Are you still pro-Brexit?

[Fatasfooook]

Brexit will have soon cost the UK more than all its payments to the EU over the past 47 years put together

www.businessinsider.com/brexit-will-cost-uk-more-than-total-payments-to-eu-2020-1?fbclid=IwAR3E3Xc8p0bgNF06hCJZzr61Ak-6VetNbFv5vrfsV041nPvDZeFSCnjHcdg&r=US&IR=T

I think you’ll find it’s you rewriting history.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_immigration_to_Great_Britain

And seasonal workers don’t get tax funded benefits and subsidies anyway.

Perhaps not but the hundreds of thousands of immigrants serving artisanal coffee for poverty wages, working the tills in the big supermarkets, looking after children in nurseries, living in squalid, 3 to a room HMOs owned by millionaire landlords need to have their poverty wages/huge rents topped up because companies refuse to pay a proper wage and the last few governments (Labour and the Tories) decided to reward large corporations with tax cuts and keep the house prices of the rich propped up rather than making them pay their workers a living wage. It's much easier to get a load of lower and middle-income workers to subsidise the rich and privileged via the benefits system than to actually expect the rich to make a little less profit.

Sunshine, I think a points-based system is the best solution, importing people with needed skills from any country.

A bit of fact checking is always helpful @mothertruck3r

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-workers-uk-tax-treasury-brexit-migrants-british-citizens-a8542506.html

jasjas1973
12 January 2020
It was you who suggested mid Feb - not me.

Hancock was at best disingenuous, 3 weeks isn't amongst the first is it?
My second link says;
"The UK was one of the first countries outside China to have an assured testing capability for the novel coronavirus."

Oxford Nanopore, the UK company mentioned in the speech:

31 Jan 2020
"Following extensive support of, and collaboration with, public health professionals in China, Oxford Nanopore has shipped an additional 200 MinION sequencers and related consumables to China.These will be used to support the ongoing surveillance of the current coronavirus outbreak, adding to a large number of the devices already installed in the country."

"Oxford Nanopore is already working to support more than 100 public health laboratories in China, as well as a number of Chinese microbiology laboratories and global public health scientists, with a growing community of scientists taking part in the surveillance process."

"Oxford Nanopore’s sequencing technology has been used in many of the early coronavirus genomes from China, including the first genome published in NEJM and the ‘cluster’ of genomes that indicated human-to-human transmission that were published in the Lancet and the first genomes published from the US."

nanoporetech.com/about-us/news/200-oxford-nanopore-sequencers-have-left-uk-china-support-rapid-near-sample

"Imperial [College London] scientists are at the forefront of global efforts to protect the world from the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak."

"Professor Neil Ferguson’s group revealed the first accurate estimates of the size of the outbreak, and their data continues to inform the global response."

"Professor Peter Openshaw is tracking how the virus affects the body and immune system."

"Meanwhile Professor Wendy Barclay pioneers work into how respiratory viruses like influenza spread, and is spear-heading efforts to apply this knowledge to coronavirus."

"Professor Robin Shattock heads one of the few labs in the world developing a coronavirus vaccine. Professor Shattock’s vaccine is due to shortly enter animal trials - and could lead to human trials in as little as five months."

www.imperial.ac.uk/news/195218/imperial-plays-leading-role-global-fight/

@ruralliving19

Insulting other people's intelligence or values is never a good way to promote your cause.

Do you not mind your own side insulting your intelligence then?

Aaron Bank appeared infront of MPs and said -
"He took your hand and led you up the garden path"
"We didn't need facts, Remain could have the facts, we went for feelings"

Dominic Cummings said during a speech -
"We would not have won without the 350 million NHS or Turkey joining, the polling shows this" (both lies btw)
"We didn't mention the CU or SM because the public didn't have a clue what they were, we let the Remain side talk about them, but the public and most politicians didn't understand them at all".

Both available to view on YouTube.

Cav - no one is suggesting that the scientific community isn't working together but Hancock bigging up the UK is silly and childish.....

He just sounded like a mini Trump, now is not the time for Willy waving.

Yep meant to type January, not feb but Jan makes Hancocks claims even more stupid.

If the UK comes up with a vaccine first, i'l send you some wine.

I actually think a steady increase in immigration might be one of the only positives to come out of Brexit.

Unfortunately, as with FOM, I suspect it will be managed badly by the government and then used as a whipping boy for government failures.

The issues people have with FOM within the EU are almost exclusively down to both the labour and the Conservative governments failure to manage it properly. It was not the fault of the EU or the concept of FOM.

It does. You just don’t like the answer.

No. It doesn’t Alsohuman. You are banging on about unpicked cabbages rotting in fields.

Given that you admitted that EU labour was cheap, I am asking you to comment on the effects of mass EU immigration on UK wage suppression. Not cabbages. This is about more than just crop picking.

Tell me what it’s about then.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/business-46918729

EU Immigration has possibly made up to around 5% difference to the wages of low skilled workers according to this article. This is an estimated figure. Other factors (such as the recession) made a far greater difference.

It doesn't seem to matter where the immigrants come from however so if we replace the number of EU immigrants with immigrants from outside the EU (which is likely) the effect would be the same.

I would suggest that such a small impact as this could have been mitigated by the government without the need to leave the EU if there had been the will to do so.

FieldOfFlameAndHeather

California imported Mexicans to do agri work, the locals didn't want to do, zero effect on wages....
Mexicans deported due to political pressure... again zero effect on wages, locals still wouldn't do the work, farmers mechanised.

Peer reviewed research shows wages not affected by migration, UK agri workers have always earned a pittance, in the past they used to have a union backed wages board... guess who took that away?

i think we all accept there is greater diversity now, mothertruck3r but the idea most immigrants were from similar backgrounds or heritage isn’t true. The largest number of immigrants in the post war period were from the Caribbean. The numbers peaked in the 1950s.
Then there have been large numbers from across the globe - Pakistani, Nepalese Ghurkas, Vietnamese boat people, Ugandan Asians and more besides.
The question is why it to you matters what colour people are?

jasjas1973
Yep meant to type January, not feb but Jan makes Hancocks claims even more stupid.

I don't understand, you posted this earlier in the day;
"News to the chinese who released the genome to the world in mid feb and who have been testing people for months before the UK ever did."

If the UK comes up with a vaccine first, i'l send you some wine.
It's a deal!

Cav - the Chinese have known about this disease for far longer than they are telling us, how else did they do the genome inside 2 weeks?
so its highly probable they've been testing in Nov, Dec and January

Sure, its deal ! and i keep my word.

The UK imports labour because the birth rate has plummeted over the last 50 year.
The population pyramid of the UK shows far fewer young able bodies people and far more old people
Brexit will not change that demographic fact
www.populationpyramid.net/united-kingdom/1950/

Migration is of course a two way street as well
www.populationpyramid.net/migrants/en/united-kingdom/1990/

To those asking why an EU army would be a bad thing. There is a lot of duplication of capability and big gaps in other areas. To recreate NATO without the US, Canada and now the UK would be be to create a militarily useless organisation.

EU militaries have large numbers of infantry and tanks but in particular lack ISTAR (intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, reconnaissance) and heavy lift capability. The staff and combat training is not very robust.

In short they couldn't find where the enemy are, work out how to get fighting forces there and manage them once there or have the aircraft to get the them there. If they over came all of that and got them where they needed to be they haven't had the training or experience to defeat the enemy.

There is also a lack of political will to put their troops at risk from most of the European governments. In Afghanistan there were lots of European military that were not allowed out of bases or if they were only in daylight for low risk tasks.

Yes.

To recreate NATO without the US, Canada and now the UK would be be to create a militarily useless organisation

It won't be if the US leaves Europe to it. It won't be duplication then. The lacks you mention are interesting but will have to be plugged somewhere, and it is always better to start to build such things sooner rather than later. Wouldn't some of that surveillance and reconnaissance be improved by Galileo? I think the lack of willingness to put European troops in danger applies particularly in faraway fields and will be of less import if they are needed to defend their own or regional European borders. Or is all the uncertainty spouted specifically to deny European powers capability to defend their own, given the history? Who gains how here?

Oh yes, those famed USA, UK and Canadian forces... did so well in Iraq and Afghanistan, how easily the enemy folded, what bastions of democracy these countries are, stunning successes to the might of western forces.

German troops in 1939 had little combat experience but using a new style of waging war - Blitzkrieg - they did rather well and against a UK force mired in the past.

If Europe had to defend itself, it would, it has the people, the money and expertise to build a modern military, the shame is, the UK won't be part of it.... but whose fault is that?

@jasjas1973 the Europeans were/are in both Iraq and Afghanistan alongside the US, Canada and UK. The fact you were unaware proves my point rather than yours. Your point about WW2 is completely off the mark too, I'll let you work out why but as a clue the war didn't finish in 1939.

@ThrowingGoodAfterBad I agree that Europe should do more for its own defence and if I thought it could I would more in favour. There is some logic for having a parallel system to GPS in Galileo but at the moment European militaries need to get the basics right. ISTAR goes all the way down to the soldier on the ground with a soldier with night vision capability who can see the enemy before they can see him (it is still nearly always him). To be able to have an integrated European army there would need to be difficult conversations along the lines of "hey Belgium you're so far from the borders of the eu that if enemy tanks reach you the whole of Europe is so far in trouble that there's nothing you could do so you get rid of all of your tanks and instead buy these motorised GPS guided parachutes and the planes to launch them so that we can deliver supplies miles behind enemy lines without them knowing."

Belgium then says "hold on how does that show off our martial prowess? What happens if we need to tanks in support of a former colony that has asked for our help and no one else in the EU wants to?"

@SchrodingersBox

You said earlier the europeans didn't do any fighting? make your mind up!!!

The point you have spectacularly missed is you don't need all this logistical and military hardware to defeat an enemy that do not have these things, The US and other forces couldn't adapt their fighting strategy, which is why i talked about Nazi troops in 1939... they were very successful against nations stuck in 1916, that changed when the allies adopted modern warfare and Hitler attacked the Soviets.

You also fail to appreciate that the UK has a small military, would be incapable of mounting a task force to take back the falklands, if that proved necessary, has less front line ships than Japan, could only provide a handful of planes to bomb Syria.... we are like the rest of Europe/nato, totally dependent on the USA.

However, my point is that can all change, europe has the money, industry and expertise to re-arm, if the US/UK/canada pulled out of NATO and they could do it very quickly too, the UK withdrawing would be a huge mistake, its our continent too and what happens there will always very much involve the UK.

The fact of the matter is that before Brexit the British were promised the best of both worlds: Full access to the EU and its markets at no costs. Now it becomes increasingly likely that they are getting the worst deal possible: Not only barriers to trade and red tape between the UK and Europe, but a custom border within the UK to boot. Well done!