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Politics, politics, politics

Which part of Juncker's own words "I welcome the operational steps to lay the foundations of a European Defence Union. Our security cannot be outsourced" does NOT mean "paving the way to set up an EU Army"??


I am a Brexiter in that i want the UK out of the one-size-fits-all EU supersate building process. If that makes me "passionate" to you, so be it, i don't give myself that label.



I am over it; i've voted for Brexit and hope that the UK Government can enact it (though they are doing a terrible job of things in terms of negotiations). I'm ok with people trading and working with Europe. It's not like i want or expect that to stop, i just want the UK outside of the EU state-building processes (which i feel are due to fail long-term).
Project fear i think is actually people making out that life outside of the EU couldn't possibly exist. It's not like the EU is the Garden of Eden:rolleyes:

Coordinating EU defense makes sesnes doesn't it? The UK couldn't stand up to Russia by itself for example. The US is refusing to pay for NATO now. It wants European nations to pay their way. What other options are there without costing tax payers? Junker is one person, and he hasn't said "EU army". So you are worrying about something that is not yet on the cards anyway. Coordinating defence and working together can't be a bad thing, can it? The UK doesn't really have much of an army anymore. We prefer to spend our budget on the NHS, schools etc. Would you cut those budgets to pay for a larger UK army, navy, airforce? Or is a pragmatic solution better where we can rely on the force of neigbours, in return for us supporting them?

You voted for Brexit, but do you know what kind of Brexit you want? Hard or soft?
 
Coordinating EU defense makes sesnes doesn't it? The UK couldn't stand up to Russia by itself for example. The US is refusing to pay for NATO now. It wants European nations to pay their way. What other options are there without costing tax payers? Junker is one person, and he hasn't said "EU army". So you are worrying about something that is not yet on the cards anyway. Coordinating defence and working together can't be a bad thing, can it? The UK doesn't really have much of an army anymore. We prefer to spend our budget on the NHS, schools etc. Would you cut those budgets to pay for a larger UK army, navy, airforce? Or is a pragmatic solution better where we can rely on the force of neigbours, in return for us supporting them?

You voted for Brexit, but do you know what kind of Brexit you want? Hard or soft?

So..you say "Coordinating defence makes sense", but then "Juncker hasn't said 'EU Army'" (no he instead said "European Defence Union") but then you say "it is not yet on the cards"?? So that article i posted written BY THE EU THEMSELVES still means it's not on the cards anyway? Ok i'll just leave things there then...

P.S. I want a Brexit whereby the UK is outside of the EU statebuilding processes and can look on with interest, namely:

- not to be under any ECJ jurisdiction
- being free to trade with who we please and negotiate the trade as we see fit (whilst not having to wait for an across the board agreement with 26/27 other States on said trading deal)
- and have the final say on who can and cannot get visas to work/seek asylum here (i don't care about the numbers of migrants from EU or wherever per say, i just want the final decision to be in the hands of our elected government of the day and for EU migrants to have to been given a stamp of approval like everyone else)

I believe it is the basic tenets of a sovereign government to be able to make these decisions (even if we don't like the actual decisions at times) and i don't believe it's good for basic democracy if these decisions as 'outsourced' as it were.
It is up to you to label that as "Hard" or "Soft" as you wish
 
So..you say "Coordinating defence makes sense", but then "Juncker hasn't said 'EU Army'" (no he instead said "European Defence Union") but then you say "it is not yet on the cards"?? So that article i posted written BY THE EU THEMSELVES still means it's not on the cards anyway? Ok i'll just leave things there then...

P.S. I want a Brexit whereby the UK is outside of the EU statebuilding processes and can look on with interest, namely:

- not to be under any ECJ jurisdiction
- being free to trade with who we please and negotiate the trade as we see fit (whilst not having to wait for an across the board agreement with 26/27 other States on said trading deal)
- and have the final say on who can and cannot get visas to work/seek asylum here (i don't care about the numbers of migrants from EU or wherever per say, i just want the final decision to be in the hands of our elected government of the day and for EU migrants to have to been given a stamp of approval like everyone else)

I believe it is the basic tenets of a sovereign government to be able to make these decisions (even if we don't like the actual decisions at times) and i don't believe it's good for basic democracy if these decisions as 'outsourced' as it were.
It is up to you to label that as "Hard" or "Soft" as you wish

We don’t know yet, probably will by November, but I’d hazard a guess what you outline, without compromise, would be a Hard Brexit.

That means car manufacturers up sticks into the EU, probably a number of banking jobs move too. The UK would face serious customs challenges short term and increased log term costs and a downgrading of the UK economy and currency. Yes we’ll get some cash back from not paying the EU. But it will be massively outweighed by the costs imo - and the opinion of every credible economists who's modelled a hard brexit. The loss of tax revenue and increased costs paying for all the bureaucracy would be significant.

In one fell swoop the UK would effectively be downgraded - economically and politically. People would lose jobs of that I’m sure. But maybe there are silver linings. Housing prices might go down and young people might be able to get on the housing ladder. Those who own homes would find their nest eggs depreciating - ironic as most of the Brexit voters are older house owners whereas the young who tend to struggle to get on the ladder voted remain.

Make no mistake a hard Brexit will hit people in the pocket. Especially working classes and public servants. The vote already has. We should be emerging from the credit crunch like the US and others are, giving public servants a well deserved pay rise, but we’ve gone from top of the league of growing economies to one of the slowest growing developed economies instead.

It doesn’t worry you that people in the UK may pay with jobs for your sovereignty, or that you will be worse off (all imports will be more expensive even if the other costs don't worry you), or that the value of your home maybe less?

To you is this all PF? Or are they concerns that you can weigh up and/or recognise?


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app
 
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We don’t know yet, probably will by November, but I’d hazard a guess what you outline, without compromise, would be a Hard Brexit.

That means car manufacturers up sticks into the EU, probably a number of banking jobs move too. The UK would face serious customs challenges short term and increased log term costs and a downgrading of the UK economy and currency. Yes we’ll get some cash back from not paying the EU. But it will be massively outweighed by the costs imo - and the opinion of every credible economists who's modelled a hard brexit. The loss of tax revenue and increased costs paying for all the bureaucracy would be significant.

In one fell swoop the UK would effectively be downgraded - economically and politically. People would lose jobs of that I’m sure. But maybe there are silver linings. Housing prices might go down and young people might be able to get on the housing ladder. Those who own homes would find their nest eggs depreciating - ironic as most of the Brexit voters are older house owners whereas the young who tend to struggle to get on the ladder voted remain.

Make no mistake a hard Brexit will hit people in the pocket. Especially working classes and public servants. The vote already has. We should be emerging from the credit crunch like the US and others are, giving public servants a well deserved pay rise, but we’ve gone from top of the league of growing economies to one of the slowest growing developed economies instead.

It doesn’t worry you that people in the UK may pay with jobs for your sovereignty, or that you will be worse off (all imports will be more expensive even if the other costs don't worry you), or that the value of your home maybe less?

To you is this all PF? Or are they concerns that you can weigh up and/or recognise?


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app

After 30 years, the neo-liberal scare stories have stopped working. Rebellion is out of the box. For the 99 Percent, 1 or 2% less morsels, is still morsels
 
So what's happening over in Sweeden then....

Interesting? Worrying? Both.

Do you think politics is like high street fashion, trends come around every 30 years or so? Maybe in politics its double that - around 70 years with the growth of the far right and something akin to communism gaining ground.

If you ask @milo there is indeed a rise in fascism occuring. Certainly there is a trend of far right anti-immigration sentiment. Is it a move against globalisation, or would you class it as fascism? I'm inclined to go with the former. Studies have shown that all over the world the older people get, the less welcoming of immigrants they become - its recorded in strikingly clear statistics. So for me I would say it’s a combination of an aging population and a reaction to globalisation. Not fascism per se.

Does that mean we should chill and not worry about it? No. Any movement that can lead to fascism and all out discrimination needs to be scrutinised and probably condemned (on a case by case basis). It seems that playing the immigration card is a pretty simple way to get votes. I am increasingly of the opinion that everyone is racist to some degree - that humans make judgments based on appearance and stereotypes - that is just what we do. We categorise and make sweeping assumptions. Furthermore, racial stereotypes are so ingrained into societies it is practically impossible to change them. Black people in the US for example still haven’t recovered from slavery. When freed from being slaves they were uneducated and poor. No one took them on for higher paid jobs as they were uneducated. This then feeds the stereotype of ‘Black people don’t do higher paid intellectual work’ which has kept a large proportion of Black people in the US poor and uneducated, as they don't get jobs that could pay for their kids to get an education. It is scandalous and disgusting how discriminatory the US and even the UK is. I don’t know what the answer is, but different races levels of genetic intellectual ability are extremely similar. The way society treats different races is not. It is a massive injustice that white people don't necessarily appreciate.

If all this is the case, then it is even more important we stand up to racism and fascism. History shows us what humans are easily capable of. We will discriminate and even kill others based upon their skin colour or beliefs. Even current day, genocide occurs. See Myanmar. I don't really recomend you watch much of the video below. It's aweful stuff and we can't do a lot to help. The only reason for posting is it brings home what we as a species are easily capable of. You might think it wouldn't happen in Europe. Obviously Romany people and Jews in WWII shows it can, and more recently in 1995 there was Srebrenica.

So is what is occurring in Sweden worrying? You tell me.



All that said, the EU needs do something to placate the right, and manage immigration a little better. It is not racist to feel lost in a place where people don't speak the national language, or to feel argieved that people have come from other nations and undermined your work prospects. These are real phenomena and the liberal left, especially Remainers are still in denial that there is something happening here that needs attention. Globalisation is making population movements more common. The EU and Remainers have an oppotunity to be proactive and address it without discrimation. Sadly too few people in the left can recognise it, let alone find innovative ways to address this (imo).
 
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The way to address it is to have an immigration system that is based on compassion (refugees), love (spouses), education and travel; rather than one designed for big corporations to import cheap labour to undercut local pay and conditions. Stop economic migration and you defuse everything.
 
Would “overtime” include pay on zero hours contracts or other gig economy mechanisms, I wonder? Otherwise the decline in median hourly earnings looks way too steep.
 
Without going too deep into a discussion on why the RPI continues to grow, much of it must be to do with the tax credit system. I can't get people to work overtime (at 1.5x) because the system is set up in a manner that they are essentially taxed at the rate of a higher earner for anything between their basic and the top end of what tax credits pays out at.

The government has essentially created a non-existent income that keeps inflation up and breaks the natural market forces that would rectify this.
 
Without going too deep into a discussion on why the RPI continues to grow, much of it must be to do with the tax credit system. I can't get people to work overtime (at 1.5x) because the system is set up in a manner that they are essentially taxed at the rate of a higher earner for anything between their basic and the top end of what tax credits pays out at.

The government has essentially created a non-existent income that keeps inflation up and breaks the natural market forces that would rectify this.

Spent a year managing a small logistics firm and had the same problem with getting people to do over time. Had to ask the owner to pay the drivers cash in hand.
 
Boris Johnson and other leading Tory Brexiteers have attacked Theresa May's Brexit plan at an event putting the economic case for leaving the EU without an agreement on trade.

The Economists For Free Trade report said the UK had "nothing to fear" from a "clean break" from the EU and using World Trade Organisation rules.

This could give an £80bn boost to the tax base and cut prices by 8%, it said.

But the claims were branded "Project Fantasy" by Labour MP Chuka Umunna.

And Chancellor Philip Hammond warned of "some turbulence" if the UK left the EU in March without a deal as he announced Bank of England Governor Mark Carney would be extending his contract until January 2020 to provide continuity and address any issues relating to the City in the aftermath of Brexit.

Ministers have said reaching a general agreement on future economic co-operation with the EU is in the UK's interests before it leaves on 29 March, 2019.

The UK and EU are hoping to agree a way forward next month, at the same time as they settle the terms of the UK's withdrawal from the bloc, including a transition period up to the end of 2020.

Mr Johnson and other Conservative MPs opposed to Theresa May's Chequers plan for future relations with the EU are facing growing pressure to provide an alternative plan.

Mr Johnson, who made a surprise appearance at the launch of the report in Westminster, said Mrs May's Chequers plan would mean "abandoning our seat around the table in Brussels and continuing to accept the single market legislation".

He added: "That seems to me to be a particular economic risk in Chequers and makes it substantially worse than the status quo."

Jacob Rees-Mogg said the pro-Brexit European Research Group of Tory MPs he chairs would spell out its solution to the issue of avoiding a hard border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland at a meeting on Wednesday.

"Leaving on a world trade deal is a perfectly sensible thing to do but I think we can do better," he added.

He said the UK should "negotiate the 'Canada plus' deal now which is being offered by the EU and has been offered from an early stage".

"Canada plus", a free trade pact along the lines of the EU's 2016 agreement with Canada but with deeper ties, has been rejected by Theresa May and Chancellor Philip Hammond, who says it will hit jobs, trade and growth.

The UK is set to quit the single market but Mrs May wants British manufacturers to continue to have full access to European markets for their goods through a free trade zone - which would see the UK sign up to a common rule book.

The so-called Chequers plan is unpopular with many Tory MPs, who argue it would compromise the UK's sovereignty, and Economists For Free Trade, led by Professor Patrick Minford. said the evidence showed it was not necessary to enjoy preferential market status to trade successfully with the EU.

In the past 25 years, it said the UK had been "heavily outperformed" by countries outside the single market trading with the EU on WTO rules, such as the United States, India and China.

During that period, it said the aggregate export growth of WTO countries had been four times larger than the growth of UK exports into the single market.

At the same time, it said British exports to the rest of the world had grown more than three times faster than to the EU.

The group of economists said it was wrong to characterise leaving the EU without a trade agreement in place as "crashing out" without a deal, because the UK and the European Commission would have a duty to reach a series of individual agreements in areas such as aviation and energy.

"We have nothing to fear from trading on WTO terms," it said. "Let Brexit mean Brexit and let us flourish under the auspices of the WTO."

Outside the EU, the report argues, the UK would be free to set its own tariffs on EU imports and if these were eliminated, it could reduce prices for consumers by as much as 8%. with those on low incomes benefiting the most from cheaper food and clothing.

On the other hand, it said if the EU chose to impose import tariffs on popular items, its large trade surplus with the UK could result in an annual boost to the UK Exchequer of as much as £13bn.

Responding to the report, Labour's Chuka Umunna, a leading member of the People's Vote campaign for a referendum on the final deal, said a no-deal Brexit would be a disaster for the UK.

"The latest Project Fantasy document from advocates of an ultra-hard Brexit promises to take us to a land of milk-and-honey," he said.

"The reality is that, before we have even left, Brexit is forcing up prices in the shops, destabilising our economy and stripping our health service of the doctors and nurses that it so badly needs."

And the chief executive of Jaguar Land Rover, the UK's largest car manufacturer, has warned the wrong kind of Brexit deal could cost the firm £1.2bn and result in jobs being moved abroad.

Dr Ralph Speth told a conference in Birmingham that unrestricted access to the single market was vital for his business and "any friction at the border puts business at jeopardy".



By the BBC's political correspondent Chris Mason

In Committee Room 9, the glitterati of the Brexiteer establishment. This was a gig with two key messages: banishing the bogeyman, as they see it, of WTO rules; they can be embraced, not fled from.

Oh, and the government's Chequers plan is terrible.

Boris Johnson and David Davis were both there, and recipients of applause for being willing to leave the cabinet on principle.

Other stalwarts of the Eurosceptic army joined the crowd: Bill Cash, Iain Duncan Smith, and from the business world, Richard Tice and John Mills.

This was not about sticking two fingers up to the EU. Plenty in the room argued that leaving the EU on WTO terms next March would be fine, but preferred reaching a withdrawal agreement, and securing a transition period.

During this transition a looser long term relationship could be negotiated with Brussels, which they want to be a souped-up version of the free trade agreement between Canada and the EU.
 
"The Economists For Free Trade report said the UK had "nothing to fear" from a "clean break" from the EU and using World Trade Organisation rules."



from FEB not sure if its this report - I will provide extracts as its behind a paywall.

https://www.ft.com/content/9bddba54-16ea-11e8-9e9c-25c814761640


Three questions arise. Has Economists for Free Trade chosen reasonable assumptions, which best describe Britain’s current position and the policy choices? Has it reflected the Ciuriak Consulting paper fairly? And why does it achieve its headline results? The answer to the first question on the assumptions used is an unequivocal “no”. Economists for Free Trade assume Brexit Britain has no tariffs on trade with the rest of the world, no non-tariff barriers with any country, and that border costs with the EU will be zero. The paper is clear on the last point. “We have assumed for the purposes of modelling that border costs are effectively zero,” it says.

...

The second question also produces a negative assessment. Not content with the results of the unilateral free trade option in the Ciuriak paper, Economists for Free Trade decided simply to multiply the benefits of that policy by five. Because it is inconvenient, it also ignores the paper’s conclusion that “the present value of the benefits of continued participation in the borderless [EU] single market would likely dominate, since the additional trade costs imposed by a . . . border would continue to be incurred indefinitely”.

...

The answer to the third question, then, is that Economists for Free Trade achieve their positive results simply because they assume leaving the EU has no trade costs and only potential benefits. There are also no costs associated with deregulation and only benefits. Put rubbish into a model and rubbish will spew out.[/QUOTE]
 
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