UK Politics: The Beast From The East

[Shryke]

5 hours ago, SeanF said:

A majority of MP's, representing a majority of voters (Con, UKIP and DUP won 51% between them in 2015) passed legislation which stipulated a referendum on the UK's EU membership.  That was representative democracy in action.  They could have just told 52% of the voters to get lost, after the vote, but that would surely have been viewed as an act of bad faith, especially as the government had repeatedly stated that the outcome of the referendum would be respected.

The referendum is still non-binding. It's still just a glorified opinion poll because the UK is a fucking parliamentary democracy and so what parliament says is how the system expresses the desires of the electorate. The referendum's only power is in their fear of the political backlash of saying the obvious truth: that Brexit is a clusterfruitcake of unmitigated size and scope. The only thing actually bound by the democratic system here is the Article 50 vote.

[mankytoes]

9 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I think in general super majorities are a bad idea. The U.S. Senate can require one and it slows down the process and allows good things that are popular to be blocked. However, I do think super majorities are necessary for some things, specifically amending the Constitution. If you could change it with a simple majority, it would cease to mean anything. I feel like voting to Remain or Leave is the equivalent of voting to change your Constitution (and yes I am aware you guys don't have a written one, which has it's pluses and minuses).

It's funny that you mention the rain. I believe my first foray into this thread was to ask if turnout was expected to be low or high and if it was high would that help the Remain camp. @Hereward told me it was expected to be high and that yes that would help Remain. When I woke up the next day, I turned on the news and saw that it was raining and told myself, "So much for a high turnout."

Also, is it common to allow 16 and 17 year olds to vote in the UK and Europe? Seems rather foreign to me. 

I agree with you there. The whole reason we needed the referendum in the first place is that we were never asked if we wanted to join the EU in the first place. That was a major constitutional change the electorate were never consulted about. If we’d required a super majority to join the EU we probably wouldn’t have, and we could have avoided all this drama altogether.

[Which Tyler]

2 minutes ago, mankytoes said:

I agree with you there. The whole reason we needed the referendum in the first place is that we were never asked if we wanted to join the EU in the first place. That was a major constitutional change the electorate were never consulted about. If we’d required a super majority to join the EU we probably wouldn’t have, and we could have avoided all this drama altogether.

Although we DID get a supermajority to join the EEC - even though there was no requirement for such.

Hypothesising an equivalent vote to join the EU (before it's faults were shown up) would be a fool's errand. It might have passed a supermajority, it might have been rejected with 50%+1.

 

Personally, I think any question that is important enough to require a referrendum, is important enough to require a super majority. I felt that for PR, I felt that for Scottish Independence, and I felt that for Brexit. I also wouldn't have a problem with such a referrendum being binding; but it would need to be written in as such beforehand.

Of course, there's room to then debate what counts as a supermajority; personally I'd favour a "60% of the vote; or 50%+1 of those eligible"

[A Horse Named Stranger]

On 28.3.2018 at 10:52 AM, Hereward said:

Well, as I say, I was a reluctant Remainer, but for me, this is the worst of all worlds. It's choosing to be a fully paid up non-voting member, but with our largest industry and main foreign currency earner cut out. It achieves none of the things Brexiteers wanted, and also dissatisfies Eurosceptics and Europhiles. There is no chance (whatever chance there was) to strengthen trade links with rising economic powers, preserves freedom of movement, maintains adherence to EU regulation and law, keeps in place the supremacy of the European courts, doesn't save money to spend on other national priorities, doesn't allow for an independent, state-run economic policy, should that be something you want, and in fact gives up the rebate, so will cost even more in future. 

Well, that's one way to look at it. The passporting rights are gone, that looks like a given (be it soft Brexit or the hard Brexit). Everything the UK goverment can hope for is some sort of damage control. The other way to look at it is, either hard Brexit which would hit the agriculture sector (tariffs on food, lack of farm hands etc.), the manufacturing sector (car manufacturer's in particular with their very vulnerable supply chain (just in time manufacturing) ), the aviation industry, and god knows what else.

The wonderful new trade links with rising economies also deserves some closer look, what countries will those be? What do those economies produce and at what costs (I don't think the UK can compete with their wage costs), and can the UK reasonably hope to sell their (high wage) prodcuts there. And will it really end freedom of movement, or will it just replace European workers with Indians (to just name country that has shown that it expects something like freedom of movement to be part of a trade deal). That narrows the new business partners somewhat down. If it's the US they will want to drop their food products on the UK market, this is gonna be fun for UK farmers (and potentially UK costumers). Not to mention that you have to make a trade deal with America first Donnie Dipshit. Somehow I don't think the UK can extract particularly favorable terms from the US. Realistically the UK would be busy for the foreseable future to get trade deals that more or less mimic existing EU trade deals from other countries.

So from that perspective a Norway option starts to look more like the least bad outcome (which is not the same as a good outcome). And that's not talking about Ireland and the Good Friday Agreement.

[Werthead]

5 hours ago, Notone said:

Well, that's one way to look at it. The passporting rights are gone, that looks like a given (be it soft Brexit or the hard Brexit). Everything the UK goverment can hope for is some sort of damage control. The other way to look at it is, either hard Brexit which would hit the agriculture sector (tariffs on food, lack of farm hands etc.), the manufacturing sector (car manufacturer's in particular with their very vulnerable supply chain (just in time manufacturing) ), the aviation industry, and god knows what else.

A principle weakness of the British economy in this situation is that it is a service economy which is extremely reliant on financial services, which is the engine that turns everything else. Anything that impacts the financial sector trickles down and hits everything else. Us losing passporting is a massive problem from that perspective. Britain isn't going to switch to a manufacturing-based economy again so that leaves it up in the air how exactly Britain is going to be making money moving forwards. Inertia will account for a lot, but if there's a run of companies exiting the UK to move their operations to Dublin and Frankfurt (some companies are going, others are sticking around to see how it goes but have made contingency plans), that could trigger a major downturn. It's also possible this could trigger the bursting of the housing bubble, which, although badly needed, could also have a catastrophic impact on the economy at a moment of key weakness.

It's difficult to see how to get out of this political and economic minefield maze without causing some sort of significant damage in the short to medium term.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

10 hours ago, Werthead said:

A principle weakness of the British economy in this situation is that it is a service economy which is extremely reliant on financial services, which is the engine that turns everything else. Anything that impacts the financial sector trickles down and hits everything else. Us losing passporting is a massive problem from that perspective. Britain isn't going to switch to a manufacturing-based economy again so that leaves it up in the air how exactly Britain is going to be making money moving forwards. Inertia will account for a lot, but if there's a run of companies exiting the UK to move their operations to Dublin and Frankfurt (some companies are going, others are sticking around to see how it goes but have made contingency plans), that could trigger a major downturn. It's also possible this could trigger the bursting of the housing bubble, which, although badly needed, could also have a catastrophic impact on the economy at a moment of key weakness.

It's difficult to see how to get out of this political and economic minefield maze without causing some sort of significant damage in the short to medium term.

Now that's project fear, so stop talking the country down (add empty phrase I missed). And you almost make it sound like Brexit was dumb decission.

However with regards to Brexit it's either death by bullet or death by poison (to borrow a phrase). The writing was on the wall regarding the banking sector and loss of passporting right. And it's also been said for a long time, that the key for the City of London was that it was the gateway to the EU. Now without the passporting rights, that gate will be closed. Frankfurt and Dublin being quite eager to take banking jobs from London was also one of the earliest bets (alongside Paris and Luxemburg hoping to get a piece of that cake).

Now let's look at a hard brexit and WTO terms and what would be the consequences. Passporting rights are still gone. What else happens.

Now just imagine what will happen in places like Vauxhall (the car plant) if there are custom checks at French border. The Just In Time (JIT) manufacturing has placed the part storages on the road. If lorries carrying parts are held up at the border and do not arrive in time, guess what will happen. Right, the production will have to be closed down until the parts arrive. Now how long would manufacturers put put up with that? My guess is not too long, as sending workers home, because of a lack of parts is expensive business (we are not talking about tariffs here).

Agriculture goods is another mess exciting opportunity. Stuff in the supermarket would get more expensive (no longer tariff free fruits from Spain or the Netherlands - eventhough I know the orange trees in Kent are among the most beautiful in the world) - and on the on the other side of things, UK farmers will have to compete with cheaper US products. With exports the UK would need to apply for export quotas to the EU market like everyone else. I can see how the export of lamb might take a hit. Same with the fishery. Getting more fish out of the British coast is one thing. Having to export them with tariffs to fish markets in France, is another.

How companies that want to export to the EU post Brexit can work around their products meeting EU standards is something that needs some explanation (at least to me).

So what shall be the bullet (hard brexit) or the poison (soft brexit)?

[DMC]

12 hours ago, Werthead said:

A principle weakness of the British economy in this situation is that it is a service economy which is extremely reliant on financial services, which is the engine that turns everything else. Anything that impacts the financial sector trickles down and hits everything else. Us losing passporting is a massive problem from that perspective. Britain isn't going to switch to a manufacturing-based economy again so that leaves it up in the air how exactly Britain is going to be making money moving forwards.

This is the problem for all advanced industrial economies - we're all service economies now.  Some are more self-sustaining than others, sure, but the real inflection point comes when we can no longer exploit others to do our manufacturing.  That's the entire idea of the EU, and why Brexit is bad on a macro level, but ultimately it's a ripple in an oncoming tide.

[Shryke]

10 hours ago, dmc515 said:

This is the problem for all advanced industrial economies - we're all service economies now.  Some are more self-sustaining than others, sure, but the real inflection point comes when we can no longer exploit others to do our manufacturing.  That's the entire idea of the EU, and why Brexit is bad on a macro level, but ultimately it's a ripple in an oncoming tide.

Why is that a problem?

[DMC]

19 minutes ago, Shryke said:

Why is that a problem?

It's a problem in the long run if you believe resource depletion is inevitable.  Even if you you think technological progress will be perfectly linear, it's an increasing problem as the availability of jobs needed by the lower classes will decreases as the specialization necessary for high-level employment increases.

[Werthead]

11 hours ago, dmc515 said:

It's a problem in the long run if you believe resource depletion is inevitable.  Even if you you think technological progress will be perfectly linear, it's an increasing problem as the availability of jobs needed by the lower classes will decreases as the specialization necessary for high-level employment increases.

And at the same time, especially in the UK, teaching standards and resources continue to fall or, as at the moment, plummet off the edge of a cliff.

[Slick Mongoose]

At least we're number one at something - London's murder rate has overtaken New York's.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/london-murder-rate-overtakes-new-york-for-first-time-ever-after-spate-of-fatal-stabbings-and-a3803566.html

[Fragile Bird]

20 hours ago, Slick Mongoose said:

At least we're number one at something - London's murder rate has overtaken New York's.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/london-murder-rate-overtakes-new-york-for-first-time-ever-after-spate-of-fatal-stabbings-and-a3803566.html

That looks very shocking, but you know what? The NYC rate has dropped by 87%. When I worked for a multinational trips to NYC were worrisome because not only the murder rate was so high, so was the robbery and assault rate.

In 1990 there were 2,245 murders in NYC. That's 187 a month. 15 or 20? Meh.

If London had NYC's 1990s murder rate, I'd start really worrying. But even so, it's shocking to see how many people are willing to stab someone.

eta: Chicago had 670 murders last year, that's 56 a month. And it's much smaller than London, the size of Toronto. We had 61 murders, 39 of which were shootings. Note, that's 61 murders in the year, in case that wasn't clear.

[Fragile Bird]

I really came here to say I saw a story that the UK authorities now think the toxic nerve agent that injured Skripal and his daughter was applied to the door handle of Skripal's front door to his house. Doing this, they say, was extremely high risk and required enormous skill.

[Slick Mongoose]

17 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

That looks very shocking, but you know what? The NYC rate has dropped by 87%. When I worked for a multinational trips to NYC were worrisome because not only the murder rate was so high, so was the robbery and assault rate.

So what's New York doing right?

[Fragile Bird]

7 minutes ago, Slick Mongoose said:

So what's New York doing right?

There was a huge crack cocaine problem in the late 80s, early 90s, and heroin before that. Breaking some of the cartels that ran those operations was a big help.

A huge part was better policing, hiring more police and computerizing systems for efficiency 20 years ago. The police targeted specific groups, notorious gangs that ran crime and spent a lot of time killing each other. And a biggy that often gets downplayed, the fact that the population has aged. Older criminals commit fewer murders, it's the young who hold life cheap.

Mayor Bloomberg, very controversially, pushed street people off the streets. New Yorkers who read this thread might want to talk about that.

And, finally, after Sandy Hook the state was one of those that tightened gun laws. Among other things they started tracking people who should not own guns, like the mentally ill, and I think they instituted a waiting period for background checks. I watched some guy that runs a pro-gun research outfit one day on tv, and he insisted the murder rate went up in states with gun control laws, which was very very bizarre.

But also Bloomberg is a guy who actually ran a huge, complex business, unlike, say Donald Trump, who ran a family business. NYC is in far better shape economically speaking than it was in the 80s and 90s. Back then a huge number of businesses took their headquarters out of the city and into Connecticut, really hitting the city hard. Low interest rates really helps with paying the bills, as does having a job.

In the end, though, why crime has dropped everywhere  is controversial. A lot of people basically say "it's a mystery" why the drops have been so big.

[Werthead]

3 hours ago, Slick Mongoose said:

So what's New York doing right?

There's a good line from Brooklyn Nine Nine about that: "New York in the 1980s was basically The Purge."

The other thing in addition to the above is that NYC was effectively bankrupt in the late 1970s and gradually improved after that point, and as the city's fortunes went up so did the resources that went into the police and DEA. Organised crime in the city was smashed pretty thoroughly and effectively. I think the guy who masterminded it was also tasked with doing the same thing in LA and London about ten years ago, to very good effect back then.

What's going wrong in London is reduced resources, particularly community policing and agent visible policemen on the street who had the trust of the local community. That played a big role in getting people to report crimes. In addition we have the growing knife epidemic, which has not yet been combated efficiently (that's a policing and parenting and schooling problem, and all three are under severe pressures).

[Spockydog]

...and in a week's time, it will all be Corbyn's fault.

[Shryke]

Crimes rates dropped everywhere is the biggest thing that happened. Like, across the board all over the place basically regardless of local policy. There's a lot of debate over the exact reason for this but it's largely undecided at this point. There is not any firm support for the idea that more police or more people in jail or any of that stuff was a huge factor. My favourite theory is still the lead one. It at least seems to have had some sort of effect.

But the long and short is that the US and most other developed countries afaik just used to be way more violent before the 90s and it's been on a steady decline all over the place since then.

[Isis]

10 hours ago, Shryke said:

But the long and short is that the US and most other developed countries afaik just used to be way more violent before the 90s and it's been on a steady decline all over the place since then.

I wonder then if there's any connection between the internet and a reduction in violent crime. If you can defraud and profit from multiple people without even leaving your home perhaps the resort to violence is lessened (re armed robbery/assault).

[Gorn]

Here's a really good coverage of different theories for the crime rate drop, such as effects of economy, policing, harsher sentencing, lead pollution, video games, abortion policy, etc: https://www.vox.com/cards/crime-rate-drop