Brexit: give me a positive effect... XII

[Brian]

If only there was a groan button

F'wit

Such lovely internet charm you have.

 

[Brian]

It’s the deal that your heroes signed up to. Spaffer said it was a fantastic deal, heralding Britannia’s golden age. You’re telling me now it wasn’t good. I’m shocked I tell you. Shocked.

My heroes? You think I support tories. LOL. That’s your thing.

 

[kabayiri]

...
It is absolutely indisputable that Brexit has cost hundreds if thousands of jobs. The statistics and lists of companies closing shop here and shipping-out to the EU can easily be found, but unless you are one of those directly impacted chances are you won’t care.
...

Look, there have been plenty of events that cost thousands of jobs in recent decades. There were always people who were unaffected and dismissive of the change in place.

We pinned a lot of money on advanced manufacturing at the end of the 80s. The bean counters didn't care, and the tax efficient choice was to ship the complete operation to China. I remember so called pundits at the time confidently predicting how we could lose manufacturing and just focus on higher level functions like marketing. *They* didn't care, precisely because they were unaffected.

Tens of thousands of IT jobs have been shipped to places like India. Again, I don't recall a massive uprising, similar to the French fishermen. No, people didn't care as long as their banking was free.

I had to adapt and survive, just as others will now. In the end, you discover value in new things like recruiting from a vast talent pool like that in India. What was a downside can be turned into an upside.

Next week I get to meet by video with 2 new recruits in Poland, who will work completely remotely. The neg-heads would have you believe that Brexit has meant the end of cross-European working. It hasn't.

 

[TheDecameron]

Previous Brexit trade breakthrough,

 

[eternumviti]

How about some more recent quotes, I mean more recent than 1960:
"Absolutely nobody is talking about threatening our place in the Single Market." Daniel Hannan, Vote Leave, 2016.
"Only a madman would leave the Market." Owen Paterson, Vote Leave backer.
"Wouldn't it be terrible if we were really like Norway and Switzerland? Really? They're rich. They're happy. They're self-governing". Nigel Farage, UKIP leader.
"Increasingly, the Norway option looks the best for the UK." Aaron Banks, Leave EU founder.

All of them uttered nearly 5 decades after the original lie, to which their circumstance is directly attributable.

 

[PsB]

All of them uttered nearly 5 decades after the original lie, to which their circumstance is directly attributable.

Yes, I know, they’re all politicians and they can’t keep their lips from moving. Etc.

Still, why ignore the beauties listed above when you can quote something a long dead politician said 50 years ago? Especially when Heath’s statement was essentially correct.

 

[eternumviti]

Heath's statement was bullshit.

 

[PsB]

How so? You’ve made the point repeatedly that you didn’t mind the “common market”, which is what Heath had in front of him.

Compared to the absolute corkers from Leave listed above, his ancient statement still holds up rather well.

 

[eternumviti]

I draw your attention once again to Lord Kilmuir's warning to Heath, penned in 1960. Read the Wener Report. Heath took us into the EEC in the full and absolute knowledge, and acquiescence to, the fact that it was a path to a European superstate.

His lie was the original lie. There have been many since.

 

[PsB]

I draw your attention once again to Lord Kilmuir's warning to Heath, penned in 1960. Read the Wener Report. Heath took us into the EEC in the full and absolute knowledge, and acquiescence to, the fact that it was a path to a European superstate.

His lie was the original lie. There have been many since.

Sorry, that’s weapons-grade manure. For starters, there is no European superstate, 50 years later.

Here’s another Vote Leave whopper for you to savour:
“Not a single British job will be lost because of Brexit”. Lord Digby Jones, ex-CBI chair.

Oh, and this one:
”We will maintain a free flowing border at Dover.” Chris Grayling, minister and maritime transport genius.

 

[tonerei]

Sorry, that’s weapons-grade manure. For starters, there is no European superstate, 50 years later.

Here’s another Vote Leave whopper for you to savour:
“Not a single British job will be lost because of Brexit”. Lord Digby Jones, ex-CBI chair.

Oh, and this one:
”We will maintain a free flowing border at Dover.” Chris Grayling, minister and maritime transport genius.

Admire your fortitude but EV is permanently high on some expensive wine and living in some parallel universe that makes everything appear as if it was 1850.

 

[Somafunk]

it was a path to a European superstate.

 

[TheDecameron]

I draw your attention once again to Lord Kilmuir's warning to Heath, penned in 1960. Read the Wener Report. Heath took us into the EEC in the full and absolute knowledge, and acquiescence to, the fact that it was a path to a European superstate.

His lie was the original lie. There have been many since.

Fortunately, you got out just in time. You’re in a place now where they can’t reach you with their evercloserunion. Britain will now live to safely die from something else.

 

[wacko]

^^ did these brainboxes not know that Norway has a small population and loads of oil/gas that has given it the largest Sovereign Wealth Fund in the world ? Or were they just liars and selfish sh1ts ? Norway option my ar5e.

 

[Kirk]

Britain's relative decline in the 1960 was just that, relative. Its postwar recovery had been massively hampered by the necessarily slow withdrawal from the empire, the expensive requirement to garrison Germany, and a postwar government that engaged in social transfer rather than investment. Germany and Italy had been divulged of their residual colonial interests, and had no responsibilities beyond that of rebuilding themselves, which in the former example took place remarkably quickly, and via the imaginative recycling of Marshall Aid funds in a loop of semi-perpetual investment and reinvestment. France had its own problems with withdrawal from empire, but America paid the bill, and at home an imaginative government undertook rapid supply side reforms, which involved a massive shift of labour from the regions and into the industrial cities. The net result for those countries was a period of rapid 'catch-up',in which their growth hurdled Britain.

The UK's growth rate in the late 50s and 60s, hampered though it was by often appalling industrial management and relations, would actually make a modern Chancellor weep with envy. But relative to the EC countries, and to the US, it was poor. However, the UK's eventual admission into the EEC also saw the European cycle of catch up falter. The 70s were marred by the oil crisis and continuing industrial strife, but supply side reform came belatedly to the UK under Thatcher, and the shift away from the old heavy industries and into services saw a period of rapid growth here, while the European countries floundered. At one point even Germany took on the mantle of sick man of Europe.

It is reasonable to argue that the UK's growth through the 90s and noughties came as a result of government policy rather than explicitly the EU, with the EU progressively declining as a destination of goods and services proportionately in favour of the rapidly growing countries of the Americas and the Far East.

Has Britain 'done very well out of the EU'?

Given the overwhelming deficit in goods, and the fiscal contribution that the UK has made on the profits of its services industry to the EU, I think it could reasonably be argued that the EU has certainly done very well out of the UK.

It's also worth reflecting on the fact that were it not not obsessively intent upon destroying the UK, it could have continued to have done so. An €80bn per year trade surplus, thrown to the dogs out of pure spite. The definition, surely, of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

That supports the view that Britain was up an economic creek without a Dyson paddle at the time and explains why further integration was seen by many as a credible solution to stemming decline. The Commonwealth wasn’t seen as a viable alternative. In fact, the pro case for the Commonwealth over the EEC/EU has always been unclear.

Re: the UK doing well, you will already be aware of the benefits of EU membership. As someone who has been on a spiritual journey of self reflection on all things EU, your ‘process’ would have included careful examination of all the arguments, for and against.

Of course, it wasn’t just the UK that benefited, so did the EU. It is one of the great ironies that Leavers voted against decades of good British thinking and hard work that enriched the EU, and by return the UK. There's another: by the time of the vote, the UK had shaped a very good deal for itself - vetos, refunds, and endless content for the tabloids, etc. The entitled victim done well.

Your claim that the EU is trying to destroy the UK is 'tabloidism'; however, destruction there is…courtesy of Boris and his acolytes in the Cabinet.

 

[PsB]

Britain's relative decline in the 1960 was just that, relative. Its postwar recovery had been massively hampered by the necessarily slow withdrawal from the empire, the expensive requirement to garrison Germany, and a postwar government that engaged in social transfer rather than investment. Germany and Italy had been divulged of their residual colonial interests, and had no responsibilities beyond that of rebuilding themselves, which in the former example took place remarkably quickly, and via the imaginative recycling of Marshall Aid funds in a loop of semi-perpetual investment and reinvestment. France had its own problems with withdrawal from empire, but America paid the bill, and at home an imaginative government undertook rapid supply side reforms, which involved a massive shift of labour from the regions and into the industrial cities. The net result for those countries was a period of rapid 'catch-up',in which their growth hurdled Britain.

Apologies for having missed this before.
Paragraph 1 is just wrong: the UK actually got more money from the Marshal Plan than any other country in Europe, bar none: more than France and more than double what Germany got.
https://historyincharts.com/breakdown-of-the-marshall-plan-aid-by-country/

The challenges overcome by Germany were monumental. The scale of real estate destruction was colossal, there were millions of refugees from the East to deal with, and a lot of the leadership was dead or in jail. France had the same decolonization issues as the UK, including two nasty wars in Vietnam and Algeria, a lot more smashed up real estate to repair, a hopelessly dysfunctional 4th Republic, etc. Italy was also in a sorry state.

 

[Seeker_UK]

Whilst I can't disagree with that chart, I wonder if it truly reflects where the money ended up? For example how much of the UK / Fr aid became aid to Germany in the form of the reconstruction work both countries did in reversing their redevelopment efforts during 39-45?

 

[PsB]

Whilst I can't disagree with that chart, I wonder if it truly reflects where the money ended up? For example how much of the UK / Fr aid became aid to Germany in the form of the reconstruction work both countries did in reversing their redevelopment efforts during 39-45?

How so? Not sure I understand what you are saying. Do you mean the UK and France spent Marshall aid money redeveloping Germany?

 

[Seeker_UK]

How so? Not sure I understand what you are saying. Do you mean the UK and France spent Marshall aid money redeveloping Germany?

I don't know if Marshall aid money was spent - but the net effect on the UK is the same money went out from the UK to Germany in the form of reconstruction. I would suggest that Germany was a greater beneficiary from external aid in the 40s and 50s than the UK was and Marshall aid is only one facet of that.

Just an idle thought really.

 

[PsB]

Where else would Germany have received aid from? I doubt France and the UK sent money, beyond paying for occupation troops, a kinky form of foreign aid.
(Germany in this context is the FRG. No Marshal aid money went to the GDR, which had to rely on the munificence of the Soviet Union.)