Brexit and Austerity

[gosub]

?

 

[Supine]

What’s wrong with article 126?

 

[gosub]

What’s wrong with article 126?

It limits government borrowing levels in relation to GDP. Labour's end to austerity, according to the shadow Chancellor is to be done through borrowing.


Said limits were why we ended up with PFI

 

[blameless77]

EUR-Lex - 12008E126 - EN - EUR-Lex

I assume they’re referring to this law, passed in 1958 - long before the UK had entered the European Union. Not sure what their point is...

 

[gosub]

EUR-Lex - 12008E126 - EN - EUR-Lex

I assume they’re referring to this law, passed in 1958 - long before the UK had entered the European Union. Not sure what their point is...

EUR-Lex - 12008E126 - EN is current law as last reviewed in 2012

 

[gosub]

The reason we ended up with all those shit PFI deals was a work around for it

 

[Raheem]

Said limits were why we ended up with PFI

PFI was ostensibly connected to a vague attempt to aspire to what's now Article 140 (Eurozone convergence criteria). But that was only really ever a pretext for an ideological project of opening public services to the private sector. In any event, it wasn't to do with Article 126.

 

[gosub]

PFI was ostensibly connected to a vague attempt to aspire to what's now Article 140 (Eurozone convergence criteria). But that was only really ever a pretext for an ideological project of opening public services to the private sector. In any event, it wasn't to do with Article 126.

There are even more rigid constraints for thems that want to go down the EUro route, and granted the EUro convergence dept of the Treasury wasn't closed til Cameron got in (regardless of what Brown said) and granted Tony's fiends did very nicely out of PFI, but in EU we are bound by Art 126... The WASPI payback alone is twice the current defence budget

 

[Azrael]

Compliance procedures here. In short, a line of hoops to jump through before any enforcement, tortuously slow, and vague criteria that can be got around with clever lawyering. The Con-Dems didn't want to try. Italy's been flouting it for years, and unlike the U.K. with its opt-outs, she's in the eurozone. The U.K., with a sovereign currency, could ultimately create the money it needs.

It shouldn't be judged in a vacuum. The hit from leaving the single market would far outstrip this feeble piece of euro law.

 

[Azrael]

There are even more rigid constraints for thems that want to go down the EUro route, and granted the EUro convergence dept of the Treasury wasn't closed til Cameron got in (regardless of what Brown said) and granted Tony's fiends did very nicely out of PFI, but in EU we are bound by Art 126... The WASPI payback alone is twice the current defence budget

Whitehall could make a case that an exception could be made, ask that it not be included in current spending, hire whoever the Italians use to talk their way outa enforcement ...

This stuff looks far worse in theory that it is in practice, and practice is what ultimately matters.