EU Referendum: The result and aftermath...

[bramling]

Unless things get really bad or the government implodes for some other reason, we're stuck with it until at least 2024 plus however long it might take for a new government to negotiate terms to re-join.

Does anyone *seriously* think it’s now viable for Britain to re-join? Even if Britain had a massive change of mind, why on earth would Europe want to entertain having us back? I’d like to think there would be a bit more to it than Montgomery Burns in The Simpsons “come crawling back have you?”!

Seriously, it would be difficult enough for an independent Scotland to join/re-join.

 

[bramling]

Yes, we will reach that point but we are nowhere near it. According to the Ordinance Survey, less than 7% of the UK's land is built on.

So why are there so many issues with infrastructure projects? Of course it doesn’t help that a good proportion of immigrants settle in the London and south-east area, where pressures are most acute. For some reason people don’t seem to want to settle en-masse in Scotland!

 

[bramling]

I didn't see the Con-Dem coalition or the all Tory Cameron government do any of that either?

They wouldn't have their bogey man if they actually tried to solve any "issues", it was far easier to blame the big bad EU as that could fit the narrative a lot better.

I wonder who they will blame now. Anyone other than themselves I suspect.

What does it have to do with the coalition? The issue arose during New Labour’s tenure and they chose not to take any action. The tabloids were rubbished at the time for being alarmist, yet their predictions turned out to be pretty much bang on the money.

Just think, had Labour made some attempt at imposing a check on immigration associated with the eastern enlargement then we might not be leaving the EU tomorrow. (and my bank balance for this month would be a little healthier not having outlayed on champagne and fireworks for tomorrow evening!).

 

[TrafficEng]

I don't think you can comment on the people who @TrafficEng knows, unless you happen to know them too?

Appreciated, thanks.

Yes, we will reach that point but we are nowhere near it. According to the Ordinance Survey, less than 7% of the UK's land is built on.

Cool. That means we can start building hundreds of miles of new motorway without anyone complaining we are concreting over the whole countryside.

I jest of course.

But more seriously, if we are on the brink of accepting that man-made climate change is real and poses an existential threat, and that loss of biodiversity, habitat and land to grow our food on is something we should be concerned about, then we need to think about that 93% not as a resource we can expand onto but instead something to preserve and respect.

If we value that land then we should no more be building houses all over it than building all the extra roads and other infrastructure required to service them.

I think the time is approaching where we need to stop chasing GDP growth and using it as a measure of success. And if we do decide that then some of the arguments why the EU/FoM is such a good idea (e.g. cheap labour) start to look less solid.

 

[bramling]

Appreciated, thanks.



Cool. That means we can start building hundreds of miles of new motorway without anyone complaining we are concreting over the whole countryside.

I jest of course.

But more seriously, if we are on the brink of accepting that man-made climate change is real and poses an existential threat, and that loss of biodiversity, habitat and land to grow our food on is something we should be concerned about, then we need to think about that 93% not as a resource we can expand onto but instead something to preserve and respect.

If we value that land then we should no more be building houses all over it than building all the extra roads and other infrastructure required to service them.

I think the time is approaching where we need to stop chasing GDP growth and using it as a measure of success. And if we do decide that then some of the arguments why the EU/FoM is such a good idea (e.g. cheap labour) start to look less solid.

Excellent post, agree with all of the above.

 

[TrafficEng]

Not sure whether employers relying on cheap labour will agree with you there.

Perhaps we need a poll on who thinks we should defend the rights of employers to rely on cheap labour?

 

[najaB]

But more seriously, if we are on the brink of accepting that man-made climate change is real and poses an existential threat, and that loss of biodiversity, habitat and land to grow our food on is something we should be concerned about, then we need to think about that 93% not as a resource we can expand onto but instead something to preserve and respect.

Agreed on all points. But it still remains true that we are nowhere near "full" as a country. We house some 60 million people on less than 10% of our land area, we could easily accommodate a million or more people without impinging on those areas of environmental importance.

There are valid arguments to be made in favour of restricting immigration, but lack of room is not one of them.

 

[bramling]

Agreed on all points. But it still remains true that we are nowhere near "full" as a country. We house some 60 million people on less than 10% of our land area, we could easily accommodate a million or more people without impinging on those areas of environmental importance.

Yes you might be able to accommodate a million more people, but not in areas where they actually want to be. Meanwhile in places where there is already dense population there’s evidence that all is far from rosy - with many people living in sub-standard accommodation, as epitomised by Grenfell Tower.

We already have the fairly ridiculous scenario of increasing numbers of people commuting to London from increasingly outlying places like Bath or Newark.

 

[TrafficEng]

Agreed on all points. But it still remains true that we are nowhere near "full" as a country. We house some 60 million people on less than 10% of our land area, we could easily accommodate a million or more people without impinging on those areas of environmental importance.

There are valid arguments to be made in favour of restricting immigration, but lack of room is not one of them.

If we were talking about 1 million people, evenly distributed across the land mass, then I doubt many people would be complaining too much.

The most recent set of projections from ONS estimates population growth of 3 million from mid-2018 to mid-2028 - or an average of 4.5%.

But that growth also isn't uniformly distributed. The rates of growth per country are -

England 5%
NI 3.7%
Scotland 1.8%
Wales 0.6%

So if we are going to accept a population growth rate of 3 million every 10 years (not 1 million in total) then we ought first to have a conversation about how we equalise that growth over the whole of the UK, rather than having a significant proportion of it in just one small corner.

(link to quoted statistics from ONS)
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...etins/nationalpopulationprojections/2018based

 

[najaB]

So if we are going to accept a population growth rate of 3 million every 10 years (not 1 million in total) then we ought first to have a conversation about how we equalise that growth over the whole of the UK, rather than having a significant proportion of it in just one small corner.

Which is related to EU membership how exactly?

(And I had initially meant to write few millions).

 

[najaB]

... with many people living in sub-standard accommodation, as epitomised by Grenfell Tower.

The decision of a UK council to use flammable cladding being related to the EU how exactly?

(Is that the modern-day equivalent of Godwin's Law, btw?)

 

[Doppelganger]

And we've come full circle.

All that stuff the EU is blamed for, has been the fault of successive UK governments who have not done what they were supposed to.

Too much immigration? They could set the rest of the world to zero and deported any EU citizen who had been in the UK for more than 3 months with no means of support

Underfunded social services? They could have easily increased spending, instead claimed it was overstretched due to migration, but this was from either years of underfunding or more recently due to private contracts in places like the NHS which only sees money given to those private shareholders as profit and so not reinvested

Increased house prices? They claimed it down to all the immigration putting extra strain on demand, nevermind that most of the social housing stock was sold at knock down prices and then not replaced

Creaking rail and road infrastructure? Too much demand due to higher population, nevermind that it takes an eternity to try to plan and cost and then build a project that then goes way over budget and is delivered late. Look at Crossrail and HS2 as examples of this. Furthermore the privatisation of rail just sees any profits which could be reinvested instead sent to shareholders pockets.

The list goes on and the UK government have used the EU as a scapegoat as and when it suited them. Let's see who they will blame next when the UK crashes out on no deal terms at the end of this year. It will certainly be someone's fault, but just not theirs...

 

[Doppelganger]

What does it have to do with the coalition? The issue arose during New Labour’s tenure and they chose not to take any action.

Everything, as they too did not apply the 3 month rule which was in their power to.

I'm not even going to go down the road of how much of a benefit to the UK economy EU workers are as it's been done to death and even in this thread there are numerous references to it.

Like I have said, let's see where the blame game takes us next year.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Does anyone *seriously* think it’s now viable for Britain to re-join? Even if Britain had a massive change of mind, why on earth would Europe want to entertain having us back? I’d like to think there would be a bit more to it than Montgomery Burns in The Simpsons “come crawling back have you?”!

Seriously, it would be difficult enough for an independent Scotland to join/re-join.

They didn't want us to leave. If nothing else we were a net contributor.

 

[nlogax]

And we've come full circle.

All that stuff the EU is blamed for, has been the fault of successive UK governments who have not done what they were supposed to.

The 'blame the EU on stuff that's wrong with the UK' conversation is hilarious. Many appear to have voted to leave sure in their minds that EU is the cause of the various ills of British society. They're about to discover that we'll be trapped on these increasingly insular islands with our own multiple home-grown sources of incompetence. The UK has its own self-sustaining ecosystem of greed, stupidity and bad government.

 

[Senex]

If the pessimistic economic predictions for a Britain outside the EU turn out to be correct, which would be better for us, a steady and slow decline over a good few years that people could just about accept as it went along, or if the decline turned out to be concentrated into a very short time (with the car-firms departing pretty quickly, the Airbus wings contract being moved back into the EU, etc) so that a resulting crisis required pretty urgent attention from the politicians — maybe from those very same Tories who have inflicted this Brexit on us?

 

[ainsworth74]

The list goes on and the UK government have used the EU as a scapegoat as and when it suited them.

The 'blame the EU on stuff that's wrong with the UK' conversation is hilarious. Many appear to have voted to leave sure in their minds that EU is the cause of the various ills of British society.

I thought it was interesting yesterday that Michael Gove appears to have woken up to that looming threat as he made comments to the media to the effect that politicians are now going to be blamed for things like unemployment as they cannot blame the EU anymore. Going to be interesting to see how that pans out!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-51304017/gove-brexit-means-no-hiding-place-for-politicians

The BBC's political editor Laura Kuenssberg has been speaking to Michael Gove - the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, also considered to be one of the most important ministers in the cabinet.

He spoke about how frustrations in government shaped his opinion on the EU.

"I would occasionally say 'I'm not sure this is a good idea' and then I was told, 'Well, there's nothing you can do about it, this is an EU law'," he said. "That's going to change. And as a result, actually, there won't be a hiding place for politicians like me."

(worth watching the clip not just reading the text)

 

[nlogax]

I thought it was interesting yesterday that Michael Gove appears to have woken up to that looming threat as he made comments to the media to the effect that politicians are now going to be blamed for things like unemployment as they cannot blame the EU anymore. Going to be interesting to see how that pans out!

Oof! I guess at least one politician is self aware enough to recognize where this will likely lead. Maybe removing this heatsink of needless blame will help focus the minds of those running the country. We can but hope, right..?

 

[Enthusiast]

Being foreign nationals who weren't earning enough to meet the income requirements. One was married to a Brit who wasn't working (stay a home mum), I think the other was in a relationship but I'm not 100% sure.

Those requirements have been in place (for non-EU/EEA citizens) since April 2016. They are designed to ensure that people settling in the UK are able to be financially self-sufficient without recourse to State assistance. It's not unreasonable, as a glance at the requirements for those seeking permanent settlement in many other countries will confirm - unless they are deemed unreasonable there as well. Leaving the EU opened the opportunity for change. There's no point in leaving if things are to remain the same. One of those changes is the alignment of the UK's immigration policy for EU citizens with that for non-EU citizens.

As mentioned, there is a widespread belief that preferring controlled immigration to a free for all is somehow racist. The idea that 440m people have the right to live and work in the UK is pure lunacy. If anything is racist it is the UK's current immigration policy which discriminates against non-EU migrants on the basis purely of their race.

 

[Doppelganger]

As mentioned, there is a widespread belief that preferring controlled immigration to a free for all is somehow racist. The idea that 440m people have the right to live and work in the UK is pure lunacy.

That's clearly rubbish otherwise other EU countries would be completely empty right now. The UK isn't that a fantastic a place that the whole world is pining after you know.

 

[cb a1]

The idea that 440m people have the right to live and work in the UK is pure lunacy.

66.5 m people have the right to live and work in Cornwall. That's pure lunacy - better make Cornwall independent of the rest of the UK.
0.5 m people in Cornwall have the right to live and work in St Ives. That's pure lunacy - better make St Ives independent of the rest of Cornwall.
...

 

[krus_aragon]

Phew..I've been worried about those elevated unicycle tariffs for years.

Do those only apply if you're using one on a tightrope?

 

[Puffing Devil]

I thought it was interesting yesterday that Michael Gove appears to have woken up to that looming threat as he made comments to the media to the effect that politicians are now going to be blamed for things like unemployment as they cannot blame the EU anymore. Going to be interesting to see how that pans out!

It's interesting how he's still dealing in generalities, and that Kuenssberg again failed to challenge him on:

I would occasionally say 'I'm not sure this is a good idea' and then I was told, 'Well, there's nothing you can do about it, this is an EU law​

We again have that nebulous idea that the EU is stopping us doing "something", yet we don't know what that "something" is. It may have been the reallocation of fishing rights or may have been the abandonment of the Working Time Directive. We'll never know. What is clear is that the new government has nowhere left to hide and anything in the next 5 years is on them; they don't even have the luxury of a preceding Labour administration to blame. I'm reluctantly sitting here with my popcorn.

 

[WelshBluebird]

Of course, it is likely that the government (and other Eurosceptic politicians) will just blame any negative impacts of Brexit on the EU, so it isn't like they have had their scapegoat taken away just yet.

 

[bramling]

66.5 m people have the right to live and work in Cornwall. That's pure lunacy - better make Cornwall independent of the rest of the UK.
0.5 m people in Cornwall have the right to live and work in St Ives. That's pure lunacy - better make St Ives independent of the rest of Cornwall.
...

The UK is already disproportionately weighted towards the south-east in terms of population, last thing we need is freedom of movement adding to this, which is what has been happening.

Making a hypothetical example of a problem which doesn’t exist in an attempt to discredit one which does is not helpful.

 

[bramling]

It's interesting how he's still dealing in generalities, and that Kuenssberg again failed to challenge him on:

I would occasionally say 'I'm not sure this is a good idea' and then I was told, 'Well, there's nothing you can do about it, this is an EU law​

We again have that nebulous idea that the EU is stopping us doing "something", yet we don't know what that "something" is. It may have been the reallocation of fishing rights or may have been the abandonment of the Working Time Directive. We'll never know. What is clear is that the new government has nowhere left to hide and anything in the next 5 years is on them; they don't even have the luxury of a preceding Labour administration to blame. I'm reluctantly sitting here with my popcorn.

As a leave voter I’d be more than happy if a positive consequence is that our elected government is less able to hide behind smokescreens.

 

[nlogax]

Of course, it is likely that the government (and other Eurosceptic politicians) will just blame any negative impacts of Brexit on the EU, so it isn't like they have had their scapegoat taken away just yet.

The government continued to blame Labour for myriad problems well into their first post-coalition term. One would hope they don't pull the same tactic here.

 

[Puffing Devil]

The government continued to blame Labour for myriad problems well into their first post-coalition term. One would hope they don't pull the same tactic here.

How naive of me.... Of course, any failure will be the EUs fault for giving us the deal that we deserve. Why didn't I see that?

Certainly, it will be nothing to do with our inept negotiation or the country putting itself into the position where it even needs to negotiate in the first place.

 

[AM9]

The UK is already disproportionately weighted towards the south-east in terms of population, last thing we need is freedom of movement adding to this, which is what has been happening.

Making a hypothetical example of a problem which doesn’t exist in an attempt to discredit one which does is not helpful.

If it is so bad then maybe there's a good case for reducing freedom of movement within the UK, specifically to prevent further migration from the provinces into the disproportionate overcrowding in the south-east. Maybe a repatriation scheme to 'encourage' those economic migrants to return to whichever part of the UK they grew up in.

 

[ValleyLines142]

Slightly off topic, but I was considering going to London for the day tomorrow. Am I likely to get held up in any demonstration/protests? Only wanted to a bit of train spotting.