"How the UK became one of the poorest countries in Europe"

[user1471452428]

www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/10/uk-economy-disaster-degrowth-brexit/671847/

Article in The Atlantic. When people post about declining living standards, they're often shouted down- but I think it's pretty clear that it is real and here to stay.

Brexit is not Done. We left the EU hastily and with no plan but the paperwork and legalities remain. The UK reneged on the agreement it negotiated and signed leading to legal challenges, a possible trade war with the EU, another December election for me and instability for the UK.

The Tories need to sort this ASAP for the country's sake.

What are you on about?

The NI protocol.

Is that the glitch whereby nobody can figure out whether they're part of the UK or the EU?

Wasn't NI given some sort of special status? I recall it being complicated due to it being the only land border with the EU but I thought that they gave it some sort of unique status? Is that not sorted? Or has it been sorted but you don't like what the result is?

Either way, it's immaterial to the decline in the economy.

It was sorted by the Northern Ireland Protocol that agreed a border in the Irish Sea. However, the UK government changed their minds after signing the agreement cos sovereignty/border control/hard Brexiteers /Union /Tory votes/DUP support etc.

Clavinova, I missed this post but you have made me chuckle by criticising the article and then quoting the Daily Mail?

The UK reneging on international agreements is detrimental to investment from abroad as well as fucking up our trade with our nearest neighbours. And the stability thing.

We are no longer trusted.

I'm not sure that we ever were trusted. 😉

We used to be. But right now no one trusts us and the international markets, so necessary for our growth, are waiting for the Tories to be gone and Brexit to be done. What's the point in spending time, energy and money negotiating with someone who will not be in power in two years time? They might not even be in power in two months/weeks time.🤷‍♀️

My dads been saying this for years. That countries have risen and fallen throughout history. This country has had its time and is now in decline.

As they say, be careful who you stand on, on your way up as you will meet them on the way down.

It is not inevitable. We don't have to decline. But we will if we keep clinging to shit just because it's what we know.

Strangely, your username is apt for how I feel about the UK. Too big for their boots. British people seem to believe that they are still some sort of global empire while, on the contrary, we're rapidly diminishing into obscurity. The reality is that we're an island off the coast of Europe with a questionable history, a notorious reputation and fuck all to show for it. But we still think that we're some world-leading financial powerhouse? Just look at the posts on this thread about the figures - people frantically trying to find stats which state that the UK is doing ok. I suspect that there is very little goodwill left towards us from any quarter and worse than that, we're at risk of becoming irrelevant.

The world moves on but we appear to have put the gearstick into reverse and accelerated!

I also predict a lot of snatch and grabs of properties by vultures when people start being unable to pay their mortgages and begin losing their homes. We're far too exposed to this crisis. Our economy is not robust enough to withstand the storm that's brewing.

If anyone plans on jumping ship - now would be the time to do it.

I think the roots of our decline lie with the focus on financial services. The UK has an unbalanced economy and too much focus on the London financial sector. An example- Truss thought growth would be helped by removing the cap on bankers bonuses. What about incentives for other sectors? The recent governments have stoked financial sectors to the detriment to other sectors.

London house prices rose post Big Bang as a result of the bankers big pay cheques.

I also agree that employers need to start paying decent wages as low employee costs reduce productivity. I frequentely work with companies who are looking to invest and see decisions on investment - ROI often isn't achievable because people costs are so low. They often employ cheap labour, doing manual activities, who they deem as disposable.

I have to say despite having a huge number of people on JSA in the UK, most people work hard. My friends always say when they communicate with people living in the UK they are always at work.
We work long hours for very little. Salaries in the UK are low in comparison to other places in Europe. Not only that, the money doesn't stretch far here!
Housing is more expensive in general, food, clothing, childcare - all this will become worse with Brexit and import expenses. Meanwhile people still earn the same.

We do not get a lot back from the high taxes. Other countries mentioned above are richer, may have higher taxes but the residents get free childcare/ nursery, free schools including private schools, free university, tax relief , good access to healthcare, less expensive housing, etc.
The other problem is that British people refuse to accept that they aren't the best at something, so we don't learn from others.

That would be me soon. Thankfully have eu citizenship. I'm willing to stick around for a couple more years to see how it goes but will pack mine and leave if the country is not well managed and everything goes haywire

Funnily enough, despite no Govt (because of the DUP hating the protocol, refusing to sit at Stormont & refusing to accept they are out of power)... the NI economy is doing very well, as its stayed effectively in the single market.

The UK's economy would do far better in the SM than out, so it is material... or as Guy Hans on R4 said recently "otherwise the UK economy is doomed"

Not one poverty thread has mentioned debt, its always someone else's fault.

Except I would expect the poorest people in the UK have the least debt as no bank will loan to them.

We just had that in the mini budget, corporation tax slashed, etc, remind us again how that played out??

You have missed the point.
They are poor due to debt not because of low income.
So those you would expect to be fine are struggling but unsecured debt is never mentioned just it's the government's fault.

I did say, earlier on this thread, that our micro-business in metal-bashing is booming, and has been for the last 18 months. Customers want to talk to suppliers direct, and want to know there's no way their job is going to be stuck in a customs queue for weeks, so they are looking to place work in the UK. And before you ask, nobody in our organisation earns less than double minimum wage, plus overtime at 1.5x or 2x the hourly rate for weekends or unsocial hours.

TheNosehasit
Clavinova, I missed this post but you have made me chuckle by criticising the article and then quoting the Daily Mail?

I linked to the MailOnline because they had photographs - I can quote from the Guardian instead if you prefer;

Maros Tancos, and Joanna Gomulska, both 46, kept the victims as “prisoners” in squalor in the house in Bristol and subjected them to beatings and death threats, a court heard.
Victims were forced to work unpaid at Tancos’s car wash business and then do paid jobs at night...the couple spending their wages on secondhand cars and gambling.
Tancos had links to children’s homes in his home country of Slovakia and had a “ready supply” of vulnerable victims.
A total of 42 victims were interviewed by specialist officers and 29 gave evidence of the abuse they suffered in court.
“Referring to the house as a ‘gate to hell’, one victim’s account shows how they felt trapped, unable to seek help without identity documents, locked in the house and threatened.”

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/22/bristol-couple-jailed-for-enslaving-29-slovakian-people

Presumably, if the ready supply of unskilled labour from the EU had been curtailed somewhat, then more investment in "robots" would have taken place (e.g. expansion/improvement of automated car washes)?