To continue to wonder who is happy with where Brexit is heading

[Bearbehind]

Whilst I'm sure Leavers will undoubtedly think AIBU the last thread filled up so here's another 1000 opportunities to discuss what you think about where Brexit is heading.

We don't have a hard Brexit. It is posturing. You cannot expect Theresa May to reveal her ultimate position before negotiations have officially started.

Cardiback..you had a pop at me three times..and you can't "soell" either, ha ha

Think autotype gets you too eh?

We don't have a hard Brexit. It is posturing. You cannot expect Theresa May to reveal her ultimate position before negotiations have officially started.

Negotiations on trade deals can't 'officially start' until after we've left the EU by which time it's too late.

The 'noises' made now set the tone for the terms of our departure and I'm not sure how pissing off all the other EU representatives is going to help.

This 'not revealing her ultimate position' is bollocks- it's blatantly clear she doesn't know what that is.

Well qualified scientists have and always will have global freedom of movement.
At the moment we pay a vast amount into the EC and get some of that back in science grants. The same money can be paid directly into science.

I have posted this before but I will post it again.

We scientists are generally an international-looking collaborative bunch, and our pre-eminent concern in choosing where to work and other academics to collaborate with is: will this be good for the science? That's how we end up working, obtaining funding, and collaborating with people, all over the world.

What we don't think will be good for the science is the funding being - at a minimum - thrown into massive uncertainty, fellow academics feeling equally uncertain and even unwelcome, and a general climate in which "experts", "liberal elites" and "citizens of the world" are explicitly identified as de facto enemies set against "ordinary people".

Having spoken to many colleagues since the referendum, we have heard many examples (yes, anecdotes, sorry) of people planning to move away when their grants finish (including British scientists), people who were planning to move here deciding not to (including British scientists who might have returned), and general difficulty in recruiting scientists not just from the EU but various other countries too (including people pulling out in the middle of recruitment negotiations).

Not all of these people will be moving to the EU, so yes you can shout "Hah! So much for EU science!" if that floats your boat, but since we're all about how important the UK is above all, the main point is that they won't be here.

larry The same money can be paid directly into science.
In the same way that the £350m CAN/could (but won't) go to the NHS.

We don't have a hard Brexit. It is posturing. You cannot expect Theresa May to reveal her ultimate position before negotiations have officially started.

It is a straightforward negotiation, not a poker game (and EU migrants are not 'bargaining chips, either).

The same money can be paid directly into science.

And furthermore: Although the UK is a net contributor to the EU, when it comes to scientific research it has been a net recipient.

According to the Royal Society:

"The UK is one of the largest recipients of research funding in the EU and, although national contributions to the EU budget are not itemised, analyses suggest that the UK receives a greater amount of EU research funding than it contributes. The UK Office of National Statistics (ONS) report an indicative figure for the UK’s contribution to EU research and development of €5.4 billion over the period 2007 – 2013. During this time, the UK received €8.8 billion in direct EU funding for research, development and innovation activities."

And why is that 90% of the arguments always seem to be about money? All the remainers I have spoken to seem really worked up about the fact that we might not (shock horror) get MORE money out of the pot then we put in? Why is that surprising? One of the more noble aims of the EU is, in my view, to try and help struggling areas of the union which might not be helped at a national level (looking at you Wales but also other countries) in order to promote peace and prosperity for ALL. It drives me up the wall to hear people saying we should leave because we might be benefitting someone who isn't British!

I'm appalled I think it is a complete clusterfuck. I'm going to end up in an independent Scotland, and it is the English Brexiteers fault

Well maybe the Westminster Right Wing Tory's fault. A lot of English constituencies voted to Remain (including where I live). A lot of voters in England in Leave constituencies voted to Remain.

And 35% of voters in Scotland voted to Leave. And don't try to tell me they were all English "immigrants" to Scotland. I very much doubt it.

This is a British problem, not an English one.

The elements,

That Royal Society document actually shows how irrelevant the eu is to uk science.

The total spend on r+d in the uk is around 30 billion annually (government source), so around 10% in total comes from eu grants. If we look at the net figure (after our contributions), it shrinks to around 3%.

Given our total GDP of 2.8 trillion dollars, a tiny fraction of 1% allocated towards scientific research can more than make up for this tiny 1billion per annum loss.

Another thing about the funding. Yes, we pay a lot into the EU and get some of it back in the form of rebates, grants etc. Yes, we could pay those grants directly. But the point is that there will be less money generated by our economy to pay them with, so the grants probably won't get paid at all. The major reason successive governments have paid for EU membership is because they know our economy is so much better off. Leavers can say until they're blue on the face that our economy will prosper outside it but there is simply no evidence to back it up. Most countries are actually looking to join free trade areas, rather than leave them as we are trying to do, as they know it is economically beneficial.

Even if we manage to negotiate single market access, we will still be paying a lot for it but will not be entitled to any of the numerous grants we get at the moment.

In addition, economies of scale make it far more economical to fund projects on an EU-wide scale than nationally.

When I look at the complete fuck up the EU is turning into, I'm still pleased we are leaving, yes, even though it is going to bumpy economically for a while.

I emigrated just before the whole palaver. My Mum voted to leave. I tried to tell her.

Now she's asking me when we're going to come back...we won't be able to! We're having a good time but what if I want to come back to the UK in a few years?

It's not looking very inviting any more.

You cannot expect Theresa May to reveal her ultimate position before negotiations have officially started.

This is because Theresa May doesn't have a position. Her Goldman Sachs speech was leaked. When asked to comment her spokesperson didn't say her mind had been changed because [list of bullet points], which would have been a valid response, but because 'the people had spoken'.

That Royal Society document actually shows how irrelevant the eu is to uk science.

(1) Would this be also from the £350 million a week magic money tree that is now worth 15-20% less?

(2) It's not all about the money (see my post above).

It's not just about funding. My DH is a British scientist currently working on a cross EU project based in another EU country. He says he will never return to the UK now. Watching the changes that have occurred in attitudes to experts, to the attainment of knowledge and just the bloody nastiness has seen to that.

I was devastated with the result, which will have very real impacts for us.

However, I'm really worried that threads like this are enabling people to vent and complain but not actually supporting them to make a plan to resist some of what's coming.

At the moment, the concern seems to be about somehow avoiding Brexit: I think instead people need to be thinking of how to circumvent the wider changes that some of the powerful people who supported Brexit want to bring in.

Essentially: reductions in working conditions, increased privatisation of public services, a more divided and unequal society, a growing disdain for experts. Manipulating people through demonising and othering the weak in society- it's been happening for years, but it feels like it's now that these seeds of division are being harvested with a goal of actually reshaping society, in a way most of us would be v afraid of.

I know a lot of academics very shaken by the ruling that only those with British passports would be asked to give the government advice. The risks for Northern Ireland are so huge it makes me wonder how people have forgotten what things we're like before the Good Friday Agreement.

A small part of me thinks that if people throw enough energy into shaping what post-Brexit Britain will look like, it might change the outcome: if not, it will certainly improve things if Brexit does go ahead.

I read a MSE thread about coping with rising food prices post-Brexit on which people were honestly talking about how a return to seasonality and British-grown veg only, like during rationing, wouldn't be a bad thing. Honestly, you cannot win with people who think that a drop in economic standards back to post-ww2 would be acceptable, or even positive.

I think it would be really helpful to start coming up with ways the 48% CAN have influence:

To start- I think more people need to join and influence trade unions.

• I think there needs to be more engagement with political parties: in not sure what can be done with labour but as with all things, you have to be inside to have an influence, so at this point joining the party you agree with the most and starting to get involved seems like a start
• there is a lot that should be done to make people who feel unwelcome know that they aren't. In our case, the shift has been immensely personal and upsetting. The difference between feeling you're a contributing part of society to realising most people see you as an outsider, to be tolerated while you continue to add value. Obviously the majority aren't racist, but a lot more people clearly view EU migrants as less than than many of us realised.

Would love to hear other people's suggestions. Like it or not, this is going to mark the biggest reshaping of British society since after the Second World War: I don't think sitting by watching t all fall apart and saying I told you so will be enough.

The whole Brexit campaign opened my eyes to things I never realised were happening. I didn't realise you could just rock up to this country and get your children educated having paid nothing in.

Nathan - You mean like we could 'rock up' in every other country and get our children educated?

MrsBernard When I look at the complete fuck up the EU is turning into

care to enlighten us as to this 'complete fuck up' in a bit more detail??

appalachian - I think it would be really helpful to start coming up with ways the 48% CAN have influence

I agree. However, the 48% have been totally sidelined since the referendum. There has been no attempt to engage them in a positive way and no attempt to heal the divisions in society caused by this disastrous referendum. We have had no positive messages about what our country might be like post-Brexit, apart from a load of waffle about possible trade deals, which frankly look like pie in the sky. Brexiteers tell us 'it will be fine' without presenting any rational or convincing arguments about why they believe this. All we have got is a load of shit about 'the people have spoken', 'we don't need experts', 'let's give the NHS £35M' etc etc ad nauseum. Some of us are already union members. We've also marched, written to our MPs, joined political parties, made clear that our EU colleagues and friends are still welcomed by us (if not by our xenophobic fellow citizens) etc. We have watched senior politicians swap sides (remain/leave), driven, it seems, by nothing more than a wish to safeguard their own careers. We are angry.

However, none of the remain voters I know want to sit and watch it all happen so they can say 'I told you so' and, personally, I find the suggestion that we do quite offensive.

There has been no attempt to engage them in a positive way and no attempt to heal the divisions in society caused by this disastrous referendum.

This is probably the only area where Brexiteers are being - and acting honestly. You can't square a circle. Nor can you make any element of Brexit attractive for someone who didn't want to leave in the first place. So there is absolutely no point in trying.

Brexit is already looking like a dogs breakfast anyway. The only way Leavers could make it could look any worse is if they tried to sell it to the Remain supports.

Disastrous Referendum

you can say that again

Back to the money thing - just read that there will be an 84bn black hole in U.K. public finances over the next few years, with Brexit largely to blame. On that basis I don't think it's likely they will drop corporation tax to 10%. Also - I thought this government was elected based on their pledge to reduce the deficit- that was the mandate from the electorate wasn't it? So why are they pursuing this gross act of economic self harm that will drag us all into the abyss?

So why are they pursuing this gross act of economic self harm that will drag us all into the abyss?

Because they can, and because they can afford to.