Brexit Referendum

gcomeau wrote:And there goes the last AAA credit rating the UK had. Downgraded *2* levels by S&P and one level by Fitch. Ouch.

How many Leave voters who had no grasp of what they were actually voting for do you think want a do-over right about now?

That one really just shows how utterly disconnected those S&P etc people really are.

Downgrading NOW merely shows that they are far too politically controlled, as there wont actually be any changes in UK credit worthiness due to leaving EU for years.

And it´s FAR from clearcut exactly what those changes will be. IF there are any changes at all. The -stay- camp is throwing lots of expletives around about how it will be the economical end of the world if UK leaves EU, but most of it is barely even at the level of wild guessing. There simply is no guarantee that UK economy will either benefit OR stumble due to leaving EU.
(most likely i would say it will be a bit of both)

Compare with the campaigning before the Swedish vote on whether to join EU or not, all the bullshit thrown around from the -yes- camp... The promises about how much it would do for the economy? Yeah well, NO.

Maybe a tenth of it was true and the downsides that came with it probably more than made up for it. Not to forget all the non-economical garbage that came along, like the enforced standardisations, that for example suddenly allowed a huge bunch of chemicals of highly questionable safety to be allowed again, after having been banned for decades.

And ridiculous things, like what kind of sand was allowed in playground sandboxes? Especially "funny" when that little specification was not so well thought out when the climate here was taken into account. But oh no, again we must abide by the rules, even if it´s bloody stupid and will cause injuries.



On a related note, i´m kinda shocked just how much crap is being thrown around by the supporters of the -stayers- post referendum.

Seriously, they are mudslinging blame all over, most commonly at "the spoiled youth", when it was the younger voters that apparently were the ones voting MOST for stay.
Totally weird.

And then all the talk about how those spoiled youth supposedly voted to leave because they have never known war and oh my how amazingly the EU has kept war from Europe...


Just, yikes... EU as such has had near zero effect on conflicts in Europe since WWII, and has in fact been more or less part in CAUSING at least 2 wars in Europe.
Not to mention how the great "peace project" was originally created as a means to let Europe exploit Africa "more efficiently".

*blah!* I´m just annoyed at the widespread ignorance and hypocricy.

Tenshinai wrote:That one really just shows how utterly disconnected those S&P etc people really are.

Downgrading NOW merely shows that they are far too politically controlled, as there wont actually be any changes in UK credit worthiness due to leaving EU for years.

Credit ratings are assessments of lending risks. As in, if you lend them money today will they be able to pay it all back *in the future*.

They must therefore be forward looking, not simple assessments of current conditions.

And it´s FAR from clearcut exactly what those changes will be. IF there are any changes at all.

Of course it's unclear. You know one thing lenders really hate?

Uncertainty.


But the broad strokes are kind of unavoidable. Either

1. They do what they have to do to retain something like their current access to the common market. Which means they accept all the rules and obligations that go with it. Which the Leavers will throw a ranting fit about since all their "take the country back" rhetoric will be shown to have been complete bullshit that was never going to be enacted.

2. They don't, and the economy WILL take a serious hit.

The E wrote:

Rincewind wrote:
And if we are going to talk about inequalities or hypocrisy then what about Turkish Migrant Workers in Germany? Certainly there was a time when, although they may have lived in Germany nearly all their lives & paid the same level of taxes as Germans they were only entitled to 2/3 of the benefits that German citizens were.

If you could find a citation on that, that would be great. It's your argument, now support it with something factual.

Oh, and regarding the rest of your post: I notice you attaching a lot of qualifiers to your statements. So, while you're doing research, why not try to figure out how large the problem actually is, taking into account all the people you say you have nothing against.

It was on the BBC's Panorama programme, certainly some years ago. It always stuck in my mind.

munroburton wrote:

Rincewind wrote:And I can remember in 1974 when Labour gerrymandered the constituency boundaries just to guarantee themselves more seats. And let's not forget that of eleven Labour governments eight relied on the Scottish vote to get them into power.

Eight? More like two. Only three times have Scottish MPs made a material difference to the UK Government since WW2.

http://wingsoverscotland.com/wp-content ... itans1.jpg

The other times were happy coincidences. Doesn't the EU Ref result demonstrate that? 62% Remain plus England's 53% Leave equalling 52% leave. A fifteen point margin barely made one percent difference to the overall result.

It doesn't matter if it was a happy coincidence or not it still happened. That was the result of the UK's First past the post system whereas the Brexit Referendum was on the basis of a simple majority of ALL votes cast. You are comparing apples & oranges.

After all, in the 2015 the SNP polled only 1,454,436 votes or 4.7% of those cast yet returned 56 MPs, 8.6%. UKIP polled 3,881,099 or 12.7% of the vote yet only got 1 MP.

Rincewind wrote:It doesn't matter if it was a happy coincidence or not it still happened. That was the result of the UK's First past the post system whereas the Brexit Referendum was on the basis of a simple majority of ALL votes cast. You are comparing apples & oranges.

After all, in the 2015 the SNP polled only 1,454,436 votes or 4.7% of those cast yet returned 56 MPs, 8.6%. UKIP polled 3,881,099 or 12.7% of the vote yet only got 1 MP.

https://www.quora.com/If-Scottish-votes ... l-election

So in summary we can see the following:
- Scottish MPs have NEVER turned what would have been a Conservative government into a Labour one, or indeed vice versa.
- on only TWO occasions, the most recent of them being 38 years ago, (1964 and the second of the two 1974 elections), have Scottish MPs given Labour a majority they wouldn't have had from England/Wales/NI alone.
- the majorities of the administrations in question were incredibly fragile ones of four and three MPs respectively – the 1964 Labour government lasted barely 18 months, and the 1974 one had to be propped up by the Lib-Lab Pact through 1977-78 so in practice barely qualified as a majority. Without Scottish MPs but with Liberal support, Wilson would have had a majority of 12.
- and on ONE occasion (2010) the presence of Scottish MPs has deprived the Conservatives of an outright majority, although the Conservatives ended up in control of the government anyway in coalition with the Lib Dems.
- which means that for 62 of the last 67 years, Scottish MPs as an entity have had no practical influence over the composition of the UK government. From a high of 72 MPs in 1983, Scotland's representation will by [2020] have decreased to 52.

Indeed, the 2015 result is yet another demonstrator. Whether Scotland voted in 56 SNP, 56 Labour MPs or even 56 Tory MPs, the Tories would still have reached their majority.(Granted, 56 Scottish Tory MPs might hypothetically be able to exert great influence upon the centrist wing, counterweighting the Eurosceptic wing. But a hypothetical this shall remain.)

I agree there is a great flaw in the Westminister system. What solution do you propose to the democratic deficit which caused UKIP to get six hundred and fiftieth of the seats on an eighth of the vote? Or the Tories to get slightly over half the total seats on barely more than a third of the vote?

Clearly the planned solution to the SNP's performance is to reduce the number of seats they would contest. This may well have the side effect of making 100% of the seats SNP held, given the way FPTP works.

I don't think it'll be a big deal to Scotland which after all has Holyrood. The big problem for the UK nobody seems willing to tackle is the democratic deficit in either England or Britain as a whole.

There seems to be little appetite for an English parliament(or regional assemblies) and no political will to replace the Lords with, say, a proportionately elected upper house.

And the post-Brexit "But we still want everyone to guarantee that nothing will change" chorus from fervent Brexit supporters goes on:

An estimated 30,000 EU workers come to Britain every year for the harvest season, and this migration is typical of the sector across the world.

“All first-world economies employ foreigners to pick, pack and plant fruit. This is not unique. Canada, Australia even Spain employs migrants because their own citizens don’t want to do the work,” said Olins.

“There is an absolute requirement that the government has some sort of solution in place for seasonal work. It’s not just horticulture, it’s the care sector, hospitality sector and so many other places that are dependent on migrant workers,” said Rob Orme, chief executive of Concordia, a charity that recruits EU migrants for farm work.

“We cannot produce affordable food without a workforce that’s happy to handpick in the field or orchard,” he said.

The E wrote:And the post-Brexit "But we still want everyone to guarantee that nothing will change" chorus from fervent Brexit supporters goes on:

And yet Western Civilization has yet to collapse like the Bremainers claimed...

Michael Everett wrote:

The E wrote:And the post-Brexit "But we still want everyone to guarantee that nothing will change" chorus from fervent Brexit supporters goes on:

And yet Western Civilization has yet to collapse like the Bremainers claimed...

Leaving aside the silly hyperbole... you do understand that nothing has actually been done yet, right? No article 50 trigger, no negotiations, no actual Brexit? None of it?

gcomeau wrote:Leaving aside the silly hyperbole... you do understand that nothing has actually been done yet, right? No article 50 trigger, no negotiations, no actual Brexit? None of it?

Not quite nothing. Meet the Brexit Minister. And his Department of Exiting the European Union.

All wonderfully official. So, yeah, something's getting done.

We're just not sure what.

Just spent 5 weeks cruising with 2000+ Brits, pre and post vote. Very interesting conversations. Learned a lot about the way the British system works (did not know the 'legislature' could suspend fundamental rights like Habeas Corpus because they do not have a "Constitution" like we in the US do).

But in any event, pro and con voters broke down into just a few camps. Almost all of the stay voters wanted to vote leave, but were simply afraid of the impacts. They had virtually nothing positive to say about the edicts coming from Brussels. One said it best when he said his heart says vote leave and his head says vote stay. He was close to retirement and was very worried about Health Care and pensions.

The leave people on the other hand were VERY passionate about why they wanted to leave. Freedom, liberty, self determination, getting away from an unelected bureaucracy issuing edicts that have nothing to do with trade. And most of these were older voters (65+).

The day after the vote, several of the Brits were celebrating 'independence' day - or as one said - the day we get our country back - over their morning cup of tea.

However, I think this is just a minor glitch in the march towards globalism and the socialistic tendencies of governments that have to follow. Governments and bureaucrats have to deliver something to keep their power and as long as that something does not bankrupt the middle class, it will continue. But when the middle class either doesn't exist or has nothing left to lose - watch out.