It's all going to work out great. We've just got to wait half a century for the best bits.
WATCH: Rees-Mogg says it'll take 50 years for Brexit benefits
Jacob Rees-Mogg has suggested it could take half a century for Britain to reap any rewards from Brexit.www.theneweuropean.co.uk
Hokey cokey uk
Quicker than I expectedIt's all going to work out great. We've just got to wait half a century for the best bits.
WATCH: Rees-Mogg says it'll take 50 years for Brexit benefits
Jacob Rees-Mogg has suggested it could take half a century for Britain to reap any rewards from Brexit.
The quote I just read was "while it would have been legally possible to go it alone as an EU member, there is little doubt the UK would have been snarled up in Brussels politics, and far less able to procure at speed. Overall production would have been the loser." I haven't read any mainstream news articles, across the spectrum, that disagree with that assessment, so I believe it.
What is that 'little doubt' based on, though?
I guess based on what happened in every country that did use the EU's joint procurement.
Well I dunno every news outlet is reporting it as a failure of the EU, across the spectrum. I really think you have to accept this is one score for "benefit of not being part of the EU", whatever side you are on, otherwise it seems a bit desperate. You could say "yes it did work out well just this once, but it is an extremely rare set of circumstances and the benefits to being in the EU far outweigh it", but you can't say "no this is entirely irrelevant to brexit so put it out of your head".
Whilst the UK were in the EU transition period, they nevertheless were out of the EU and had a cultural preference for doing things without the EU. Countries staying in the EU had a strong pressure to act collectively as the EU. After all, what’s the point of being a single political bloc if you don’t do things as a bloc? So pointing out the legal possibilities really misses the point. As rutabowa notes, all the countries that were in the EU used the EU joint procurement program and there is no reason to think that a remain-voting UK wouldn’t have done the same.
That doesn't follow, though. There was no compulsion to use the EU's joint procurement. Hungary has broken ranks and is now going faster. Any country could have chosen not even to join those ranks. The EU didn't have the power to force its members to join in with its joint programme.
Other than the UK's long history as the EU's awkward member that didn't join in with things. A 'remain-voting' UK government dealing with ongoing tensions regarding closer EU integration could easily have seen this as a moment to demonstrate independence from the EU.
It’s not so much about what they could have done as it is about what they would have done.
They don’t have a long history of not joining in with this kind of thing.
Yes, and as such it is a counterfactual that requires a bunch of assumptions.
This kind of language, though, 'what they tell us to do', isn't really accurate in this particular instance.
It only involves the assumption that choosing to stay in the EU would have involved doing things as part of the EU.
I mean it is my language, but are you saying there was no pressure put on countries in the EU to use EU joint procurement rather than going it alone?
ourworldindata.org
That has turned out to be a good decision too, with regulators all over the place starting to recommend focusing on the first dose. The Pfizer vaccine has now been found to be 93% effective after two weeks after one dose and there is pressure in the US to start prioritising first doses rather than worrying about second doses.Uk has done really well on vaccinations, and it’s quite likely that the mindset of leaving the EU helped when they decided not to join in the joint procurement plan.
This chart here provides a bit of a different perspective though, it shows % of population that have been fully vaccinated, instead of having received one dose.
View attachment 254936
Coronavirus (COVID-19) Vaccinations
Our vaccination dataset uses the most recent official numbers from governments and health ministries worldwide. Population estimates for per-capita metrics are based on the United Nations World Population Prospects. Income groups are based on the World Bank classification. A full list of our...
YES absolutely, fair enough, I'm def not saying it is perfect! But you at least have to acknowledge that, in this v specific case, brexit probably did have some benefit.Uk has done really well on vaccinations, and it’s quite likely that the mindset of leaving the EU helped when they decided not to join in the joint procurement plan.
This chart here provides a bit of a different perspective though, it shows % of population that have been fully vaccinated, instead of having received one dose.
View attachment 254936
Coronavirus (COVID-19) Vaccinations
Our vaccination dataset uses the most recent official numbers from governments and health ministries worldwide. Population estimates for per-capita metrics are based on the United Nations World Population Prospects. Income groups are based on the World Bank classification. A full list of our...
