How do we resolve the Brexit mess?

[Gareth Barry Conlon]

Not going to get involved in the on-going Brexit debate. It will go on forever.

I did vote leave.

What I will point out is this.

We were told constantly by Remain via 'Project Fear', which was nothing more than political scare mongering throughout the referendum, that the British Car industry will be decimated, with car production being transferred to Europe, with the loss of 1000's of car manufacturing jobs. That hasn't happen. Instead car manufacturers have remained in the UK, invested billions in the UK car manufacturing industry, and created 1000's of new jobs.

Car plants have closed and production is way down. The only good news comes with huge government grants (bribes). And worse is to come.

Brexit ‘cliff edge’ threatens electric car production, warns industry boss

‘We can’t afford to have a last-minute 31 December agreement’, says automobile chief on January deadline

www.independent.co.uk

 

[oldius]

People were warned what would happen but leave politicians dismissed it, and buoyed their support. The outcomes are now with us.

 

[BrianW]

No one could fully predict what would happen after Brexit because:

a) We had no idea what sort of Brexit we would have. It could have been something more sensible like a Norway arrangement. On the other hand, it could have been the crazy 'no deal' that some thought attractive. (God knows why.)

b) Both the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Bank of England took steps to minimise turbulence. This was at a cost, but as it was not measured in an immediate 5p on income tax no one much bothered. It can probably be summarised as putting an extra 2k on the credit card for no obvious return.

If we had exited the EU with a sensible plan, probably something close to Norway or Switzerland. the chances are we would not be having this debate now. (Some people would still mourn the loss of involvement in the EU project, but many more would be indifferent.) Instead, we planned (if you can call it that) on the hoof, driven back-and-fro by headlines in the Daily Mail, in terror of being seen to be too cooperative with the EU. In short, we consciously sought conflict.

On the other hand, it's easy to state how we should have fared within the EU. We should basically have been where we were before, much better off in (almost) every way. We threw away certainty for uncertainty, without even having a coherent plan. And we have not achieved stability yet. It could still go far more pear-shaped as the years pass by.

 

[inbetween]

only a body the size of the EU can resist the wealth and influence of the far right, which was the driving force behind brexit, backed to the hilt by big oil,big pharma, multinationals venture capitalists, vulture capitalists, et al. Politics ? nah insatiable greed for power and wealth, and therefore the arch-enemy of democracy. Russia sees the EU as a barrier to annexing Europe, China sees it as a trade threat, both backed brexit, two major communist countries aligning with the far far right, ?? The world's major religions are implacably opposed to stemming an ever-increasing population explosion in a world facng dwindling fresh water shortages, for reasons that they hide behind fairy-tale like scriptures, never saying the bleedin' obvious, "more babies, more power"
Where's that fiery comet when you need it, ffs.

This makes no sense. Why would any multinational be in favour of Brexit? The big banks and venture capitalists were all in favour of remain. The Tory party which supposedly represents big business was in favour of remain. The EU which primarily facilitates globalist trade obviously wanted remain.

Goldman Sachs literally was one of the biggest funders of the remain campaign.

In some circles you could easily argue that Brexit was a working class rejection of all of the above. The vote was anti-establishment as opposed to pro-establishment. This is why socialists are in favour of Brexit.

 

[blueinsa]

Yes it’s great news but I’m not sure why you’ve put it on the Brexit thread.

For the exact same reason we would have had 50 pages blaming brexit had they not committed to the plant and jobs.

I think that’s a fair enough reason to have posted it on here tbh.

 

[blueish swede]

No one could fully predict what would happen after Brexit because:

a) We had no idea what sort of Brexit we would have. It could have been something more sensible like a Norway arrangement. On the other hand, it could have been the crazy 'no deal' that some thought attractive. (God knows why.)

b) Both the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Bank of England took steps to minimise turbulence. This was at a cost, but as it was not measured in an immediate 5p on income tax no one much bothered. It can probably be summarised as putting an extra 2k on the credit card for no obvious return.

If we had exited the EU with a sensible plan, probably something close to Norway or Switzerland. the chances are we would not be having this debate now. (Some people would still mourn the loss of involvement in the EU project, but many more would be indifferent.) Instead, we planned (if you can call it that) on the hoof, driven back-and-fro by headlines in the Daily Mail, in terror of being seen to be too cooperative with the EU. In short, we consciously sought conflict.

On the other hand, it's easy to state how we should have fared within the EU. We should basically have been where we were before, much better off in (almost) every way. We threw away certainty for uncertainty, without even having a coherent plan. And we have not achieved stability yet. It could still go far more pear-shaped as the years pass by.

A Norway type deal was never on the cards, nor was a Swiss type deal. They weren't then and they're not now. If the UK had actually listened to the EU, they would have understood this. Like the UK opt outs, these deals were negotiated many years ago, mostly before the Maastricht treaty. The EU doesn't negotiate such deals any more because a) they don't want to and b) they don't need to. The UK negotiating such a deal in the present day is as likely as it rejoining the EU and retaining all it's earlier opt-outs.

 

[BrianW]

A Norway type deal was never on the cards, nor was a Swiss type deal. They weren't then and they're not now. If the UK had actually listened to the EU, they would have understood this. Like the UK opt outs, these deals were negotiated many years ago, mostly before the Maastricht treaty. The EU doesn't negotiate such deals any more because a) they don't want to and b) they don't need to. The UK negotiating such a deal in the present day is as likely as it rejoining the EU and retaining all it's earlier opt-outs.

Well, it's certainly too late now.

Had the UK approached the EU in a more gentlemanlike manner, with a clear idea of what we wanted, the EU might well have been surprisingly flexible. Instead, we chose a) to be as awkward as possible and b) to have no really coherent plan as to what we wanted. May's stupid red lines pretty much ruled out any sensible arrangement, but I'm pretty confident that we could have had, at the least, what Northern Ireland has now. But you see, that would have ruled out independent trade deals with Narnia, a key issue for the fantasists.

 

[hampshireblue]

Not going to get involved in the on-going Brexit debate. It will go on forever.

I did vote leave.

What I will point out is this.

We were told constantly by Remain via 'Project Fear', which was nothing more than political scare mongering throughout the referendum, that the British Car industry will be decimated, with car production being transferred to Europe, with the loss of 1000's of car manufacturing jobs. That hasn't happen. Instead car manufacturers have remained in the UK, invested billions in the UK car manufacturing industry, and created 1000's of new jobs.

And the source of your information is?

2016-814000 employed in the automotive industry, 2022-781000 employed. So your assertion that it has created 1000's of new jobs is just wrong. What has happened is that not as many jobs have been lost as feared, but that is mainly due to govt subsidies being handed out. Today's subsidy is equivalent to £20000 per job, given to BMW a company whose profit is:

• BMW gross profit for the quarter ending March 31, 2023 was $8.342B, a 34.6% increase year-over-year. Yes' that is billion $.

I wonder how the 12000 people who work for Wilko are feeling today seeing that type of public money being handed to profitable organisations like BMW. I suspect the same amount of "aid" given to Wilko may well have enabled it to continue to trade.

 

[lust overlord]

And the source of your information is?

2016-814000 employed in the automotive industry, 2022-781000 employed. So your assertion that it has created 1000's of new jobs is just wrong. What has happened is that not as many jobs have been lost as feared, but that is mainly due to govt subsidies being handed out. Today's subsidy is equivalent to £20000 per job, given to BMW a company whose profit is:

• BMW gross profit for the quarter ending March 31, 2023 was $8.342B, a 34.6% increase year-over-year. Yes' that is billion $.

I wonder how the 12000 people who work for Wilko are feeling today seeing that type of public money being handed to profitable organisations like BMW. I suspect the same amount of "aid" given to Wilko may well have enabled it to continue to trade.

Slightly off topic.
A lot of Wilkos problems are of their own making.
Overly ambitious,(and greedy)owners pissing away the legacy left to them by their family.


Wife used to be a manager with them.

 

[hampshireblue]

Slightly off topic.
A lot of Wilkos problems are of their own making.
Overly ambitious,(and greedy)owners pissing away the legacy left to them by their family.


Wife used to be a manager with them.

My point was that the likes of BMW don't need state aid, but that the government is happy to hand over tax payers cash to effectively bribe companies to stay in the UK. They did the same with the likes of Sony in south Wales after the mines closed. Guess what happenened when the subsidy stopped.