Is Brexit actually going to happen?

[Kaka Tim]

Haha, true! But I got the impression you had already decided that whatever *has* happened has not been in the national interest.

I dont give a toss about the national interest - which is essentially "the interests of the ruling class" . But no - i don't think its in the interests of most people in the UK.

 

[SpackleFrog]

I dont give a toss about the national interest - which is essentially "the interests of the ruling class" . But no - i don't think its in the interests of most people in the UK.

HOLD UP A MINUTE.

You mean to tell me that the ruling class has seperate interests to the rest of us and that actually "the national interest" is a meaningless term?

Is someone else logged in as you?

 

[Kaka Tim]

HOLD UP A MINUTE.

You mean to tell me that the ruling class has seperate interests to the rest of us and that actually "the national interest" is a meaningless term?

Is someone else logged in as you?

erm ... I dont believe i have ever believed any different.

 

[kabbes]

Sunk cost fallacy combined with long term antipathy to the UK regulator means that I’m not sure that they would actually want to be reversed, but yes — it’s easily doable as we speak for most firms. Right now it is more easy to reverse it than carry on for most. At some point in early 2018, however, the tipping point will be reached. The legal work will have been done, capital will have been shifted and it reversing it will be a matter of repeating the whole process again in reverse, which there will be no appetite for

For the record, I’d say the tipping point has now been reached. Even if Brexit is reversed, I think most London Market insurers are committed to their new continental set-ups. Turns out that other regulators are just easier to deal with than the PRA, so who wants to stay in London anyway, now the hard work is done?

 

[teuchter]

Yeah a whopping 0.7% more - for a country with nearly 4000km of physical boarders to other nations. Austria, Switzerland,Czech, France, Luxemburg, Belgium, Holland & Poland, Denmark - all of which have had large swathes of german "migrants" (for want of a better word) in the last century and a half

4.2/3.6 = 15% more actually.

Yes, Germany has many physical borders, and with countries from which some immigrants may be germans "returning".

On the other hand, the UK has been open to migration from the accession countries since 2004 and Germany only since 2011.

 

[pocketscience]

4.2/3.6 = 15% more actually.

So the difference between 4.2% and 3.6% is 15%.
Right...

 

[gosub]

Fuck are you on about? Why are you all obsessed with marriage and divorce these are not the same things as international politics

Sharing a Union with a full on federalized EUrozone

 

[teuchter]

So the difference between 4.2% and 3.6% is 15%.
Right...

Per head of population, Germany has 15% more EU-born immigrants than the UK, yes.

 

[pocketscience]

Per head of population, Germany has 15% more EU-born immigrants than the UK, yes.

In absolute terms yes, but that's a completely meaningless statistic.
Do you think Sweden with its 9 million population should also have 3.4 million immigrants born in another Eu state - just because Germany does.

again. why am I bothering...

 

[SpackleFrog]

Sharing a Union with a full on federalized EUrozone

What has that got to do with sharing a flat?

 

[teuchter]

In absolute terms yes, but that's a completely meaningless statistic.
Do you think Sweden with its 9 million population should also have 3.4 million immigrants born in another Eu state - just because Germany does.

again. why am I bothering...

No, the point is that it's not an absolute number. It's per head of population. More accurately it's 16.7% more, rather than 15% more.

Sweden, with its 9 million population, at 3.6% (the same as Germany) would have 324,000 immigrants born in another state. At 4.2% (the UK rate) it would have 378,000 immigrants. 16.7% more.

As it happens, Sweden's rate is 5.1% and therefore has 477,000 - even more than the UK or Germany, per head of population.

 

[gosub]

What has that got to do with sharing a flat?

LMGTFY

 

[pocketscience]

No, the point is that it's not an absolute number. It's per head of population. More accurately it's 16.7% more, rather than 15% more.

Sweden, with its 9 million population, at 3.6% (the same as Germany) would have 324,000 immigrants born in another state. At 4.2% (the UK rate) it would have 378,000 immigrants. 16.7% more.

As it happens, Sweden's rate is 5.1% and therefore has 477,000 - even more than the UK or Germany, per head of population.

Your 16.7% is based on absolute numbers. IMO that's a misleading metric for the discussion being had. The only meaningful metric is the one already on the table you provided; Proportional percentages of the total population of each nation - and for that, Germany has 0.7% more immigrants than the UK (0.6% immigrants born in Eu).
If you want to do more statistical gymnastics you could crunch the numbers for immigrants proportional to population density, or land area, or gdp etc...
The numbers are there on the table for a reason. It's because they're the most representative proportionally.

 

[paolo]

So the difference between 4.2% and 3.6% is 15%.
Right...

In the same way that 2% is double 1%, as a proportion of the whole.

 

[teuchter]

Your 16.7% is based on absolute numbers.

No it's not.
EU immigrants per head of population is very definitely not an absolute number.

 

[paolo]

Let’s take another example. If the service charge in a restuarant went up from 10% to 20%, has it doubled, or only gone up 10%?

If you’d say it has doubled, teuchter’s representation is correct.

 

[pocketscience]

Let’s take another example. If the service charge in a restuarant went up from 10% to 20%, has it doubled, or only gone up 10%?

If you’d say it has doubled, teuchter’s representation is correct.

Yeah well, I'm saying its gone up 10%... Woopee doo.

The meaningful numbers are on Teuchters table. Ger:4.2% vs UK:3.6%... i.e negligable numbers for both nations in the grand scheme of things, the difference between having just over a half of an EU born immigrant amongst every hundred persons.

 

[MightyTibberton]

As a boring pedant I'm glad to bore in here with the BBC 's rule on this.

If something has increased from 10% to 20% the BBC would say that it has gone up 'by 10 percentage points' to refer to the numbers and differentiate from the '100%' proportional increase.

 

[MightyTibberton]

I wonder if the UK might see a reversal of some of that Polish immigration if this forecast is accurate?

 

[teuchter]

negligable numbers for both nations in the grand scheme of things

Most Brexiteers, it would seem, would disagree.

 

[paolo]

As a boring pedant I'm glad to bore in here with the BBC 's rule on this.

If something has increased from 10% to 20% the BBC would say that it has gone up 'by 10 percentage points' to refer to the numbers and differentiate from the '100%' proportional increase.

Aha. I did wonder how to express the two different things.

 

[paolo]

I wonder if the UK might see a reversal of some of that Polish immigration if this forecast is accurate?

Immigration from the EU27 is already slowing. I expect there’s a few underlying factors.

 

[sealion]

I think there is a perception in the UK that unskilled migrant workers drive down wages. Employers argue that migrants do work that locals do not want.

The sub contractors and builders keep the wages ( certainly for general labourers and groundworkers) low. It's very hard to get on a site in London now because most of the labour is sent form eastern europe. Construction firms now source direct from agencies( many are uk companies) based abroad. There was a time when you could walk onto any site in London and get work and a decent daily rate, now, if your lucky you are given a business card and told to go through the Budapest based agency. Blokes from abroad today are earning no more than i did as a groundworker in 1985. I don't blame them for coming, im not bitter towards them because i would do the same to feed my family as my parents did when they arrived here in the late sixties.

The fact that there are working class people of all nationalities in full time work and still having to and are eligible to claim benefits, suggests people are doing work they don't want to do and that something is seriously fucking wrong.

 

[sealion]

I'm well aware that the majority of the ruling class don't want Brexit to happen,

I wonder why

 

[mather]

The EU is going to make it as awkward as possible for the UK to leave. Which is entirely predictable as its the obvious thing to do - they have far less to lose.
Its also probable they want the whole brexit thing to come off the tracks and the UK comes back to the fold.

I dont think thats a delusional position at all. Its entirely logical.

I get the logic, but it is still delusional. Yes, they will play hard ball to try and either force us to back off from Brexit or punish us to make an example should we leave. I get that the EU wishes to use us as an example to scare other European countries from leaving the EU, however if they go down this route it will blowback in their faces, and the blowback has the potential to be far more radical and even unsavoury than anything we have so far witnessed. Should the EU go down this route, it will simply confirm to anyone left who still doubts the authoritarian and undemocratic nature of the EU that the EU is beyond any possibility of reform and will never change its ways. Indeed the EU's solution to any problem is more integration, more EU, even when those problems are caused by the EU itself. If the EU elites think that such a course will not have consequences and if they think that voters won't opt to punish them by voting for radical parties when they have elections, then the EU elites are beyond delusional. That said, you may be right and they still go for such a poor choice, their funeral if they do.

Any political party or movement that works to stop Brexit can kiss it's political popularity and relevance goodbye. They will, if they are lucky, become as small and as inconsequential as the Lib Dems. Even amongst those who voted Remain during the referendum, only a minority back the 'Stop Brexit' position.

 

[mather]

I think we should all be concerned at the possibility of a No Deal being engineered in order to go to town on the rest of our public services and possibly much worse than that.

I'm so sick of this nonsense talking point. What exactly has the EU done since we have had austerity? Where was the EU when my family was lumped with the bedroom tax? Where was the EU (EEC back then) when Thatcher waged war on the unions. At the end of the workers only have themselves, no one else is our ally. Instead of dreaming about some fairytale world where neo-liberal EU technocrats somehow stand for and defend the rights of workers, why not get down to the business of actually working and organising with workers about their issues and struggles? The British trade unions made this mistake, offshore the class struggle to the capitalist elites of Europe and then act all surprised when it gets pointed out that the union movement is weak and incapable of leading workers struggles.

 

[SpackleFrog]

LMGTFY

Congrats, you're the first person I've met who can't use LMGTFY in the correct context.

 

[gosub]

Congrats, you're the first person I've met who can't use LMGTFY in the correct context.

tbf I just worked on the basis that someone SO stupid as to not know what a metaphor is, might need extra help.

 

[SpackleFrog]

tbf I just worked on the basis that someone SO stupid as to not know what a metaphor is, might need extra help.

My point is, your metaphor is fucking stupid and you are fucking stupid. I understand you're trying to use metaphor. What I'm asking is how you think your attempt is in any way useful.

 

[MightyTibberton]

I'm so sick of this nonsense talking point. What exactly has the EU done since we have had austerity? Where was the EU when my family was lumped with the bedroom tax? Where was the EU (EEC back then) when Thatcher waged war on the unions. At the end of the workers only have themselves, no one else is our ally. Instead of dreaming about some fairytale world where neo-liberal EU technocrats somehow stand for and defend the rights of workers, why not get down to the business of actually working and organising with workers about their issues and struggles? The British trade unions made this mistake, offshore the class struggle to the capitalist elites of Europe and then act all surprised when it gets pointed out that the union movement is weak and incapable of leading workers struggles.

I'm not referring to any EU protections, but to the exploitation of the economic shock that will probably accompany a No Deal exit.

The bedroom tax was taken to court using the European Convention on Human Rights. Not directly an EU thing I know, but as part of Brexit they are removing EU rights from British law and they hate the Human Rights Act that includes the ECHR.

You seem to be saying that the EU is both too undemocratic to allow us to make our own laws and then complaining that it doesn't protect people enough from our own laws.

Not many people think the EU is ideal. Nobody thinks it is a socialist organisation - it's a big free trade club. I just think being in is better than being out.

I agree completely with what you say about local organising and campaigning and I hope that happens. That would be very positive.