A thank you to Brexiteers.
- Thread starter MrSki
- Start date
gosub
~#
Doesn't matter who you vote for, you still get governed
bimble
floofy
This 'black hole' that they keep talking about to prepare us for massive cuts to public services, the number being put about was 60 billion wasn't it.
The best calculations of what brexit has cost so far are :
32 billion PER YEAR in lost tax revenue due to shrunken economy plus the divorce bill of 35 billion.
Weird coincidence that, definitely covid though nothing to see here.
The best calculations of what brexit has cost so far are :
32 billion PER YEAR in lost tax revenue due to shrunken economy plus the divorce bill of 35 billion.
Weird coincidence that, definitely covid though nothing to see here.
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Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
No doubt the economy has suffered and contracted after Britain left the single market. No doubt this is over and above what has occurred everywhere due to a worldwide pandemic and capitalist economic crisis.
However, the question is this, was that inevitable or was it caused by a combination of covid and Tory incompetence that botched exiting?
Put another way, is is possible to imagine a successful economy without the UK being in the single market? I suspect you and I would not agree on the answer, but I maintain a vibrant national economy is both desirable and entirely achievable.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
If you're going to talk about a successful economy you have to think about who it's successful for. And if you have in mind the people you'd like it to be successful for that I think you do then no, a successful economy is not possible in the current circumstances.
brogdale
Coming to terms with late onset Anarchism
Yes, if the last 7 weeks have reiterated anything, it's just that; there is no taking back control whilst neoliberal fincap corps determine macro-economic policy of national polities.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
is autarky the goal?
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
That's not true. We were largely self sufficient in food and energy (in fact a net exporter of both) up until the beginning of the 1970's.
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
I think this sets the path out that needs to followed by Rejaimers
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
That, I'd have thought, goes without saying. However, addressing the historically low levels of balance of payments, the record low levels of investment, the obsessions with outsourcing and offshoring, the low levels of public ownership and absence of a central direction of a national and strategic industrial strategy are all entirely possible.
Yossarian
Get thee behind me, Santa
Britain hasn't been self-sufficient in food for centuries - according to Farmers Weekly, self-sufficiency peaked in the 1980s, around a decade after EEC membership.
www.fwi.co.uk
UK self-sufficiency in food - how bad is it? - Farmers Weekly
The UK's self-sufficiency in staple foods like meat and fresh vegetables has plummeted since the highs of the 1980s, according to DEFRA's own
bimble
floofy
Energy does seem to be an entirely unforced and serious fuckup, there is no good reason at all why we are so dependent on imports for that.
But trying to get back to the pre-1970s foodscape i dunno if that’s the way forward.
bimble
floofy
What’s “indigenous type food”. Even if we were almost self sufficient in that it doesn’t include avocados does it.Britain hasn't been self-sufficient in food for centuries - according to Farmers Weekly, self-sufficiency peaked in the 1980s, around a decade after EEC membership.
UK self-sufficiency in food - how bad is it? - Farmers Weekly
The UK's self-sufficiency in staple foods like meat and fresh vegetables has plummeted since the highs of the 1980s, according to DEFRA's own
Yossarian
Get thee behind me, Santa
What’s “indigenous type food”. Even if we were almost self sufficient in that it doesn’t include avocados does it.
The NFU describes "non-indigenous foods" as "items such as exotic fruit – bananas, mangoes, tea, coffee and spices – foods that cannot be grown (either at all or on a meaningful scale) in the UK."
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
Britain hasn't been self-sufficient in food for centuries - according to Farmers Weekly, self-sufficiency peaked in the 1980s, around a decade after EEC membership.
UK self-sufficiency in food - how bad is it? - Farmers Weekly
The UK's self-sufficiency in staple foods like meat and fresh vegetables has plummeted since the highs of the 1980s, according to DEFRA's own
Read David Edgerton’s History of 20th Century Britain for an extensive discussion of this. I’d argue he’s more of an authority than farmers weekly. You may disagree
bluescreen
tofu eating wokerati
Until we achieve self-sufficiency, post-Brexit border friction is a serious impediment to the trade and co-operation we used to enjoy.
This post is from a Czech trucker/journalist who lived in UK for 17 years until Brexit:
This post is from a Czech trucker/journalist who lived in UK for 17 years until Brexit:
bimble
floofy
Smokeandsteam the "vibrant national economy" you talk about, can you point to any country who has one of those currently?
eta i see that the number one most self sufficient country in the world at the moment is apparently Sudan, lowest import & export figures of anywhere, but i don't think you'd call it vibrant, its just fucked.
eta i see that the number one most self sufficient country in the world at the moment is apparently Sudan, lowest import & export figures of anywhere, but i don't think you'd call it vibrant, its just fucked.
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Yossarian
Get thee behind me, Santa
I'll add it to the list, but I think you might have misremembered its content - according to this review, he said Britain was "self-sufficient in food" in the 1980s, which aligns with the DEFRA statistics used by Farmers Weekly, when "non-indigenous" foods are excluded.
By the Thatcher era Britain – “uniquely” in her modern history – was “self-sufficient in food” and, for the first time since 1939, “a net exporter of energy”. Therefore, the country no longer had to export manufactured products to balance imports of food and energy: “The basic relations of the economy to the rest of the world had changed.” But do any of us properly understand even our own recent past? As Edgerton notes, “this epochal transformation” has “barely registered”, either in political argument or in historical analysis.
Karl Masks
Birds Angel Delight
"largely" being the operative word. It depends on what the food in question is and what people are eating then and now.
gosub
~#
Be a bit odd to blame a tea shortage on BrexitWhat’s “indigenous type food”. Even if we were almost self sufficient in that it doesn’t include avocados does it.
Yossarian
Get thee behind me, Santa
In this post from 2018, Edgerton credits the "self-sufficiency" in the 1980s to the British economy becoming more like European ones.
Even in 1950 the British economy was different from the continental European ones, not least in its weak agriculture. Even in war, Britain couldn’t feed itself. That historical reality was profoundly changed by British national policy, which transformed the nation after 1945. In many, many ways, continental Europe and the UK converged, on a continental model of national self-sufficiency. By the 1980s the UK was nearly self-sufficient in food, something nearly unthinkable in 1945 or 1914. After 1945 it also became a modern industrialised nation.
....Too many commentators have asserted that the Brexit vote represented an imperial throwback. A more plausible explanation is that it was an inchoate cry of nationalist rage from inner England, largely from those who grew up in a national age when there was national industry making national goods. There has also been far too much emphasis on the ideas of Brexiter politicians as imperialist or nationalist. Far more significant is a pining for Edwardian unilateral free trade. Rather than rebuild what is left of the British nation’s industry and agriculture, they would destroy it.
What Brexiters say about the British present deserves more attention. Where once there was a ludicrous declinism seriously underestimating British power, now a daft revivalism seems to be at the core of buccaneering Brexiter thinking...
Brexit is not a portentous destiny that overhangs our politics. It is a mess of irreconcilable nostalgias. We shouldn’t grant to the Brexiters their own argument that they are somehow more in tune with the essence of Britishness as experienced through history, which we risk doing if we think they are helped by ghosts from the past. It is not a reflection on the realities of British life, of the present or of the past. It’s a very local phenomenon, which even if carried through, would barely register at European, much less global level. For the only power Brexiters have is to make us poorer, to inflict self-harm on the economy, and to damage further what little reputation British politicians have. Delusional as well as deluding, these banana-monarchy conmen and conduits for dark money want to trap us in a historicised never-never land.
www.davidedgerton.org
Even in 1950 the British economy was different from the continental European ones, not least in its weak agriculture. Even in war, Britain couldn’t feed itself. That historical reality was profoundly changed by British national policy, which transformed the nation after 1945. In many, many ways, continental Europe and the UK converged, on a continental model of national self-sufficiency. By the 1980s the UK was nearly self-sufficient in food, something nearly unthinkable in 1945 or 1914. After 1945 it also became a modern industrialised nation.
....Too many commentators have asserted that the Brexit vote represented an imperial throwback. A more plausible explanation is that it was an inchoate cry of nationalist rage from inner England, largely from those who grew up in a national age when there was national industry making national goods. There has also been far too much emphasis on the ideas of Brexiter politicians as imperialist or nationalist. Far more significant is a pining for Edwardian unilateral free trade. Rather than rebuild what is left of the British nation’s industry and agriculture, they would destroy it.
What Brexiters say about the British present deserves more attention. Where once there was a ludicrous declinism seriously underestimating British power, now a daft revivalism seems to be at the core of buccaneering Brexiter thinking...
Brexit is not a portentous destiny that overhangs our politics. It is a mess of irreconcilable nostalgias. We shouldn’t grant to the Brexiters their own argument that they are somehow more in tune with the essence of Britishness as experienced through history, which we risk doing if we think they are helped by ghosts from the past. It is not a reflection on the realities of British life, of the present or of the past. It’s a very local phenomenon, which even if carried through, would barely register at European, much less global level. For the only power Brexiters have is to make us poorer, to inflict self-harm on the economy, and to damage further what little reputation British politicians have. Delusional as well as deluding, these banana-monarchy conmen and conduits for dark money want to trap us in a historicised never-never land.
The idea of deep continuity in British history is absurd. We’ve always been in flux — David Edgerton
From the Observer 18 November 2018 There is something ridiculous about Brexit Britain. It is a Carry On movie set in the past: we are living not at a historic moment but one laden with trivialised history. Boris Johnson tells us that with Brexit the nation will find its bojo as it found
www.davidedgerton.org
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
In this post from 2018, Edgerton credits the "self-sufficiency" in the 1980s to the British economy becoming more like European ones.
Even in 1950 the British economy was different from the continental European ones, not least in its weak agriculture. Even in war, Britain couldn’t feed itself. That historical reality was profoundly changed by British national policy, which transformed the nation after 1945. In many, many ways, continental Europe and the UK converged, on a continental model of national self-sufficiency. By the 1980s the UK was nearly self-sufficient in food, something nearly unthinkable in 1945 or 1914. After 1945 it also became a modern industrialised nation.
....Too many commentators have asserted that the Brexit vote represented an imperial throwback. A more plausible explanation is that it was an inchoate cry of nationalist rage from inner England, largely from those who grew up in a national age when there was national industry making national goods. There has also been far too much emphasis on the ideas of Brexiter politicians as imperialist or nationalist. Far more significant is a pining for Edwardian unilateral free trade. Rather than rebuild what is left of the British nation’s industry and agriculture, they would destroy it.
The idea of deep continuity in British history is absurd. We’ve always been in flux — David Edgerton
From the Observer 18 November 2018 There is something ridiculous about Brexit Britain. It is a Carry On movie set in the past: we are living not at a historic moment but one laden with trivialised history. Boris Johnson tells us that with Brexit the nation will find its bojo as it found
Indeed he does. However, Edgerton's argument and beef is with the particular form of Brexit as conceptualized by Tories and right wingers rather than one based on building a national economy for the 21st Century. I am happy to agree with you that Edgerton proves that Britain was entirely self sufficient in terms of food until Thatcher bar "non-indigenous foods".
Returning to that point now - as well as being a net exporter of energy with public ownership of large sections of both sectors - would be a step forward wouldn't it.
Flavour
hang the bankers
What’s “indigenous type food”. Even if we were almost self sufficient in that it doesn’t include avocados does it.
The world can't afford for the West to eat avocados at the current rate, that much is obvious.
gosub
~#
bimble
floofy
We brexited to save the environment? Whose going to tell the avocado farmers.
Anyway, not sure how we got back onto this old chestnut of food self sufficiency, I was just pointing out that brexit seems to have cost the country aprox sixty billion to date which coincidentally is the same number they keep going on about as the 'black hole' in the public finances.
Yossarian
Get thee behind me, Santa
He says the opposite - he says Britain wasn't self-sufficient in food during the imperial period, but self-sufficiency increased after World War II as Britain became more like its European counterparts, reaching a peak early in the Thatcher years before declining once more.
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Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
No he doesn't. He says that the development of, focus on and prioritization of the building of a national economy after the war led to relatively rapid self sufficiency in food (bar non-indigenous foods) and that this was reversed by Thatcherite policies that use the state to defeat, demolish and sell off the key sections of the national economy. He doesn't say - but should after showing what a pro-EU figure Thatcher was initially- that the CAP played a key role in this in respect of food self sufficiency.
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