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Author Topic: Brexit! Conversation Continued  (Read 192034 times)

Radio Controlled

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Re: Brexit! Conversation Continued
« Reply #705 on: October 14, 2016, 01:38:21 pm »

And battling a big overarching mega-corporation like Unilever might be seen as better than (and thus perhaps make up for) their past battles to drive down consumer costs by battling the multitude of little-guy suppliers like the farmers (dairy,meat, vegetables, etc) in recent times...
It seems to have been resolved by now: Tesco and Unilever end price dispute

Quote
ETA: "Hard Brexit or No Brexit" is the current message from Europe.  Perfectly understandably, probably will end up as "Crunchy Brexit" after 'face-saving' negotiations on both sides where it's still not anything like what anybody wants but each can claim they clawed something back from the mess...
Are you referring to this?

'Hard Brexit' or 'no Brexit' for Britain - Tusk
Britain's only real alternative to a "hard Brexit" is "no Brexit", European Council President Donald Tusk has said.

Speaking in Brussels, he warned that the EU would not compromise on its insistence that freedom of movement will be a condition for Britain's access to the single market.
Mr Tusk will chair meetings of EU leaders negotiating Britain's exit from the 28-member bloc.
[...]

If yes, it's really just another EU official restating the whole "we will not compromise on the 4 freedoms, it is one of the cornerstones of our union". It's their official stance.
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Starver

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Re: Brexit! Conversation Continued
« Reply #706 on: October 14, 2016, 02:52:00 pm »

And battling a big overarching mega-corporation like Unilever might be seen as better than (and thus perhaps make up for) their past battles to drive down consumer costs by battling the multitude of little-guy suppliers like the farmers (dairy,meat, vegetables, etc) in recent times...
It seems to have been resolved by now: Tesco and Unilever end price dispute
And Tesco is now the 'good guy'. Like when Microsoft released Internet Explorer for free against the 3vul Netscape and their browser you had to pay for (everyone remembers that, yeah?).  Not so long ago they were being boycotted over arbitrarily withholding payments to suppliers and causing (as with other supermarkets, including ones I favour more than Tesco anyway) the demise of the dairy farming industry by forcing down milk wholesale prices and putting the farmers into a spiral of increasing debt.

Yesterday, there were people saying that they adore Marmite, but they'll now shop more at Tesco just to sjow their disoleasure with Unilever.   Now they can shop at the angelic Tesco and get their Marmite!

(Also, now the public knows how many pies (and spreads and ice-creams and detergents and...) Unilever has its thumb in, this new deal might even help them in looking like they are compromising, and as long as they don't lose too much profit in the long-run even keep the investors and stock market happy...)

BTW, in the Metro, this morning, there was a full-page ad for Asda (arranged given the news? ...or just along with several other full - page ads on other pages continuing the same theme but for other products) that proclaimed proudly that Marmite was now cut from two-and-bit-pounds per jar to just £2 flat! Made me laugh.


Quote
Quote
ETA: "Hard Brexit or No Brexit" is the current message from Europe.  Perfectly understandably, probably will end up as "Crunchy Brexit" after 'face-saving' negotiations on both sides where it's still not anything like what anybody wants but each can claim they clawed something back from the mess...
Are you referring to this?

'Hard Brexit' or 'no Brexit' for Britain - Tusk
Britain's only real alternative to a "hard Brexit" is "no Brexit", European Council President Donald Tusk has said.

Speaking in Brussels, he warned that the EU would not compromise on its insistence that freedom of movement will be a condition for Britain's access to the single market.
Mr Tusk will chair meetings of EU leaders negotiating Britain's exit from the 28-member bloc.
[...]

If yes, it's really just another EU official restating the whole "we will not compromise on the 4 freedoms, it is one of the cornerstones of our union". It's their official stance.
Wasn't my source (might have been Metro; if I see a news story in the Metro I've learnt not to then try and find it on the website to get the URI, because of frequent failure to get anything sensible out of it, so I might say "look it up in your favourite news-site" if I don't myself look it up in another of my own favourite news sites...) but much as I saw.

Your commentry seem to be much as I already had in mine, though... Or am I misunderstanding/misspeaking?
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Radio Controlled

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Re: Brexit! Conversation Continued
« Reply #707 on: October 14, 2016, 03:00:54 pm »

Nah, we're mostly in agreement, just pointing out that it's yet another EU bloke restating the same.

Still, if the UK is willing to make the necessary concessions, then this might still end up with a very soft Brexit, the EU would be all for it I think. Or maybe the UK parliament will keep voting down negotiation plans because they're too hard for their taste up until the appetite for the whole thing fades, who knows.

EDIT: How awkward for the Prime Minister. She clearly forgot the NHS is going to get £350m a week. I saw it on a bus.
« Last Edit: October 14, 2016, 04:53:52 pm by Radio Controlled »
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Re: Brexit! Conversation Continued
« Reply #708 on: October 15, 2016, 11:33:10 am »

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Weeeeee let's get hype

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Re: Brexit! Conversation Continued
« Reply #709 on: October 15, 2016, 10:41:49 pm »

Oh god, the 23rd of June thing is wonderful.
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scriver

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Re: Brexit! Conversation Continued
« Reply #710 on: October 16, 2016, 07:27:57 am »

That's one day away from my birthday.
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Re: Brexit! Conversation Continued
« Reply #711 on: October 16, 2016, 07:35:05 am »

Here we go again. Sturgeon announce new Scotxit referendum.

Scotland has a £15bil annual deficit paid for by British taxes. I'd be very shocked if Sturgeon actually wanted to get out of the UK, more likely just wants to make a noise and get more money for Scotland.

I'm not sure the EU has anything to save face about. The UK got quite a bit of special treatment while they were in the EU, and I don't think EU leaders want the precedent for a country leaving to be that the leaver gets a good deal.

Because the best way to show how good and gracious you are is to give whoever wants out of your club a boot up the arse.
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Frumple

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Re: Brexit! Conversation Continued
« Reply #712 on: October 16, 2016, 08:13:55 am »

... somehow I don't think the economic considerations are at the front of folks minds with this stuff. It certainly wasn't for the UK, and the EU was screwing their sovereignty a lot less than the UK has for scotland.
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Re: Brexit! Conversation Continued
« Reply #713 on: October 16, 2016, 08:47:32 am »

I'm not sure the EU has anything to save face about. The UK got quite a bit of special treatment while they were in the EU, and I don't think EU leaders want the precedent for a country leaving to be that the leaver gets a good deal.

Because the best way to show how good and gracious you are is to give whoever wants out of your club a boot up the arse.

Why do they need to show they're good and gracious? What do you think the remaining members of the club will think if the UK retains the benefits without the drawbacks?
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Re: Brexit! Conversation Continued
« Reply #714 on: October 16, 2016, 09:11:08 am »

Our government is actively choosing the most economically painful route possible.
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Codician

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Re: Brexit! Conversation Continued
« Reply #715 on: October 16, 2016, 10:00:33 am »

Particularly given what's been happening vis a vis the oil in the past few years.
... somehow I don't think the economic considerations are at the front of folks minds with this stuff. It certainly wasn't for the UK, and the EU was screwing their sovereignty a lot less than the UK has for scotland.

Because the UK isn't as bad off as Scotland will be if it leaves the Union. Scotland will lose some combination of it's free healthcare, free welfare or free tertiary education. Nevermind the fact they'll have to start paying for their own armed services (which will cost them a small fortune).

The UK has a sizeable uranium reserve in Cornwall, too. I've seen plans which involve making the UK completely self-sufficient on energy using nuclear power. Dunno if they'll ever go through with it, though.

Why do they need to show they're good and gracious? What do you think the remaining members of the club will think if the UK retains the benefits without the drawbacks?

Because the primary problem people have with the EU is that it's vastly outstripped it's original designation. It's now trying to be some sort of weird United States of Europe without even the USA's nominal democracy. Showing that they're bitter at the idea of people leaving the mess it's become just reinforces the image of it being a bureaucratic jackboot manufacturing facility.
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MorleyDev

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Re: Brexit! Conversation Continued
« Reply #716 on: October 16, 2016, 10:14:42 am »

The way our government is acting, it does seem like they really don't give two shits about preserving the current service industry. It feels like too many people would be happy if all the office jobs in the country vanished, so many people think "Britain needs to reinvent itself" and "We don't need to focus on keeping current businesses, we can build new ones". Which for a post-industrial-ish service economy is like McDonalds declaring they'll be abandoning the fast food business to reinvent themselves as focused on their really important business: uncomfortable chairs.

The amount of renegotiation of contracts the company I work at will have to do with customers, since we deal with a lot of customer data (financial and such), which is protected under EU regulation and we're free to host anywhere in the EU. If/when we leave, even if we keep the current data protection guarantees of the EU, we're still legally exporting data outside the EU. Which is against the current contracts. So either they have to agree to export the data to the UK from the EU, we have to move to the EU, or there are safe-harbour laws where EU data is regarded as under EU regulations. Even if all the data is stored in the EU, the mere detail of us being in control of it as a UK-based company can cause problems.

And if the UK ever weakens our data protection laws compared to the EU ones (very likely, considering they keep trying to), that could cause major problems for business in the digital sector in the UK who deal with personal/financial information from outside sources. Best case is we can lock-step with or ideally actually provide stronger rights and guarantees than the EU, but given our governments historically...spotty relationship with digital rights (When there are people in power in 2016 in a diplomacy who still want to ban encryption you know something is wrong).

So the UK really needs to be promising things like that they'll seek safe-harbour laws, because at the moment if I was a business in the UK I'd be really hoping Scotland does stay in the EU just so we can convince people to move to the new head offices in Edinburgh, just because that'd be an easier sell than "move to Paris/Berlin/Dublin"

Because it's starting to look like it'll be easier for a services company to do business in the UK from the outside than from the inside. Which, considering the global-serving digital sector is a big corner of our economy (it basically emerged unscathed from the recession) and really benefits from the EU membership even when dealing with non-EU countries (since it guarantees them EU-quality digital rights and data protection on our end). And is quite alarming, since previously the UK was a great place to grow from by doing business inside the UK at first, and then expanding to outside the UK.

But losing the EU regulations, and potentially the single market access, basically cutting ourselves off from that easy access to the single largest market of developed and developing countries in the world (aka. the kind of market a digital service industry dreams of)...yeeeeah. Worrying.

Maybe if there was some plan to build an EU-style trading bloc without the "outstripped it's purpose" (and aside from a few prominent EU people wanting an EU army and immediately getting shot down by the rest of the prominent people, which is just a thing that happens in any democratic structure, I'm not sure how it has in any way that isn't just the natural development of any trading bloc).

Though I don't actually have a problem with the EU growing in scope, I actually *want that*, if anything I actually am more annoyed because I don't think it actually *is* doing that anywhere near the extent it should be to be truly effective. Which it may actually do without the UK, we've been holding it back a lot by vetoing and sabotaging a lot of the bills. Which now hurts us in the negotiations since that's a lot of EU members where we've been sabotaging their attempts to curb tax dodging and whatnot, not exactly predisposing them to giving us too much of a way back in if we want out.

I do think that eventually Europe, and eventually eventually the world, will become a set of federal states under a single democratically elected government. So I do expect to inevitably see a Federal States of Europe appear someday in the future (well, maybe I won't see it. But at some point in the future I fully expect it to happen). Either that or we eventually nuke ourselves out of existence or at least back a few millennia. But that's more long term thing.
« Last Edit: October 16, 2016, 10:37:31 am by MorleyDev »
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Frumple

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Re: Brexit! Conversation Continued
« Reply #717 on: October 16, 2016, 10:35:44 am »

Because the UK isn't as bad off as Scotland will be if it leaves the Union. Scotland will lose some combination of it's free healthcare, free welfare or free tertiary education. Nevermind the fact they'll have to start paying for their own armed services (which will cost them a small fortune).
... and? Pretty sure the scots side of thing is that they're willing to take an economic hit if it means getting the rest of UK's grip off their short hairs. More willing after the UK referendum, anyway. Maybe they've got more to lose economically, but they've got more to gain in regards to sovereignty and self-determination and whatnot, too. I'd personally say the economic argument is a strong one, sure, but, well. As mentioned, UK folk apparently don't consider that as important as you'd think, so it'd be hard to blame scotland for doing the same. Well, any more than you already blame the UK, ha.

Don't think scotland's or sturgeon's after money, basically. Devolution or independence is more likely. Economic arguments may be there but after the UK referendum it seems pretty likely they're going to hold a lot less weight than they did before. Maybe the relative hit would be harder, but again, the UK's been shafting scotland harder than the EU did the UK. Scots've got stronger (grounds for, at least) motivation to take the hit.
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MorleyDev

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Re: Brexit! Conversation Continued
« Reply #718 on: October 16, 2016, 10:38:27 am »

"Scotland won't vote to leave the UK because it'll hurt their economy".

...Now where have I heard that one before? :)
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scriver

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Re: Brexit! Conversation Continued
« Reply #719 on: October 16, 2016, 10:44:57 am »

Maybe they've got more to lose economically, but they've got more to gain in regards to sovereignty and self-determination and whatnot, too.

Yeah, this. When it comes to sovereignty over the self economy often takes the back seat (and yeah, I agree that it is better to be poor and decide your own future, and slightly less poor and with your life in the hands of others).
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