How is brexit going to affect Ireland?

From the Irish Times - personally I think pinning your hopes on Labour is a bit of a longshot (it's not at all clear that Labour has a solution to the Irish border issue), but an interesting historical perspective nonetheless:

www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-parishes-of-fermanagh-and-tyrone-are-unravelling-brexit-1.3201011?mode=amp

The republic of Ireland is an EU member. You don't appear to have a point.

Surely if the Republic of Ireland via Mr Varadkar want no borders with Northern Ireland, the UK agrees that there should be no borders with the North, yet Barnier says they should be - and yet Varadkar says the UK is the problem - then by definition Varadkaris is looking after the EUs interests, not the Republics, silly.

Varadkar only appears to have 'one hat' in these negotiations, and as no different to Barniers, he should be treated the the same...as 'hostile' to UK who voted to come out of the EU, interests.

Varadkar's job is to look out for Irish interests. Silly to describe him as "hostile"; he will be against UK positions that are detrimental to Ireland, of course.

'No physical changes' on the border is neither confused or puzzled IMO, so I'd suggest that Mr Varadkar is referring to the UK coming out of both the Single Market and Customs Union he calls 'the best deal imaginable', and based on all the politicking he is doing with Wales and Scotland's political representatives.

Varadkar only appears to have 'one hat' in these negotiations, and as no different to Barniers, he should be treated the the same...as 'hostile' to UK who voted to come out of the EU, interests.

No worries, just good to know whatever is suggested by Westminster (other than staying all in) he and Barnier will reject it, no matter if, as we are leaving, its the best solution possible and should suit all parties concerned, including Northern Ireland.

Varadkar has been to the Canadian/US border today and according to his twitter he's going to say no to any suggestion of that set up for Ireland. Good on him.

Also, the UK government are "confused and puzzled" about Brexit so it would be hard for the Taoiseach to know what on earth they are trying to do.

The Republic of Ireland’s PM Leo Varadkar on his way to a ‘factfinding’ trip to the U.S. – Canada border to see just how ‘seamless’ it is there, based on a recent interview, could see the UK government position on the border with Northern Ireland do backflips (through hoops) and offer no borders with no knobs on, and he still won’t be a happy bunny.

As it looks like the “confused and puzzled” PM’s obstacles, apart from the fact he still can’t seem to accept the fact that the UK is leaving the EU, are those from Mr Barnier, and an early showing from the French farmers who think that an open border (that used to be closed for mainly security reasons) is a ‘cunning plan’ to bring in cheaper non European imports.

”U.K.'s Brexit Trade Stance Leaves Irish PM Confused and Puzzled”

”Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said he remains “confused and puzzled” about the U.K.’s global trading plans after Brexit, as the clock ticks down in talks on the terms of Britain’s exit from the European Union.”

”The U.K. government seems to be suggesting it wants all the advantages of being in the EU, but none of the responsibilities and costs, Varadkar said in an interview Monday with Bloomberg Television in Toronto.”

“That’s not a realistic position,” Varadkar said in the interview. “What trade agreement does the U.K. want with the EU? At the moment, they have the best trade deal imaginable.What are these better deals the U.K. really wants from Europe and other countries? Some more clarity would be helpful.”

”Varadkar repeated he wants no border on the island of Ireland after Brexit. Checks along the 500-kilometer (310-mile) crossing to Northern Ireland largely melted away after a peace agreement in the 1990s, and the Irish government is demanding the frontier remains open after Brexit. The bloc’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier maintains customs controls are part of EU border management, and French farmers are already objecting to an open border because of worries that cheaper non-European imports will enter the EU.”

"The private sector grew throughout the Labour term and was not "choking" nor being crowded out, as we can see from low corporation tax and cutting public involvement in certain areas not encouraging private sector investment."

The private sector grew DESPITE Labour, not because of it, helped by the financial 'bubble' funding Brown/the FSA 'created' - and tell me, what happens to an economy supported by debt/credit when the 'punch bowl' is taken away - when a financial crash morphs into an economic crash, repairs itself?

So there was a low Corporate Tax under Labour, all I can see is annually more taxes in their first several years below?

June 2006; “The 80 tax rises under Labour”

So come on, from 2008/9, as other countries were fiscally helping their economies not already addicted to deficit/extra tax spending, what were the Labour initiatives to help businesses and citizens who saw real earnings fall, and non government jobs fall?

"The real earnings fall was in 2008 because of the world financial crisis."

So in Labour's economic judgement, because its happening in 'the world', don't do anything, let them eat cake until the Tories get in and THEN mention the problem at PMQT, like Zero Hours Contracts, that had been around since the late 1990's?

The 'people's party', right?

So no tax for citizens in the U.S. or any other world economy?

"The Tories btw, backed all of Labour's spending plans throughout the 2000s."

Blaming the Tories AGAIN for Labour's time in power with a parliamentary majority of what, 60 to 170 Labour MPs sitting on their seats, apparently without a collective voice.

A Tory MP or two, the BoE, other central banks, all told Brown not to sell 40% of our low (relative to international holdings) gold reserves at a 20-year price low, how DID that work out to Labour's then 'listening' chancellor - before gold was to rise from around $278 to $1,900 an ounce?

Re Labour's badly negotiated near £150 bil Private Finance Initiative debt/spending, when did that appear 'on UK balance sheet', as for years it was 'off balance sheet' like some dodgy City Hedge Fund's accounts in the Cayman Islands.

From 1997 a near decimated Tory party facing extinction and new leader elections were in no real position to challenge the Brown 'no more booms or busts' statement, after all, who could screw up one of the best inherited economies since god knows when - but like Labour in opposition from 2010 the Tories from 1997 could have just 'opposed everything', but they are a bit more politically mature than that.

But you keep trying to re-write history, after all the current labour Party want to make the same mistakes as the last, only on steroids.

Do you know what sore arse,

You clearly know nothing of economics at all, because you keep banging on about state expansion, but the deficit to GDP ratio was the same, same as it had been during the 90s.

The private sector grew throughout the Labour term and was not "choking" nor being crowded out, as we can see from low corporation tax and cutting public involvement in certain areas not encouraging private sector investment.

" but WHAT did Labour do to help citizens now paying an average of 100% more Council Taxes, and were seeing 'real' earnings fall from 2008?"

The real earnings fall was in 2008 because of the world financial crisis.

Answer me this sore arse: why did the UK and every other country in the developed world have a recession, massively increased fiscal deficits and balooning national debt following the world financial crisis despite different economic ethos in almost all of them?

Why has every advanced country followed the process of QE and low interest rates that you so abhore in the EU, but seem to forget is used everywhere else?

Because the private sector, not the public sector, the private sector that caused the recessions across the globe. The private sector that had to be bailed out ( socialism eh?), the private sector that caused the natioal debt to baloon because both bailouts and recession caused massive cyclical deficits.

You really don't understand economics, you're an misguided idealogue.

"The deficit in 2010 that the Tories inherited was large because it was a cyclical deficit, the fact is that cutting public spending at a time of low animal spirits led to the Government choking off the growth that we saw in the UK prior to the tories election and the sluggish growth between 2010 and 2015 was their responsiblility. Remember when they took power they said they will eliminate the deficit completely by 2015?"

If the state had not grown so much from 2001, I might agree with you, but by keeping the state so large versus a private sector choking on the effects of both a recession and cumulative tax increases over 13-years - how could their ever be a recovery, what was 'the plan', sit on a tin hat and hope the funding of an overly large state problems, magically goes away?

Helping businesses as I said, just isn't in Labour's DNA, but WHAT did Labour do to help citizens now paying an average of 100% more Council Taxes, and were seeing 'real' earnings fall from 2008?

In that Darling link those professionals who had an incline of the fiscal problems brown was ignoring, said it would take two parliaments to sort.

Osborne was clearly wrong to think that he could get rid of Labours budget deficit in one parliament, but obviously he never had the Office for Budget Responsibility he was going to form - that ensured the UK Treasury under 'the clunking fist' of some so called iron chancellor would tell the truth to government and those e.g. opposition parties, who asked.

Giving the UK tax cuts, taking over 50% of the UK population out of tax altogether obviously slowed down the process of budget deficit reduction, but helped created 2-3 million non government related jobs, more that the rest of the Eurozone put together - who's slump was hardly helping our decimated exporters, and outlines why we need to diversify from our reliance on the EU trade.

Labour had not even attempted to cut back the state by 2010, in fact as the biggest spurt of new 100% tax funded state employment was around 2008, as private sector tax provider employment was falling - which was either dumb government budget economics, or an attempt to 'massage' UK unemployment figures BEFORE the general election.

So where would we have been if Labour stayed in power in 2010, still growing the state, with the private sector on its knees, and a continuation of higher taxes every year - back applying to the IMF for a financial bailout with enforced swinging spending cuts, as we did in 1976.

Still, keep going with your anti Tory misinformation, and one line mantras, and calling yourself some economics expert.

"but you are clear now you are used ’Debt to GDP"

Which is the way all economists measure the level of national debt, it gives it context, you seek to use nominal sums cause they sound big on their own, disingenuous, and academically inaccurate.

The national debt continued to rise yes, but it did so every year of the conservative governent of 1979 -1997 too, so I don't know what your point is.

The deficit in 2010 that the Tories inherited was large because it was a cyclical deficit, the fact is that cutting public spending at a time of low animal spirits led to the Government choking off the growth that we saw in the UK prior to the tories election and the sluggish growth between 2010 and 2015 was their responsiblility. Remember when they took power they said they will eliminate the deficit completely by 2015?

You know after 2012 Osborne followed what Darling had planned to do under a Labour government? But it was too late, the first two years severely damaged the economy.

The Tories btw, backed all of Labour's spending plans throughout the 2000s. They even said up until 2008 that they would follow them in government, it was only after the crash when they saw the opportunity to implement ideological policies that they decided that the cuts must come to public services.

Apart from the misplaced bravado that makes you look an idjut,

Whereas your command of the English language makes you look like an idiot, or someone for whom it is not a first language.

You do realise that no one reads your posts? They just cherry pick the first idiotic point they come across (usually in the fist line or two). I hope you are being paid by the word.

Continued

As to your comparison on what the Tories do versus Labour, in which decade did the Labour Party hand over to the Tories an economy in better shape than they found it, so of course the party that clears up the likes of the 1979 mess, or the 2010 one might have more of this or that – but as Labour could neither fix the trade union and other problem in 1979, or find a way to get the economy back on track in 2010 without yet more annual borrowing and taxes – as the state had grown too large and helping businesses/investment/employment is not in their DNA, once again it was the Tories picking it up.

According to the ‘Economics Help’ link you clearly need, the government budget was in SURPLUS in the early 2000s, but the Tories got back a £167 billion annual government budget deficit/overspend in 2010 – and once again, like Labour’s failure to build homes, its-all-the Tories-fault that the National Debt rose every year THANKS to the Budget Deficit Labour left.

For the UK National Debt not to rise from 2010, the Tories coalition would have had to cut the £167 billion budget deficit/overspend from DAY ONE, and even then the interest charges of borrowing the then £1 trillion would have accrued and increased it.

No one wanted the Tories to cut £167 bil from day one, especially socialists, so to once again blame the Tories (vs Labour) for increasing the National Debt due to Labour policies of the 2000s, is rather pathetic.

Labour throwing huge, unprecedented in Europe during the 2000s amounts of money at Public Services without much needed reforms and getting little for it was THEIR policy choice, but was not sustainable, especially based on how it was being funded.

So trying to reorganise service/cut waste, and giving tax cuts to the only way growth CAN be sustainable (via the Private Sector and citizens who saw real earning fall from 2008), and bring down the deficit every year, is not ‘austerity’, its good Tory governance trying to get the country out of a hole that they did not CREATE.

We never saw Labour’s plans two years after the crash began, but they told us they would cut their own spending and raise taxes on those suffering after a recession who had seen extra taxes from 1997 – apparently Labour always think that they can over tax an economy to growth, they had ridiculously high taxes in 1979, and would have done the same after 2010, and 2017, as their perpetual policy choice

Mar 2010; ”Alistair Darling: we will cut deeper than Margaret Thatcher”

Bathildabigshot#1

Apart from the misplaced bravado that makes you look an idjut, you either have nothing ‘economic’ other than mantra ignorance, or you use your knowledge to deflect the last government dire record – but you are clear now you are used ’Debt to GDP’ which is why you didn’t answer my earlier points – so are you Gordon Brown in disguise?.

• If a UK government borrowed £10 trillion a year and spent it, as Government Spending and their new public sector employees consumption are a major part of the GDP figure, the UK would have a stonking GDP growth figure – totally unsustainable, it would be a huge drag on the economy later, but it would be a GROWTH figure for the ‘now’.

• Similar if UK banks massively increased their balance sheets to levels not seen before, loaned to anything with a pulse, that would also boost GDP unsustainably, as financial bubbles burst, as the last one did in 2008.

Well welcome to the Labour economy ‘success story’ from 1997 to 2008, with huge increases in spending, borrowing, debt, taxation, all producing ‘bought’ GDP for the now, and a government BORROWING on the GDP the previous borrowing produced – the big state economics of a banana republic that Venezuela would be proud of.

The UK government from 2002 increased government spending with larger departmental budgets, annual budget deficit spending, and Private Finance Initiative contracts as mentioned below.

“Crippling PFI deals leave Britain £222bn in debt”

As for the banks increased balance sheet lending from 1997 thanks to deregulation via the newly formed FSA that caused the UK housing price bubble, UK Mortgage lending was £21 billion and the average price of a home was £73k.

But due to the extra housing DEMAND from 2000 and new availability of finace, by late 2007 UK Mortgage lending has been allowed/encouraged to multiply to £115 billion and the average price of home had done the same, to £232 billion - with all the increased expenditure all providing MORE taxes and GDP growth, apparently making it Ok for the government to borrow MORE, on the back of it.

And from 1997 to 2010 the Public Sector employment e.g. Quangos, grew faster than the Private Sector who’s taxes that supported it, increasing no doubt lending, consumption, so GDP growth, and later the UK government budget deficit.
Private Sector employment grew by +7%
Public Sector employment grew by +18%

And that is why ANYONE who uses comparisons with any party, the justification on our borrowing based on bought for the now GDP, or calls all that a country model economic success story, is being disingenuous at best.

Ah sore arse, more poor use of economics.

The debt to GDP ratio, which of course is all that matters because using nominal figures is pointless, was lower under Labour for the entire term until 2008, than it had been under the Tories in the 90s, as well as for most of the 80s. In fact Labour sustained a lower continuous level of debt than the tories ever managed.

"more getting the UK back closer to what we EARN as a country"

Ah the National spending as a household spending trope, much debunked, and not even worth bothering with here.

Also, the national debt has increased every year since the Tories took office, austerity is not a way to lower debt, because it chokes growth, but a policy choice.

On average, Conservative governments borrow more and pay back less debt than Labour ones, going back all the way to the 1945 Atlee Government.

The UK was paying down its Budget Deficit after the early 1990's recession (when tax receipts fall and the 'automatic stabilisers' kick in) which of course increases the National Debt.

In 2001 the UK had a Budget SURPLUS so coulda, shoulda, started reducing National Debt into the strong global economy/low interest rates of the 2000s - especially as the UK was getting the higher tax receipts 'windfall' from Brown's deregulation of bank balance bubble lending/growth.

Those tax increased receipts mostly on the proceeds of speculation, the 80 new taxes in their first 7-years, and new deficit spending in the the £30-40 billions from 2002, PLUS close to £200 bil of PFI finacing -
roughly in 2008 prices, raised annual government spending from around £400 bil a year to £618 bil - but once the credit bubble burst, many of those tax receipts fell away, while the new government expenditures on a fatter state, were baked in.

Look at that link in my last paragraph above, at the extent of the UK government Budget Deficit rise from 2008, expected to be £167 bil in that one 2010 year, getting close to our entire National Debt in 1990/1.

Quite why you are looking at the U.S. I have no idea, why not compare us to socialist France when we were good Europeans, and they had a similar sized economy to ours.

In France around 2010, after the same recession, their annual government budget deficit was around Euro 60 bil, ours having dramatically increased government spending from 2002 was £167 bil - so if we were not spending beyond our means on unsound tax receipts (that needed the bubble to continue), WHY the difference with France or any other European country, by far?

the fiscal responsibility of Conservative governments, versus the profligacy of Labour

Do you really believe that's what the data show? That's deranged. As in the US, the data in recent decades tend to show that the idea that right wing governments are better custodians of the national purse is fake.

Bathildabigshot#1

You know, based on your hyped up economic expertise threats/claims, I had much higher hopes from you, but really, all you try do is WITHOUT the aid of any qualified links, is REWRITE history.

Regarding Budget Deficit spending.

In 1990/91 as that recession hit the UK National Debt was around £190 bil, and when the Conservatives who were then bringing our resulting Budget Deficit down left power in 1997 the National Debt was £403 billion – with Tory budgets adopted by Brown, the UK’s tax receipt/expenditure was to balance by 2001 – as it did, going into a budget SURPLUS.

Labour went into annual budget deficit spending again from 2002/3 on the new fat fixed costs State that was to increased government spending by over 50%, and as the National Debt then rose to around £1.073 trillion in 2009/10 – are you REALLY trying to say that all that extra Labour borrowing (from annual budget deficit spending) was due to the UK recession in 2008 and 2009?

In the real world, here we have the truth, the fiscal responsibility of Conservative governments, versus the profligacy of Labour government in numbers – so hardly Conservative ‘austerity’, more getting the UK back closer to what we EARN as a country – and currently our annual government and local authority spending is around £790 bil a year on all our services, with £47 bil of that deficit spending.

Again, a whole load of poorly thought out, disjointed twaddle.

Smoke and mirrors for GDP/Deficit? Right because that suits your agenda, shows your utter misunderstanding of economics. Not that I needed to use that point to probe that.

My point about Thatch was accurate, the shortage of housing is not to do with the Labour government, it was her dergulation of the housing market and selling social housing that caused a major part of it. The report you think backs you up, was commissioned by the Labour party and looked at the housing issue over the two decades, they used data from 2001 back. Who had been in power for oh, 16 years of that time?

The major increase in deficits was caused by the world financial crisis, not Labour. You can keep peddling that myth all you like, but it ain't true.

Funny that you criticise others, when your own glaringly obvious failing are there for all to see, so dear Sore Arse, do keep posting, its funny to think of you frothing at the mouth in whatever hovel you call home.

May the thread get back to Irish-EU matter now?

Bathildabigshot#1

From someone here who REALLY cares, you seriously need some help to work on both your overly inflated opinion of yourself, and need to put down other posters while aiming your bullsquirt.

Firstly I suspect you are use that GDP ‘smoke and mirrors’ again in comparing the Labour budget deficit financing of an overly fat State from 2000, that generates (unsustainable) GDP, that is used in some ‘fiscal cycle’ to borrow more yada, yada, yada, pretty much like the ECB at the moment.

The fact is in 2001 the UK tax receipts vs expenditure went into SURPLUS (as Labour adopted pre 1997 Tory budgets), they then began borrowing £30-40 billion a year up until the crash, and having established huge new government ‘fixed costs via about a 50% increase in budgets and well north of £120 billion of badly negotiated PFI financing - as the tax receipts from a failing private sector and burst financial bubble fell away = Labour’s 2010 projected £167 bill annual budget deficit.

Secondly, your rather lame blame on the Tories with ” Prior to 2007 the Tories and the city were arguing for greater freedom and less regulation”

So it was Thatcher fault on one thread, and its ‘what the Tories said’ on THIS thread, are to blame for Labour’s record in power?

In their first several years, there had been around 80 tax rises, Labour was spewing out new regulation, a new law a day, the Trolly’s Tax Guide was on its way to DOUBLING in page size – all cited by Manufacturers (with a strong Pound) for why they had lost 1 million jobs from 1997.

So when you BLAME the Tories for seeing that all this EU-esk new regulation was going on and the damage it was doing, and SAYING something, your superior intellect didn’t know that even Blair tried to do something about it, it particularly the Brown ‘Chucky’ creation, the FSA mentioned above;

“Blair's 'frenzied law making' : a new offence for every day spent in office”

”Tony Blair's government has created more than 3,000 new criminal offences during its nine-year tenure, one for almost every day it has been in power.”

“What Blair really thinks about the FSA”

“Tony Blair is gripped by a desire to slash red tape - or so he claimed in a speech last month. That address attracted notice principally for Tony Blair's surprising and controversial statement that the Financial Services Authority is "seen as hugely inhibiting of efficient business" - but his assertions roamed wider than that.”

“No one in any business - be it vast or tiny - needs to be told that the burden of regulation has increased since Labour came to power in 1997. The British Chambers of Commerce estimates that the cost for business of coping with red tape from Whitehall and Brussels will be £39bn this year - four times as much as in 1997.”

The Labour government that ran the deficit of the same size as the tories left in 1997, with 2 years of surplus up until the World Banking Crisis. They certainly didn't cause it.

Prior to 2007 the Tories and the city were arguing for greater freedom and less regulation, more regulation would have been very difficult to implement.

Your economic analysis is utterly all over the place. We needed QE because growth was very low and it was a way to stimulate the economy.

Seriously you don't have a fucking clue what you are talking about. You go from wanting less regulaton, to accusing Labour of not having more legislation.

Schizophrenic much.

The UK needed our monetary expansionist policies during the financial & economic crash 2008/9 mainly due to the policies of a clueless, socialist UK government from 1997 - as how many mature Eurozone economies deregulated banks, had to part nationalise banks, increased the size of the State vs the Private Sector supporting it (pre crash), lost nearly 6% of GDP from 2008 to early 2009 - and in cash terms was running an annual government budget deficit they estimated would be £167 billion in 2010?

The early Labour/Brown move taking sole UK financial regulation away from the BoE and forming a tripartite of the UK Treasury, the BoE and a new organisation Financial Services Authority (FSA) with too large a brief was clearly a big UK mistake as too open to political interference - but don't take my word for it.

”Gordon Brown: I made ‘big mistake’ on banks before financial crisis”

”Gordon Brown has admitted making a ‘big mistake’ in regulating Britain’s banks before the country was plunged into recession by the 2008 financial crisis, as current chancellor George Osborne prepares to hand power back to the Bank of England.”

“Labour's lax regulation of the City contributed to RBS collapse” – watchdog”

”FSA says Labour leadership had encouraged it to take a 'light touch' on banks and must take share of blame for financial crisis”

So in a nutshell, a UK that had OUR labour reforms etc decades ago and then from 1997 flushed with the cash/debt opportunity to build a UK economy for all - but wasted possibly the best decade in a century to do so with a newly structured economy (toward the State) relying too much on debt/credit (with a broken domestic banking system) and a government borrowing to sustain it all - is why the UK needed QE etc help.

Then a UK obviously too reliant on an EU economy with the problems in Greece, Italian recession Part 3 and potential Euro crisis, the UK (according to the BoE) needed a top up.

Which brings up up to post Brexit QE 'insurance' by the BoE.

The European Central Bank 'tail' was probably being wagged by the German Government/Bundesbank 'dog', wanting much needed Eurozone labour and financial reforms rather than a huge monetary stimulus they didn't need as much as the UK in those early days - but did Germany just give up in early 2015, saying fuck it, nothing else will get this Eurozone economic 'lemon' going - and we need to sell to it our washing machines and cars????