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The Positive Brexit Thread

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Lisa Nandy has said she is thinking of standing for the Labour leadership. Whoever takes on/gets voted in to this job needs to be a strong character, and able to kill off the goons on the far left. I saw a clip of her interview on the BBC this morning, which isnĀ“t a great deal to go on, but she seemed a bit nervous

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In the clear light of a post-election Sunday morning Johnson looks master of all he surveys, and to an extent he is. He only has one problem. He has to make his lies on domestic policy and Brexit somehow come true.

Domestically, he was hardly alone (Corbyn did too) in making unrealistic spending promises on infrastructure (hospitals etc) and social services, given the long-standing economic problems the UK (like other first-world countries) has. But he won, including the constituency of Grimsby. A classic example of old-industry decline. Once it had the largest fishing fleet in the world. All gone.

Now a town of high unemployment and deprivation, with one rare growth industry. The townā€™s main food bank, serving more than 100 people a day, recently opened a second outlet for the wide mix of those the organiser says are in need - ā€˜people struggling with Universal Credit, people on zero hours contracts, asylum seekers and even professional working people who are struggling to meet ends meet. There are many people who can only manage to pay their bills and keep a roof over their heads but are unable to afford food to feed themselves or their families.ā€™

As to the local hospitals, the trust that runs them was placed was the first in the country to be twice placed (and still is) under ā€˜special measuresā€™, with fears over patient care and staffing levels.

I picked Grimsby at semi-random (I used it some years back as one example of how the UKā€™s old-industry decline had been mirrored in the fate of some football clubs) but these problems exist in many of the constituencies that voted Tory, or more probably voted Brexit. And they are demonstrable by hard facts, such as food bank numbers and patient care statistics, and so any lack of progress in solving them will be equally obvious over a five-year term of office.

As for Brexit, Johnsonā€™s thumping majority may seem helpful as far as getting what he wants through Parliament but it does nothing to solve the two hard realities to do with the negotiations with the EU that will shape any future deal.

Firstly, that any deal has to leave the UK economically worse off. Secondly, that the referendum vote, based on Leave lies that the UK could have its cake and eat it, was in effect for two incompatible aims. In short, you can get out from under EU rules or you can keep economic damage to a minimum (not eliminate it, mind) but you cannot do both.

These two truths have been borne out by the events of the last three and a half years. May, through an eye-popping mixture of incompetence and cowardice, locked herself into the extreme position of accepting potentially catastrophic economic damage as the price for getting out from under the EU. Johnson, with the ERG neutralised, has more room for manoeuvre, but that doesnā€™t help him do the ā€˜cake and eat itā€™ impossible that he promised (so many many promises) back in 2016.

I donā€™t believe Johnson would be able (even if he wanted to) to in effect overturn the referendum by doing a Norway ā€“ that would be too obviously a fraud even for him on those Labour Leavers ā€“ but unlike May he could produce a compromise fudge that gets out from under some EU rules and regulations and reduces the economic damage from catastrophic to merely severe (and still impacting on the likes of Grimsby) that he could sell to the electorate. Hullo customsā€™ union! Possibly.

He is beholden for his victory to no section of the Tory party, has no political principles (arguably no principles of any kind butā€¦) and is prepared to ditch any previous position or promise. He is a post-truth politician whose time apparently has come. But still faced with hard political realities.

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27 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

In the clear light of a post-election Sunday morning Johnson looks master of all he surveys, and to an extent he is. He only has one problem. He has to make his lies on domestic policy and Brexit somehow come true.

Domestically, he was hardly alone (Corbyn did too) in making unrealistic spending promises on infrastructure (hospitals etc) and social services, given the long-standing economic problems the UK (like other first-world countries) has. But he won, including the constituency of Grimsby. A classic example of old-industry decline. Once it had the largest fishing fleet in the world. All gone.

Now a town of high unemployment and deprivation, with one rare growth industry. The townā€™s main food bank, serving more than 100 people a day, recently opened a second outlet for the wide mix of those the organiser says are in need - ā€˜people struggling with Universal Credit, people on zero hours contracts, asylum seekers and even professional working people who are struggling to meet ends meet. There are many people who can only manage to pay their bills and keep a roof over their heads but are unable to afford food to feed themselves or their families.ā€™

As to the local hospitals, the trust that runs them was placed was the first in the country to be twice placed (and still is) under ā€˜special measuresā€™, with fears over patient care and staffing levels.

I picked Grimsby at semi-random (I used it some years back as one example of how the UKā€™s old-industry decline had been mirrored in the fate of some football clubs) but these problems exist in many of the constituencies that voted Tory, or more probably voted Brexit. And they are demonstrable by hard facts, such as food bank numbers and patient care statistics, and so any lack of progress in solving them will be equally obvious over a five-year term of office.

As for Brexit, Johnsonā€™s thumping majority may seem helpful as far as getting what he wants through Parliament but it does nothing to solve the two hard realities to do with the negotiations with the EU that will shape any future deal.

Firstly, that any deal has to leave the UK economically worse off. Secondly, that the referendum vote, based on Leave lies that the UK could have its cake and eat it, was in effect for two incompatible aims. In short, you can get out from under EU rules or you can keep economic damage to a minimum (not eliminate it, mind) but you cannot do both.

These two truths have been borne out by the events of the last three and a half years. May, through an eye-popping mixture of incompetence and cowardice, locked herself into the extreme position of accepting potentially catastrophic economic damage as the price for getting out from under the EU. Johnson, with the ERG neutralised, has more room for manoeuvre, but that doesnā€™t help him do the ā€˜cake and eat itā€™ impossible that he promised (so many many promises) back in 2016.

I donā€™t believe Johnson would be able (even if he wanted to) to in effect overturn the referendum by doing a Norway ā€“ that would be too obviously a fraud even for him on those Labour Leavers ā€“ but unlike May he could produce a compromise fudge that gets out from under some EU rules and regulations and reduces the economic damage from catastrophic to merely severe (and still impacting on the likes of Grimsby) that he could sell to the electorate. Hullo customsā€™ union! Possibly.

He is beholden for his victory to no section of the Tory party, has no political principles (arguably no principles of any kind butā€¦) and is prepared to ditch any previous position or promise. He is a post-truth politician whose time apparently has come. But still faced with hard political realities.

Ā 

You shouldn't have picked Grimsby at semi+random. The local economy has seen a resurgence, admittedly on the early stages, due to the manufacturing of turbines and blades for the offshore wind farms. It is an example of turning problems into opportunities, something we will see a lot of in the coming months. Technology rather than old-fashioned metal bashing industries, is the way to go and the UK is exceptionally placed to take advantage of future growth areas.Ā 

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33 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

In the clear light of a post-election Sunday morning Johnson looks master of all he surveys, and to an extent he is. He only has one problem. He has to make his lies on domestic policy and Brexit somehow come true.

Ā 

Ā 

IĀ“m not sure he does. The tories stated about 30,000 new nurses was actually 50,000

withĀ  that in mind, I think he can pretty much say and do anything, and some people will suck it up

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Oh and one more thing. For a long time you have been under an illusion that signing a trade deal creates one winner and one loser. It doesn't. And no country signs a trade deal that makes them worse off. Trade deals work for the benefit for both sides and if in retrospect a country discovers that a deal doesn't work for you then you end it. What Johnson has to do is now sign a good trade deal and one without clauses that bind us tightly to the EU that doesn't allow us to escape. Under May I think the fear was she would sign a deal that we couldn't shake off if we wanted to. I don't see Johnson making the same mistake he has proved to be a smart guy.Ā 

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2 minutes ago, How I Wrote Elastic Man said:

IĀ“m not sure he does. The tories stated about 30,000 new nurses was actually 50,000

withĀ  that in mind, I think he can pretty much say and do anything, and some people will suck it up

For now, and when the the promises are for the future and general and national, so not personally relevant, yes. But my point is that if you are, for example, a Labourite in Grimsby who voted Tory this time to maker Brexit happen,Ā  then you will know in three or four years' time whether, to take the aspects I mentioned, the local food banks are doing as much trade as now, or more, or less, and whether the local hospital has improved its patient-care statistics or not. You will know because you or someone you know will have personal experience of these aspects of Grimsby life. All politics is local.

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1 hour ago, PurpleCanary said:

For now, and when the the promises are for the future and general and national, so not personally relevant, yes. But my point is that if you are, for example, a Labourite in Grimsby who voted Tory this time to maker Brexit happen,Ā  then you will know in three or four years' time whether, to take the aspects I mentioned, the local food banks are doing as much trade as now, or more, or less, and whether the local hospital has improved its patient-care statistics or not. You will know because you or someone you know will have personal experience of these aspects of Grimsby life. All politics is local.

Out of interest - if you were a youngish nurse would you come to theĀ UK with no guaranteed right of staying long term - to make a full life here as opposed to a work permit for a few years?

Yes but IĀ want 50K / year or forget. Much better payers elsewhere on such 'short term' terms.

My suspicionĀ is thatĀ he will struggle to find 30K new nurses let alone hang onto those we already have.

Edited by Yellow Fever

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1 hour ago, Rock The Boat said:

You shouldn't have picked Grimsby at semi+random. The local economy has seen a resurgence, admittedly on the early stages, due to the manufacturing of turbines and blades for the offshore wind farms. It is an example of turning problems into opportunities, something we will see a lot of in the coming months. Technology rather than old-fashioned metal bashing industries, is the way to go and the UK is exceptionally placed to take advantage of future growth areas.Ā 

On the contrary Grimsby is an excellent example. It would appear that all the high paid, high productivity & high value work in offshore wind will not go to Grimsby but elsewhere. Grimsby can have the low paid, low value, low productivity manual stuff. Indeed it seems the industry is currently paying some under the minimum wage with the government paying the balance. Same probably goes for Lowestoft and GY.

image.thumb.png.7ffb0bd8747b2ea49f354a84277217c6.png

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No matter what you think of Boris, he knows how to win an election. He became Lord Mayor of London when it was Labour through and through and now he's won a great big majority in the General Election.Ā 

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3 hours ago, How I Wrote Elastic Man said:

Lisa Nandy has said she is thinking of standing for the Labour leadership. Whoever takes on/gets voted in to this job needs to be a strong character, and able to kill off the goons on the far left. I saw a clip of her interview on the BBC this morning, which isnĀ“t a great deal to go on, but she seemed a bit nervous

She was a bit nervous but made a very good point about the need for Labour to move from its overly centralised London Luvvy base if it really wants to win back the people who it was formedĀ to represent.

What we need is an extended period of stable and broadly popular governance, and that is what I believe we are now going to get!

To make it work however it needs to be held to accountĀ by a decent opposition, something we havnt had for a long time, hopefully Labour will change direction and return to its roots and provide that challenge and scrutiny in a measured and forensic way.

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12 minutes ago, SwindonCanary said:

No matter what you think of Boris, he knows how to win an election. He became Lord Mayor of London when it was Labour through and through and now he's won a great big majority in the General Election.Ā 

No, he was the Mayor of London

"Lord Mayor of London" is a different position for the City of London Corporation

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Just now, How I Wrote Elastic Man said:

No, he was the Mayor of London

"Lord Mayor of London" is a different position for the City of London Corporation

He was still voted in whilst the people were red ! (skip the lord )

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20 minutes ago, SwindonCanary said:

No matter what you think of Boris, he knows how to win an election. He became Lord Mayor of London when it was Labour through and through and now he's won a great big majority in the General Election.Ā 

Yes, it's amazing what you can do with the backing of nearly all of the major newspapers, massive funding off the wealthy elites, an extremely incompetent opposition, thousands of fake fakebbok ads, a weak (complicit?) state broadcaster and a very easy to deceive electorate. Bravo.

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27 minutes ago, SwindonCanary said:

No matter what you think of Boris, he knows how to win an election. He became Lord Mayor of London when it was Labour through and through and now he's won a great big majority in the General Election.Ā 

SAY WHAT you like about Mussolini, he made the trains run on time. That was the famous last excuse for Fascism, conveying the idea that while dictatorship might not be very nice, at least it got things done.

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35 minutes ago, SwindonCanary said:

No matter what you think of Boris, he knows how to win an election. He became Lord Mayor of London when it was Labour through and through and now he's won a great big majority in the General Election.Ā 

Boris and the Conservatives wouldn't have won a majority if Sir Nigel of Farage failed to make the decision to stand down Brexit Party candidates -- He put his country first before his Party and it has at least brought Britain to the Brexit gate šŸ‘

Of course, Boris and the Conservatives didn't reciprocate where BP members would've garnered several seats -- Alas, it matters not - Populism has won the day and the awful Liebour & Limp-Dum Parties are done for a generation.

What a glorious resultĀ šŸ˜Ž

Edited by Jools
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Ā 
Ā 
Ā 
Ā 
2
3 minutes ago, Herman said:

Yes, it's amazing what you can do with the backing of nearly all of the major newspapers, massive funding off the wealthy elites, an extremely incompetent opposition, thousands of fake fakebbok ads, a weak (complicit?) state broadcasters and a very easy to deceive electorate. Bravo.

By God! No wonder you never learn or win anything if you seriously believe the state media (BBC, SKY, Channel4) were/are pro-Tory.

Sfb.

Ā 

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2 minutes ago, How I Wrote Elastic Man said:

IĀ“m not making excuses, just trying to educate you !

Please spare us -- The country has voted against Lefty indoctrination šŸ˜€

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1 minute ago, How I Wrote Elastic Man said:

IĀ“m not making excuses, just trying to educate you !

Blimey mate, you've set the bar a bit too high there I think.

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1 hour ago, BigFish said:

On the contrary Grimsby is an excellent example. It would appear that all the high paid, high productivity & high value work in offshore wind will not go to Grimsby but elsewhere. Grimsby can have the low paid, low value, low productivity manual stuff. Indeed it seems the industry is currently paying some under the minimum wage with the government paying the balance. Same probably goes for Lowestoft and GY.

image.thumb.png.7ffb0bd8747b2ea49f354a84277217c6.png

And that I picked a town where there is some hope, however small, of regeneration and jobs shows it was a genuinely random and fair choice, as opposed to trying to find the worst town imaginable.

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2 hours ago, PurpleCanary said:

For now, and when the the promises are for the future and general and national, so not personally relevant, yes. But my point is that if you are, for example, a Labourite in Grimsby who voted Tory this time to maker Brexit happen,Ā  then you will know in three or four years' time whether, to take the aspects I mentioned, the local food banks are doing as much trade as now, or more, or less, and whether the local hospital has improved its patient-care statistics or not. You will know because you or someone you know will have personal experience of these aspects of Grimsby life. All politics is local.

I see Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer has made the same point, that if Johnson doesn't keep his promises it will become very apparent:

He [Johnson[ has promised improved schools, better hospitals and extra police officers, and generally raised expectations that we will see substantial investments in public services, especially in the parts of Britain that prosperity has overlooked. It is moot where he is going to find the money when his manifesto ruled out any rises in any of the main forms of taxation. ā€œI will not let you down,ā€ he says. It will be easy to see whether he has. If bed shortages in the NHS remain acute, if the fabric of schools continues to decay, if public transport becomes even more creaky, he wonā€™t have anywhere to hide.

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Ā 
Ā 
Ā 
Ā 
On 13/12/2019 at 23:01, Herman said:

I've lost

Yes, you lost - AGAIN -- This time emphatically.. You've been losing the political argument since at least 2003 when I first became a member of this site...

When are you finally going to learn something from it? Itā€™s only in failure, that one learns to win, Hermosita šŸ‘

My only failure was to persuade an uncle to vote Labour way back in 1974 and I certainly learned from that šŸ˜€

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The people on this thread that lost this latest vote still have their integrity. They haven't got down in the gutter, they haven't resorted to posting fakery, they understand the real problems of the country and they don't pass the blame onto others.They haven't lost the political argument but find it impossible to sell it to people that can only deal in simple solutions. They haven't sold out their country, theiir families and the people already suffering for a quick endorphin rush from "winning".

Even in loss we are still on the right side.

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4 hours ago, Rock The Boat said:

You shouldn't have picked Grimsby at semi+random. The local economy has seen a resurgence, admittedly on the early stages, due to the manufacturing of turbines and blades for the offshore wind farms. It is an example of turning problems into opportunities, something we will see a lot of in the coming months. Technology rather than old-fashioned metal bashing industries, is the way to go and the UK is exceptionally placed to take advantage of future growth areas.Ā 

I think you are probably confusing Grimsby with Hull, quite understandably as its huge port and deep water fishing fleet have also almost all but disappeared since I lived there for a few years as a teenager (long time ago but in those days it was a really busy port for both fishing and freight).

However your basic point that moving into new technologies is the way to go is clearly right but I'm afraid the UK is not exceptionally well placed in this area - it is desperately playing catch-up. Ten years ago the UK had a small but rapidly growing renewable energy sector - we were well behind other EU and asian countries then but motivated by the last Labour government's support for renewables we were growing rapidly. Also just as in so many other areas we had a number of very innovative small companies working on new/improved technology.

So we could have been exceptionally well placed now but the opposition since 2010 of Tory governments to renewables has driven most of those companies out of business, and many of the innovators overseas to where they could get support to bring new technologies to market.

Very welcome though the wind turbine blade manufacturing is, it is still only manufacturing that particular component for Siemens because it is logistically convenient and of course cheap. The design, IPR, and finished product are German and the profits ultimately flow back to Germany. The jobs are good for our economy and for especially depressed areas of country, but much like our car industry we are just making components or assembling for foreign companies and they are the ones that own and develop the technology and if the next new widget can be made more cheaply in India or assembled more cheaply in Poland then that is what will happen.

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Energy and Climate Change is to be split away fromĀ the business department, as I think it may have been in the past, hopefully we will see much more focus on two key priorities.

There is going to be a massive shake up in the Civil Service, well overdue.

Edited by Van wink

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We all have to accept that Johnson won and this and theĀ little Brexit experiment is going to happen. Corbyn is of courseĀ principally to blame - and thoseĀ thatĀ elected himĀ as Labour Leader. He was always going toĀ be the easiestĀ of targets forĀ the media to pick apart and his lack-lustre campaigning for Remain in the 2016 referendum set the low bar for his Leadership. He is the bridesmaid to Brexit. He only ever appealedĀ to this left followers - sayĀ 10%Ā  and could never appeal to a wide base. Quite how a London 'WolfieĀ Smith' CND near pacifist couldĀ ever appeal to Northern Labour voters with strong sense of nationalĀ identity is bewildering.Ā That said heĀ did come under some very dubiousĀ media reporting. It's not that his policies are all badĀ  - yes some if not most in isolationĀ were popular - but too many off them and for me giving the WASPI womenĀ out of the blue was it 58Bn shows he'dĀ justĀ lost any sense of priority.

As to the vote - unsurprisingly it is heavily skewed by age towards the Tories - and thatĀ is really sad as the PensionersĀ and those in more comfortableĀ later middle age are likely not to feel - or have less 'skin' in the game - the full economic impactĀ and consequences of their actions than the young. It will no doubt eventually be undone in a generation.

What we all need to do now howeverĀ  isĀ to make the most of the situationĀ -Ā  Brexit realities will rapidly start hitting the fan asĀ businesses and the economy startĀ to get some certainty. Yes Boris will throw moneyĀ at various things so expect some sort of debtĀ fueledĀ bounce but flowery Boris words, outright lies and a complete lack of fiscal or numerical understanding will no longerĀ be excused. BorisĀ and Brexters will own this - forever. I certainly will have no wish to further subsidizeĀ them!

Edited by Yellow Fever
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