UK Politics MCMXXXIX: Should I stay or should I go now?

[Chaircat Meow]

22 minutes ago, williamjm said:

Colonising a large percentage of the planet might have had a little bit to do with it...

Colonising can enrich a small class of colonisers, and sometimes their government, but it doesn't strengthen the economy.

Look at Spain.

I would say the UK was a strong economic power because it had a political, legal and social system conducive to economic growth.

[The Marquis de Leech]

5 hours ago, Chaircat Meow said:

Colonising can enrich a small class of colonisers, and sometimes their government, but it doesn't strengthen the economy.

Look at Spain.

I would say the UK was a strong economic power because it had a political, legal and social system conducive to economic growth.

It was a strong economic power because its geographic location protected it from direct war, and its command of the waves enabled it to tap colonies for raw materials to fuel manufacturing. Plus the development of central banking via the Bank of England.

[Chaircat Meow]

4 hours ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

It was a strong economic power because its geographic location protected it from direct war, and its command of the waves enabled it to tap colonies for raw materials to fuel manufacturing. Plus the development of central banking via the Bank of England.

You don't need to add somewhere to the empire to take its imports. The UK had access to American cotton after the revolution, to take just one example.

[The Marquis de Leech]

Just now, Chaircat Meow said:

You don't need to add somewhere to the empire to take its imports. The UK had access to American cotton after the revolution, to take just one example.

The trade came first, then the political control. Britain established trading posts to access resources, then wound up with an Empire by (more or less) accident. 

[SeanF]

I would add, late eighteenth century Britain was a fertile country with abundant supplies of iron ore and coal, which had the good fortune to avoid a revolution (France de-industrialised between 1789-1815, industrialisation gathered pace in the UK).

[Commodore]

[mormont]

Why the spoiler tags? Why no commentary, thoughts, views? Why just pop in and throw out a poll graphic and then leave? Bizarre.

Anyway, a YouGov poll for the Times is, shall we say, not the most reliable of indicators. YouGov are notorious for polls that say what the people commissioning them want them to say.

The polling data, taken as a whole, has reliably indicated a small but significant lead for Remain with lots of undecided voters (who will likely mostly stay home).

http://whatukthinks.org/eu/opinion-polls/poll-of-polls/

https://ig.ft.com/sites/brexit-polling/

http://survation.com/the-eu-referendum-where-the-uk-stands-today-should-the-united-kingdom-remain-a-member-of-the-european-union/

Of course, there are other factors that might be screwing up the polling. Young voters tend to be more inclined to Remain, but are less likely to turn out, so maybe that's giving a lead for Remain that is illusory.

Still, the above hit-and-run post of a single outlier poll is not a big deal.

[SeanF]

43 minutes ago, mormont said:

Why the spoiler tags? Why no commentary, thoughts, views? Why just pop in and throw out a poll graphic and then leave? Bizarre.

Anyway, a YouGov poll for the Times is, shall we say, not the most reliable of indicators. YouGov are notorious for polls that say what the people commissioning them want them to say.

The polling data, taken as a whole, has reliably indicated a small but significant lead for Remain with lots of undecided voters (who will likely mostly stay home).

http://whatukthinks.org/eu/opinion-polls/poll-of-polls/

https://ig.ft.com/sites/brexit-polling/

http://survation.com/the-eu-referendum-where-the-uk-stands-today-should-the-united-kingdom-remain-a-member-of-the-european-union/

Of course, there are other factors that might be screwing up the polling. Young voters tend to be more inclined to Remain, but are less likely to turn out, so maybe that's giving a lead for Remain that is illusory.

Still, the above hit-and-run post of a single outlier poll is not a big deal.

The pollsters are all extremely nervous about trying to call this referendum right, given what happened last year.

There's a big divide between online polling, which basically shows a tie, and telephone polling, which shows Remain about 10% ahead on average.  There are arguments for and against both methods.  Online panels are in danger of being unrepresentative, while many people are unreachable by telephone.

[Sir Thursday]

2 hours ago, SeanF said:

The pollsters are all extremely nervous about trying to call this referendum right, given what happened last year.

There's a big divide between online polling, which basically shows a tie, and telephone polling, which shows Remain about 10% ahead on average.  There are arguments for and against both methods.  Online panels are in danger of being unrepresentative, while many people are unreachable by telephone.

It's interesting that it's that way round - normally Telephone surveys skew older so you'd have thought that they would be further towards Leave than online (given that young people skew Remain).

ST

[SeanF]

45 minutes ago, Sir Thursday said:

It's interesting that it's that way round - normally Telephone surveys skew older so you'd have thought that they would be further towards Leave than online (given that young people skew Remain).

ST

For some reason, in very broad terms, online surveys pick up too many UKIP supporters, and phone polls pick up too many supporters of left wing parties.  Pollsters try to account for this with their sampling and weighting techniques, but there's always a risk that the skew remains.

[Chaircat Meow]

47 minutes ago, Sir Thursday said:

It's interesting that it's that way round - normally Telephone surveys skew older so you'd have thought that they would be further towards Leave than online (given that young people skew Remain).

ST

The explanation I've seen from yougov is that phone polls find too many graduates (who skew remain). Although Peter Kellner disagrees and thinks the phone polls are right.

 

 

 

[SeanF]

If you had to pick a single poll as The Gold Standard it would probably be the British Election Study at University of Nottingham.  They have just completed a poll of 22,000 people giving Remain 43%, Leave 40%, Don't know/undecided 17%.  In May 2015, they had Remain ahead by 47% to 30%.

 

[mormont]

I recall reading that the percentage of very motivated Leavers is higher, which might account for the online poll skew.

[Commodore]

20 hours ago, mormont said:

Why the spoiler tags? Why no commentary, thoughts, views? Why just pop in and throw out a poll graphic and then leave? Bizarre.

I know right? It's bizarre to post info that might facilitate/inform discussion.

 

[The Marquis de Leech]

13 hours ago, mormont said:

I recall reading that the percentage of very motivated Leavers is higher, which might account for the online poll skew.

Along those lines, I think a big question mark is turnout - the polls aren't quite sure how to weight this, since there hasn't been a referendum on Europe in over 40 years.

I'd imagine the conventional wisdom is that the higher the turnout the better for Remain, the lower the turnout the better for Leave.

[mormont]

1 hour ago, Commodore said:

I know right? It's bizarre to post info that might facilitate/inform discussion.

It's bizzare to do so without in any way attempting to participate in that discussion, yes. Randomly posting links without any context doesn't facilitate or inform discussion, it's just spamming.

1 hour ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Along those lines, I think a big question mark is turnout - the polls aren't quite sure how to weight this, since there hasn't been a referendum on Europe in over 40 years.

I'd imagine the conventional wisdom is that the higher the turnout the better for Remain, the lower the turnout the better for Leave.

Yeah, pretty much. That's one reason why the timing is poor: a lot of people just voted in various elections, and that may depress turnout a bit.

[Sir Thursday]

It's been difficult to find good sources of unbiased information about the referendum, but I did find a paper written by the foreign affairs committee that seems to do a good job of presenting facts without trying to force the reader towards a conclusion. It's by no means a complete guide (despite being a pretty long read), but if you want to know more about the diplomatic side to the debate I found it to be quite a good source :).

The most interesting thing to me that it pointed out (which I haven't seen anywhere else) was that because the EU is the sole negotiator of trade agreements for its members, it has actually been quite a long time since the British government had to negotiate its own trade treaties. As such, they are unlikely to have much expertise in the area and in the short term that could prove to be a bottleneck in getting workable trade agreements off the ground after a Brexit.

ST

[A wilding]

Interesting read.

I see that the paper implicitly considers TTIP to a Good Thing. It also deplores the attempts of other EU countries to do something about the corporate sovereignty parts of it, and says that the UK has been lobbying hard to keep these clauses in, at least partly at the request of the US.

I also see that the paper says that the lack of expertise may not be a big issue, as a post-Brexit UK government will probably just bend over and accept any "trade" agreement offered. Ironic, as the loss of national sovereignty caused by such agreements is likely to be of the same order as that caused by the membership of the EU - except that the UK does have some small say in EU laws and regulations.

[Sir Thursday]

1 hour ago, A wilding said:

Interesting read.

I see that the paper implicitly considers TTIP to a Good Thing. It also deplores the attempts of other EU countries to do something about the corporate sovereignty parts of it, and says that the UK has been lobbying hard to keep these clauses in, at least partly at the request of the US.

I also see that the paper says that the lack of expertise may not be a big issue, as a post-Brexit UK government will probably just bend over and accept any "trade" agreement offered. Ironic, as the loss of national sovereignty caused by such agreements is likely to be of the same order as that caused by the membership of the EU - except that the UK does have some small say in EU laws and regulations.

My impression of the paper was that it was written from the point of view that maximising the ability of the UK government to push its agenda is a good thing (which makes sense given who wrote it). Since TTIP is something the government is for, I can understand why it sort of implies that.

Personally I'm not a fan of the TTIP and I feel like it is less likely to pass in a form I dislike if the EU has more of a say...it's unclear whether the UK being part of the EU increases or decreases the likelihood of some of the more odious elements of it being removed though (and not something the paper gets into in too much detail).

ST

[The Killer Snark]

I'm voting Leave. My father is voting Leave. Even my ex brother in law is voting Leave, and he's a Communist. The TTIP deal is going to devastate national industry throughout Europe, Merkel is both a sociopath and obviously insane, and people throughout the most Islamicised regions of Europe are being persecuted on a daily basis without protection from the police. She is the worst German chancellor since Hitler, and I truly believe it is morally criminal to refuse the opportunity of showing other countries in Europe they have a chance to throw down the shackles and tear the tyrant down. I am trying to convince my mother to vote Leave to counteract the masses of votes from indoctrinated students and gated community Guardianistas, but I fear I will have no luck in the matter, even though, as an anti-Thatcherite, she must realise the global corporatist and free industry suppressing calamity impending via the TTIP.