Westminstenders: Going, going, cummings

[RedToothBrush]

As expected he's fucking off and leaving everyone else to pick up the pieces in January. But it does look like he was eventually shown the door and left with a cardboard box. As he should have been months ago.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with Johnson needing an image change, like the shape shifting creep he is, to one that fits more with the incoming Biden Administration. In other words hes got some serious sucking up to do...

... Meanwhile in Brexit land we are going into yet another final week of talks.

Many expect Cummings departure to signal 'the cave in'. The Eu say we havent moved enough and the uk say the EU wants us to do all the moving... Except the EU have done lots of moving. Barnier is still looking for a groundsman to level his field to play. We have yet to work out we aren't Canada and distance is important to trade.

Of course if we don't get a deal, that Pfizer vaccine in Germany that we want, might be hit with delays and extra costs we just can't afford.

Wow, leaving membership organisation for European countries is "inhumane?!" It is a very, very short step from there to decry people voting for it as inhuman. I'd suggest you essentially have done that, certainly what it felt like to me.

It's pretty inhumane to gleefully strip people of their rights and throw their lives and their children's lives into complete turmoil. In 30 years the only time I've seen my wonderful husband cry is when he was told that he wouldn't be able to continue with his life's work after brexit He's a british scientist working on a high security EU project. Every single day I see British people worried sick about losing their homes and the lives they've built here because of brexit. How much help have the British government given all these British citizens whose lives are in turmoil? Nothing, apart from brexit means brexit soundbites from the embassy.

'inhumane
/ɪnhjʊˈmeɪn/
adjective
without compassion for misery or suffering; cruel.'

@FatCatThinCat

Wow, leaving membership organisation for European countries is "inhumane?!" It is a very, very short step from there to decry people voting for it as inhuman. I'd suggest you essentially have done that, certainly what it felt like to me.

It's pretty inhumane to gleefully strip people of their rights and throw their lives and their children's lives into complete turmoil. In 30 years the only time I've seen my wonderful husband cry is when he was told that he wouldn't be able to continue with his life's work after brexit He's a british scientist working on a high security EU project. Every single day I see British people worried sick about losing their homes and the lives they've built here because of brexit. How much help have the British government given all these British citizens whose lives are in turmoil? Nothing, apart from brexit means brexit soundbites from the embassy.

'inhumane
/ɪnhjʊˈmeɪn/
adjective
without compassion for misery or suffering; cruel.'

Truly sorry to hear that

That was just in the first few weeks. 20 years in the UK, and I'd only seen one comparable incident and that was from someone who may have been off his medication. These were people who were all definitely sober, and clearly wanted to say it all out loud.

Within hours I was called a traitor, accused of abandoning my country, and told that the shit that was coming my way was entirely my own fault as that's what traitors get. And that was from family.

The official Leave campaign did few of the things you charge it with Tatania, "citizens of nowhere" was PM May if I remember correctly nothing to do with Vote Leave. Not sure about the antisemitic adverts but this is all very old ground.

The current divisions in this country (there are many more than just Remain/Leave) are due to lots of different things. The movement for Scottish independnce , for example, is a division in our country, which predates Brexit. Brexit isn't really an ideology IMO. In any case, it is now an outcome.

I concede that I'd have a hard time identifying with the specific feelings on Brexit of immigrants to the UK since I've never had any serious desire to set up home in another country.

Brexit isn't really an ideology IMO
what is it then?
what are the tangibles of Brexit?
how do we measure it ?

Brexit is entirely a belief system that has never been pinned down to something realisable by anybody

but the negative effects of that faith system affect many of us.

May became the Leave campaign, she made Kippers redundant.

She took up the ghastly Leave narrative and made it national policy.

The Leave campaign did all of things I accused it of.

DGR OK, we'll do this the other way around. I searched the £100bn cost of Brexit and found no recent news article quoting it, hence the question.

This was the best I could find, from Oct 2019

www.businessinsider.com/uks-brexit-deal-estimated-to-cost-almost-100-billion-2019-10?r=US&IR=T

Egged on by Nick Timothy, Fiona Hill and the swivel-eyed loons.

[quote LouiseCollins28]DGR OK, we'll do this the other way around. I searched the £100bn cost of Brexit and found no recent news article quoting it, hence the question.

This was the best I could find, from Oct 2019

www.businessinsider.com/uks-brexit-deal-estimated-to-cost-almost-100-billion-2019-10?r=US&IR=T[/quote]
Are you happy with that figure ?

Study by Dan Hanson, a U.K. economist for Bloomberg Economics put the cost £130 billion, and up to £200 billion by the end of 2020. That was before Covid took hold of course...

The movement for Scottish independnce , for example, is a division in our country, which predates Brexit.

because it was bought off with promises the UK would stay in the EU and that Scotland not being independent was the price for that.

As far as I am concerned (not that I think it will ever come to a vote in England on it) the moment Brexit happened the cheque that bought off independence bounced, and we're back to square one. Only with the Caledonian element of the UK remembering why it's "perfidious Albion" all over again.

Besides, you can hardly deny the Scottish people independence while trumpeting the salvation of countries from unwelcome unions, can you ?

@TatianaBis

Study by Dan Hanson, a U.K. economist for Bloomberg Economics put the cost £130 billion, and up to £200 billion by the end of 2020. That was before Covid took hold of course...

If the BoE does some more quantitative easing (to pay for covid - we're broke anyway) then the cost will rise because the £ is worth less.

@TatianaBis

Study by Dan Hanson, a U.K. economist for Bloomberg Economics put the cost £130 billion, and up to £200 billion by the end of 2020. That was before Covid took hold of course...

I won't waste a second dredging up any figures. Because they'll never be good enough.

I want a Brexiteer to tell me what they think Brexit has cost, so we can then pick through it for value for money.

In the same way Team Biden have learned to grapple with the Trumpian strategy, we need to deploy all we have learned dealing with Brexiteers. And the very first lesson is they need to bring their own facts to the table. Don't lay your stall out.

I want a Brexiteer to tell me what they think Brexit has cost, so we can then pick through it for value for money.

Good luck with that

DGR
Brexit is a Government project.
Government projects have "aspirational" budgets.
Government projects cost more (a lot more) than projected.
Government projects are never "value for money"
They will never tell us how much this shit show has cost (so far, or in the future)

@TatianaBis

I want a Brexiteer to tell me what they think Brexit has cost, so we can then pick through it for value for money.

Good luck with that

Undoubtedly. But the lack of response is it's own answer.

The official Leave campaign did few of the things you charge it with Tatania, "citizens of nowhere" was PM May if I remember correctly nothing to do with Vote Leave. Not sure about the antisemitic adverts but this is all very old ground.

Sorry, I don't think that will wash. Farage's Leave party wasn't the Official campaign, but why was he even allowed to have a campaign running alongside the official one? I would wager that in most people's minds it was a distinction which escaped them - it was a party making noise for Brexit.

As Tatiana said - May jumped on the bandwagon to head off the kippers and her ERGers.

You don't remember Farage's 'breaking point adverts' - no less powerful because they weren't 'official'. Straight out of the nazi playbook, almost literally, except that 80 years later the clothing fashions had changed. Google it

Old ground? Not while people are still being being racially and xenophobically abused. It may be that it was always under the surface, but at one time people kept those views in check.

And oh , it doesn't bother you, because you never found the desire to emigrate. Do you not know any families where one partner is an EU citizen and the other British? Barely stopping to think, I can think of ten families in that situation, some of whom have lived in this country for more than 20 years. Almost all are either in teaching or health car, so have been making a much needed contribution to the well-being of this country. Suddenly, they have to start worrying about residence rights.

@pussycatinboots

DGR Brexit is a Government project. Government projects have "aspirational" budgets. Government projects cost more (a lot more) than projected. Government projects are never "value for money" They will never tell us how much this shit show has cost (so far, or in the future)

I was asking Louise though. How much they think has been spent thus far on Brexit.

@ListeningQuietly

Louise ukandeu.ac.uk/the-uk-economy-brexit-vs-covid-19/

Which bits of being outside the EU are you most looking forward to ?

Not paying for it. Being able to make our own laws and hold our own lawmakers to account more directly for what they do. Being able to trade worldwide without imposing EU mandated tariffs on non EU trade partners.

I want the UK government to be able to act according to rules our parliamentarians determine as our representatives.

What am I looking forward to.

Seeing more and more EU initiatives and thinking thank Christ I'm not paying the cost of that as part of the purchase price of everything I buy.

Hopefully being able to buy more goods from other parts of the world at not artificially inflated prices.

I hope to see sections of our industry that have been constrained by EU rules returning to better health (fisheries being the classic example)

In the much longer term, the population of the UK needs to fall (yes fall) so does the world population in the interests of global sustainability tbh but lets start where we can.

I thought this was an interesting take...

ukandeu.ac.uk/will-the-british-state-remain-unquestionably-a-european-type-state/

DGR I was agreeing, they won't - and that's why.

in other news, "lockdown" ends in a week and there have been 608 recorded CV deaths in the previous 24 hrs...

Louise
Hopefully being able to buy more goods from other parts of the world at not artificially inflated prices.
Such as?
What will you buy more of once EU tariffs go?

I hope to see sections of our industry that have been constrained by EU rules returning to better health (fisheries being the classic example)
What changes do you think the UK Govt should bring in ?

I want the UK government to be able to act according to rules our parliamentarians determine as our representatives.
What about the UK's unelected bureaucrats - like Dominic Cummings. Do you like having folks like him holding the tiller?

DGRossetti

From your link;
"The National Institute of Economic and Social Research study released Wednesday (October 2019) says the agreement would deliver a 70 billion-pound ($90 billion) blow to the UK."

The NIESR were criticised for their forecast - which they defend here;
"Why we stand by our assessment of a £70bn Brexit impact."

www.niesr.ac.uk/blog/why-we-stand-our-assessment-%C2%A370bn-brexit-impact

They acknowledge that the Government's Brexit analysis of November 2018 is not up to date - but the Governor of the Bank of England (up thread) is relying on figures from the 2018 analysis for his comments.

There is a link to Sajid Javid's letter;

"It might be helpful to recall that the analysis of November 2018 was intentionally long term in nature. It was designed to provide an understanding of how changes to our relationship with the EU might affect the UK economy, but it did not seek to predict how the UK economy will actually perform in the future, not least because the UK’s exit from the EU will be just one of a number of factors impacting economic growth. Nor did the analysis make judgments about any future economic policy decisions."

Therefore I would take all these forecasts with a pinch of salt.

DGR I was agreeing, they won't - and that's why.

I'm cautiously optimistic that - as with all evolution - prey evolve to outpace predators. In this case that mechanisms can be found to deal with the initial shock'n'awe tactics of the Brexiterain-Trump-Alt-Right alliance that seemed unstoppable only a few months ago. And I think some of those mutations will have happened in discussions on Brexit early on.

Either way, it's cheering that it seems Team Biden (who let's remember were not a man+dog outfit that just happened to "get lucky" but a manifestation of one of the biggest political parties in one of the most advanced countries on earth ... meaning they have access to a lot of resources) appear to have grappled with Trumps post election campaign and let it burn itself out without burning themselves.

It can be done.

As above, so below.

Clav I really don't give a toss what you think of my figures. Why don't you post your figures, and we can go from there ?

How much do you think Brexit has cost ?