Brexit

The ERDF money is spent on capital projects which generate jobs, invariably in areas which have struggled to receive investment from central or local government. While both Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson both appear to be talking about using fiscal policy to stimulate the economy, they are very short on the detail of what. There is no guarantee that the 'saving' from not contributing to the EU will be spent productively.

I take your point about lower corporation tax, but I don't think we want to be in a race to the bottom there. The risk is that companies use lower tax rates to either increase dividends to shareholders, drive up their share price or sit on the cash rather than to invest in their businesses and generate increased tax returns. Particularly at a time when Brexit, it appears, will have impacts in the immediate short-term on trade.

Jeremy Hunt was talking last week about looking businesses in the eye if they failed because of a downturn though Brexit. He also speculated on providing billions to the fishing industry.

He won't be Prime Minister, but that type of talk is realistic I think while the economy adjusts to operating in a new world. But one it appears, that will be less certain in the near future.

 

I think you are making the assumptions.

I challenge you to find me a deregulated economy that has better workers rights than ours. Go ahead, you wont find one. The whole premise behind deregulation is to remove rules that impact revenue acquisition and profit making. I dont know why you think capitalist organisations will favour their staff over their shareholders. When has that ever happened???????????

The £10billion is just chump change, everyone thinks its amazing because it sounds huge. Our economy is 2 trillion in size and £450billion of that comes from EU based FDI, meaning companies from outside the EU investing into the EU and choosing the UK as its HQ. Leaving the EU removes that investment, probably from £450billion down to £90billion (based on population share). So whats better? save £10billion or save £450billion.

Of course facts are no longer facts and one side says this and one side says that so each side must be given equal weight in their arguments. So whats the point in me even saying all this.

 

I'd asked you where you'd read what sort of deregulation our government want to make, you're assuming that this is going to happen, we live in a different world to pre EU. People wouldn't stand for losing key benefits, you'd see the same sort of outrage as the poll tax.

Deregulation isn't always a bad thing, look at the deregulation of the Scottish water supply and the UK banking in the 70s. You can't tell me you've never sat at work and asked yourself why you were working in a particular way and thought you could do it better but couldn't because it was the way your company worked regardless if it was specific to your job or not?

 

You cant accuse me of making an assumption when you make one yourself in the same sentence. All I know is that for a fact we have decent rights now and by leaving the EU they are not guaranteed. You cant guarantee anything and yet your telling me im making assumptions when actually im making an educated and informed opinion based on history and current forms of capitalism.

Maybe just agree to disagree?

 

Both major parties have agreed that as part of the leaving process that workers rights will be protected and will be the same as those in the EU, This guarantee was made to parliament as part of the process and will be part of the leaving process even if no deal

As for deregulated countries Singapore has better healthcare, better education and a package of workers right including holidays and sick benefits and in work protection, The work benefits are not up to EU standards yet but then neither were ours for quite a period

 

Agree and that is why our gutless MPs should never have voted to take "no deal" off the table, they made the job easy for the EU negotiators,
I'm not in favour of an MP who voted remain trying to renegotiate with the EU even if they do allow Hunt to have his say,
I think Boris is the preferred choice but I can't see how the no deal can be implemented there will be some way Bercow and his boys will get around it and then where does that leave us ?.
Another extension, what that will achieve ! I have no idea apart from stringing it out longer remain or leave I suggest most of the British electorate are sick to the back teeth of lies from both camps, both parties will get their arses kicked "again" at the next general election, especially the Tories if they cant get brexit done.
But once again we see exactly what the EU are all about not one democratically elected, and as Andrew Neil points out everyone of them have doggy pasts.

 

Can we get Andrew Neil as our next Prime Minister, just watched him take the two candidates apart bit by bit and made both candidates look like bumbling idiots, it's so easy to pick holes in both candidates promises with regards brexit, Boris coming out much the worst.
Hunt telling us he has been assured by Angela Merkel the back stop can be addressed/discussed yet we hear from the EU negotiators it will not be discussed never mind renegotiated.
Neither came out with much if any credibility, what a mess our Members of Parliament have got the country in to trying to deliver the will of the people.

 

You raise some very valid points and may well be right. However, from where I'm sitting, things aren't exactly great for a lot of the working (and not working) class and not just in the UK, but throughout Europe.

At least out of the EU us working class can vote for who we want to represent us, and vote them out if we don't like what they do. That's democracy, a concept which seems to have been slowly lost since we become so entrenched in Europe.

It is like a generation of kids don't even understand what true democracy is about. And it ain't about the likes of Corbyn living it large at Glastonbury, which is full of a load of high earning middle class folk

I would have preferred EU reform to exiting, but that will never happen, but I'd rather struggle for a while to make our way in the world on our own terms than be ruled by the faceless, high earning, civil servants in Brussels.

 

The big question is where is all the money we pay in taxing going? We seem to be paying more tax and getting less and less of it back.

But this isn't just Tory cuts. All the money we pay IS getting spent somewhere. It just doesn't seem to be getting spent on the likes of us.

 

Benefits, national debt, foreign aid and policing demo's,protest marches and carnivals to start with maybe......?

 

Its a good question and one that seems to be conveniently forgotten when talks of budgets come around. I smile to myself when i see people asking for an extra penny on income tax to pay for the NHS etc. The fact this 'penny' would never get to front line services seems to escape them somehow. I heard Corbyn at PMQs looking to bring back funding for legal aid. All well and good eh? But he seems to have forgotten why it was removed in the first place, the whole legal aid system had become a corrupt cash cow, pretty much like anything involving tax payers money and public services. Only last week i was talking to someone involved in 'private ambulance' sector, £500 a day to ferry people from one destination to another. And even when these unscrupulous people do get caught its just swept under the carpet, like Gary Verity and his 'misappropriation' of public funds,"it's alright folks he's paid it back". We all want better services and better pay for the grunts at the bottom of the ladder, its about time to question where the money is spent.

 

So true.

We can look at deregulation and privatisation, work out where it is beneficial and where is isn't.

Private landlord providing substandard accommodation, but living off the housing benefit cash cow.

Social workers previously employed by the local authority now employed through an agency at a much higher cost. The end result is a higher cost and profits for the private sector, from tax payer's money.

Staff employed in schools, via an agency. Staff get paid 'term time only', so get a much reduced wage. The agency fees for the year would give the school staff a much more liveable wage.

This is conversation that both main parties should be having. However, vested interests on the right and dogma on the left means we are stuck with this.

 

Like it or not (and i don't) we quickly becoming a mini America in terms of how our country is run. This wonderful utopia that Corbyn is looking for, its a great principle in theory, but in the real world it does not exist. Distribution of wealth doesn't happen in a capitalist structure, the rich get richer. And to do that they have to take more off you. Its simple economics.

For those clamouring for this distribution of wealth i'll ask a simple question. Would you be prepared to take a pay cut so that those at the bottom get a better living wage and services improve? I'm guessing here but i'd say the answer is no. Well neither will the ones at the top. Could you imagine shareholders of big companies being told their profits are down because we've given it to our thousands of call centre workers? Problem is these very people are taking a pay cut every year due to inflation and non existent pay rises. And there ain't a thing you can do about it. Its all very admirable standing outside hospitals or schools with your placards and your unions, asking for change. It is changing, but not for your benefit. There's a hell of a lot of hypocrisy at the top level of politics, at least the Tories don't hide the fact they hate the lower classes. Start uncovering the Labour Party and you'll find they are part of the problem as well.

 

Labour the party of the working classes, but who have never actually worked themselves

 

I've developed a strange affection for coronation street from 25 years ago on ITV3. Aside from the stories there are always mentions of what was going on in the day. Slagging off the EU for their latest ridiculous new rules etc. Then last night I watched Peterloo, a film about people in Manchester who were massacred for a peaceful demonstration asking for the most basic of human rights. That was 200 years ago. Plus ca change.

 

If anything I think the Tory party hate the working class than years ago, whereas the labour party proactively despise the working class and think that they are nothing more than uneducated, racist slobs.

 

What's decent about zero hours contracts?

What's decent about paying some workers LESS now than ten years ago due to the availability of cheap labour from Eastern Europe?

What's decent about kids having to slave away for SIX hours before they get their entitlement of a 20 minute break?

What's decent about CEOs getting salaries that are over 100 times more than the average worker?

From what I've seen workers rights have got way worse since the 80s not better!

 

Workers rights lol. My sister in law has just received a written warning against her for being sick more than three times in a year despite having been administered medicine for a serious ear infection which she gets quite regular. This from one of the big national firms and she's the union rep lol.

 

The issue they've cut taxes so much now they have nothing else in their economy and would be knackered tomorrow if these companies decided to do business elsewhere. Not a healthy route for us to go down if we want a balanced economy.

The low corp tax rate and effective zero rate post crash created what was termed leprechaun economics. In effect, multinationals parking so much money (and in Apple's case 300 Billion USD in one transaction), it distorted GDP and GNP figures to the point of making them useless. As of 2017, ROI now uses GNI figures as a better indicator of economic performance and even then nobodys really sure how things are going because of how much these transactions distort the actual figures. This action also produced no tangible tax revenue benefits for ROI and served only to increase the EU's budget levy as it is calculated on GDP.

So in a nutshell, whilst low corp tax rates look great on paper, that's the very problem. Especially so with ROI, almost every economic indicator is distorted to the point that the data becomes unreliable and essentially useless, even with figures such as productivity. And they also end up with an extremely unhealthy influence over govt.