Westminstenders: And so it begins

[RedToothBrush]

Promises made that can not be kept.

We have already fallen at the first stumbling block: the desire for parallel talks on exit and future relationship that May wanted has been rejected. Not that this is a surprise seeing as we were told this.

This isn't two years of negotiations for a good deal. Forget any suggestions that it is. It's two years of damage limitation and domestic pr.

For both the UK and EU.

I do believe that May's attitude - which seemed to be more friendly in her speech and letter yesterday - has burnt all our bridges.

This talk of the world needing the EU's 'liberal democracy' isn't aimed at the EU though. Her use of the words that produced uproar in the HoC yesterday was deliberate. Why use it? It was always going to produce a reaction.

When May says she will have a consensus at home to achieve this goal one of two things must happen: to prove just how much we need the EU to make a political reversal possible at the expense of her head or to vilify the EU to a point that Remainers suddenly change their mind.

To get a good deal for the UK she can not satisfy her hard line Brexiteers. It is impossible purely because to do otherwise is like breaking the laws of physics. Trade is done mostly with who you are closest too. This is the inescapable truth. We are leaving the EU but not Europe as keeps being pointed out.

If we want to trade we have to accept EU regulations. If we do not, we do not trade. Rules we can now no longer influence by must obey.

We can not reduce immigration. We have had control of non-Eu immigration and that is not going down due to skills shortages. To combat this schools are getting less money.

In terms of sovereignty and British parliament we just gave that away. The 'Great' Repeal Act is a power grab by the executive. It seems to give the powers of the monarch to Mrs May and take them away from parliamentary scrutiny. At the same time we are forced to become beholden to Trump's America. A man who screws people for a living and has not a shred of honour.

Using security as our bargaining chip misses the obvious. If we do not cooperate we endanger Brits abroad and ourselves domestically. Are we really prepared to stop?

The opportunities of Brexit Britain are bleak. This will be normalised.

Good luck folks. We are gonna need it.

The stagnation and indeed reduction in wages has far more to do with globalisation and automation than with the EU.

Globalisation is not about to stop and automation is likely to be increased.

Leaving the EU won't deal with either of those two factors, and may well make their effects on every socio-economic group (except the very rich) worse.

I've lurked here for a while and remember a really good conversation between people using data regarding wages. It actually turned out that using the Bank of England information the effect on wages was extremely minimal.

I've also seen information from the LSE which shows that immigration has had almost 0 effect of wages since 2008, and the falls in real wages have been due to high inflation and the long fall out of the 2008 crisis.

This brings me to another point, the leave voters on here, even when they have been challenged on a reason for leaving, and had it demonstrated that their point is incorrect, will just stick to it, and sling mud at those making the points until they go away. Then when back in their echo chamber they just repeat the same things over and over again.

And they complain about being talked down to.

Yet another fallacy

When statements are repeatedly made to blame a race (or foreigners collectively) for negative circumstances...in the face of evidence that clearly points otherwise...it is the very definition of xenophobia and racism.

Absolutely. I can accept there might be economic reasons for reducing immigration. However, non one has actually been able to give them wrt leaving the EU. For one they always ignore non EU immigration into this country

For the other they never discuss the impact of our migrant son the EU - this aspect I find colonialist

The UK is apparently close to becoming the most unequal country in the developed world according to Oxfam (need to find the reference).

2 years ago Monbiot write this column in the Guardian talking about the immorality of inequity and pointing out that Chief Execs in the UK had gone from earning 60x average salary in the 90s to 180x average salary I'm sure 2 years later it will be even worse

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/31/wealth-creators-klepto-rewards-bosses?CMP=fb_gu

This is not the EU causing this. This is the choices that the UK has made; our political ruling parties; our media; ....and the electorate that chooses our government

Oh yes, UK migrants are ex pats who are all self supporting and beneficial to their host EU countries.

Yet the benefits to this country of immigration are always dismissed, and the same incorrect and inaccurate points made regarding the impact of immigration.

The NHS ( not true), Schools ( not true, and certainly not in areas that voted to leave) Wages ( not true). All easy to demonstrate but gosh, they keep ranting on about it.

Totally agree pretty bird.

Contrast the approach in Minnesota (yes, somewhere in the States! ) where increasing taxes on the rich, to pay for increased public sector salaries and an increased minimum wage actually improved the Minnesotan economy.

Maybe Austerity isn't the solution after all

and perhaps not all billionaires are selfish prats and can see the bigger picture

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/6737786?

pretty you don't have to go as far as Minnesota. Scotland pays the Scottish living wage to care workers. This is about £1 an hour above the NMW. It still manages to provide "freeish" personal care to the elderly - albeit with more rationing than some would like but less than in England.

Scottish Council taxes are higher on average and have just gone up for the most expensive houses.

Howabout - don't I know it? We live in a Band G house in Glasgow

But while I accept some of the good work that the Scottish Government has done - and the extension of the Living Wage is a good example - we are not fully shielded from the effects of WM's austerity policies and also can't manipulate things like corporation tax or VAT

Wasn't the free care for the elderly in the SNP manifesto ?

Agreed pretty which is why I think it is relevant to the debate to show that Scotland can and does make different policy choices even within the WM imposed Austerity. Even with full independence there would be limits to how much Scotland could diverge without causing a "brain drain" or "capital flight".

Just been looking at a bbc report on falling unemployment in the Eurozone. I grew up watching Auf Wiedersehen, Pet when UK workers were supporting the German economy because we had high unemployment. The UK situation of pulling in migrants could easily reverse and IF we were as reliant on them as pp suggest this would cause a REAL problem. The Government and the previous ones (Blair did not think many E Europeans would choose UK), according to all official documents, have been running the economy with an immigration target in the 10s of thousands. The overshoot and failure / inability to plan for it is the problem.

Anyone ever read "Sarum" by Edward Rutherford ?

Once of the sections which has stayed with me, was a depiction of the US entry into WW2, requiring a lot of US servicemen to be stationed in the UK. Their relative affluence didn't go unnoticed by the native Brits who - as the book rather poetically put it - became aware that there was a canker at the heart of the British Empire, where there was poverty at home, but wealth abroad.

Maybe it was this exposure to how unequal Britain was which led to the Labour government after WW2 ?

I still maintain that all of this discussion is a frippery against a global population increase which cannot continue. But last time I suggested that I had my arse handed to me on a plate .

Yes Bigchoc and IS being delivered on. There is much whinging because it does not include bed and board in nursing homes and there is much contention about what constitutes personal care. It is also inherently unfair as it only extends to the elderly.

Voting Brexit brought in the hard right and probably keeps them in the driving seat for the next 10-12 years.

Voting hard right because you are angry at "Remainer / Liberal Tory" Osbourne is like being angry at the useless aspirins your GP gave you for headaches - and deciding to hit yourself over the head with a hammer !

The 3 Dunces say immigration may not go down - it will be led by the needs of the country, i.e. by business.
So long as they need minimum wage labour to do the grindingly hard jobs, they can get visas for the workers.
It's just they may find it easier now to get even cheaper workers from India & Adrica.

Brexit would reduce immigration if there were a lot of EU immigrants without jobs, who were just taking benefits.
But there aren't. EU immigrants are more likely to be in work than the general population, tending to be younger & fitter

On recent trips to various EU countries, I noticed that many public buildings had EU flags hanging outside.

Most of the UK doesn't really "do" flags, and the bits that do, often use them in an aggressively nationalistic way (eg Protestant border towns in NI where even the kerbs are painted red white and blue). It's different elsewhere in Europe. My son's school has a French flag alongside an EU one on the front of the building, this is pretty typical.

Howabout It would be great to extend personal care as you suggest, but it would mean huge rises in Council Tax. I'd vote for that, but I suspect I may be in a minority.

Has Kezia proposed this ? Or Corbyn for the UK as a whole ?

I agree with you on both counts Lurking. Good job I have the hide of a rhino

Bigchoc I actually don't think council tax is the way to fund it unless it is reformed significantly. Frank Field has done lots of research including looking at things like extending NI to pension income. So far no sign of even Left wing Corbyn adopting the sort of socially progressive policies which would have been considered mainstream even under Thatcher.

The issue with the Labour Party in Scotland and England atm is that they are all about "the worker" by which they mean public sector and unions with Labour affiliation.

Brexit would reduce immigration if there were a lot of EU immigrants without jobs, who were just taking benefit

Fwiw, the FOM doesn't include going to a country, refusing to look for work and live for the state benefits. It is totally possible for said to country to then send these pople away, back to their own country.
AND if I wanted to go somewhere just for the benefnext t system, I wouldn't go to the UK! France would be a much better choice on that.

I have just had a little chuckle to myself. I know that at least one poster wanted to scrap all EU laws. On the thread "Is it time that a law is brought in to protect leave voters from hate speech", over in Chat, some kind soul has pointed out (as we read here first) that there is an EU law which covers this.This was at 09:58 this morning and since then, apart from one , Silence. Oh dear!

Can't remember where I read it but "Brits getting ready to invade Benidorm" made me laugh. 😊