckon they will ask us to pay for our current commitments etc. and no more. If we refuse it will be off to the WTO for us.

I get the impression some people think we are going to come out of the Brexit talks with some kind of trade deal which I also get the impression is just not going to happen and I think rightly so.

I don't quite understand some people (Brexiters) saying the EU shouldn't punish us, it isn't punishment, it is business. If people didn't understand this before hand maybe they should have thought through how they voted a bit more.

 

[miami]

If all they ask us for is for us to continue to pay our 'membership fee' until we leave in 2019, or even until the end of the multiannual financial framework in 2020, I don't think we'll have much cause to complain.

We'll see.

3 years funding? Well that's £55b for starters (£350m a week * 156 weeks).

There's then the longer term programmes we've agreed to fund for the next x years around science etc. There's then the future debts (like pensions etc) that we owe, in the same way we owe money to the pension funds of UK civil servants. If I were the UK government I'd want an itemisation, but it doesn't seem an unreasonable figure.

I get the impression some people think we are going to come out of the Brexit talks with some kind of trade deal which I also get the impression is just not going to happen and I think rightly so.

But us 'remoaners' have been pointing this out for over a year. What we get to negotiate in article 50 is the divorce terms, not any future relationship. After we divorce on April Fools Day 2019, we have been lucky enough to agree (or at least be offered) a 3 year transitional deal, during which we need to negotiate a new trade deal with the EU.

(There's also the issue of all those trade deals we already have through being a member of the EU that we need to negotiate to avoid a regression in our international trade deals. Should be easy. We can sell arms to Turkey and North Korea, and golf clubs to Trumpton)

 

[Senex]

I reckon they will ask us to pay for our current commitments etc. and no more. If we refuse it will be off to the WTO for us.

I get the impression some people think we are going to come out of the Brexit talks with some kind of trade deal which I also get the impression is just not going to happen and I think rightly so.

I don't quite understand some people (Brexiters) saying the EU shouldn't punish us, it isn't punishment, it is business. If people didn't understand this before hand maybe they should have thought through how they voted a bit more.

We tell an association of which we are a member that we wish to leave. They calculate all our liabilities and present us with a detailed bill. We then pay. After that, and at the convenience of the association we are leaving rather than necessarily at a time of our choosing, they are willing to talk to us about whatever form of future working together is beneficial for them. What's wrong with any of that? I don't see why so many seem to think that everything revolves around Britain.

(And on a different topic, what did others make of May's choice of flag for her US-style signing ceremony? It seemed to me that using a flag bearing the crosses of St Andrew and St Patrick was actually deeply insulting to the majorities in those two parts of the "UK" that voted to remain.)

 

[SteveP29]

"p'tang, yang, kipperbang"...:d

uhhhh

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

The formal EU response to the article 50 made this morning shows that they too can be as formal as any other organisation when a major change to an existing status quo is put forward. One implication mentioned in the television media this morning has implications for the car industry.

 

[Howardh]

Just grabbed three days break in Spain and caught a paper there, which outlined every EU countries aims r/e Brexit, and the Spanish paragraph was to maintain the status quo for their citizens living in the UK. Everything else..."whatever".

We seem to think it's a big deal. The locals in the EU seems to shrug their shoulders. Life goes on.

Meanwhile, just noticed in the Daily Mail that they are lauding bringing back duty-free from the EU. Waheyy...a whole two bottles of wine with the tax off. So everyone used to popping over with their cars and vans and bringing back (virtually/within reason) unlimited amounts of dirt-cheap French tax-paid booze which will probably end will be skipping too.... As someone who has just flown back from Spain, the thought of buying a bottle whisky in the airport's duty free, lugging it around all day, handing it over at boarding to be put in the hold (as per Ryanair's rules) and repeat at the other end...no thanks!!

 

[Barn]

We tell an association of which we are a member that we wish to leave. They calculate all our liabilities and present us with a detailed bill.

If we are simply paying out the remainder of our committed membership fees, then clearly that is no problem. This is the mobile phone contract analogy mentioned above. It is fully expected by the UK Government and they have said so. It's not really a divorce settlement because we'll be paying them as they fall due.

I reject the notion, however, that as a long-term net contributor we have somehow built up a big pool of 'liabilities'. What are these 'liabilities'? I think we could take British MEPs' pensions and perhaps British Commissioners' / British judges' pensions on the chin (but not civil servants who happen to be British).

Otherwise, I cannot see for the life of me what sort of debt we could possibly have run up.

If it really came to it then, as a net contributor, we'd need to be deducting our equity stakes in the EU's institutions from any 'liabilities', such as our capital in the European Investment Bank.

 

[bramling]

Not to mention that the demand is for affordable housing to buy, where migrants are more likely to be in the rental market than wanting to buy (at least initially) since they are, after all, migrants.

Doesn't really matter what sector, it still is taking up housing stock and rendering that housing stock unavailable to the market. Reduction in supply = market prices rise. Housing being bought purely as investments is a similar issue.

It's all very well suggesting lack of house building is to blame, but one has to consider why house building has dropped. Maybe because we've built in all the best places, and are now scraping the barrel? In my locality some new developments are is some pretty bad locations as to be almost laughable - a development of "exciting luxury flats" within 40 yards of a major motorway, or another development shoehorned into former wooded verge space next to a footpath, with people walking right past people's windows and a busy public right of way running through someone's (tiny) back garden. Uncomfortable for people walking through what is a family space, and I wouldn't feel comfortable allowing my children to play freely in that situation. Meanwhile the "build more housing" brigade completely fail to address the issue of transport- many roads and rail services in the south-east are already hellishly over-subscribed for large amounts of the day- not just the traditional rush hour.

Bringing things back on topic, perhaps the EU could contribute to resolving these problems it has caused us. How about reclaiming a load of land from the sea to give Britain more land mass to accommodate "EU citizens"?

 

[najaB]

It's all very well suggesting lack of house building is to blame, but one has to consider why house building has dropped. Maybe because we've built in all the best places, and are now scraping the barrel?

Nope, that's not why. This is why.

Britain’s biggest housebuilders possess enough land to create more than 600,000 new homes, an analysis by the Guardian has found, raising questions about whether they are doing enough to solve the housing crisis facing Britain.

The nine housebuilders in the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 hold 615,152 housing plots in their landbank, according to financial disclosures. This is four times the total number of homes built in Britain in the past year.

 

[HSTEd]

Bringing things back on topic, perhaps the EU could contribute to resolving these problems it has caused us. How about reclaiming a load of land from the sea to give Britain more land mass to accommodate "EU citizens"?

I'm all for land reclamation - I came to the conclusion that several thousand square kilometres could easily be reclaimed in various river Estuaries, the Irish Sea and the Southern North Sea.

But would the NIMBYs like their sea view having an island in it, and would people accept the heavy development of those polders on a laissez faire basis [atleast initially]?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Bringing things back on topic, perhaps the EU could contribute to resolving these problems it has caused us. How about reclaiming a load of land from the sea to give Britain more land mass to accommodate "EU citizens"?

The sea itself is doing a good job of reclaiming land back to a more watery state from the mainland in certain areas on the east coast, aided and abetted by human intervention to breach existing flood defences and also the warnings must be heeded about building large new housing developments upon flood plains.

 

[northwichcat]

Just grabbed three days break in Spain and caught a paper there, which outlined every EU countries aims r/e Brexit, and the Spanish paragraph was to maintain the status quo for their citizens living in the UK. Everything else..."whatever".

Spain can now block us getting a good Brexit deal with the EU unless we give them co-sovereignty of Gibraltar: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39453535

No wonder the Spanish attitude was 'whatever' the other day, Brexit will allow them to achieve their goals, more than it will allow us to achieve ours.

 

[Moonshot]

Spain can now block us getting a good Brexit deal with the EU unless we give them co-sovereignty of Gibraltar: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39453535

No wonder the Spanish attitude was 'whatever' the other day, Brexit will allow them to achieve their goals, more than it will allow us to achieve ours.

This subject of " veto " was actually brought up in a Brexit Select Commitee session just over a year ago. This divorce is going to be difficult, absolutely no question about it.

 

[bramling]

Spain can now block us getting a good Brexit deal with the EU unless we give them co-sovereignty of Gibraltar: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39453535

No wonder the Spanish attitude was 'whatever' the other day, Brexit will allow them to achieve their goals, more than it will allow us to achieve ours.

How salient is the issue of Gibraltar to the average British citizen? Just done a quick off-the-cuff survey of the dozen people in my workplace at the moment and the result was a unanimous "don't care". Although the majority of this unscientific but random snapshot were leave voters, the opinion was the same for the remainers too.

 

[HSTEd]

Spain can now block us getting a good Brexit deal with the EU unless we give them co-sovereignty of Gibraltar: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39453535

No wonder the Spanish attitude was 'whatever' the other day, Brexit will allow them to achieve their goals, more than it will allow us to achieve ours.

Well it scarcely matters because there will be no Brexit deal. Brussels most certainly does not want one - the UK must be made an example of.

But even if it was all it says is that the Brexit deal will not apply to Gibraltar without the agreement of Spain.
All that means is that Gibraltar falls back on having a closed border with Spain - which it had for most of the last century.
It is hardly catastrophic since not much of its economy is actually based on cross border trade.

 

[fowler9]

If we are simply paying out the remainder of our committed membership fees, then clearly that is no problem. This is the mobile phone contract analogy mentioned above. It is fully expected by the UK Government and they have said so. It's not really a divorce settlement because we'll be paying them as they fall due.

I reject the notion, however, that as a long-term net contributor we have somehow built up a big pool of 'liabilities'. What are these 'liabilities'? I think we could take British MEPs' pensions and perhaps British Commissioners' / British judges' pensions on the chin (but not civil servants who happen to be British).

Otherwise, I cannot see for the life of me what sort of debt we could possibly have run up.

If it really came to it then, as a net contributor, we'd need to be deducting our equity stakes in the EU's institutions from any 'liabilities', such as our capital in the European Investment Bank.

You don't know what these charges are going to be, I don't know what these charges are going to be. Unless the EU come out with something to do with possible future use of post it notes and it is something tangible what is your problem. If we are as tied up in the EU as I think we are (And not just the evil empire trying to make us do stuff like the press says) then we could be tied up in all kinds of contracts.

 

[fowler9]

How salient is the issue of Gibraltar to the average British citizen? Just done a quick off-the-cuff survey of the dozen people in my workplace at the moment and the result was a unanimous "don't care". Although the majority of this unscientific but random snapshot were leave voters, the opinion was the same for the remainers too.

Daftest survey I ever heard. Ask them if we should have binned off the Falklands. Let Argentina have them. Either you work with idiots or they didn't really think it through on this occasion.

 

[miami]

Either you work with idiots or they didn't really think it through on this occasion.

These voters voted leave, that says it all.

I'm sure when the Sun drums up the patriotism they'll change their mind.

 

[bramling]

Daftest survey I ever heard. Ask them if we should have binned off the Falklands. Let Argentina have them. Either you work with idiots or they didn't really think it through on this occasion.

Doesn't really matter if they thought it through or not, I was trying to gauge the salience of the issue rather than what they actually think about the question. Same with Scotland and the EU- a majority may well have selected remain, but the more interesting thing is how salient this is. It is this that could have future implications, not the remain vote in itself.