Westministenders: No Brexit is Better than a Bad Brexit

[RedToothBrush]

Happy Anniversary!!!

These Threads are officially 1 year old today.

I don't know who started the very first thread, but it was about how Cameron quitting had handed the Boris a poison chalice because he had to be the one to trigger a50 as Cameron walked away without having done it.

Of course Boris didn't become PM, and we found out that triggering a50 and Brexit were even more complex than even the majority of the most informed thought it would be.

A year on we have a minority government, a zombie prime minister, a government who don't really know what the concept of democracy, millions of EU citizens (who include British nationals) who face an uncertain future, the fear of the cliff edge, a huge scandal over inequality and Jeremy Corbyn appearing on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury within the hour.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/nhs-doctor-lbc-moving-france-brexit-abuse-eu-nationals-a7806621.html

More and more EU citizens are going back to Europe.
This is just one of several articles I've come across along that line.
It sumurrise well how i have been feeling in the last year. Ive even had the situation that doctor is talking about with patients having a go at immigrants whilst knowing I'm not british AND still expecting me to treat them the best I can.....

Interesting to see that some people are waking up to it and the effect of the continuous abuse on eu citizens.
But I think it will take a hell of a lot of time for these wounds to heal. More than just agreeing on a fair deal for eu citizens (esp if that is done only under duress)

howabout For decades, UK voters have chosen tax cuts and protecting property windfalls from IHT over paying benefits and decent wages for public service workers
The right-to-buy has stripped the public housing stock, but voters demand the chance of their own windfall and bugger the more vulnerable

Back at the 2010 GE, all the parties competed to show how tough they would be in the deficit, because the voters believed a national budget could be treated like a household one

Those are choices made entirely by UK political parties and the voters who were conned by them
Other countries in the EU made different choices

The UK has chosen to follow the low tax, low welfare, low regulations philosophy of the USA
Most of the EU didn't

Time to stop blaming the EU for the UK's selfishness towards their own citizens

Absolutely bigchoc.
Spot on

Interesting quote from Shami Chakrabati interview with Sophie Ridge. There is the possibility that this insistance on prioritising jobs becomes labour's get out of brexit free card. The question is does the rest of the shadow cabinet really agree on this?

E27 expats who can easily work elsewhere - doctors, other skilled professionals - might find it safer to leave before Brexit.
At least some Leavers are likely to take out their anger on them, if no unicorns appear.

Those expats who are longterm caters, SAHP or have children at UK schools mostly have fewer options though

Time to stop blaming the EU for the UK's selfishness towards their own citizens
👏👏👏

Bigchoc not blaming the EU for the attitude in the UK in any way. However an endless supply of cheap EU labour as lauded by the article has facilitated the UK attitude. The failure to recognise this undermines all the arguments for Remain / Soft Brexit.

Pro jobs / economy rhetoric from Labour, I think, has to be read in the context of their positioning on making work pay and making the economy work for everyone - eg £10 minimum wage for all - and also projected job losses from the restructuring of the economy over the next few years as discussed on the Sunday Politics today - projected 900,000 job losses from retail alone.

This tweet is worth reading just for the comments. Lots of people pointing out that EU citizens will only have superior rights because UK citizens will be losing theirs!

@BrexitCentral
The EU’s unacceptable ECJ demands would create a privileged caste of EU citizens with superior rights in the UK t.co/lKUw8sGHcB

According to John Curtice, someone that people round here like to cite when they happen to a agree with him, JC had little effect on how Labour voters fell in the EU ref

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/04/evidence-blame-jeremy-corbyn-brexit-remain-labour-conservative

I suppose there are some who will argue that 80% or more of Lab voters should have voted to remain. I don't think anyone, not even a titan like Ed Miliband, could have pulled that off.

How many of EU citizens who have made their life here are able to leave easily?
A lot are married to a Brit, have children who are British and have known nothing else bar the UK.

I think it's a bit of mistake to think that a Lot of eu citizens can just leave like this. I suspect that, at least, 50% will find it quite hard.

If I look at things form my own POV, leaving would not be an issue with the dcs. They are teenagers yes but they will adapt. At worst they will have to redo a year when arriving in France to be able to catch on their french.
Finding a job for me and DH though... that's an entirely different matter when DH doesn't speak french and the job I'm doing isn't regulated the same way in France so I can't actually do that there (because yes I retrained here only thinking of working in the uk - not in France).
Both me and DH are very well trained too (both at degree/master degree level...).

So yes apart from the issue of actually being happy enough to move to another country, I think there are a lot of other factors that tied up people to the uk. Esp when you have actually made your life here thinking you would always be welcome (just like British people were welcomed in your own home country)

Re cheap labour from Poland etc...

Please don't think that the uk is the only eu country with that problem.
France has some issues with people who are 'detached' (so working in France but the company is paying taxes etc... in Poland as they employed by a polish company in Poland).

The answer though has been very different. Instead of saying 'oh look these awful people coming to take our jobs' they have

• insisted that these people are paid according the french standards so it doesn't drive wages down.
• Macron is now working with the EU to modify the rules re 'detached personnel' so the system can't be abused. (Not going down well with eastern countries like Poland - butbthe pojnynis he is trying to change the system)

Once again, you can lay the blame at the get of the EU
OR you can work with it, make the best of the regulation already in place and then work WITH the eu to resolve whatever issue there still is.

"The wc mostly think they've been hit hard enough - but that the mc keep pushing the interests of developing countries over the poorest workers in the West."

BigChoc, I'd imagine the management of the UK in the interests of the better off is what has created the gulf in the UK. The poorest workers have been shafted more by the rescue of the banks and bankers than any aid to developing countries. All that austerity was for the salvation of the banking system.

Likewise any increase in NHS funding the Con's like to mention. I'd be very interested to see where it is going. Maybe to repay the disastrous and usurious PFI deals. Nowhere near actual healthcare. Those blasted things should have to be restructured in some way.

Interesting mention of the German taxpayers. It does feel a little like getting the name of an early riser and you can sleep till noon. The investments of the German taxpayers and pension funds (among other countries) in Ireland were saved and they did not have to shoulder any recklessness on the part of their banks. Don't forget for every reckless borrower there may be a reckless lender. Due diligence wasn't carried out wrt their investments in Irish banks. The returns were high. It was speculative and should have taken the hit if they were seen not to have done due diligence. Lower risk investments carry lower returns. It was nothing whatsoever to do with the Irish taxpayer. Yet the Irish gov't converted the debt of private banks into Sovereign debt which had to be repaid by Irish taxpayers. So the German taxpayers did in effect get a bailout themselves. One that was not in reality or morally the duty of the Irish taxpayer to pony up. Same with the British 'bailout' the UK goes on about. It was a loan to Ireland so they could save the British reckless and speculative investments of pension funds and the like for big returns. Probably with little or no due diligence. And a profit of a nice little interest rate into the bargain.

Always got time for Prof C even when we disagree Eeeeeowwwfftz

What I find more interesting is the failure to acknowledge the extent to which the UKIP vote went back to Labour in its heartlands in the GE. This is what caused the Conservative strategy to fall apart. If Remain Labour choose to open old wounds rather than allowing JC to tightrope a best case Brexit then they risk losing all of this vote and 100 or so seats.

Norman Lamb's comments on where he found himself with his local electorate versus the LibDem National position were also interesting in this regard.

This tweet is worth reading just for the comments. Lots of people pointing out that EU citizens will only have superior rights because UK citizens will be losing theirs!

I have frequently pointed out that whatever the outcome of Brexit, the UK may be forced to guarantee rights to EU citizens that UK-only citizens may not have. (A right to the ECHR, being one).

So far completely ignored (and at companies peril) is the General Data Protection Regulation which applies to any EU citizens data. The upshot being: if you want to trade with the EU, you need to comply - whether you are in the EU or not. So we could see UK firms obliged to provide better data protection to EU citizens than UK citizens out of the EU.

Obviously, it would be politically impossible to have a Brexit ending that way. But equally it's impossible to see the EU allowing the UK to piss all over EU citizens rights.

Redpepper completely agree with your comments on cheap labour as did / does JC in his views on enforcing current protections. However the pro-Remain right ie the Cameroons (and to some extent the Blairites) do not.

My central problem with your stance, how is that we are brexiting under a government and party that has actively supported the use of cheap, transient labour (including uk workers) and driven down employment rights. Why do you think this will suddenly improve after Brexit? The shortage of labour might result in improved pay/conditions for those employed in the care sector, but equally, we could end up in a situation where the lack of additional funding required means that the elderly and disabled will be forced to go without the care that they need. We have already seen this under austerity policies, even with the influx of cheap labour. Demand does not equal supply if it's controlled by government funding.
When the economy nose dives, do you really think the government is going to start upping pay and conditions in the public sector? I'd be extremely surprised.

This, to me, was the main reason to oppose Brexit- the motives and politics of the people who will enact it. Yeah, one day labour might get in and magically transform everything, but the mess they will have to undo will be colossal.

But I am an EU citizen and I do not want to cede my rights, particularly not after such a dishonest, evidence-light barely-majority-carried advisory referendum. What protections can the EU offer me if I don't want to have my rights taken away from me? I think I should have the right to retain my EU citizenship. Unfortunately I was born a few months too early to be covered by the legislation which would have protected me.

What protections can the EU offer me if I don't want to have my rights taken away from me?

I know there have been a few suggestions from the EU that UK citizens be allowed to somehow "apply" to remain as EU citizens post-Brexit.

Every time it has been mooted, it's been my view that - irrespective of the will of the people (on this one) it's something I can't see team-Brexit allowing in any way shape or form.

To return to the theme before ... it's politically inconceivable that post-Brexit, someone resident in the UK would have more rights as an EU citizen than as a native. (However appropriate it may be.).

Just imagine how "unpatriotic" someone like Loathsome would find a UK citizen actually choosing to remain an EU citizen ?!

What I find more interesting is the failure to acknowledge the extent to which the UKIP vote went back to Labour in its heartlands in the GE.

Do we know this? I wondered whether in fact some Labour/UKIP voters went to the Tories and some of the more moderate Tories went to Labour. It's hard to say.

I do know that about 2 months ago a cousin who traditionally had always voted Labour (not UKIP at all) was having a real dilemma as to who to vote for. What swung him back to Labour was the NHS and Education.

norman smith‏*@BBCNormanS*
60 tower blocks have now failed cladding safety tests say Govt #grenfelltower

This is going well then...

peregrina YouGov has a Twitter thread on vote change with some lovely graphics. Maybe worth a peek.

twitter.com/YouGov/status/878203419269275648

Arf at Robert Peston's patriotic bunting

Time to stop blaming the EU for the UK's selfishness towards their own citizens.

for BigChoc. D'ya think it'd fit on the side of a bus?

Careful seahorses this posting business is addictive...

Bigly thanks for linking those graphics, which I failed to relocate earlier - they make my eyes go funny though.

I was basing my assertion on having looked at marginal seat changes and they show a slightly different picture. Not sure if Yougov have done anything to see if Remain areas and Leave areas are in fact more polarised? This is what I was picking up - so in London Labour picked up Remainers and vote share but in the North they didn't lose Leavers to the extent hoped for by the Conservatives.

Interesting that 30% of the UKIP vote stayed home, because if they instead chose a side that could make a difference next time round. Both Conservative and Labour look to be trying to keep Remainers on side now and that looks sensible for the Conservatives as they have tested their ability to persuade over the UKIP vote to the max and it still wasn't enough and lost them compensating Remainers. Less clear that Labour have exploited the Lexit argument fully in terms of vote share.

Bolshy if the GE were rerun tomorrow I think Labour would win. Unless the Conservatives reverse austerity pronto I think it will be a Labour landslide by 2020. However if Labour backtrack their manifesto to reverse anti-austerity in the name of protecting the EU relationship the electorate will go back to thinking of them as Tories without the moral backdrop.

if the GE were rerun tomorrow I think Labour would win.

I think so too, and I am sure that the Tories know that. Hence they don't want a leadership challenge with the inevitable cry that the PM hasn't got their own mandate. At a talk I heard the other day, the suggestion was of an election within the year, after a change of leader. But - the last few years have been so volatile, that it's getting hard to predict.