The UK Politics and EU Referendum thread - merged

[TightEnd]

the EU was awarded the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize

"It applauded the EU for its contribution over six decades to ‘the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe’ and being instrumental in ‘transforming most of Europe from a continent of war to a continent of peace.’"

Remain pre ref said in government leaflets "the Union has helped avoid war between the current members of the EU since 1945. countries previously at ‘each others’ throats’ now live and work together for peace."

Even Boris Johnson in the Leave camp has been reluctant to contradict the assertion made by Remain. He said the EU was ‘born of the highest motives – to keep the peace in Europe.’

one example: the EU has been supporting peace initiatives in Northern Ireland ever since 1995: over the next few years, it had committed to providing a further €229m to support ‘projects that contribute towards the promotion of greater levels of peace and reconciliation’.

there have been "misses" too. The EU didn't have much to say over Libya/Syria. France and the UK have made decisions to use military force independently.

Anyway, coming back to Blair, he hypothesises that the EU27 will be a powerful political bloc with a seat at the table. We will be on the outside looking in but unable to escape the geo-political consequences of the decisions the EU27 make. Thus less influence but still having to act in response to their decisions. The possible worst of both worlds.

[Jon MW]

^ Fair enough.

point 2 i think a valid counter-point is zero hours contracts etc depress the recorded stats but don't lead to job security etc and (i think) wage growth is lagging inflation so living standards are squeezed y-o-y.

There are very, very few people on zero hours contracts.

There are abuses of it for sure, but the 'dramatic' growth in them is pretty much all down to the fact that they went from almost none to very few.

Oh, and you with your facts facts facts, wtf. :-)

1,800,000 on contracts with no minimum number of hours according to the Guardian’s reporting of ONS figures for 2017
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/23/number-of-zero-hours-contracts-in-uk-rose-by-100000-in-2017-ons

About half that number, 883,000 according to statista
https://www.statista.com/statistics/414896/employees-with-zero-hours-contracts-number/

Really unsure as to why people treat zero hours contracts as a negative, the majority of tradesman have worked like this for centuries, obvs

Tradesmen? Do you mean plumbers and electricians and painters and the like? They have control of their marketing and their pricing. Joe Zero Hours at Sports Direct warehouse doesn’t.
Zero Hours Contracts give all the flexibility to the employer. Sure, you can turn a shift down, but you better be really good at your role if you want to keep getting shifts offered.

Lots of people want these contracts - if they didn't, they wouldn't exist. Nothing more or less really

As well as zero hours contracts being an almost trivial proportion of the work force; the vast majority of people on zero hours contracts don't want any more hours than what they currently get.

So the problem with zero hours represents a small proportion of what is already a tiny proportion of people in work.

The idea that they are a major problem or that they are being used to 'hide' poor employment figures seems unlikely.


NB: for reference - as well as up to 1.8m zero hours contracts; this country has about 1.8m undergraduates. Obviously not every undergraduate works and not all of them that do are on zero hours contracts; but it's not too much of a stretch to think that this does represent a significant proportion of them.

[RickBFA]

https://www.oecd.org/newsroom/gdp-growth-first-quarter-2019-oecd.htm

For balance, if we are looking at the most recent performance and growth in GDP, the figures are in the link.

We have outperformed Germany, France, Italy, the EU as a whole and the Euro area.

Can’t get any more current than that.

[Doobs]

https://www.oecd.org/newsroom/gdp-growth-first-quarter-2019-oecd.htm

For balance, if we are looking at the most recent performance and growth in GDP, the figures are in the link.

We have outperformed Germany, France, Italy, the EU as a whole and the Euro area.

Can’t get any more current than that.

It is one quarter and recent figures generally get revised.   

We have underperformed since the Brexit vote, which may reflect a mix of outperforming previously and the effect of the vote.   The growth is pretty dissapointing given the exchange rate has collapsed since then.

[nirvana]

https://www.oecd.org/newsroom/gdp-growth-first-quarter-2019-oecd.htm

For balance, if we are looking at the most recent performance and growth in GDP, the figures are in the link.

We have outperformed Germany, France, Italy, the EU as a whole and the Euro area.

Can’t get any more current than that.

It is one quarter and recent figures generally get revised.   

We have underperformed since the Brexit vote, which may reflect a mix of outperforming previously and the effect of the vote.   The growth is pretty dissapointing given the exchange rate has collapsed since then.

If we accept the premise that when we outperform others we're, with caveats, still the worse, it may be better to exclude the UK from the conversation.

How would you assess the performance of the EU27 ?

[MANTIS01]

https://www.oecd.org/newsroom/gdp-growth-first-quarter-2019-oecd.htm

For balance, if we are looking at the most recent performance and growth in GDP, the figures are in the link.

We have outperformed Germany, France, Italy, the EU as a whole and the Euro area.

Can’t get any more current than that.

It is one quarter and recent figures generally get revised.   

We have underperformed since the Brexit vote, which may reflect a mix of outperforming previously and the effect of the vote.   The growth is pretty dissapointing given the exchange rate has collapsed since then.

If we accept the premise that when we outperform others we're, with caveats, still the worse, it may be better to exclude the UK from the conversation.

How would you assess the performance of the EU27 ?

Land of milk and honey in permanent utopia mate

[RickBFA]

https://www.oecd.org/newsroom/gdp-growth-first-quarter-2019-oecd.htm

For balance, if we are looking at the most recent performance and growth in GDP, the figures are in the link.

We have outperformed Germany, France, Italy, the EU as a whole and the Euro area.

Can’t get any more current than that.

It is one quarter and recent figures generally get revised.   

We have underperformed since the Brexit vote, which may reflect a mix of outperforming previously and the effect of the vote.   The growth is pretty dissapointing given the exchange rate has collapsed since then.

I’m sure if the figures looked bad they would have appeared here as further evidence of our decline. Like I said, just adding balance and bang up to date figures on how we are actually performing (even if it’s over a 3 month period).

[RickBFA]

^ Fair enough.

point 2 i think a valid counter-point is zero hours contracts etc depress the recorded stats but don't lead to job security etc and (i think) wage growth is lagging inflation so living standards are squeezed y-o-y.

There are very, very few people on zero hours contracts.

There are abuses of it for sure, but the 'dramatic' growth in them is pretty much all down to the fact that they went from almost none to very few.

Oh, and you with your facts facts facts, wtf. :-)

1,800,000 on contracts with no minimum number of hours according to the Guardian’s reporting of ONS figures for 2017
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/23/number-of-zero-hours-contracts-in-uk-rose-by-100000-in-2017-ons

About half that number, 883,000 according to statista
https://www.statista.com/statistics/414896/employees-with-zero-hours-contracts-number/

Really unsure as to why people treat zero hours contracts as a negative, the majority of tradesman have worked like this for centuries, obvs

One of the reasons why they’re viewed negatively is because when there’s no work because of our massively underperforming economy, it allows our government to paint a less than realistic and rosy picture when it come to employment figures. Loads of them will be in relative poverty and plenty in absolute.

Another person that goes way over the top with his language to make his argument more believable.
Since when was our economy massively under performing? Compared to what? The rest of Europe? because I assure you(and I think you know), we are not. The vast majority of the EU would love to have the bouyancy of our economy. It might not be where we want it to be, but we don't operate in a vacuum.

its true though

"In the first six months of 2018, the UK was one of the slowest growing economies in the G7. This is a group of the largest advanced economies in the world and includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US, alongside the UK.

This is a significant turnaround since the period from 2013 to 2016, where the UK was one of the fastest growing economies."

https://fullfact.org/economy/uk-economic-growth-within-g7/

multiple sources to get that sort of info from

forecasts for 2019 are about 1.3% GDP growth

Tighty used 6 month figures from 2018 to demonstrate this point in this post.

Let’s use the latest 6 month figures from the OECD report I quoted previously:

Italy 0.1%
Germany 0.4%
Euro area 0.6%
France 0.65%
UK 0.7%
EU 0.78% (which includes emerging Eastern European economies which skew the figures when compared to a developed economy)

So we have better recent performance compared to Germany and France (more reasonable comparisons as developed economies) on more current data.

It really isn’t all doom and gloom.

[Doobs]

^ Fair enough.

point 2 i think a valid counter-point is zero hours contracts etc depress the recorded stats but don't lead to job security etc and (i think) wage growth is lagging inflation so living standards are squeezed y-o-y.

There are very, very few people on zero hours contracts.

There are abuses of it for sure, but the 'dramatic' growth in them is pretty much all down to the fact that they went from almost none to very few.

Oh, and you with your facts facts facts, wtf. :-)

1,800,000 on contracts with no minimum number of hours according to the Guardian’s reporting of ONS figures for 2017
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/23/number-of-zero-hours-contracts-in-uk-rose-by-100000-in-2017-ons

About half that number, 883,000 according to statista
https://www.statista.com/statistics/414896/employees-with-zero-hours-contracts-number/

Really unsure as to why people treat zero hours contracts as a negative, the majority of tradesman have worked like this for centuries, obvs

One of the reasons why they’re viewed negatively is because when there’s no work because of our massively underperforming economy, it allows our government to paint a less than realistic and rosy picture when it come to employment figures. Loads of them will be in relative poverty and plenty in absolute.

Another person that goes way over the top with his language to make his argument more believable.
Since when was our economy massively under performing? Compared to what? The rest of Europe? because I assure you(and I think you know), we are not. The vast majority of the EU would love to have the bouyancy of our economy. It might not be where we want it to be, but we don't operate in a vacuum.

its true though

"In the first six months of 2018, the UK was one of the slowest growing economies in the G7. This is a group of the largest advanced economies in the world and includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US, alongside the UK.

This is a significant turnaround since the period from 2013 to 2016, where the UK was one of the fastest growing economies."

https://fullfact.org/economy/uk-economic-growth-within-g7/

multiple sources to get that sort of info from

forecasts for 2019 are about 1.3% GDP growth

Tighty used 6 month figures from 2018 to demonstrate this point in this post.

Let’s use the latest 6 month figures from the OECD report I quoted previously:

Italy 0.1%
Germany 0.4%
Euro area 0.6%
France 0.65%
UK 0.7%
EU 0.78% (which includes emerging Eastern European economies which skew the figures when compared to a developed economy)

So we have better recent performance compared to Germany and France (more reasonable comparisons as developed economies) on more current data.

It really isn’t all doom and gloom.

It clearly isn't all doom and gloom.  I didn't say it was.   I was pretty balanced on the reason for the underperformance.   Everything gets a bit lost in the bigger picture.  So it is impossible to prove Brexit has caused an x% drop in GDP, and impossible to prove it didn't.  If the US and Europe were in recession, there is a really good chance we would be too whatever had happened in the Brexit vote.  Likewise we'd have to perform pretty abysmally to have a recession at the same time Trump was pumping all that money into the US economy.

Tighty may have used 6 month figures, but I strongly suspect you aren't going to find any where I have used 3 month figures.   

As an aside, there is a strong case that we shouldn't be trying yo pump up GDP.   In the long run all this growth is destroying the planet. The loss of growth caused by Brexit might even be a good thing for the planet if it didn't rely on us upping all the trade from further afield.   

[BigAdz]

^ Fair enough.

point 2 i think a valid counter-point is zero hours contracts etc depress the recorded stats but don't lead to job security etc and (i think) wage growth is lagging inflation so living standards are squeezed y-o-y.

There are very, very few people on zero hours contracts.

There are abuses of it for sure, but the 'dramatic' growth in them is pretty much all down to the fact that they went from almost none to very few.

Oh, and you with your facts facts facts, wtf. :-)

1,800,000 on contracts with no minimum number of hours according to the Guardian’s reporting of ONS figures for 2017
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/23/number-of-zero-hours-contracts-in-uk-rose-by-100000-in-2017-ons

About half that number, 883,000 according to statista
https://www.statista.com/statistics/414896/employees-with-zero-hours-contracts-number/

Really unsure as to why people treat zero hours contracts as a negative, the majority of tradesman have worked like this for centuries, obvs

One of the reasons why they’re viewed negatively is because when there’s no work because of our massively underperforming economy, it allows our government to paint a less than realistic and rosy picture when it come to employment figures. Loads of them will be in relative poverty and plenty in absolute.

Another person that goes way over the top with his language to make his argument more believable.
Since when was our economy massively under performing? Compared to what? The rest of Europe? because I assure you(and I think you know), we are not. The vast majority of the EU would love to have the bouyancy of our economy. It might not be where we want it to be, but we don't operate in a vacuum.

its true though

"In the first six months of 2018, the UK was one of the slowest growing economies in the G7. This is a group of the largest advanced economies in the world and includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US, alongside the UK.

This is a significant turnaround since the period from 2013 to 2016, where the UK was one of the fastest growing economies."

https://fullfact.org/economy/uk-economic-growth-within-g7/

multiple sources to get that sort of info from

forecasts for 2019 are about 1.3% GDP growth

Tighty used 6 month figures from 2018 to demonstrate this point in this post.

Let’s use the latest 6 month figures from the OECD report I quoted previously:

Italy 0.1%
Germany 0.4%
Euro area 0.6%
France 0.65%
UK 0.7%
EU 0.78% (which includes emerging Eastern European economies which skew the figures when compared to a developed economy)

So we have better recent performance compared to Germany and France (more reasonable comparisons as developed economies) on more current data.

It really isn’t all doom and gloom.

It clearly isn't all doom and gloom.  I didn't say it was.   I was pretty balanced on the reason for the underperformance.   Everything gets a bit lost in the bigger picture.  So it is impossible to prove Brexit has caused an x% drop in GDP, and impossible to prove it didn't.  If the US and Europe were in recession, there is a really good chance we would be too whatever had happened in the Brexit vote.  Likewise we'd have to perform pretty abysmally to have a recession at the same time Trump was pumping all that money into the US economy.

Tighty may have used 6 month figures, but I strongly suspect you aren't going to find any where I have used 3 month figures.   

As an aside, there is a strong case that we shouldn't be trying yo pump up GDP.   In the long run all this growth is destroying the planet. The loss of growth caused by Brexit might even be a good thing for the planet if it didn't rely on us upping all the trade from further afield.   

This has been my point though about the slant and conviction put into arguments here. Everything,pretty much, posted by Tighty has me questioning facts and angles i know are no where near as bad as his powerfully put statements who have you believe.

I am glad a few have bothered to colour in the picture I was trying to crayon.Ty.

[aaron1867]

^ Fair enough.

point 2 i think a valid counter-point is zero hours contracts etc depress the recorded stats but don't lead to job security etc and (i think) wage growth is lagging inflation so living standards are squeezed y-o-y.

There are very, very few people on zero hours contracts.

There are abuses of it for sure, but the 'dramatic' growth in them is pretty much all down to the fact that they went from almost none to very few.

Oh, and you with your facts facts facts, wtf. :-)

1,800,000 on contracts with no minimum number of hours according to the Guardian’s reporting of ONS figures for 2017
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/23/number-of-zero-hours-contracts-in-uk-rose-by-100000-in-2017-ons

About half that number, 883,000 according to statista
https://www.statista.com/statistics/414896/employees-with-zero-hours-contracts-number/

Really unsure as to why people treat zero hours contracts as a negative, the majority of tradesman have worked like this for centuries, obvs

One of the reasons why they’re viewed negatively is because when there’s no work because of our massively underperforming economy, it allows our government to paint a less than realistic and rosy picture when it come to employment figures. Loads of them will be in relative poverty and plenty in absolute.

Another person that goes way over the top with his language to make his argument more believable.
Since when was our economy massively under performing? Compared to what? The rest of Europe? because I assure you(and I think you know), we are not. The vast majority of the EU would love to have the bouyancy of our economy. It might not be where we want it to be, but we don't operate in a vacuum.

its true though

"In the first six months of 2018, the UK was one of the slowest growing economies in the G7. This is a group of the largest advanced economies in the world and includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US, alongside the UK.

This is a significant turnaround since the period from 2013 to 2016, where the UK was one of the fastest growing economies."

https://fullfact.org/economy/uk-economic-growth-within-g7/

multiple sources to get that sort of info from

forecasts for 2019 are about 1.3% GDP growth

Tighty used 6 month figures from 2018 to demonstrate this point in this post.

Let’s use the latest 6 month figures from the OECD report I quoted previously:

Italy 0.1%
Germany 0.4%
Euro area 0.6%
France 0.65%
UK 0.7%
EU 0.78% (which includes emerging Eastern European economies which skew the figures when compared to a developed economy)

So we have better recent performance compared to Germany and France (more reasonable comparisons as developed economies) on more current data.

It really isn’t all doom and gloom.

It clearly isn't all doom and gloom.  I didn't say it was.   I was pretty balanced on the reason for the underperformance.   Everything gets a bit lost in the bigger picture.  So it is impossible to prove Brexit has caused an x% drop in GDP, and impossible to prove it didn't.  If the US and Europe were in recession, there is a really good chance we would be too whatever had happened in the Brexit vote.  Likewise we'd have to perform pretty abysmally to have a recession at the same time Trump was pumping all that money into the US economy.

Tighty may have used 6 month figures, but I strongly suspect you aren't going to find any where I have used 3 month figures.   

As an aside, there is a strong case that we shouldn't be trying yo pump up GDP.   In the long run all this growth is destroying the planet. The loss of growth caused by Brexit might even be a good thing for the planet if it didn't rely on us upping all the trade from further afield.   

This has been my point though about the slant and conviction put into arguments here. Everything,pretty much, posted by Tighty has me questioning facts and angles i know are no where near as bad as his powerfully put statements who have you believe.

I am glad a few have bothered to colour in the picture I was trying to crayon.Ty.

You have never been able to create a picture like this. There’s a difference between a decent quarter & general downturn since we voted to leave the EU.

[MANTIS01]

Yah can folk stop highlighting any positive pls. We very much doomed and even if a dece qtr turned into a good couple of years it would prove nothing. There are no nappies or medicines. FACT!

[aaron1867]

Another day passes in which a Brexit campaigner shows them and their electorate up. Ann Widdecombe says that maybe science could help the gays.

So, a quick list of people involved in the Brexit campaign, UKIP and Brexit Party, seeing exactly who voters voted for.

Boris Johnson -  serial liar and adulterer

Nigel Farage The apparent racist and has now led UKIP & Brexit Party, inbetween that he stood in front of that immigration poster

Tommy Robinson - The most racist man in the UK

Ann Widdecombe - See above

Julia Hartley Brewer - She was last week mocking quiet areas for disabled people

Donald Trump - Supports Brexit, don't need to say much

But, no Brexit voters are homophobic, racist, sexist or generally hateful are they? We can't have that can we.

[nirvana]

Another day passes in which a Brexit campaigner shows them and their electorate up. Ann Widdecombe says that maybe science could help the gays.

So, a quick list of people involved in the Brexit campaign, UKIP and Brexit Party, seeing exactly who voters voted for.

Boris Johnson -  serial liar and adulterer

Nigel Farage The apparent racist and has now led UKIP & Brexit Party, inbetween that he stood in front of that immigration poster

Tommy Robinson - The most racist man in the UK

Ann Widdecombe - See above

Julia Hartley Brewer - She was last week mocking quiet areas for disabled people

Donald Trump - Supports Brexit, don't need to say much

But, no Brexit voters are homophobic, racist, sexist or generally hateful are they? We can't have that can we.

You're a petulant idiot but it doesn't mean all remainers are petulant idiots

[aaron1867]

Another day passes in which a Brexit campaigner shows them and their electorate up. Ann Widdecombe says that maybe science could help the gays.

So, a quick list of people involved in the Brexit campaign, UKIP and Brexit Party, seeing exactly who voters voted for.

Boris Johnson -  serial liar and adulterer

Nigel Farage The apparent racist and has now led UKIP & Brexit Party, inbetween that he stood in front of that immigration poster

Tommy Robinson - The most racist man in the UK

Ann Widdecombe - See above

Julia Hartley Brewer - She was last week mocking quiet areas for disabled people

Donald Trump - Supports Brexit, don't need to say much

But, no Brexit voters are homophobic, racist, sexist or generally hateful are they? We can't have that can we.

You're a petulant idiot but it doesn't mean all remainers are petulant idiots

I didn't campaign for remain and your comments are based on your narrative.