[Closed] EU Referendum - are you in or out?

The brexiteers are all banging on about how countries will be queuing up to do trade deals with us. In reality, due mainly to the Return of Grand Brittania bollocks they're spouting, we look like the looney on the bus. The one everyone pointedly avoids....

...At present, we're about as appealing as a nation as a great big steaming turd on a pristine white carpet

Whoa there cowboy - you are letting this all get on top of you binners. The UK remains and will remain an attractive place to invest in and an important partner to trade with. That will not change. We have, however, made both less attractive and more costly which is a great shame and could/should have been avoided.

On top of that, we are behaving like spoilt little kids with our them and us, zero-sum game attitude towards our partners. Appalling to watch in many ways.

As an aside, I do love how the BSers view the weak £ as a free-lunch!!!

Can you explain the effects of weak currency for us non-economists THM? Serious request.

Which policies Molgrips ? The cap on Doctors training places at Uni should have been raised years ago.

Also you forget the £10bn pa we have to play with

Binners well in the US the EU is seen as a massive hot bed of lefty nonsense with wildly unaffordable state spending and a workshy population. As far as they are concerned our healthcare is a national disgrace. Depends on your perspective. Trump does have a point on NATO why should the US provide security when many members do not meet the 2% GDP spending limit. Remember Obama said it was up to Europe to apply sanctions to Russia (IS and UK do very little trade with Russia). My point is that Europe needs to start taking care of itself isn't a Trump only stance.

There are apparently 30000 EU doctors alone in the UK. So, no, not even close. (I've seen 70000 for "doctors from the rest of the world" but I'm not clear if that includes the 30000 EU or not.

[img] [/img]
https://fullfact.org/immigration/immigration-and-nhs-staff/

[url= http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/nhs-has-more-foreign-doctors-than-any-other-major-european-country-study-finds-a6787906.html ]36% of NHS doctors were born overseas (Telegraph)[/url]

We are going to need a bit more than 1500 junior doctor spaces to fill that void!

The rest of the world must be looking at this country with the same look of disbelief as we are staring slack-jawed across the Atlantic, at the possibility of a Trump presidency.

Australian relatives were over during the summer - "disbelieving" would far too polite... "What were you daft nuggets thinking of?" would be closer to the mark 🙁

ETA - Hhmm. I definitely did not type "nuggets" 🙄

Has anyone said...

[b]Fool Welsh Breakfast [/b]

...yet?

More seriously it sounds like the government are about to clamp down on non-EU immigration. Probably we knew this already as the majority of immigration is non-EU so to hit their 100,000 targets they have to hit the Non-EU folk.

to hit their 100,000 targets they have to hit the Non-EU folk.

Yep!

Net Immigration: 180,000, from the EU. 190,000 from non-EU.

[url= https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/statistics-net-migration-statistics ]According to Migration Watch (y/e March 2016 stats)[/url]

Can you explain the effects of weak currency for us non-economists THM? Serious request.

Ok Mol, a much simplified answer here (but with the caveat that in practice non of these relationships are simple!)

1. The effect of a weaker pound is similar to the effect of lower interest rates - hence you will hear talk of "looser" policy effect. The impact is stimulative but with some costs. Post Brexit vote, policy is looser because we have a significant weakening of the £ and a cut in IR. Both do the same thing.

2. Assuming that all other things remain equal (they don't!), a weaker £ makes our exports cheaper and more attractive. Exporters benefit from higher sales and/or higher margins

3. As above, imports (eg typically food, petrol etc) become more expensive. Two impacts, the quantity of imports falls but the price of imported goods rises (inflationary)

4. Putting 2 and 3 together, a weaker £ is good for our current (trade) account which is historically in deficit ie, we import more than we export. This (the trade deficit) has a negative impact of the level of aggregate demand in the economy. So a weaker pound should help by making exports more competitive while reducing demand for imports. In the short term, however, volumes do not respond as quickly as prices so the current (trade) account actually gets worse before it gets better. You may have heard people talk about the J-curve effect ie things get worse before they get better

5. Inflation is the main downside to a weaker currency - approx 10% weaker £ leads to 3% increase in prices. At the moment, inflation risks are low so this is less of a problem than normal (indeed in the current unusual environment, its a good thing). Of course, foreign holidays become more expensive too!

6. The other main issue currently is whether a weaker £ makes the UK an attractive investment destination. If the £ gets weaker, returns fall for foreign investors and this could lead to capital leaving the UK and investments being reduced.

7. BSesrs will also be happy because a weaker pound also makes the UK a less attractive place to work for foreign workers - Johnny go home!!!

So those are some of the key factors but they are a massive simplification and lots depends upon whether the fall is sustained or just temporary. Plus volatility leads to uncertainty which is bad news for investment etc.

Hope that helps

The extra doctors places are just to try and compensate for those Jr Docs leaving for better conditions in Australia etc after Hunt's deft handling of the contract crisis

each doctor costs £300,000 to train, in February the number of jr docs applying for certs to move abroad had doubled to 9000 (wonder what it is now!?!), I know of several who have already left and are planning to leave within the next few years when training/ studies have finished

and against this backdrop our government is trying to restrict both EU and non EU migration, for an NHS already having to deal wit and ageing population (of brexit votters) whilst in the grip of its worst ever staffing crisis 😯

The extra doctors places are just to compensate for those Jr Docs leaving for better conditions in Australia after Hunt's deft handling of the contract changes

Mike it makes sense you apply for an Ozzie passport given your negativity on the UK's prospects. We need optimists and go getters who see opportunity.

No we need useful idiots who embrace all this "Take our country back" shite while the small-statists in the Tory party privatise everything in sight and remove workers rights that get in the way of "business"

80th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street today (though I would put Jambalya / Ninfan more in the category of Roderick Spode than Oswald Mosley).

[img] [/img]

bigger....

:large

Will the new British doctors be taken from a UK school and fully trained up or Indian doctors fast tracked through immigration to make them British?

kimbers: So our best hope is that Trump's election sparks a civil war in America? It just might happen! 😀

No we need useful idiots who embrace all this "Take our country back" shite while the small-statists in the Tory party privatise everything in sight and remove workers rights that get in the way of "business"

Its unbelievable quite how thick some people are, isn't it? Talk about turkeys voting for christmas?

When they say 'red tape' thats 'strangling business'. What they mean is sick pay, holiday pay, maternity leave, the right not to be killed by your employers disregard for health and safety, etc, etc, etc.....

Not to worry. I'm sure that Woman of the People Theresa, and her big-hearted colleagues like IDS have got a much improved version of all those things, ready to enshrine in law once we're out of the EU

Kimbers i think that graph shows nicely that the UK is not the power it was. Sterling is no longer what it was.

The world has changed, accept it deal with it, picking up the ball and running away solves what?

Thanks THM.

binners - Member
The rest of the world must be looking at this country with the same look of disbelief as we are staring slack-jawed across the Atlantic, at the possibility of a Trump presidency.

No, actually the opposite is true especially in SE Asia for the following reasons:

1. They agree with UK getting rid of those EU bureaucrats (they use different expression btw). They see EU as non-entity that encroach on European sovereign states. They keep asking me what is this EU abstract? Is it a country? What is it?

2. They see US as a bunch of no good nosey Yankers stirring up troubles in other country.

When they say 'red tape' thats 'strangling business'

They have just unleashed a mountain of red tape. Two years after A50 every manufacturer in the UK will have to process extra red tape on every sub component import from the EU and every export to the EU. It's going to cost UK industry significantly. That's before we add the WTO tariffs which will also require paper work and cost £££.

Also on the low £, UK companies that earn profits abroad will earn more in £ terms when the £ is low I think.

This is part of the reason the FTSE 100 is doing a little better than the 250.

However the fact that the exchange rate is as it is also presumably allows foreign money to buy UK stock in the hope of a recovery in the £ at a later date - this might regarded as gambling, but if you believe Jamba's imminent euro collapse theory (it's possible) then it's not much of a gamble.

but if you believe Jamba's

LOL!!

Yes, the whole of Europe will collapse, Queen Victoria will rise from the dead, and Britain will once again rule the waves!

Meanwhile, back in the read world.....

Also on the low £, UK companies that earn profits abroad will earn more in £ terms when the £ is low I think.

This is part of the reason the FTSE 100 is doing a little better than the 250.

V good point - Lots of companies with $ revenues and £ costs in the FTSE100. This is the opposite effect to the UK being an attractive investment destination for foreign companies that I touched on.

Still smarting from missing this trade at the time of the vote - bloody obvious long/short idea in hindsight 😳 and easy to execute

The Torygraph etc are getting very excited about the surging ftse100

Brexit has saved the country!!!, infact it must have ended Boom and Bus.... Oh

now obvs im no LSE graduate but
looking at the history of the ftse theres a distinct pattern:

a steady increase always seems to be followed by a large drop, what you might call a crash

[img] [/img]

The Torygraph etc are getting very excited about the surging ftse100

Just don't look behind the curtain or you'll see the pound hitting a 31 year low against the US dollar.

[img] [/img]

Yes, the whole of Europe will collapse, Queen Victoria will rise from the dead, and Britain will once again rule the waves!

anyone seen Arthur about the place yet?

when albion's need is greatest arthur will rise again

The English aren't entitled to Arthur's protection - only the Celts (and maybe the Picts). He was a British king who spent years trying to hold off the English immigration to Britain. (And we're back to immigration 😯 )

Interestingly the only Arthurian character known to have existed was Merlin - a Welsh speaking Briton from the Dumfries and Galloway area of Scotland.

Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

You can't expect to wield supreme power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!

It amazes me how lazy journalism is re Brexit...e.g. 'see it's not been so bad..Brexit has proved to be ok'...FFS..it hasn't happened yet. All we've had is a vote on it. All terms and conditions are the same at present and we're still in the EU..

GrahamS - Member

Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.

It's not looking so bad these days tbh

7. BSesrs will also be happy because a weaker pound also makes the UK a less attractive place to work for foreign workers - Johnny go home!!!

... but will make tuition fees at UK universities lower, which will not please the raci^H^H^H^Hleavers.

Anyone being oppressed?

Yorkshire was part of Wales once but we don't want that bit back though wouldn't mind having Southern Scotland and the Lake District back though. Sword chucking by 'watery tarts' seems as good a way of choosing a government as any at the moment.

DrJ - Member

... but will make tuition fees at UK universities lower

Don't worry, Amber Rudd's got this covered, she signalled yet another attack on international students today

(aside; I wonder if she actually believes you can get into an English language degree course without being proficient in english, as she claimed today? She certainly doesn't seem to understand student visa requirements)

Yorkshire wasn't part of Wales. Wales is the part of Britain that Anglo-Saxons didn't colonise. Germans, if you like.

Isn't history great? 🙂

A part of Britain, moly, they didn't do too well in Scotland either (or Alba in Gaelic - you were wonder about the Albion link weren't you). Or Cornwall for that matter.

The French vikings that arrived in 1066 did a better job to be fair.

Scotland was invented by the Romans.

Scotland was invented by the Romans.

I thought it was the Irish kings that conquered Scotland

BnD has it

Yorkshire was part of Wales once but we don't want that bit back though wouldn't mind having Southern Scotland and the Lake District back though. Sword chucking by 'watery tarts' seems as good a way of choosing a government as any at the moment.

Confusion over the spoken language (essentially old welsh) and Hen Ogledd "the old north" comprising the old post Roman Brittonic kingdom's which then disappeared by ad937

IMF one report two headlines

UK growth highest amongst developed nations globally says IMF
IMF revises down UK growth

£/$ lowest for 30 years. £/€ lowest for 3 years. One makes a better headline obviously.

Whatever the level of the currency the UK will reman a very attractive place for "foreigners" looking to come and work, we will always be oversubscribed in that regard.

A part of Britain, moly, they didn't do too well in Scotland either

Isn't Southern Scotland full of Saxons anyway and Northern Scotland full of Irish?*

* this may be over simplistic 🙂

Whatever the level of the currency the UK will reman a very attractive place for "foreigners" looking to come and work

Why?

[quote=jambalaya ]£/$ lowest for 30 years. £/€ lowest for 3 years. One [s]makes a better headline[/s] is more significant obviously.

Remind me who keeps pointing out the Euro is a basket case? Yet the pound is even less attractive than it was compared to that...