So in the post Brexit world we are going to ensure our place at the High Table by increased military spending rather than foreign aid.

Which to be fair is how we got our Empire in the first place.

Daz is back banging on about empathy again? Is this the same guy who was preaching empathy for brexiters before the last election , and when Labour’s ‘strategy’ got Corbyn his arse handed to him, turned round and said ‘**** ’em’ (TBF I paraphrase)? Much wailing and gnashing of teeth iirc. No doubt we’ll be getting called revisionists shortly.

I think brexit is a colossal act of self-harm but these days I can’t raise much blood pressure about it beyond a shrug. There’s no way back. We’re screwed. There’s nothing I can really do to help the turkeys that voted for this Christmas either. I just hope my little bit of the world doesn’t have the wheels fall off too badly now. Keep my head down and deal with what’s in front of me. That’s about it. Hey ho.

Oh, for balance, the 4%/6% Brexit hit to the economy was mentioned a couple of times on PM on 4 last night.

I see that the Govester (as Boris doubtless refers to him) is getting his excuses in early.

Brexit: Blame EU ‘rules are rules’ approach if there is border chaos, Michael Gove says

The upcoming chaos at the border is definitely not his fault. Despite him being in charge of planning for the new border arrangements. Because as we all know, NOTHING is the fault of the Brexiteers. Its all the pesky EU

His argument seems to be that by actually enforcing border controls (or as we could also refer to it: Taking Back Control) instead of just waiving them, because the UK still has its thumb up its collective arse and hasn’t sorted anything, they’re being unreasonable.

There is a special place in hell for The Govester.

How do things get worse

This is Brexit distilled – an entitled, parochial, insular,and subjective view of a tiny bit of the world.

As you are someone who writes displaying thought and consideration, for the love of God, step away from the keyboard and look outward – Do you still not see how things could get a lot worse for people who already have it very hard?

The reality is that the cabal who brought you Brexit have spent decades planning exactly how they’re going to make things considerably worse for the vast majority of people. They don’t lack imagination when it comes to this subject.

Once ‘free from the EU’ regulation and then handed a blank sheet of paper to re-write all the rules, we’re going to see just how much worse things can get.

There’s the obvious first moves: tearing up workers rights, food standards and environmental controls, but I suspect that will just be for starters and they’ll have so much more lined up after that.

Anyway…. 48 hours until No Deal becomes the official position (we all know it always was the final destination) and we’ve been told that Boris plans to personally intervene tomorrow. And that can only ever be a bad thing.

Daz is back banging on about empathy again?

Oh I was much more annoyed at the working classes voitng for the tories than voting for brexit as it has a much more direct negative impact on them. The solution of course was for labour to have a different brexit policy, which wasn’t really possible as they also had to serve the needs of city dwelling remainers. Brexit should always have been a non-party issue, but the tories and labour remainers couldn’t resist the temptation to use it for their own interests and now we are where we are.

There’s no way back. We’re screwed.

There’s definitely no way back, but I’d question the latter half of that statement. I despise the phrase but when capitalists talk about ‘creative destruction’ they speak the truth. One of the few benefits of capitalism is its amazing ability to adapt to whatever happens. When a gap in the market appears, something fills it very quickly. Brexit is no different. There’ll be pain over the next year, but where jobs and businesses disappear, others will replace them. Combined with the covid recovery, we could easily be approaching the next election at the crest of a huge wave of economic growth, and if that happens no one will be talking about brexit as a failure.

others will replace them

Lower paid, lower regulation, zero hour contract jobs?

Combined with the covid recovery, we could easily be approaching the next election at the crest of a huge wave of economic growth

This is very true. People will see any recovery from the initial damage of Brexit as a ‘success’… ignoring that the damage was self inflicted, and millions of people will be left behind by the recovery, with even lower levels of real wages, benefits, living standards, workers rights, tenants rights, public services…

Combined with the covid recovery, we could easily be approaching the next election at the crest of a huge wave of economic growth, and if that happens no one will be talking about brexit as a failure.

Bookmark this!

If this was in anyway near what the Brexiters think, then Sunak would have had an actual budget, and forecast it.

Clue – he didn’t, because he doesn’t believe it either.

Combined with the covid recovery, we could easily be approaching the next election at the crest of a huge wave of economic growth

Eh?

Even the most hardline Brexiteers best-case position seems to now be ‘it might not be that bad?’ before going misty-eyed and banging on about it all being worth it because ‘sovrenty’

… and fish. Proper patriotic, British fish

You’re missing the point Daz is making… the year running up to the next election will look much better than either 2020, or 2021, or I’ll wager 2022… we’ll be “on the up” as regards the economy as a whole… (if not for most people “at the bottom”).

Being ‘better’ than 2020 must be the lowest benchmark since the second world war.

I strongly expect the bar will be lowered considerably in 2021

If this was in anyway near what the Brexiters think, then Sunak would have had an actual budget, and forecast it.

Covid is the only game in town right now. I’m not one to give the tories the benefit of the doubt but given the scale of covid and the unprecedented impact of it in economic terms I can understand brexit being sidelined for now. Covid does give cover for brexit though. Just as the downturn caused by covid is much worse than brexit will be, so the recovery will be stronger too. Brexit will play out over a decade or longer, but the economic outlook over the next few years will be driven by the pandemic.

One of the few benefits of capitalism is its amazing ability to adapt to whatever happens. When a gap in the market appears, something fills it very quickly. Brexit is no different. There’ll be pain over the next year, but where jobs and businesses disappear, others will replace them.

Spectacularly misses the point. Yes, sure, the ‘market will decide’, but the market is rigged. The jobs that replace defunct ones will be, in the round, inferior from the employee’s point of view. Less benefits, less rights, less safeguards.

But those at the top will pull away from everyone else in terms of their wealth. Will this cause mass unrest? Maybe. Will the lumpen proletariat just shrug their shoulders and get on with being ****ed over just to earn a living? Probably.

But just glibly saying “ten jobs will go and ten jobs will replace them, so everything will be fine” is really quite daft.

You’re missing the point Daz is making…

Indeed. The important thing at the time of an election is not the altitude you’re at, but the gradient of the slope. Despite the forecasts of doom there’s a high chance that come 2024 (if we make it that far before another election)  we’ll be in the middle of a significant upturn in economic fortunes. You could write the tory campaign slogans now.

The jobs that replace defunct ones will be, in the round, inferior from the employee’s point of view. Less benefits, less rights, less safeguards.

And that’s my point. For those at the bottom, that’s already their reality. Try to imagine being a gig worker in Sunderland listening to salaried middle class professionals from Manchester or London lecturing them about how they’ll lose their employment rights because of brexit.

Significant upturn? What, like only 20,000 people starving to death that year, as opposed to 30,000 year before.

we’ll be in the middle of a significant upturn in economic fortunes. You could write the tory campaign slogans now.

Depends what point of the cycle we’re at?

Blair won a landslide on the back of Kenneth Clarks strong economic growth, which he then inherited. The reason Clark never benefitted from it was because everyone still remembered that the economy was in dire need of recovery in the first place because it was the Tories who completely ****ed it on Black Wednesday

The hit this country is going to take next year is going to be way, way worse than Black Wednesday. People never forgave them for what happened to them personally as they saw their bank balances go through the floor as interest rates hit 15% and their mortgages became unaffordable and loads of people had their houses reposessed

What do you think most peoples personal experiences are going to look like next year when the economy goes into freefall?

I’m inclined to agree wrt the next election and the economic situation approaching it. Whatever happens it’s unlikely to not have turned a corner compared to next year.

Before anyone congratulates the Tories too much though it’s worth pointing out that our economy has been hit hardest of any nation in Western Europe by covid. (Fom PM last night)

A mate on FB posted about “deepest recession in 300 years” and it promptly brought out the armchair economists saying “oh but we’ve cut that nasty foreign aid, that’ll help” so clearly the message that basically all our hard-earned cash is being given to scroungers is being broadcast loud and clear from the Tory publicity machine. Helps hide the fact that it’s being given to all their mates I suppose.

Although I was always under the impression that as foreign aid was a percentage of GDP, it went up or down along with that.
Obviously we’re not only seeing a massive downturn in GDP but also knocking some foreign aid off that downturn as well!

Although I was always under the impression that as foreign aid was a percentage of GDP, it went up or down along with that.

It does. But the Tories are proposing a change (to their own law) so that it can go down in percentage terms, not just in absolute terms. Anyway… what matters isn’t the numbers… it’s the noise…

I’m not one to give the tories the benefit of the doubt but given the scale of covid and the unprecedented impact of it in economic terms I can understand brexit being sidelined for now.

If you’d been paying attention you’d have already realised that neither him, nor the previously two Chancellors’ since May sent the Article 50 letter have forecast the impact of Brexit in a budget.

There’s a reason for this, and it ain’t ‘cos any of them think that there are any economic benefits for the UK as a whole – they know where the benefits are going, to the few!

binners
Full Member

Being ‘better’ than 2020 must be the lowest benchmark since the second world war.

Of course but you must know how this works. The entire last few tory governments have based their reputation on basically having tiny growth out of a recession. We’ve done terribly since the financial crisis but, even now, every so often the press manages a “Britain outperforms Germany” as we find some .2% increase down the back of the sofa that they already did back in 2014.

“I have £1. I lose 50p. I find 1p. I am 49p poorer” is obvious. But if you just move the timescales by a minute you get “I had 50p. I find 1p. I am 1p richer.”. It’s the easiest sell in the books.

dazh
Full Member

How do things get worse if you’re on the dole with no hope of a job or a minimum wage zero hours gig worker with no means of escape?

Oh my god, really? Start with the simple stuff. Less dole. More sanctions. “Put the workshy to work”. Force people to go and work, at dole rates, for companies that used to employ people at living wages but now can get cheap government sourced labour (yes, this one’s already happened but it’s easy to do it more). Food stamps. Remove council tax reductions for low incomes. Benefits caps. That’s the stuff that half the tory party would like to do even in a thriving economy if they could get away with it, but in a recession? No bother.

Cut the NHS. Lose “free at point of service” for more and more services. Cut services. Cut schools in poor areas so that your kids have no chance either, then criminalise them for not going to their shitty leaky school.

Reduce food standards. Reduce water standards. Reduce housing standards. Reduce tenant rights. Asbos for all and “take away their benefits”.

There is so much potential to make things worse, it wouldn’t even be difficult. It takes the likes of Patel, Gove and Hancock actual effort and willpower not to just screw people over out of instinct. I would bet money that a lot of the work is already done.

Oh my god, really? Start with the simple stuff.

I was talking within the context of brexit. Almost all the things you list are controlled by the UK govt and brexit has little impact on them. How does brexit negatively impact those already at the bottom? The main impact will be the disappearance of businesses and the jobs that will be lost. If the jobs are already insecure, poorly paid ones then no one is going to care that much.

Also people always refer to Nissan when it comes to Sunderland, I know a lot about Nissan as my dad worked there for 20 years, and despite its position as the remainer cause-celebre the reality is that the vast majority in Sunderland and the North East don’t work at Nissan, so it gets the same indifferent shrug as all the other doom-laden examples that remainers talk about. Nissan is a prime symbol of the stupidity of brexit, but I doubt it had much influence in how people in the North East voted.

I was talking within the context of brexit.

we can’t afford to pay your pensions. Ask Greece.

how it gets spun will be interesting.

I was talking within the context of brexit. Almost all the things you list are controlled by the UK govt and brexit has little impact on them. How does brexit negatively impact those already at the bottom? The main impact will be the disappearance of businesses and the jobs that will be lost. If the jobs are already insecure, poorly paid ones then no one is going to care that much.

It’s all linked though.
And it becomes more people at the food bank and the job centre, more people needing / wanting those poorly paid, gig economy jobs. And more people higher up willing to create the kind of low-rights employment to use them.

GDP is lower, the % hit its expected to take from Brexit under the best case circumstances is at least 6% which is about 3x more than it took in the 2008/2009 financial crisis. The result of that crisis was a decade of austerity. That decade of austerity is going to look like a walk through the Magic Money Tree Forest compared to Brexit.

Services, especially at social/vulnerable level, are already stripped bare. This is going to cripple them for a generation.

GDP is lower, the % hit its expected to take from Brexit under the best case circumstances is at least 6% which is about 3x more than it took in the 2008/2009 financial crisis

Bollocks

Dominic ‘Sweaty of Forehead and throbbing of vein’ Raab has assured the house that foreign aid % will go back up to 0.7%…..

When the economic situation allows.

Knowing full well it won’t. And that a large proportion of the slump is going to be as a result of an active choice.

But it is also a great sell to all the mean-spirited racists that they like to play to. Cynical shits.

we can’t afford to pay your pensions. Ask Greece.

???

Greece couldn’t pay pensions because they couldn’t borrow and they couldn’t issue currency. We can do both. Not paying pensions might be a political decision but it won’t be as a result not having enough money.

Brexit should always have been a non-party issue, but the tories and labour remainers couldn’t resist the temptation to use it for their own interests and now we are where we are.

Yes, because jumping in bed with the Tories for Better Together worked out brilliantly for Labour up in Scotland didn’t it?

Despite the forecasts of doom there’s a high chance that come 2024 (if we make it that far before another election) we’ll be in the middle of a significant upturn in economic fortunes

Besides the fact we could be climbing out of a hole we dug ourselves you mean? The one we were told would take a generation when it was us wanting to go alone. That one yeah?

What do you think most peoples personal experiences are going to look like next year when the economy goes into freefall?

Depends on whether your Brexiteer is a bottom rung renter, mortgage free saver or anyone else. It would probably be enough to turn against but those who either stand to gain or have nothing to lose will be in the same mindset. They don’t care now so why will they care afterwards?

squirrelking
Free Member

Yes, because jumping in bed with the Tories for Better Together worked out brilliantly for Labour up in Scotland didn’t it?

It’s fairly OT this, but, the idea that Labour crashed in Scotland because of working with the Tories is almost complete myth. It can look that way if you ignore everything but general elections but that’s weird- as soon as you look at polling and at the scottish parliament elections it’s obvious that their decline was well under way before the indy ref.

It put some nails in the coffin is all, the brutal truth is they collapsed in Scotland because Scottish Labour for years now have been completely shit, and because the SNP nicked most of their policies that people like while not being completely shit, and because of FPTP/electoral maths

(the last is a wee bit unobvious but for years Labour were a massive beneficiary of tactical anti-Tory voting while the SNP were a massive loser for the same reason and because they were so often a wasted vote. But as soon as the SNP came into real contention that stopped and suddenly, boom, the maths stopped helping Labour and crippling the SNP.

Literally what happened in my seat, for years we pretty much had to vote Labour as it was a 2 horse race but as soon as we were offered the choice of 3 we took it)

And since then it’s been nothing but refusal to understand what happened and how bad they really were (and believing the same myth), SNP BAAAAAD, and… well, that’s it really. I mean, just look at their last 3 leaders- Leonard, Dugdale and Murphy, 2 nonentities and an idiot.

Oh yeah, I’m not denying any of that but it was the final nail really, it just completed the whole ‘Red Tory’ story. Well, until someone decided to go one better.

Labour should have been booted years ago, they took their position as granted and their complete lack of talent and ambition is testament to that. I can see the SNP going the same way though, our incumbents are nothing to write home about, in fact the Tory list MSP gets far more done (or at least campaigns).

Is today the day for deal or no deal?

There’s nothing on front of BBC news about it…(I may be wrong of course).

Covid & presidential isdues are the only game it seems.

Although I was always under the impression that as foreign aid was a percentage of GDP, it went up or down along with that.
Obviously we’re not only seeing a massive downturn in GDP but also knocking some foreign aid off that downturn as well!

I think the plan is that, under the formula, we’ll start receiving aid from the developing world by February.

Is today the day for deal or no deal?

I, for one, do not want to look in the **** box, Noel.

Couldn’t help but having a good laugh when I checked the news this morning. I look forward to the FBPE crowd piling in on Starmer as they did Corbyn.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/nov/28/starmer-prepares-to-reopen-old-labour-wounds-over-brexit-deal-vote

Date we left the EU: 31th January 2020

Date Starmer became leader: 4th April 2020

🤷🏻‍♂️

We need a trade+ deal sorted inside a month. It most likely won’t happen. Starmer shouldn’t do anything to stop it happening.

Glad you find it funny Daz

I can’t think of anything less likely to make me laugh. There are no good options at this stage. It’s all just degrees of disaster. What would you have the leader of the opposition do at the 59th minute of the 11th hour to stop the Brexit-obsessed government with an 80 seat majority (thanks Jeremy!) driving us off a cliff?

Your suggestions would be most welcome

In the meantime, you enjoy a good chuckle to yourself though. The upcoming economic implosion is ****ing hilarious, isn’t it?

What’s the latest on labour’s likely response to any deal? Surely they have to be whipped to abstain on the vote, on the grounds that the Tories will vote it through in any event, as there won’t be enough no dealers in the naysayers camp.

If Starmer votes for a deal then the Tories will take great delight in shutting down any criticism of the crap deal with a ” well you voted for it”

If Starmer whips his party to abstain then I can’t see too many voting for the deal as the mps likely to have done so were excised at last GE

I’m concerned Starmer, ever the pragmatist and possibly thinking of his appeal to the red wall, will mobilise for the deal. Don’t do it Starmer! I’m encouraged with his canny
albeit passive politickingg of brexit since becoming leader though

How I would frame it … “both these options before us, no deal and paper thin deal, are poor choices… let the Conservatives pick which, it is they that are proposing both… abstain” … but Starmer has to have an eye on killing Brexit as an issue for Labour on the doorstep though, so he’ll frame it as … “the transition deal is over in a few weeks time… any deal is better than no deal… vote to accept this minimal deal… and let’s aim to improve on it if we take office”.

If Starmer whips his party to abstain then I can’t see too many voting for the deal as the mps likely to have done so were excised at last GE

I can think of one person who’s been spared the usual tedious routine of voting against the party whip over Europe, as a result of recent events 😂

I can’t help but feel that if a Labour leader had said straight away on 24/06/16 “This is a monumental mistake and everything from now on should be geared towards damage limitation” then there would be a significant groundswell of opinion, even among leave voters, that this is a terrible idea.

Trouble is no one had the balls. Don’t want to upset the racists/xenophobes that they suddenly realised were are a major part of their support.

Bollocks to Brexit.