How bad is Brexit going to be?

In My Humble Opinion
122

If your Problem is with “middle-class London media”

  1. Could you define which newspapers exactly you mean? Not everybody here is a Brit.
    I assume for non-newspaper you refer to the BBC?

Because if your Problem is not with the Sun or other hate-filled lie papers - that is, they have been proven to be untrue, and don’t care enough to Change - then I don’t think there’s much to tell you.

If you are interested in Facts, but don’t like the Angle, then there are other newspapers outside GB writing about the Brexit, several in international = English language. That would give you a different viewpoints, but still Facts.

And there are not a lot of Facts available, because, again, the Leave campaign was not interested in presenting any plan at all. No steps, no Budget to buffer, when numbers were given - like the 350 mil. - it was lies or exaggeration.

From your Posts so far you sounded in favour of Leave. The Leave campaign stressed the importance of being free from the “meddling” of EU / Brüssels (sometimes accusing Berlin and Merkel of shaping the whole EU policy herself only for the best of Germany, which is not supported by Facts and misunderstands how things work.)

The EU has pushed through several consumer and worker protection laws because of pressure of Population and Lobby Groups who got frustrated with their local govts.

With GB leaving, that is no longer the case: if your local govt. is not interested in protecting the workers, nobody else will pass a law for that purpose.

The EU never forbade GB before from passing a law for that purpose, but the Leave politicans complained about EU intereference. I can only draw the conclusion that the GB politicans in Charge aren’t interested in laws that protect workers, and now, without the Minimums the EU pushed through, further dismantling aka Thatcher seems more likely to me than the steps you suggested, which would be nice, but don’t Sound plausible.

Why should the politicans help the workers by annoying powerful rich People, when the workers have already shown that they believe the lies and blame-shifting? Where’s the incentive for them?

123

Do you seriously believe that the Major Portion of the GB Job market is cheap unskilled workers? That a large part of income tax and purchase power Comes from there and not from the Middle class?

While complaining about the Middle Class in London? (Which, like in the US, is disappering since the Thatcher cuts of the 80s, and the Stagnation of wages for skilled work while the capital gains and CEO benefits soared).

124

Another potential paywalled article (Financial Times) but a good breakdown of the somewhat complex issues surrounding expats - different needs and different rights for different groups, and a surprisingly tangled web of current legislation that can’t just be dealt with without unpicking it first.

For numbers affected they’re citing 3m EU foreigners in the UK and 1m British in Europe at the moment.

We’ve discussed the actual effect. Why do you keep dismissing it as irrelevant?

Prices across the board are likely to rise sharply, particularly for food. Companies outside London, which are more likely to rely on trade with the EU, will be hit with increased costs, tariffs and bureaucracy leading to decreased demand unless they relocate to the continent (see Lush and Smiffy’s for two already contemplating this). Economically-deprived areas will become more economically deprived. Immigration is unlikely to fall any faster than it is already doing. Foreign student numbers will plummet (as they are already doing) which will increase pressure to put up tuition further, and access to research project funding will similarly dry up (in fact, is already drying up) which will affect institutional competitiveness at the post-graduate levels. There will be no net effect on NHS waiting times. Income disparity between the top and bottom will increase. Workers’ rights will erode further. The UK will undoubtedly pick up a few new decent trade deals elsewhere in the world but will not get the advantageous trade agreements with either the EU or the US the Leave campaign had been promising pre-referendum.

After about a decade it will settle down (barring a Scottish exit or another crash in which case God knows) but in the short- to medium-term the working and middle classes will get it in the neck, particularly the poorest members of the working class outside the South East.

125

Currently, the Suggestion I’ve heard most often is “Because it’s complicated, let’s just grant each other the rights as they are now” instead of untangeling it.

Yes, that’s about the numbers I’ve read, too. But I don’t know the breakdown between Young professionals, students and pensioneers. I have heard that many Brits on the continent are looking into alternatives, like applying for citizenship of the Country they are currently staying in, because they don’t trust the rosy Picture. But it’s difficult to become a citizen in most countries.

Both because the EU Money for Projects to specifically develop poor regions will be cut off; and because foreign Investors (both EU and non-EU companies) are less interested now to invest in a non-EU GB. So far, investing in GB made sense because of the language and with EU, as a foot into the common market.

With a different set of laws, and tariffs, and no EU favours, Investors are more likely to invest directly into an EU Country. Either Republic of Ireland, or the continent.

Though Ireland suffered badly when the sham-companies went there for tax heaven and then left suddenly, without leaving any Jobs or infrastructure.
Several members of the EU want a concentrated Action against tax heavens for multi-companies, because it hurts many members if one small Country offers tax rates of 10% or less for companies to attract them, but gets nothing in return, while the big countries loose the taxes the companies had to pay before. So a Minimum tax rate across the EU (coupled with stricter laws closing loopholes like Amazon and Starbucks are using) and part of that Money used in EU-Projects that actually create real Jobs and infrastructure in the smaller/ poorer countries, would be better Overall than the current method.

The whole NHS ad is for me the most glaring example. First, the Leave campaign made misleading ads about the 350 mil. (which was a wrong figure quoted misleadingly) against the failing NHS.
And the Moment the Brexit camp had won, a Reporter asked one of their leaders (I think it was Farage?) whether the 350 mil. would now go to help the NHS and got the smirking answer “No, why should we, we never said that the Money would go there.”

But yeah, the fault is the London Middle class and media telling workers what’s good for them. Not pointing out the Facts of who is actually screwing them over. :rolleyes:

126

Latest news: For Gibraltar, Spain and GB must be in Agreement - so Spain can block anything they don’t like. German serious Magazine Spiegel Brexit stärkt Spanien in Gibraltarstreit mit Großbritannien - DER SPIEGEL

And an english-language opinion about the Brexit - not from London-based media: Brexit EU Negotiations Set for Disappointment - DER SPIEGEL

127

For the OP: What do to before it’s final http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/brexit-consequences-things-to-do-before-the-uk-is-out-a-1141022.html

It’s going to cost 60 Million (or more) to leave http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/britain-moves-to-trigger-brexit-next-wednesday-a-1140318.html

128

One sentence in May’s letter hinting at the consequence of a “dirty Brexit” = without a new treaty: lack of cooperation between Police and intelligence agencies regarding crime and terrorism.

The EU is wondering if that is intended as blackmail “Give us what we want, or you will suffer because we won’t tell you anything anymore”.

Given how much the US and UK intelligence agencies spied illegally and secretly on normal citizens, I don’t know if that is a real threat. And it would hurt both sides, but GB seems determined to cut of their nose to spite their face.

(http://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/brexit-481.html)

129

I thik this has been broadly accepted now but I came across a decent link so … to go back to my point about the impact on working class people of immigration - this is not the beloved average of our entitled middle class:

That from a Bank of England report and that’s 2% for people already in trouble (or context, as some be aware one in four UK families have less than £95 in savings).

But people who voted leave are nasty bigots and racists, right.

130

FFS. If this is as deep as your grasp gets don’t ever buy a second hand car.

131

So your specific criticism is …?

Your counterfacts are …?

Or do you mean “I don’t like this, so it’s wrong”?

132

Did you read your own linked article?

Since there was no plan, the Leave voters can’t point to a promise that their wages would rise. They can only hope that polliticans who have been proven to lie in order to win will care about them. And we saw right after the win how much they care when two of the leaders stepped back.

Well - the campaign used racist images, and non-factual promises, but the people followed. If they aren’t racist, they are stupid because they believed what they wanted to hear instead of bothering to check facts. Or both.

But facts are Middle-class London, too, I guess?

133

That there was no plan before the vote is completely irrelevant.

134

What?

It’s relevant because 1. It means there are no serious numbers to base predictions on. Some scenarios can be predicted, but nothing is sure yet.

  1. It is indicative of how serious the people running the Leave campaign took it: not at all.

Or maybe you do things different where you live. I’m used to every serious proposal in legislature to not only spell out in detail what’s being adressed, but also for the party or politican or lobby group proposing it to explain what effects they expect and to have numbers and facts to back that up. (Often the opposition will then bring their own experts and attack the facts as wrong, or over-optimistic).

This doesn’t always prevent lemmings-over-the-cliff actions (see: idiot Dobrindt’s toll law which the idiot second chamber just passed, despite all experts calculating a loss of hundred millions in the first year alone. I would actually prefer if it’s revealed that Dobrindt owns the private company who will collect the toll, because otherwise I can’t get my head around why he’s so dead-set on such staggering idiocy.) But it means the public knows why it’s idiotic (and maybe they will remember next election?)

135

The Scottish Government delivered a 650-page white paper prior to the indy referendum. It’s not a perfect document (it’s wildly optimistic, imo) but at the least it demonstrated the scope of the work needed to separate from the UK. That’s the sort of thing a responsible campaign does.

The Leave campaign, well, let’s say they did fuck-all advance work. The dangerous idiots.

136

If I saw a guy in a suit just punching you, and then told you “the pain in your stomach is from that brown-looking man over there giving you a devils eye. But if you cut off your left foot, a unicorn will make you better” - would you at least want some proof of how that works, or would you go ahead because you don’t like the brown-looking man?

137

I disagree: it was a leap into the unknown, knowingly chosen

Again, I disagree. It was, in fact, one of the marks of genius of the Leave campaign that they didn’t have a plan. They knew they’d be fighting each other afterwards, so a plan was worthless.

138

The plan is Article 50, and subsequent negotiations. What else could it be?

139

No of course not. That would be ridiculous…

Tip: If you can’t stay with threads in a discussion write something down as you go.

140

Yeah, that’s the same paper cited by the MigrationWatch cite you gave earlier. I’ve been trying to find stats on the actual percentage point change in the immigration share of unskilled work. Best I can find so far is this commentary on the paper by an economist:

He also points out that part of the decrease is because the new immigrants themselves are now part of the sector and are on lower wages than the original workers:

He also goes on to say that there are more powerful factors affecting wages for the low-paid:

141

That’s not a plan; that’s a mechanism. Or, to the extent one could consider it a plan, it’s simple to the point of uselessness. Even the Underpants Gnomes has more of a plan than that.