What are your thoughts on this?

[Penfield]

It’s from another thread, but I wondered what more knowledgeable people here might think about this opinion?

TBH brexit was always going to be a rough departure but even though I wanted to remain .I don't think after covid it's necessarily a bad thing. As well as managing our debt left by covid we would of been bankrolling many EU counties where covid has crippled them finically for years .

Well these are my thoughts.

1. This person obviously has the view that the UK funded other EU countries and so overall lost out. This just isn't true. The UK benefitted enormously from being in the EU so why would it be the case that it wouldn't benefit from post-covid funding if necessary?

1. One of the central ideas of the EU is that by helping each other, we build a stronger Europe which benefits us all in the long run. No country can be really successful if their neighbour is struggling. Cooperation benefits everyone. But this seems to be a concept a lot of people don't get - they want to be a winner!

1. Finally, just from an economic point of view, the billions lost to Brexit outweigh any possible payments we would have had to make to mitigate covid debt so it makes little sense as an argument.

@Bolognesedoc,

The uk was a net contributor to the EU. In 2018, this was between 11bio (our estimate) and 8bio (EU estimate).

This is a relatively small number, but still billions, which you seem to regard as a lot (your italics).

The idea of levelling up only works if the bloc generally behaves as one entity, working for one another.

Globalisation (and the EU is a subsection of globalisation) has, to date, greatly benefited the richest, at the expense of the poorest. The massive dividend of cheap labour to the plutocracy, at the expense of wage growth for the bottom 50% is not necessarily cohesive for society.

The uk was a net contributor to the EU.
So why would the UK be losing out post covid? I don't think the UK will ever be able to recoup the money it has lost through Brexit because it has paid dearly to put itself in a worse position economically- do you? That's before you get into levelling up and whether or not it works.

@Bolognesedoc,

In short, I don’t have the answers.

I do like the fact, though, that, as a society, we have to confront the way we have treated certain jobs.

We have been very happy to have our lorry drivers work in appalling conditions, having to park in cold lorry parks, and pee in bottles, as we did not really care to much about the Eastern European’s prepared to do it for a pitiful wage.

We have been very happy, again, to see slaughter house workers work in dehumanising conditions for sub minimum wage, again because they were cheap and came from elsewhere.

Those of us who remember pre EU remember a poor time but where there was such thing as ‘society’. The changes over the last 30 years have multifaceted reasons, but freedom of movement and labour in a zone with very disparate laws, living standards and tax rates is certainly a contributing factor.

Right now, I see employers kicking and screaming as they are forced to pay up for labour.

Of course they will blame Brexit and say that they will ‘pass on the costs’ and we will all ‘be poorer’. They are paying massive PR departments and lobbyists to push this message.

However, ultimately, if people cannot pay, profit margins will be squeezed, but employees will be better off.

I am a capitalist by nature, but can see that with an infinite pool of unskilled foreign labour, capitalism only benefits one section of society.

There are no ‘good for all’ solutions. Brexit will benefit some and dis benefit others. The uplit highlands for everyone is the illusion. All decisions benefit some and harm others.

The main reason that we're not the 'society' that we were back in the 70s is nothing to do with being in the EU and everything to do with Thatcher and her 'there's no such thing as society' ushering in the every man for himself outlook that has been encouraged ever since.

The idea of paying lorry drivers/fruit pickers a decent wage is good in theory, but the consumers will end up paying more and the cost of living is already skyrocketing. There's no point in being paid more if your food and everything else is more expensive.
We've spent the last 40 years getting used to cheap food and plenty of variety. Do we really want to go back to only being able to get strawberries two months a year and only having root vegetables in the winter.

@beguilingeyes,

Firstly, that is a misquote from Thatcher (or, taken out of context). What she actually said was ‘people should look after themselves first, and then, also, look after our neighbours’.

Your second argument is a bit silly. Of course prices go up when costs go up, which causes (short term) inflation. However, the logical corollary is that we are all richer when we pay as little as possible.

I am sure you don’t say to your own boss ‘no point in giving me a rise, as that will just put prices up for our customers and we will all be poorer.. ‘.

People love to use that argument for others but, very strangely, not themselves…

Do we really want to go back to only being able to get strawberries two months a year and only having root vegetables in the winter.

If the past few years have taught us anything it's that we rarely want what we get.

Do we really want to go back to only being able to get strawberries two months a year and only having root vegetables in the winter.
I only buy produce in season anyway. Do you really want to eat strawberries all year?

It's not just me though is it. There's the whole restaurant/catering industry. We can't.go back to eating Brown Windsor soup and Vests Chow Mein.

@Bolognesedoc

Do we really want to go back to only being able to get strawberries two months a year and only having root vegetables in the winter. I only buy produce in season anyway. Do you really want to eat strawberries all year?

Modern farmed fruit and veg is shite anyway. As soon as farmers twigged they are selling by weight, and not flavour, the race to up the water content was on. Helped, sadly, by a huge population that wouldn't know flavour if jumped up and bit them.

It doesn't change the fact that we've basically imposed sanctions on ourselves. Customs checks are still to come in. The govt keep kicking the can down the road, but they've got to get there eventually, they can't blame Covid forever.
The potential slaughter of 100,000 odd perfectly healthy pigs is a crime as well.

It's amazing that as we work through Brexit we can apparently do so much more to make certain jobs more appealing, like improving conditions for drivers, or increasing wages to attract staff. Let's just hope that no EU countries like Germany or France don't start doing the same........
ah, we're too late aren't we?

As said up thread, the reason why society has collapsed since the 70s is because of Thatcher and her neo liberalism fantasy. Each man for himself, short termism and the US model of hire and fire and screwing the workers until the pips squeak. And reducing benefits to the workhouse levels we see now.None of that has anything to do with the EU.

The EU model employment and welfare model is far more worker and family friendly.

British wages are on the floor because unions have been pretty much destroyed. Strong unions mean good pay and conditions for the workforce, compare HGV drivers with train drivers as an example.

Workers in the UK have been upskilling since the Industrial Revolution

It's not an EU directive that we have the gig economy, zero hours contracts, or low wages.

We are having a lot if difficulty getting pickers for our wonderful seasonal produce, a great deal of which is having to be destroyed or left to rot in the field.
Growers are subsequently scaling back what and how much they plan to grow next year. What a shame for them and UK consumers.

[quote TheReluctantPhoenix]@beguilingeyes,

Firstly, that is a misquote from Thatcher (or, taken out of context). What she actually said was ‘people should look after themselves first, and then, also, look after our neighbours’.

Your second argument is a bit silly. Of course prices go up when costs go up, which causes (short term) inflation. However, the logical corollary is that we are all richer when we pay as little as possible.

I am sure you don’t say to your own boss ‘no point in giving me a rise, as that will just put prices up for our customers and we will all be poorer.. ‘.

People love to use that argument for others but, very strangely, not themselves…[/quote]
@TheReluctantPhoenix Neither a misquote, nor taken out of context. Just comes before the sentence you quoted:

I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand “I have a problem, it is the Government's job to cope with it!” or “I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!” “I am homeless, the Government must house me!” and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and [end p29] there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbour and life is a reciprocal business and people have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations, because there is no such thing as an entitlement unless someone has first met an obligation and it is, I think, one of the tragedies in which many of the benefits we give, which were meant to reassure people that if they were sick or ill there was a safety net and there was help, that many of the benefits which were meant to help people who were unfortunate—“It is all right. We joined together and we have these insurance schemes to look after it”.
www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106689

AuldAlliance and the UK is a country where you can meet your obligations for decades and then be thrown into the pittance poverty that is our so called benefits system. Thatcher does indeed have a great deal to answer for - as does everyone who thinks unfettered capitalism works. The evidence that it does not is clearly visible across the water, in the many countries where things are done so very differently, with so much better outcomes.

Quite.
This bit of Thatcher's spiel is chilling: no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first.

Back to Hobbes. Why do we need political community and a social contract (though not, pace Hobbes, absolute monarchy...)?
Because individuals in their natural state act like bellicose bastards.

In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

British wages are on the floor because unions have been pretty much destroyed. Strong unions mean good pay and conditions for the workforce, compare HGV drivers with train drivers as an example.

I'm old enough to remember the three day week and shortages of the 70s - Thatcher didn't take power from the unions for fun. Do you know until all the dockyard workers strikes (which caused huge shortages of goods) London was THE port for imports to Europe. All those twee million pound apartments on the Thames were once storage and shipping centres. But the dockers went on strike and the UK ports, London/Liverpool never recovered. Imports moved to Rotterdam. Not to say that Rotterdam wouldn't have eventually become a bigger port but it was speeded up and happened in what felt like overnight.

Also things change quite quickly.
Where did all the vans/van drivers come from out of the blue at the start of covid. Our delivery guy has now got an electric powered van - works hard, looks very happy with his job.
People are entrepreneurial. Things will change as clever people work round and take advantage of the new system.

Strikes are always, without exception, managements fault. Well managed companies who respect their workers do not have strikes. It was the same in the 70's. Look to other countries like Germany and Sweden who have strong work force representation and almost no strikes. The lack of class divide in most other countries means their is more cooperation in business to allow for higher production and more success for all. Uk businesses are largely run solely for the benefit of shareholders and management at the expense of workers. Maybe less so now, but certainly this was the case in the 70's. Did Thatcher attempt to reform management practices - of course not. Grind workers into the dust so they know their place.

Well managed companies who respect their workers do not have strikes.
Recent evidence? Goods and services are produced globally - if a British worker wants to strike there are millions out there who will work for less well managed or not.

Oddly enough, though, Dutch dockers have unions, and they have been known to go on strike and sometimes block ports such as Rotterdam.

If you don't recognise and remunerate skills, including manual ones, you can't really have a high-skills economy. I appreciate that BJ thinks "high skills" means naice IT technicians, doctors, scientists, etc., but skills (including stamina and professionalism) are also required in many other sectors, which he discounts as low-skills.

The strikes of the 70s and 80s didn't lead to better conditions for the workforce, only to the annihilation of the unions, cuts in jobs and a gradually harsher working environment. The consequences of which are being felt now - UK citizens have long refused to do some jobs because the conditions and pay are so crap. And because they see them as "low-skills" - cf. hospitality, for instance.

Relying on the government to improve wages, working conditions, etc., is particularly unrealistic when the government is Tory, busy pillaging the economy to give bungs to its mates, and doesn't give a stuff about the population.

If they really wanted a high-skills economy, they've been in power long enough to have improved training, working conditions, pay, etc. But their solutions run along the lines of zero hours contracts and slashing UC.

@MamsellMarie

British wages are on the floor because unions have been pretty much destroyed. Strong unions mean good pay and conditions for the workforce, compare HGV drivers with train drivers as an example.

I'm old enough to remember the three day week and shortages of the 70s - Thatcher didn't take power from the unions for fun. Do you know until all the dockyard workers strikes (which caused huge shortages of goods) London was THE port for imports to Europe. All those twee million pound apartments on the Thames were once storage and shipping centres. But the dockers went on strike and the UK ports, London/Liverpool never recovered. Imports moved to Rotterdam. Not to say that Rotterdam wouldn't have eventually become a bigger port but it was speeded up and happened in what felt like overnight.

Maybe she took power from the unions because they had a lot to fight for…

Now look where we are decades later.

If they really wanted a high-skills economy, they've been in power long enough to have improved training, working conditions, pay, etc. But their solutions run along the lines of zero hours contracts and slashing UC

Goods and services are produced globally - if a British worker wants to strike there are millions out there who will work for less well managed or not.

The UK economy doesn't produce many goods any more: most of its industry was decimated during and after the Thatcher years.

There were lots of people out there prepared to do service jobs UK workers didn't want, but they were made to feel unwelcome and returned home, leaving hospitality, healthcare and various supply chains in the shit.