Rejoin is a vote winner and economically positive
It's a vote winner until you start asking difficult questions; Overall the re-join vote is near 60%. But like it does in Scotland, when you ask if folks are either (or both) happy to rejoin without the UK's previous cut-outs or having to take the Euro, then it drops to something like 35%. Plus, after one of their largest economies has left, rather than look at why that happened they're looking to change the voting system to QMV rather than unanimity, driven hard by Germany. Mostly because now the UK has left, Germany gets to call the shots, Politically nothing would've changed that made many folks feel that the EU was a remote body that was unaccountable.
Economically, there are, like everything trade offs - EU drag is one, the EU's very rigid stance on AI has seen investment come to the UK, plus we've just done a bilateral deal with India, which would have to be binned...Overall it would probably be a plus, but recently Bloomberg re-evaluted it to be about 2-4% loss of GDP, much smaller than before, many more politicians are beginning to understand that better UK productivity and a stronger home economy would recover that, plus more.
Just saying these things like they are 'nailed on' facts doesn't make it so. We are out, and as much as I'd have liked a different result back in 2016, we're unlikely to re-join in either of our lifetimes. I could see the UK joining a sort of associate trade deal, but full rejoin; until it's the settled policy of all and every party that's likely to form a govt, is a non-starter.
Andy makes a point of saying that he's managed to get stuff done in Manchester by being more collegiate and less confrontational, encouraging cooperation and working together across traditional political boundaries
So if you're looking for someone to re-open what is without doubt the most divisive political subject this country has seen in its recent history, he's probably not your man
Via the BBC (emphasis mine):
"Burnham said last September that he would like to see the UK back in the EU within his lifetime.
...
"My view is that Brexit has been damaging, but I also believe the last thing we should do right now is re-run those arguments."
(So perhaps STW brexit discussions should be moved back to the big Brexit thread rather than derail yet another one?)
There seems to be a lot of straw-manning and point scoring going on.
You're new to political discussion on this forum then?! 😉
if folks are either (or both) happy to rejoin without the UK's previous cut-outs or having to take the Euro, then it drops to something like 35%.
the EU are aware of this
Burnham will hopefully be thinking long term enough that he should be laying the groundwork now, customs union here we come!
I’m not really up to date with anything he’s said, any talk about nationalising stuff? It seems like such an easy win, particularly for things that are natural monopolies. The left obviously like it and the right would be easy to convince when you point out how much is owned by foreign interests.
I think that's his natural inclination and he's made plenty of noises in that direction. A good article on it in the Guardian
This no10 in the north idea. Will this just take up time and money and be inefficient? Is it just performative or will it make any real differnce?
I still want t6 o know where the money is coming from for the nationalisation.
I desperately want Burnham to succeed. He's mostly making the right noises but that's the easy part.
Will the country have enough patience anyway? I still think we might be headed for a dose of Reform at some point. It seems like something the country simply has to go through and expunge. Diarrhea basically.
This no10 in the north idea. Will this just take up time and money and be inefficient? Is it just performative or will it make any real differnce?
I still want t6 o know where the money is coming from for the nationalisation.
The biggest hurdle with this will be persuading / forcing career civil servants to leave London. They do rather see themselves as too important not to be close to government.
Nationalisation doesn't need to costs money depending on how he chooses to do it. There is no requirement to recompence existing shareholders for their shares. In many cases he could probably have them declared insolvent in court and take ownership for nothing and have all the lenders take the hit on the debts. Whether he will be brave enough to upset city types and investors that much is open to debate. As the old adage goes, investments can go down as well as up.
Could cut the ****ing ludicrous funding for more nuclear weapons?
nuclear weapons are somewhere between 0.4 - 0.6 of UK GDP. Pretty cheap deterrent
Plus, our nuclear weapons are part of NATO strategic planning (unlike, say France, who retain complete control of theirs, and are outside NATO structures). I'll bet there's some European countries that are right now, quite relieved to know we have them.
defense is a huge money pit in the UK. we need to be realustic about what wecneed and stop with the huge vanity prijects. Getting rid of stuuf ljke thd falklandd and so on would help.
we need a defense force for realistic defence of ghe uk. We have no need fof aircrsft carriers and thd like. Stop pretending we are anything but a small group of islands on thd edge of Europe
It's a difficult one, the Falklands.
It's a hangover from empire but it's population absolutely should be allowed the right of self determination. As they wish to remain British citizens I think we have an obligation to defend that right.
If they wanted to become Argentinian I'd be totally fine with that but presently they don't.
Could cut the ****ing ludicrous funding for more nuclear weapons?
That worked out well for Ukraine and Iran.
I think we are inevitably entering an age of nuclear proliferation. It's the great leveler when faced with rogue superpowers. If you don't want to be invaded it's now evident of what you need. UN resolutions won't stop them, nor sanctions, having nukes very likely will. Sadly North Koreas relentless drive to have them almost looks justified now, given that America has now gone rogue.
I'd be amazed if Poland, Germany and many other countries don't have them within a decade.
I fully expect to live long enough to see a nuke donated during a conflict in my lifetime. The question is, does it stop at one detonation?
I'm a glass half empty type though but let's face it, this is very much glass half empty times. 😉
Getting rid of stuuf ljke thd falklandd and so on would help.
The Falklands costs the UK 0.5% of the UK defence budget in direct running costs.
defense is a huge money pit in the UK.
Yes it is. The MOD has a terrible track record for making some quite duff decisions and spending our money very unwisely, it badly needs reforming or reigning in.
we need a defense force for realistic defence of ghe uk. We have no need fof aircrsft carriers
We are an island, a well equipped Navy tends to be quite useful, and historically, the Navy has been the reason we've managed to survive pretty well as "a small group of Islands of the edge of Europe". The RAF currently operates 9 fighter defence squadrons, its lowest number since the dawn of military aviation with the smallest number of front line aircraft. Austerity has done for the military in the same way it's done for everything else. Tom Tugendhat claimed earlier this year that faced with the same situation as the Ukrainians, we'd have run out of 155mm artillery rounds in 8 days.
so we need aircaft and artilliary shells.
whats the aircraft carrier for?
To protect our interests overseas.
So in a new version of the “sorry there’s no money” note, Starmer is leaving Burnham with a massive defence bill that he’ll find it hard to scrap but which will be a massive impediment to his plans to improve the country.
So in a new version of the “sorry there’s no money” note, Starmer is leaving Burnham with a massive defence bill that he’ll find it hard to scrap but which will be a massive impediment to his plans to improve the country.
Every government department is in a similar situation.
Defence procurement always seems worse than other departments though and more prone to expensive cock-ups.
From the debacle with the original SA80 rifle right through to the ongoing cost overruns and delays to the new Ajax armoured vehicle, it seems that most defence contracting and spending is very poorly managed.
It's also an area where tech (like drones) moves far faster than the government's ability to identify the threat, respond to it and procure something similar and the appropriate defences.
so we need aircaft and artilliary shells.
whats the aircraft carrier for?
carrying the aircraft from pt 1
So in a new version of the “sorry there’s no money” note, Starmer is leaving Burnham with a massive defence bill that he’ll find it hard to scrap but which will be a massive impediment to his plans to improve the country.
From some of the releases I seen that might not be the case. Some significant cuts to existing capabilities to fund drones which are much cheaper in comparison.
Seems the new ploy is to decree platform x capability can be carried out by drones, thus enabling cutting expensive multi-role bit of kit for cheaper single role bit if kit.
It's genius.
we need a defense force for realistic defence of ghe uk. We have no need fof aircrsft carriers
There was an item about Russia making overtures on the Svalbard islands on the Ukraine thread as one example.
Trump invading Greenland on another thread.
It would be nice to have a force between Scotland and the Arctic, don't you think?
Tom Tugendhat claimed earlier this year that faced with the same situation as the Ukrainians, we'd have run out of 155mm artillery rounds in 8 days.
The reality is even scarier. Genuinely.
With current capability we'd struggle to force project a decent footprint to mainland Europe if required.
There simple isn't enough of anything to maintain more than a couple of weeks with even a fraction of the attrition we've seen in Ukraine.
This is going to get worse. While the defence press masturbates profusely about DRONES! As to associated commentators, they seem to forget to hold ground you need bodies. And with the associated equipment and support, which is currently lacking and doesn't seem to be forthcoming.
I think Burnham is being left with a more significant hospital pass than many would expect.
It's the bill that will come after this cynical hollowing out of defence that will cause him problems. Or whoever follows.
So in a new version of the “sorry there’s no money” note, Starmer is leaving Burnham with a massive defence bill that he’ll find it hard to scrap but which will be a massive impediment to his plans to improve the country.
A bit like HS2 and any number of other schemes that the UK finds impossible to manage
I was on a course with a chap who was part of the team that bought the Apache into service. As part of that course we did a bit on waste management and he told this great tale of procurement.
When fielding the AH they realised they needed a particular tool to seat and remove the 70mm rockets. So with the techs they set about making one, it consisted of a foot and a half of metal pipe with a soft plastic cap to seat the rocket and at the other end was a length of low pressure refuel hose jubilee clipped, covered with heat shrink to it to push the rockets out for the rear to remove.
All in all about £75 to produce. When it went out for procurement the company that was chosen was charging the MOD £500 for this tool.
This was circa 2001, it has been terrible for longer than I can remember. It's no coincidence that heads of arms/service/corps end up sitting on boards of companies that have supplied their arm/service/corps when they retire.
The project teams may be full of civil servants but their led by officers from the relevant units.
whats the aircraft carrier for?
The RAF and FAA use the same version of the F-35, the B model, which (like the Harrier previously) has a V/STOL capability, the training requirements for ship-borne landing and take off is quite training intensive so to save money, pilots, aircraft numbers the RAF and FAA fleet are jointly committed to be both land and sea based. There are Russian missiles and nukes aimed at all our land air bases (obviously) so we can retain both a defence and attack capability with a very advanced aircraft that can operate from both land and sea and so can remain operational for longer.
Tom Tugendhat claimed earlier this year that faced with the same situation as the Ukrainians, we'd have run out of 155mm artillery rounds in 8 days.
He was quoting in 2026 somewhat disingenuously from Oral evidence: Armed Forces Readiness, HC 26 (Tuesday 7 November 2023)
A big order was placed later in 2023 and there's been some manufacturing development too.
Capacity of 155mm artillery shells when its new explosive filling facility at Glascoed, South Wales, becomes operational this summer (2025)
...significant breakthroughs in the creation of next generation explosives and propellants. The new methods will use continuous flow processing to synthesise explosive material and remove the need for Nitrocellulose and Nitroglycerine, which are high in demand across global supply chains, in propellant production.
As a result, the Company anticipates it will be able to produce sufficient explosives and propellants in the UK to meet UK Ministry of Defence and export requirements, with the initial phase of industrial capacity expected by the end of
http://www.baesystems.com/en-uk/article/major-breakthroughs-in-uk-munitions-production
http://defence-industry.eu/bae-systems-to-boost-production-of-155mm-artillery-ammunition
http://www.calibredefence.co.uk/has-bae-revolutionised-the-uks-ammunition-production
and he told this great tale of procurement.
Long ago, when the RAF operated Lightnings, there was a engine part that required the use a very specific bolt that was made to very fine tolerance and was once-use that stretched when correctly installed and torqued. An ex-BAE machine tooling engineer set up a small company that could make them and he bid for the contract to supply them to get some cash into his new small company, time passes and his company is a success and he no longer needs MOD contracts, but it turns out that while no-one was really paying attention, he becomes one of the very few (if not the only) UK based companies that can actually make the things, so the MOD comes knocking when they unexpectedly extend the service life of some of the Lightning fleet. I think the final bill for each of the 100 of so bolts that he made was something like £600/bolt.
All in all about £75 to produce. When it went out for procurement the company that was chosen was charging the MOD £500 for this tool.
That doesn't seem unreasonable, once you include things like documentation, quality control, profit. It's the same with anything (look at bike parts).
We are an island, a well equipped Navy tends to be quite useful, and historically, the Navy has been the reason we've managed to survive pretty well as "a small group of Islands of the edge of Europe".
The bit about not doing the T32 buy was really odd, given that we've been covering our RN commitments with offshore patrol vessels and fleet auxiliaries as we don't have enough frigates to meet them, and we are now selling off some of the OPVs as they're coming to the end of life as well. That the T23s are worn out is a large part of why we don't have any frigates/destroyers available for contingencies like Cyprus.
And shipbuilding is the kind of highly skilled manufacturing job they say they want the UK to have...
I think we are inevitably entering an age of nuclear proliferation. It's the great leveler when faced with rogue superpowers.
On the other hand Iran has just proven that when the world's largest military is sitting on your front door, you can still **** them right up with some cheap drones and frankly, why would anyone bother with nukes cos they're expensive and dangerous and they have a nasty tendency to destroy everything for the next 10,000 years.
War has become a cost : benefit ratio - if you can scare off a multi-billion dollar destroyer or aircraft carrier using a dozen drones that you can buy / make for £10,000 each, you've won the operational cost metric straight away. Wasn't America spending about $1bn per day on the Iran conflict?
If you're firing 100 single-use drones at a few hundred dollars per drone, it becomes extremely expensive for the enemy to be trying to shoot them down using expensive fighter jets and pilots and with missiles costing £30,000 apiece.
A bit like HS2 and any number of other schemes that the UK finds impossible to manage
With any luck Burnham might just let the people that know what they're doing get on and do it. HS2 went wrong because the Tories went back and forth countless times changing the spec, the requirements, the ambitions... All that ended up with scope creep, redesigns, committed spend (even when the project was re-scoped to avoid it) and a lack of focus. Increased uncertainty = increased costs.
On the other hand, Government have largely stayed out of the Transpennine Route Upgrade; as a result it's on time and under budget because it's being run by a consortium of rail experts and rail industry, all of whom stand to gain from an on-time completion and they're running comprehensive lessons learned, planning matrices and they all know what they're working towards (because Government haven't come in and changed the spec 10 times already!).
With any luck Burnham might just let the people that know what they're doing get on and do it. HS2 went wrong because the Tories went back and forth countless times changing the spec, the requirements, the ambitions... All that ended up with scope creep, redesigns, committed spend (even when the project was re-scoped to avoid it) and a lack of focus. Increased uncertainty = increased costs.
Defenders of FPTP will often point out how strong majorities are the only way to 'get things done'.
Which is great if you can get everything done you want to do in five years (this five year timeframe lends it's self more to tearing things down rather than building things).
Unfortunately, for any project that is going to take longer than five years, you're better off with an election system that favours minority governments and consensus based policies. It might take years to agree on major projects but at least you know, once it's agreed upon, it's unlikely to change.
On the other hand, Government have largely stayed out of the Transpennine Route Upgrade;
Well, it's in the North innit, so central government couldn't give a shit whether or works or not
War has become a cost : benefit ratio - if you can scare off a multi-billion dollar destroyer or aircraft carrier using a dozen drones that you can buy / make for £10,000 each, you've won the operational cost metric straight away. Wasn't America spending about $1bn per day on the Iran conflict?
If you're firing 100 single-use drones at a few hundred dollars per drone, it becomes extremely expensive for the enemy to be trying to shoot them down using expensive fighter jets and pilots and with missiles costing £30,000 apiece.
War has always been a cost:benefit. You can't really do any significant damage to US Navy carrier with drones, they're pretty much immune to that sort of weapon, but obvs if the Navy decided to keep that carriers out of the way because a drone impacting the flight deck still 'looks bad' is a different thing, that Iran have undoubtedly exploited. But then the obvious answer is that US Carriers don't need to be anywhere near any sort of drone capability anyway thatis after all, the whole point of them. The single US Carrier(s) deployed to Iran have aircraft fleets more capable than anything the Iranian AF can put up.
As with all new weapons that are introduced, they enjoy a short time where the counter-measures take time to evolve. Ukraine for example has now introduced remotely powered and operated drone killing machine guns - not wildly different to the Space Marines sentry guns in Aliens* and much cheaper ways to shot drone longer range missiles.
*what a time to be alive...
You can't really do any significant damage to US Navy carrier with drones
You can stop planes taking off from them just by having the drones buzzing around. Look at the chaos at Gatwick the other year.
It might take years to agree on major projects but at least you know, once it's agreed upon, it's unlikely to change.
I understand some of the cost overruns with HS2 are not unrelated to the fact that govt approval and "spades in ground" were much much too early in the analysis phase, without really having an eye on what the actual cost of the un-designed sections might be.
You can stop planes taking off from them just by having the drones buzzing around.
First find the carrier, then work out if you can get to it undetected trough all the other ships surrounding the carrier to prevent this exact scenario. Then work out if it has the range - carriers don't have to be anywhere near where they're attacking after all. and the loiter time to do this, and keep up with a carrier doing 35+knots. The carriers are vulnerable to a degree, a kamikaze drone that manages to hit the 'island' that's pretty much where all the radar and satellite comms. are, or if you manage to fly it down one of the lifts to the hanger below, but the idea that drones are any sort of weapon capable of doing anything other than superficial damage is far-fetched - currently
With current capability we'd struggle to force project a decent footprint to mainland Europe if required.
I think we'd lose against either party in the current war in Europe.
With current capability we'd struggle to force project a decent footprint to mainland Europe if required.
I think we'd lose against either party in the current war in Europe.
Agreed. Less about mass more about a significant departure from a successful ethos of equipping the man.
Many other nations saw the success that brought and adopted the practice. We've gone down the rabbit hole of shiny, overpriced kit that is ill conceived and often fails to deliver on its stated outcomes or purpose.
I don't think it's fully the procurement systems fault, it's a general malaise within the MOD and institutional arrogance that has, at least in my time, weakened defence.
Same thing that has weakened health, education, et al.
If Andy is the man for the top job, I feel for him. He's been left a bit of a mess and about £5 to sort it out.
Scrapping around for 4-5Bn when the government found 450Bn in the pandemic with literally no borrowing operation (QE to swap the 450Bn to BoE ownership of the bonds it issued after spending) is facile, embarrassing and politically preposterous.
It's off the scale.
No wonder we can't get anything done.
They need to stop with this, it's holding the country back.
Can it be resourced, can it be purchased and does it offer good public outcomes? - are literally the only questions involved.
Burnham will have zero technical reasons why this can't be fixed.
