The problem with Brexit is we didn't Brexit hard enough

[Middlelanehogger]

The EU itself was just the start.

But there are still more institutions which still influence our laws and make it impossible to actually achieve "taking back control".

If anything, we've left the trading bloc (which had economic benefits) but stayed in many of the legal institutions (which retain control over us).

So which body do we leave next - the ECHR? The ECJ? Keenly awaiting responses 😘

Its over. Now the UK will simply tread water and get a bit poorer per capita.

Remember that a large contingent of people openly stated that even if this were the case, they would still vote for Brexit. And given the result, it's clear they did.

That 77 page document doesn’t support your premise at all.

You don't work in finance or economics do you?

No

The UK is broke. Not just now, but also in the future due to demographics.

We will never, ever be able to borrow at close to 0% again

It was a MASSIVE own goal not to borrow for investment during the last 10 years.

That opportunity is gone.

I don’t entirely disagree with you, but that’s an incredibly pessimistic forecast.

Would you stay with a controlling partner just because you were better off financially? That's how some people see it.

The Tories may have been in power when Brexit was enacted but new rules and negotiations will inevitably take place once successive governments take hold, so the UK-EU relationship will evolve over time.

I'm sure they will. Towards more co-operation, or less? So, what are the advantages of Brexit?

I'm earning well over £10k a year more as a truck driver due to there no longer being loads of Eastern Europeans who'll do it for a tenner an hour. Going rate is £16-20 an hour now with overtime rates on top.

Of course that's no benefit to most people but I'm way better off.

I think immigration was a big factor in the decision, which is obviously ironic as things haven't improved. But had it been better managed people probs wouldn't have voted as they did.

Yes, congratulations.

That will last about 3 years by my estimation.

And then inflation will eat all of that "increase" and more.

Thats what happens when you create an artificial labour shortage in the country wide sense.

Switzerland learned this lesson already.

UK is learning it as we speak.

Here in Ireland it has been a long time since Polish drivers - or other trades ppl - worked for a tenner an hour. They copped on as we say here. And they weren't long telling friends back home which employers to avoid. Quite rightly so too. It all evens out eventually , you can only exploit people for so long.

A lot of the earlier cohort of immigrants went home after 08. Who can blame them. I'd imagine tradesmen in the UK are sitting pretty though. At least until their customers start to feel the pinch.

Oh dear.

@Griff123 - yes it will change. Cheaper trade relies on regulatory alignment, and it's not in the UK's interest to diverge. Probably we will be a rule taker and contributor in a decade. The people who were passionate about leaving the EU are largely gone from government and they will be a minority from 2025.

It's hardly artificial. There's been a deficit for years and brexit was the final straw. I don't think they'll be able to go back to taking the piss unless we somehow have a huge influx of cheap labour with the appropriate experience and licenses. Even before brexit it was still an issue.

Truck driving is a reasonably well paid job now and people accustomed to making a good salary won't be prepared to work for peanuts or be exploited like many EE were before - e.g. the supplier at my last plant who only employed Romanians which he paid £90 a day when the other companies were paying around £200. And they slept in their trucks for days if working from a different plant.

If it goes to shit most of us will just go and drive construction machinery which is generally decently paid. It won't take the supermarkets long to increase the wages when the shelves start to get empty or the fuel companies when the garages have no petrol.

Palletways were paying their employed drivers £10.50 an hour only five years ago when I did some agency work for them. Same with booze hauliers. The latter are paying £20 an hour now. They can afford to as well. Before they were just being greedy fuckers.

It is very much artificial. Say you make £60k/year

And you got a 50% boost from Brexit (from £40k)

From 2020 to 2023 there has already been cumulative inflation of 30%

In real terms, your 50% nominal "gain" has already been reduced by £12k (3/5ths of £20k) from £60k to £48k.

And that will keep further reducing over the next two years as inflation remains structurally higher.

You will in fact end up slightly below £40k in real terms.

Why?

Because you (and the rest of the industry) have not become more productive. If you made 2x more deliveries for the the same time that would make you more productive. But what has actually happened is that you were paid 50% for marginal productivity gains. Because there has not been an increase in productivity that extra cost is then passed on all the way down the supply chain via price increases.

This is also why the UK is now caught in a wage price spiral. Wage demands are high with no corresponding increase in productivity. In the aggregate sense, you simply end up chasing your own tail as inflation will always run hotter than nominal wage growth.

In any event, a rather large economic shockwave is about to run into the UK due to the lagged effects of the fast BOE rate rises (from 1% to 6%)

Modelling points to around mid 2024

Thats when the SHTF from an economic standpoint, unemployment will rise, output gap will reduce, and inflation will start reverting down to the long-run average (3% or so now).

Well I don't much like your chart @TheThinkingGoblin but it does mean I will be trying to secure a mortgage in February rather than any later with my broker. A very grim 2024 and 2025 to come

Because there has not been an increase in productivity that extra cost is then passed on all the way down the supply chain via price increases.

Not necessarily. Some companies that we're raking it in have had to take a hit on profit margins, but yes a lot have put prices up.

Trades weren't seen as all that lucrative a few decades ago but the average trade salary is now higher than the average office and graduate salary. Average construction salary is now £10k above average graduate salary.

At least a decade ago, loads of people were retraining as plumbers/sparkies etc and people were saying that it'd all be short lived. Yet here we are with trades still being pretty lucrative. Same with building. We keep hearing how construction is going to slump yet I've never seen more student accommodation being built. And prisons and hospitals being extended. And of course things like HS2. With an ever burgeoning population it isn't going anywhere soon even with periodic fluctuations.

I can see a lot of customer service jobs going though. It's almost impossible to speak with a lot of utility providers, for instance, without using web chat and I think this will become more common.

No doubt it's partly down to the number of people struggling to pay their bills, creating increased phone traffic, but a think a lot of companies are increasingly moving towards automated services.

I figure AI is going to decimate that industry.

Previously, the automated "help" was pretty crap but with the new AI LLM tech it is far improved.

Ironically, AI will impact white collar jobs more than blue collar jobs because the latter cannot be automated.

But yes, agree that the vocational route (trades) will become much more popular in the UK. Hopefully we end up like Germany in this regard as they have a good split between vocational and academic.

It's interesting you say that and I agree. The most common automation we usually hear of is the 'self driving truck' but anyone who has worked in the industry knows it's decades away in reality.

In my lifetime I expect to possibly see automated trucks doing trunking work up the motorway, depot to depot, but for a lot of jobs there's just no way. A lot of it relies on being to take visual/verbal instructions from banksmen and things like assessing ground conditions in regard to whether you'll sink in etc. Computers just can't do that yet without the cost being obstructive. And even simple stuff like moving a wheelie bin and propping a gate open could present an issue.

I think a lot of people assume driving jobs are mainly just driving but many involve a lot of other stuff. Designing a computer for concrete deliveries, for instance, would be extremely difficult. Just cleaning the truck after each delivery would be a challenge. And when you get to using hammers and acid etc, it's easier just to have a person who can assess the ground, judge how much water to add, take instructions from customer about the speed and placement of the material (often having to judge the situation and tell them no) and being able to locate, phone, and get to a landfill site pronto before the material sets in the barrel if you have a load rejected as I did today. Far too many variables to automate and you'd need very specific trucks for each job.

There's a lot of jobs which would be much easier to automate, even if it was only part automated (like then various screening services most companies have to direct the call to correct team before you even speak to a human.

Trades weren't seen as all that lucrative a few decades ago but the average trade salary is now higher than the average office and graduate salary. Average construction salary is now £10k above average graduate salary.

Not dissimilar to the aftermath of the black death. One of the main drivers that weakened feudalism (if you have a view it never really went away).