Can we stqrt calling it what is is?

[Itisnoteasybeingdifferent]

It's not exit, it's independence. Alternatively we should call it sovereignty or self rule.

What is it about May's government that makes you think it is committed, or even interested, in reducing inequality?

Was that to me Kaija ?

Absolutely nothing, I don't think the Tories have any interest in reducing inequality. I've never voted for them and I doubt I ever will.

So how do you think Brexit is going to reduce inequality?

as inflation is a figure for the country as a whole, it will undoubtedly have much less effect on the homeowner in the home counties, than the renter in the N East, but it will have an effect on everybody

I don't disgree, but I think the point of the article is that people's economic situation is far more complicated than just the headline national economic measures (inflation, GDP etc) and that the detail needs to be considered and discussed when discussing Brexit or any other policy rather than the "we're all in it together" fiction.

So you agree that Brexit is likely to have a worse impact on the poor than in the wealthy?

We are definitely going to be worse off than we currently are

Almost everyone seems to agree we will be worse off financially.Surprisingly, I agree with Wrong on quite a few things -millions will be much worse off and the very richest will get richer.

Talking about the wealth of the whole country is very difficult to grasp.The numbers are so large that normal people can't identify with the figures which is why the bloody bus was so persuasive.As Kaija says our modest European Union contribution on a pie chart of UK spending is almost too small to see, it's tiny.

Controlling £8.82 billion sounds tempting Semi but in return for that tbh, just for starters, you lose the country ...

1. £24–31 billion by 2020 and that's just the short-term impacts of leaving the EU.
2. A further £4–8 billion for WTO membership.
3. Joint control of €142 billion p.a. (2014 figure)

4.Unfettered access to 16.6 Trillion a year in a Single Market of 500m people.

These figures are from the institute of fiscal studies but we no longer listen to experts, we place our trust the right wing of the Tory party instead.

A time may have come in the future to reduce links with the European Union, who knows. However being financially penalised for being the first to leave is an act of self sabotage of phenomenal proportions for most of the country. We could call the 23 June Lemming day.

-IFS report is entitled The value of membership versus access to the UK
-Pie chart is medium.com/@ChathamHouse/five-things-to-know-about-sovereignty-in-the-uk-s-eu-referendum-debate-2ed7ab82bd41#.27zhptk52)

So you agree that Brexit is likely to have a worse impact on the poor than in the wealthy?

No, I agree that a rise in inflation will have a worse effect on the poor. But I think that the benefits of not having a bottomless pool of unskilled workers, enabling employers to drive down wages and conditions will more than balance this.

And yet all the evidence tells you that this is not how it works - immigration does not depress wages.

"the detail needs to be considered and discussed when discussing Brexit"

Therein lies the problem. So not before the vote then. Afterwards is fine, when the poor that voted brexit did not realise just how much poorer they were going to be

I think this highlights one of the really bizarre aspects of the whole referendum campaign and aftermath. All these things should have been bring discussed before the referendum. But to some extent discussion was a politics free zone. The Labour party (who I think have tied themselves in mental knots in the last few years) were not really discussing the actual situation of working class people. They seemed to buy into the whole "one economy", "all in this together" narrative for the purposes of the campaign.

Neither Labour or the Tories were able to discuss any of the real causes of discontent because these are either
a) the fault of successive governments (underfunding of the NHS, housing policy etc) or
b) related to being in the EU (high immigration of unskilled labour with the negative effects on jobs, services, housing, all on the least well off and the benefits to the well off).

So instead all the talk was of one economy. People's actual standard of living is so much more complex than just GDP etc. For example, our country is now much wealthier than 20/30 years ago but buying a house (which to me is fairly basic human requirement in this society) is beyond the reach of many. How is that being better off?

And I am not saying that Brexit will solve all these problems. It will solve some, but not all. I think the issue of inequality is a huge problem which needs to be tackled and it makes me very sad that at the moment we don't seem to have a Labour party who are minded or able to do so.

I cannot see Brexit solving any of the problems you mention Wrong.
I have to agree with a). The NHS could be improved if the will was there, but the will of the Tories is to sell it off to the highest bidder, for the poorest service. Ditto with housing - if the will was there, something could be done.

b) Immigration - will cut down some unskilled people, but it will be a huge trade off when EU doctors, nurses, scientists say thanks but no thanks.

Brexit will most likely increase inequality. It's always the poorest who suffer most in any economic downturn.

The short term economic situation is giving Leavers false hope. Longer term - Sterling depreciates further, inflation takes hold and people earn less as their wages aren't rising as fast as the cost of living, then everyone will experience a decline in living standards. Obviously those on the slimmest means will be most affected.

If we crash out with no deal - and there's every indication we may - we're in for economic disruption and legal chaos. The tax haven route will be the worst of all - low tax, low regulation, low social protection.

And that's without factoring job losses as businesses relocate within the EU.

I don't think immigration numbers will change significantly. Any deal with the US, Aus, India maybe even China will be predicated on opening immigration to them. Aus and India are on record on that score.

So I think we will swap immigrant origins without affecting numbers much.

If all the Eastern European fruit pickers go home - they'll be replaced with workers from Asia and Africa who will be prepared to work for even less.

they'll be replaced with workers from Asia and Africa who will be prepared to work for even less.

Who will be welcomed with open arms, because we are constantly being told it wasn't about immigration!

I think EU freedom of movement was a very big factor in many leave voters minds (not all, obvs), at least a combination of the actual affects of fom combined with the fact of it not being under our control.

I find it hard to believe the government would get away with swapping high immigration from one part of the world to another. Do you believe the Tories would stay in power if they went down this route?

Do you believe the Tories would stay in power if they went down this route?
I think that is why May went very quiet about India. She will be OK with the US, because they will make sure it's only the White citizens who come. Ditto with Canada, Australia and New Zealand. But they are not racists, oh no!

Yes, for those reasons, and because we need immigration. Why do you think numbers from outside the EU were almost as high as numbers from within? Although if we end up with economic collapse immigration will fall for sure. Price worth paying?

do you believe the Tories would stay in power if they went down this route?

No. But they don't have any choice. They've touted world trade deals to replace EU trade (which it won't but that's another story) and that's the bottom line. None of those countries are desperate for a deal like we are - we need them for our economic survival. For them it's just icing on a cake.

I don't believe Tories will outlive the economic downturn either.

For the moment they're safe, but once Corbyn is gone - it will be very different. And we may see a new centrist party made up of LibDems and Labour centre.

In 10 years political landscape will be very different.

In 10 years political landscape will be very different

I agree. This is one of the reasons I never understood the argument to vote remain because voting leave moves the Tories to the right. I think that is a short term result, whereas the EU membership or not is for the longer term.

Tatiana What do you think is needed for the left/centre to regain relevance? Just replacing Corbyn? There do seem to me to be more deep-seated problems with the left (identity politics, lack of answers to working class people's concerns etc), although I would like to see Corbyn go - I have completely lost faith in him.

And you are not concerned about the damage that will be done in the next 10 years?

It is absolute disaster in my opinion. Not an exit, but a political suicide.

And you are not concerned about the damage that will be done in the next 10 years?

I have said that in the past - a lot of good things came out of the War for the UK - the Welfare State, which we used to value, wider horizons for many, social mobility. But in European and World terms it came at a huge cost - 6 million Jews slaughtered, millions displaced, the atom bombs dropped on Japan, and even in the UK - the country bankrupted.

And you are not concerned about the damage that will be done in the next 10 years?

Me? Yes, I am. But we elected a Tory government before we voted to leave the EU. Cameron and Osborne have already done so much damage (As an aside it does make me slightly cringe when posters on some of the EU threads start getting all a bit forgetful about Osborne just because he's remain and say they are warming to him - bleugh) and this would have continued with or without Brexit.

I expect the Tories will carry on as before, and whether this is Cameron/Osborne or May/Hammond will not make a massive difference, or certainly not enough to have made it worth voting remain to keep Cameron in.

I don't buy this retrospective repainting of the last few years as times of great progress in equality and employment rights suddenly being brought to a halt by Brexit and TM. It's just not how I remember it.

I am also a great believer in democracy. I have always been very uncomfortable with the notion that one reason we need to stay in the EU is to protect us from the people we elect to govern. I would like to see a less right wing government in this country (and I hope that Brexit and Trump will have demonstrated to the political classes that they really need to listen to the great unwashed - whether that is over concerns on immigration or unhappiness with the status quo in the USA and an unwillingness to vote for Clinton) but if people continue to vote for the right, then that is what we will get.

I don't buy this retrospective repainting of the last few years as times of great progress in equality and employment rights suddenly being brought to a halt by Brexit and TM. It's just not how I remember it.

I agree, and of course, Cameron and Osborne couldn't say they had shafted people. However, I do think that May is so totally blind or bigotted that she is going for the most extreme possible.

The stirrings of good things are there - we are now more aware of what was happening with the bedroom tax, students being kicked out on spurious grounds, the increasing sell off of the NHS and we are beginning to join the dots in a way that we didn't before. May can say all she likes that 65 million support her; she will find out she is wrong, and she certainly needs to be careful of cosying up too much with Trump. On a personal level, I have become closer to family members because we voted the same way.