Brexit: A New Era for the UK?

[holzz]

Fishing is only a small part of the economy. UK since 2016 has done better than France and Germany in terms of GDP growth and unemployment. And this was in line with a big fall in the Cable/Euro FOREX rates and lower GDP growth than expected.
Brexit could be good or bad in the future, who knows? the issue imho wasn't just economics it was about what Britain should be. Indepedent in the world or not under the EU's thumb or part of the EU. Even the USA still is part of a changed-NAFTA despite Trump leaving the WTO. The USA could afford to leave NAFTA and Mexico/Canada need it more - US just imports labour from Mexico but US firms must sell more shit to Mexico.
I wanted Britain to stay in the EU but such is life, we've left. We'll see how it pans out but nobody can say whether it's good or bad economically in the long-term.

[obslam]

When interest rates have to rise? Because they must.

No, not true at all.

When income tax and most indirect taxes rise? Because they must.

Not really that likely at all.

And with all that lovely jubbly sloshing around the UK economy, is inflation going to rise?

Unlikely to consistently be >2%.

I suspect you don't understand Government debt and the bond markets either.

[Stavros]

Fishing is only a small part of the economy. UK since 2016 has done better than France and Germany in terms of GDP growth and unemployment. And this was in line with a big fall in the Cable/Euro FOREX rates and lower GDP growth than expected.
Brexit could be good or bad in the future, who knows? the issue imho wasn't just economics it was about what Britain should be. Indepedent in the world or not under the EU's thumb or part of the EU. Even the USA still is part of a changed-NAFTA despite Trump leaving the WTO. The USA could afford to leave NAFTA and Mexico/Canada need it more - US just imports labour from Mexico but US firms must sell more shit to Mexico.
I wanted Britain to stay in the EU but such is life, we've left. We'll see how it pans out but nobody can say whether it's good or bad economically in the long-term.

To the extent that the UK was free to act as an independent state as most are, the EU did not prevent it from doing so. To say the UK was 'under the EU's thumb' is so strange an idea I can't imagine where you get it from. The US did not leave NAFTA, it re-negotiated a new body the UMSCA, and it did not leave the WTO.

[Stavros]

No, not true at all.
Not really that likely at all.
Unlikely to consistently be >2%.
I suspect you don't understand Government debt and the bond markets either.

Rises in interest rates and taxes are not going to rise as an historical necessity, I agree, but I don't see how interest rates can remain so low as it makes a mockery of capitalism and the concept of saving; and you already know because he hinted it that Sunak is contemplating tax increases, so don't be suprised if and when they are raised. Your casual indifference to the impact a torrent of money charging through the UK economy is reminiscent of yesteryear, when your pals mis-managed the economy as they are doing now, but hey, your posts imply a lack of interest in real people and real jobs, so we could agree that thousands of people have lost their jobs in the finance sector, the hospitality sector and the fishing industry and then hear you say 'so what?'

Thus does Brexit make cowards of its chanpions, permanently dismissing failure as unimportant, praising a future that hasn't happened, ready to blame the EU and anyone ese for failure rather than its self-pepetuating fantasy.

[obslam]

LOL, thanks for the casual insults about my so-called "pals."

I will say now that there is no way that interest rates are going to rise significantly. To suggest they will reflects a lack of economic understanding in the current era.

I am interested in real people and real jobs, but all the balanced evidence I have seen suggests that overall there will be little net change, though some will undoubtedly lose and some will gain. That is no different to any other times, when you just failed to notice.

[Stavros]

LOL, thanks for the casual insults about my so-called "pals."

I will say now that there is no way that interest rates are going to rise significantly. To suggest they will reflects a lack of economic understanding in the current era.

I am interested in real people and real jobs, but all the balanced evidence I have seen suggests that overall there will be little net change, though some will undoubtedly lose and some will gain. That is no different to any other times, when you just failed to notice.

It was sarcasm, not an insult but if that is how you read it, then I apologize.

I find this extraordinary, if indeed this is how you see Brexit: "all the balanced evidence I have seen suggests that overall there will be little net change".

The terms of trade with the EU have changed, and changed radically, that is so obvious -and not just to the citizens living in Northern Ireland- that I don't understand how you can make it.

I don't believe interest rates as low as this are sustainable in the long term, but how long is long? And I don't see the current rates of taxation being sustained for much longer either, but a lot may depend on whether or not Boris Johnson gets bored with a job he complains doesn't pay him enough, leaving the post open for Sunak to become PM, assuming the party prefers him to Gove.

The point of this thread was to chart the ways the UK may change as a consequence of Brexit -the idea it will not change anything is clearly wrong as our relationship with the EU has changed. Also, I see no future for the UK back in the EU as presently constiuted, though I could see the UK becoming part of either a new trading bloc to replace the EU should it falll apart, or some other bloc like the Trans-Pacific Partnership or European equivalent such as the EFTA which the UK helped to create in 1960.

The fact that Brexit was rejected by both Northern Ireland and Scotland has created a 'constitutional' crisis, even though we don't have a Constitution. In the case of Northern Ireland, the negative impact of Brexit aggravates the incompetence of the Northern Ireland Assembly led by the DUP, which itself is now having to choose a new leader for the first time in its history, and a party seen as 'out of touch' with the majority opinion in the Province, particularly on social issues. Whether or not the province can survive on its own is a serious question, and while it can only be answered by a Referendum there, 'Ulster' is closer to being re-united with Ireland than at any time in its miserable 100 year history. But, just as the Republic is reluctant to pay much attention to this Centenary, so too are many in the Province, suggesting that a United Ireland is not going to be a smooth manouevre if and when it happens.

Thus too, one can understand the Scots anger with the English. It is no surprise that having said 'wild horses' would not prevent him from campaigning in Scotland for the elections that took place last Thursday, Boris Johnson stayed away, either because he was prevented from doing so by wid horses, more likely because it was just another flippant remark of no value, given that Boris is a serial liar and says things he doesn't mean just for effect.

But the issues that were unresolved in the 2014 referendum remain unresolved, though the claim that that Referendum 'settled' the matter for a generation is clearly nonsense, as Brexit tore up the rule-book on that, and can be seen as a terrorist act by the English, but one which the so-called Conservatives manipulate with impunity. The end result is that while it may be harder for Scotland to both campaign for Independence in a new Referendum and win it, what Brexit has done is deepen the division between Scotland and England, and with the now almost permanent campaign of lies that is associated with Johnson personally and his corrupt Govt on a regular basis, the summation is that Brexit has not only divided the UK against itself, but poisoned the political debate.

It has also tranformed the Conservative Party, which now implements policies that were associated with the neo-Nazi National Front that the Conservative Party used to condemn. Brexit was for many English people an opportunity to make their racism respectable, something Boris Johnson personally has encouraged in his dirty journalism, it was not just Nigel Farage leading the attack on migrants and immigrants. But Thatcherism is dead now too, Johnson taking the party away from a belief in Markets to one based on Government, and Corporate Government at that, wedded to 'big business' with its reservoirs of cash, a lot of which has been handed over to friends and backers of Boris in the form of contracts for Covid services worth Billions, often with little or nothing delivered in return, a demolition of the idea that 'Markets know best' -no markets here, just one mate doing a favour for another in a manner as corrupt as anything you can find in the USSR and its satellites. Is it any wonder Johnson protested last year "I am not a Communist" when apart from empty rhetorical prayers for Marxism-Leninism, his Govt has all the attributes of the dying days of Brezhnev without the tanks?

Thus, and Crucially, as with the Trump Party of Lies in the US - let's not maintain the fantasy that it is the Republican Party- the scenario in which Truth is a Lie, and Lies are the Truth is now becoming the standard language of divisive politics, in which losers refuse to leave office, and use the law and other means to transform defeat into victory. Orwell would not be surprised, but in mature liberal democracies, we ought to be -not surprised- but angry, and while Biden may have restored some sanity to American politics, Trump's juniors in the UK and places like India are still in office, debasing the very meaning of democracy, which was at its core, one of the ams of Brexit, a movement opposed fundamentally to freedom and individual liberty.

[holzz]

No, we couldn't form our own trade pacts. We had to accept EU standards on goods and services. The Brexiteers had a point, since that's fact.
I didn't say the USA left NAFTA. I said the USA reformed NAFTA but it didn't retreat from its own regional bloc. So why should the UK? But Brexit is done, we have to live with it.

[obslam]

It was sarcasm, not an insult but if that is how you read it, then I apologize.

I find this extraordinary, if indeed this is how you see Brexit: "all the balanced evidence I have seen suggests that overall there will be little net change".

The terms of trade with the EU have changed, and changed radically, that is so obvious -and not just to the citizens living in Northern Ireland- that I don't understand how you can make it.

I don't believe interest rates as low as this are sustainable in the long term, but how long is long? And I don't see the current rates of taxation being sustained for much longer either, but a lot may depend on whether or not Boris Johnson gets bored with a job he complains doesn't pay him enough, leaving the post open for Sunak to become PM, assuming the party prefers him to Gove.

The point of this thread was to chart the ways the UK may change as a consequence of Brexit -the idea it will not change anything is clearly wrong as our relationship with the EU has changed. Also, I see no future for the UK back in the EU as presently constiuted, though I could see the UK becoming part of either a new trading bloc to replace the EU should it falll apart, or some other bloc like the Trans-Pacific Partnership or European equivalent such as the EFTA which the UK helped to create in 1960.

The fact that Brexit was rejected by both Northern Ireland and Scotland has created a 'constitutional' crisis, even though we don't have a Constitution. In the case of Northern Ireland, the negative impact of Brexit aggravates the incompetence of the Northern Ireland Assembly led by the DUP, which itself is now having to choose a new leader for the first time in its history, and a party seen as 'out of touch' with the majority opinion in the Province, particularly on social issues. Whether or not the province can survive on its own is a serious question, and while it can only be answered by a Referendum there, 'Ulster' is closer to being re-united with Ireland than at any time in its miserable 100 year history. But, just as the Republic is reluctant to pay much attention to this Centenary, so too are many in the Province, suggesting that a United Ireland is not going to be a smooth manouevre if and when it happens.

Thus too, one can understand the Scots anger with the English. It is no surprise that having said 'wild horses' would not prevent him from campaigning in Scotland for the elections that took place last Thursday, Boris Johnson stayed away, either because he was prevented from doing so by wid horses, more likely because it was just another flippant remark of no value, given that Boris is a serial liar and says things he doesn't mean just for effect.

But the issues that were unresolved in the 2014 referendum remain unresolved, though the claim that that Referendum 'settled' the matter for a generation is clearly nonsense, as Brexit tore up the rule-book on that, and can be seen as a terrorist act by the English, but one which the so-called Conservatives manipulate with impunity. The end result is that while it may be harder for Scotland to both campaign for Independence in a new Referendum and win it, what Brexit has done is deepen the division between Scotland and England, and with the now almost permanent campaign of lies that is associated with Johnson personally and his corrupt Govt on a regular basis, the summation is that Brexit has not only divided the UK against itself, but poisoned the political debate.

It has also tranformed the Conservative Party, which now implements policies that were associated with the neo-Nazi National Front that the Conservative Party used to condemn. Brexit was for many English people an opportunity to make their racism respectable, something Boris Johnson personally has encouraged in his dirty journalism, it was not just Nigel Farage leading the attack on migrants and immigrants. But Thatcherism is dead now too, Johnson taking the party away from a belief in Markets to one based on Government, and Corporate Government at that, wedded to 'big business' with its reservoirs of cash, a lot of which has been handed over to friends and backers of Boris in the form of contracts for Covid services worth Billions, often with little or nothing delivered in return, a demolition of the idea that 'Markets know best' -no markets here, just one mate doing a favour for another in a manner as corrupt as anything you can find in the USSR and its satellites. Is it any wonder Johnson protested last year "I am not a Communist" when apart from empty rhetorical prayers for Marxism-Leninism, his Govt has all the attributes of the dying days of Brezhnev without the tanks?

Thus, and Crucially, as with the Trump Party of Lies in the US - let's not maintain the fantasy that it is the Republican Party- the scenario in which Truth is a Lie, and Lies are the Truth is now becoming the standard language of divisive politics, in which losers refuse to leave office, and use the law and other means to transform defeat into victory. Orwell would not be surprised, but in mature liberal democracies, we ought to be -not surprised- but angry, and while Biden may have restored some sanity to American politics, Trump's juniors in the UK and places like India are still in office, debasing the very meaning of democracy, which was at its core, one of the ams of Brexit, a movement opposed fundamentally to freedom and individual liberty.

And does 2 + 2 +5,384?

You're overthinking this massively.

You're not alone though as the uncomprehending media encouraged that for several years, until Covid knocked it off the front page.

Very few credible people think Brexit will have any big economic impact, positive or negative. One of the reasons that politicians don't really talk about it any more. It's a non-issue.

[Laphroaig]

No, we couldn't form our own trade pacts. We had to accept EU standards on goods and services. The Brexiteers had a point, since that's fact.
I didn't say the USA left NAFTA. I said the USA reformed NAFTA but it didn't retreat from its own regional bloc. So why should the UK? But Brexit is done, we have to live with it.

Still do if we want to sell those goods and services to the EU. Only change is that we now have zero say in what they will be.

[holzz]

LOL, thanks for the casual insults about my so-called "pals."

I will say now that there is no way that interest rates are going to rise significantly. To suggest they will reflects a lack of economic understanding in the current era.

I am interested in real people and real jobs, but all the balanced evidence I have seen suggests that overall there will be little net change, though some will undoubtedly lose and some will gain. That is no different to any other times, when you just failed to notice.

The pandemic and its effects have skewed things, but who is to say how it will unfold?