The Brexit conundrum | Page 3 | Vital Football

The Brexit conundrum

I work across Europe - just entering each country will take longer and commutes to Europe may be a non starter.
 
"......... sectarian violence happened between 1973 (when UK and Ireland both joined the Common Market) and the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998."




That's bollocks. The recent troubles started in 1969, way before we joined the Common Market and even that was a continuation from the 1916-1922 uprising, but why let the facts get in the way of the truth. The sectarian violence had nothing to do with Joining the Common Market.
 
Skoolboy_error - 4/3/2018 16:58

"......... sectarian violence happened between 1973 (when UK and Ireland both joined the Common Market) and the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998."


That's bollocks. The recent troubles started in 1969, way before we joined the Common Market and even that was a continuation from the 1916-1922 uprising, but why let the facts get in the way of the truth. The sectarian violence had nothing to do with Joining the Common Market.
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Completely missing the point. I did not say it started or happened EXCLUSIVELY from 1973. The point I was making was that it is completely detached from joining or leaving the EU. Effectively, you agree by saying that it is an issue "nothing to do" with membership.


 
SurreyBob, it will be just as easy for people to move to and live on the continent as now you say with perfect certainty ? What is almost completely certain is that European states are likely to make it as difficult, no more no less, than we make it for EU citizens to come and work and live in the UK. If you think the UK is going to make that process simple and straightforward then I really do fear for your sanity. If the Government does, it will fly in the face of their promise to bring net migration down to "tens of thousands", their words not mine. We need more than "tens of thousands" in the NHS alone let alone agriculture, hospitality, adult social care etc etc.
 
townendgill - 4/3/2018 14:45

Wayne.Kerr - 4/3/2018 12:06

A very erudite commentary on the semantics of leaving the EU, although you haven't said why you voted leave other than references to reducing immigration. I don't think reducing immigration will have any real effect at the lower end of the labour market in terms of low wages especially as farmers are pressing the Govt. to allow seasonal migrant workers, which is likely to happen. I can't comment on your particular situation but many who feel they are overlooked in favour of foreigners could, for example, go into teaching. During training generous tax-free bursaries are paid and there's almost certainly a job at the end of it.
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I do have other reasons for supporting/voting leave but I tried (and failed!) to keep my post simple and to the point. The main point outside of immigration to me is that the "EU 27" (and I'm generalizing here, as a union of 27 individual nations will naturally have differing priorities) and UK, while sharing common interests in many areas, seem to me to have a different view of what they want the EU to be. Is it simply to be a trading block or "An ever closer union?". As the EU has become more integrated, British public opinion, so pro EEC in 1973 has become steadily more hostile. While some of that can be attributed to factors like an anti-EU right wing press I don't think that is all of it. So the future of the EU/UK relationship boils down to two options: A) Further EU integration with Britain dragging it's heels until the EU and UK are basically sick of each other and then at some point in the future public opinion says "enough is enough", by which point leaving is even more difficult to arrange than it is now or B) Leave now, face the consequences in the short term, while co-operating on mutual interests and attempt to make the most of any potential benefits of non-EU trade deals in the long term (and it will be the long term, trade deals are not easily arranged).

As for immigration itself: You make a good point about seasonal workers in agriculture, and if the farming industry isn't to collapse those workers will need to have some sort of "seasonal workers visa". But I do have to wonder, do these workers have to come from inside the EU? Could they be replaced by workers from other parts of the world? The problem with freedom of movement for me is not that people are coming here, it's that immigration of necessary workers filling both gaps in skills the UK workers don't have and doing jobs British workers won't do (such as seasonal agriculture) doesn't have to be the same as free movement. To have one you don't have to have the other. How free movement effects me personally is this: I work in retail. My employer (mistakenly, in my opinion) believes that in 12 weeks anyone who can speak English (as most EU migrants can) can do my job, Freedom of movement increases supply of retail workers, making my labour less scarce. Of course this does lead to more consumers but the increase on the supply side is larger than the demand side. This means that my employer and potential other employers can offer me lesser wages and/or lesser guarantees and benefits (such as zero-hours contracts) because if I won't do it, someone else will. It's not that my future prospects for career progression are blocked or I'm being overlooked as much as the economy changing. Is this all because of EU immigration? No, of course not. Increasing the amount of workers sometimes happens naturally (the steady increase of women in work since World War 2) and sometimes by government design (immigration from the commonwealth in the late 40's onwards). But EU immigration is the topic right in front of me here and if the right that EU migrants currently have to come here automatically is no longer in force I can vote for a party that could, in theory, enact policies on immigration that would improve my value in the labour market, and therefore, my life. Would any party propose such a policy? I don't know for sure. But there is a chance. And that chance never existed in my lifetime before.

Bloody hell. Writing that post took me an hour. Hopefully some of it is readable. I need a beer.
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Townend thank you for a your post .I worked in retail until 1999 .After over 30 years I had had enough .it was easy to tell then that the spending was going to decrease in shopping centres and increase online .Hours were getting longer .My last year my son was born I did not get a single day off for six or seven months and often did not get a break in 10 hour days .Illegal I am sure but at the time while the money was nice I lost something that I will never get back .I missed seeing my son as a baby .To this day I feel there is less of a bond than a there should be .
I feel for you as I know how tough things were then .How badly many retail companies treat their staff .Unfortunately I can only see it getting worse .I remember working in Chatham in the 80's believe it or not Chatham was a good shopping centre .With many shoppers travelling from other parts of the county .Now Gillingham is almost a step up from Chatham .Good luck mate if you want my advise look for a opening in another field .
 
Saw a fantastic prog on bbc parliament channel which was the brexit select committee questioning Pascal Lamy, former Director-General, World Trade Organization and former eu trade negotiator.
This explained many of the issues around wto rules etc, you could ask why this sort of program is not repeated on bbc 1 so that people could get a detailed view of the trade deals and customs unions instead of everyone listening to soundbites and half truths.

Anyway its on iPlayer and this link may work:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09w4w9w/select-committees-exiting-the-eu-committee
 
They won't take any notice of him jerryatrick, he's an expert. Add to that, if he doesn't paint a rosy picture of Brexit then he's a remoaner.

Thanks for the link, I'll take a look when I have the time. I'm stupid and like to listen to such people.
 
http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/exiting-the-european-union-committee/the-progress-of-the-uks-negotiations-on-eu-withdrawal/oral/79454.pdf


Should be the link to the transcript if anyone just wants to read it.
 
Btw jerryattrick, the BBC news is completely dumbed down nowadays, wspecially as they are scared shotless of losing the licence fee if hey upset the Tories.

Channel 4 news is fantastic and has proper in depth coverage of issues and interviews quite often.
 
Sorry for the AK style essay - but here is my commentary of the whole Brexit debacle.

The world has become flatter which lends itself to globalisation and cross boarder trade. It?s a generally held economic principle that a single market and close alignment can yield a Pareto efficient benefit for all countries in he trading block - so the question must be asked: ?why are more than 50% of the UK electorate that voted in the referendum trying to resist something that makes us more prosperous??

The answer can be found in the Hekshler-Ohlin model. There has probably been downward pressure on real wages in the lower end of the labour market as EU migrant labour comes in to the UK.

One of my first jobs when I left university was at IBM. During the interview the CFO for the UK gave me a book. It was ?The World Is Flat? by a guy called Friedman (not Milton!). As I left the office, the interviewer said:

?Trashbat [he didn?t really call me by my Monika!] - this will be the most important book that you read in your lifetime. If you don?t move up the value chain, you will find your job moving to Slovakia or India. There won?t be any accounts payable or accounts receivable jobs in the UK soon. There are guys in Slovakia and India who can do it better and cheaper than you and it?s being enabled by technology.?

He was right. I made sure that I upskilled, I made sure that I kept away from transactional, low skilled work. I made sure that I passed my exams. I made sure that I became s partner and trusted advisor with the business I worked in. And as such I?ve done okay.

Unfortunatlely, I think that there are too many people that didn?t prepare for the global world we live in and have been subsumed by it! I?m not attributing blame necessarily but I do feel that the UK education system failed people. I also think that the UK has this entitlement culture where people feel that they are owed a living and not prepared to train/upskill. This has manifested itself in the UK?s woeful productivity figures.

The bottom line is that there are entrenched structural issues with the UK economy which can only be resolved in the long term. Those at the bottom of the income distribution feel that the solution is to leave the EU.

I?m afraid that leaving the UK is only going to reduce prosperity further. Leaving the EU won?t address the UK?s poor productivity. It won?t address the fact that the UK population doesn?t have the skills that businesses, schools and the NHS needs. It won?t stop business offshoring services jobs. It won?t encourage global firms to locate their HQ in the UK. It won?t change the UK?s entitlement and blame culture.

I?m truly fascinated at how this will all turn out. A small part of me wants a hard Brexit as a bit of an economic experiment. I genuinely hope that I?ve got it all wrong!
 
When it comes to IT I disagree with his assertion that offshore can do it better and cheaper. I have always been involved with setting up offshore or bringing back in house or hybrids.

There never was and still is not a shortage of the right skills in the uk, not always admitted but outsourcing has only ever been carried out for perceived cost benefit. Most of the people that championed offshoring followed the mantra, got the tick in the box and moved on before they had to make it work lol.
 
Jerryattrick - 5/3/2018 00:09

When it comes to IT I disagree with his assertion that offshore can do it better and cheaper. I have always been involved with setting up offshore or bringing back in house or hybrids.

There never was and still is not a shortage of the right skills in the uk, not always admitted but outsourcing has only ever been carried out for perceived cost benefit. Most of the people that championed offshoring followed the mantra, got the tick in the box and moved on before they had to make it work lol.
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In my accountancy practice it took me a very long time to find good qualified staff with the right attitude outside of London. I ended up recruiting Polish, Italian and Syrian staff because there is a desperate shortage of good British accountants!

In my consultancy business, I have a multi-billion $ American client. They have shipped over Indian software developers because there is a desperate shortage in the US and the one is India are incredibly good - it?s not always about cost!

I do, however, agree about you ?box-ticking? comment. Simply offshoring is not a utopia and that?s why many companies (e.g. HSBC) have onshored previously offshores work.

I expect the amount of offshoring if services will increase if Brexit results in a restriction of free movement.
 
Thanks trashbat very informative. I wish I had been given a better education. But a chain of serious illnesses meant I missed too much school .In those days there was no such thing as further education for those outside the top 20% .When you look at it seriously some of our kids would not do what we did .Walking 2 or 3 miles to school in all weathers (when I attended .)Taking whatever I could get for whatever money was offered .My first job was on 20 a week it didn't last long as it was costing 14 a week to get to work .But I have never been out of work since I was 17 after 9 months unemployment.
 
The other thing that I don't think people have spoken about is customer or supplier loyalty. Having built a customer weather it be in the high street or in another country or indeed online .That customer is more likely to come back if they have had a good service and was happy that the prices were fair .If there is a need to find new customers that takes time and sometimes breaking into new countries proves impossible even for well established companies. If Brexit does lead to our businesses losing customers over the next few years .If may not be that easy for them to replace them .Even today we all have loyalties weather we are talking personally or companies.
A example of how things can go wrong .The company I work for gave a massive contract to a chinese company .Those goods arrived .But due to a cock up nobody realised they were not up to the required standard .Not only did they get left with a massive load of stock they could not sell .The customers did not get the required goods on time .As a result they lost customers to competition.
 
Just been reading that the EU's Michel Barnier is to meet the DUP leader Arlene Foster and Sinn Fin deputy leader Michele O'Neill over thext couple of days for talks on the Irish border issue.
Would love to be a fly on the wall for that one!
 
Trashbat - 4/3/2018 23:44

Sorry for the AK style essay - but here is my commentary of the whole Brexit debacle.

The world has become flatter which lends itself to globalisation and cross boarder trade. It?s a generally held economic principle that a single market and close alignment can yield a Pareto efficient benefit for all countries in he trading block - so the question must be asked: ?why are more than 50% of the UK electorate that voted in the referendum trying to resist something that makes us more prosperous??

The answer can be found in the Hekshler-Ohlin model. There has probably been downward pressure on real wages in the lower end of the labour market as EU migrant labour comes in to the UK.

One of my first jobs when I left university was at IBM. During the interview the CFO for the UK gave me a book. It was ?The World Is Flat? by a guy called Friedman (not Milton!). As I left the office, the interviewer said:

?Trashbat [he didn?t really call me by my Monika!] - this will be the most important book that you read in your lifetime. If you don?t move up the value chain, you will find your job moving to Slovakia or India. There won?t be any accounts payable or accounts receivable jobs in the UK soon. There are guys in Slovakia and India who can do it better and cheaper than you and it?s being enabled by technology.?

He was right. I made sure that I upskilled, I made sure that I kept away from transactional, low skilled work. I made sure that I passed my exams. I made sure that I became s partner and trusted advisor with the business I worked in. And as such I?ve done okay.

Unfortunatlely, I think that there are too many people that didn?t prepare for the global world we live in and have been subsumed by it! I?m not attributing blame necessarily but I do feel that the UK education system failed people. I also think that the UK has this entitlement culture where people feel that they are owed a living and not prepared to train/upskill. This has manifested itself in the UK?s woeful productivity figures.

The bottom line is that there are entrenched structural issues with the UK economy which can only be resolved in the long term. Those at the bottom of the income distribution feel that the solution is to leave the EU.

I?m afraid that leaving the UK is only going to reduce prosperity further. Leaving the EU won?t address the UK?s poor productivity. It won?t address the fact that the UK population doesn?t have the skills that businesses, schools and the NHS needs. It won?t stop business offshoring services jobs. It won?t encourage global firms to locate their HQ in the UK. It won?t change the UK?s entitlement and blame culture.

I?m truly fascinated at how this will all turn out. A small part of me wants a hard Brexit as a bit of an economic experiment. I genuinely hope that I?ve got it all wrong!
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Superb post Trashbat

Sad but true.

Having worked in the Education sector for the last 33 years (and been involved a further 4, not counting my own formal education0 I agree that the education system has failed the people.

Successive governments have messed about with it. They've not promoted the "soft skills" and practical skills needed amongst many other failings. Please don't blame us teachers too much. we have to do what we are told and I can assure you that no government takes any notice of what the teaching profession thinks is important for children.

Obsession with University and the woeful lack of proper modern apprenticeships has compounded the problems.

The many that are missing out wanted to blame somebody/thing and the thing was the EU, unfortunately.
 
I'm appalled that kids aren't 'educated' anymore. They are in the equivalent of battery farms for children with schools obsessed with achievements at 'A' level and university entrance. Those that fail that system are tossed aside.

When I was at secondary school, we had lessons and time to do music, civics, debating and local history - none of which were assessed by exam. We were taught how to write letters and our written homework was marked for grammar as well as content all on the basis that it be useful going forward.

There was also an emphasis on PE and games; yes, if you were in the first XV or XI, you were looked on favourably but everyone was given a chance just to enjoy themselves, although that bit got lost on me when I was expecting to play rugby and had to go on a cross country run in the pissing rain.

Looking back, the worst thing that happened to schools was the formation of league tables. That in itself was an admission of failure. Schools should just be good in order that people didn't have to move house so their kids could go to a 'good' school.

In places like Kent where the 11+ is retained, the situation is even worse. Even if you pass the exam at a most vulnerable time in your life, some grammar schools in Kent will only take kids with high pass marks - not for the benefit of the pupils but because the school's academic standard has to be maintained. Have they never heard of late developers. As a consequence of the school situation in Kent, secondary modern schools are being squeezed financially and this has a negative effect.

Bring back education, learning by rote in order to improve the school's academic achievements should be consigned to history. Bring back the cane and slipper and inkwell monitors and bring back milk too.
 
Wayne.Kerr - 5/3/2018 10:36

Even if you pass the exam at a most vulnerable time in your life, some grammar schools in Kent will only take kids with high pass marks

Have they never heard of late developers.
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Well durrr. You never went to a grammar school did you?

What a surprise that a school designed to take the brightest students and achieve academic excellence would take the students with the highest grades! in the very old days the point was that the academics would go to grammar school and everyone else got a more rounded education so that they would have suitable skills for the jobs that didn't need a university education for.

If the grammar schools didn't take on the basis of academic record then what would be the point of doing an 11 plus exam?

When I was younger, I recall most years 1-2 students from the Howard School would move over to Rainham Mark if they were late developers. There is only an issue if there is no movement after the exams, but in the Medway towns at least there was.

I wonder how many of the people who are opposed to grammar schools would ban their children from going to one if they passed? Or are they like the Tony Blairs of this world (ie, most Labour MPs) who condemn on one hand but are more than happy to send to private school subject to finances?

But I do agree with most of the rest you put. A lot of the issue seems to be what teachers are being told they need to teach the kids. When I was at school there were a lot of project work where we needed to learn how to research and learn. Nowadays it seems to be more of a memory test of certain key facts and figures.
 
I did go to a grammar school and, in my year, recall only one guy coming from the local tech school.

The 11+ is divisive, league tables are divisive and those that support either are divisive and little or nothing is gained from either.
 
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