Off Topic The Politics Thread
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I never said they were, so don't put words in my mouth.
As for what is at stake, it's not fear, it's reality. If our negotiations cause businesses to leave for any reason, that's bad. Being all dewy-eyed about an extremely uncertain future is an utterly moronic stance to take. Anyone who doesn't realise and acknowledge the downside of needing to renegotiate with the very markets we have just shunned isn't being honest. If the negotiations don't completely safeguard our relationship with the eu, then companies may well relocate. And if they do, then I have to ask what the point of voting leave actually changed? We know now that it wasn't actually about immigration, or lawmaking, or saving the NHS with £350 million a week. All that's left is trade, and the risk is real that the negotiations won't deliver a deal that satisfies every employer. Not fear at all, simply pointing out a very real and worrying situation.
I think we are all tired of elections/referendums. We all need to stick together as a country and move forward. Brexit has taken it's toll on just about everybody. Stability is key now. Teresa May was not my choice but i will accept her and move on.
I feel sorry for Comrade Corbyn. He is a man of principle and unlike a lot of politicians (Eagle included) is not a career hopper. Out of all Brexit/Remain mob he didn't lie or do the project fear.
Like the leave team dismissed the valid reasoned argument of THOUSANDS of experts before the vote?
Once again doom and gloom. I love Europe and have French family members. When i talk to them, they are more eurosceptic than i am. I have heard many stories from their friends telling me how the EU is ruining their family business with new rules and regulations. Seriously, they told me about these new rules and they are ridiculous.
I am very open minded and love new things and ideas (in some cases). So when i hear Mr Juncker saying 'he will not change' and 'Out means out" it makes me think that he is not forward thinking or flexible. He is a stubborn twunt who will always put German's interests first. (If you think that's not true then you really need to read up on it).
When Cameron went to the EU he came back with nothing. Juncker would not listen to our concerns and brushed them off. As Farage said "you're not laughing now". Love him or hate him, he was spot on. Too many people couldn't see the problems we were having due to the EU. Many people in Towns all over England complaining about the amount of immigrants putting a strain on the services. These people are not all 'thick racists' as much social media referred to them as. Once again no one listened and it came back to bite them in the arse.
We are not all 'dewy-eyed'. Some are scared and so are optimistic. I class myself as the latter. I look forward to seeing our country grow and govern itself. I know exactly how talented the British are and how great our country is. That's why many great companies use our talents and that's why 14k people are in Calais wanting to come here instead of staying in France.
Corbyn may be a man of principle but he is not a competent leader for the type of system we have. And very unfortunately some of his 'followers' (who actually regard him as their puppet) and this 'momentum' are very sinister indeed, they have no interest in the democratic process we are used to. On the other hand he's got a lot of young people more engaged which can't be bad, now they just have to learn that they can't have it their own way all the time.
Was talking the son of some friends who is studying politics at Glasgow Uni last week, he was saying that many of his fellow students can't debate and can't tolerate debate that challenges their views and that he doesn't feel comfortable revealing that he went to a private school. This is truly intolerable. We can piss each other off a bit on here (yeah, I do it on purpose sometimes, sorry, it's the compulsive contrarian in me) but 99.9% of us would never dream of preventing anyone else from sharing their opinions, even if they diametrically opposed our own. I learn a lot from debate and believe it or not do actually change my mind sometimes (I have on immigration during the course of this thread). The hard liners who support Corbyn aren't interested in debate or changing their minds, unless it's for tactical reasons, for them the ends always justifies the means. Exactly the same can be said for the far right.
[by the way, The Germans are pretty pissed off with Juncker, he's more in tune with the French. Sorry, couldn't stop myself]
However my point is that the Germans run the show.
The bit about the students is sad and agree with your points about the debate. I have found that some of the 'remain' lot spend too much time knocking the Brexit voters. I don't criticise them for voting to Remain. All i do is call them 'doom and gloom'. I knock the politicians for running a crap campaign. Over the last two weeks i have seen, like many others, some nasty stuff written about people who voted Brexit.
17.2m people can't all be thick racists. rather than keep knocking them they should try and find out why they voted Brexit.
Well, your 'optimism' reads very much as head-in-the-sand denial of the very real current situation. You can think it'll all be OK as much as you want - a trait to be admired - but to not acknowledge the situation that we are currently in and to put it down to 'doom and gloom' or 'fear' is utterly unrealistic and - I suspect - kidding yourself.
We KNOW why people voted to leave. They believed the lies of Farage, Johnson,, Gove, IDS et al. They were scared of the utterly false picture painted by those people who have since disappeared, leaving the remaining politicians with the unenviable task of cleaning up their mess.
The flip side of that is that people voted remain because they were scared due to the 'project fear'. Plus the 'remain' side told lies as well. Have you forgotten WWIII or Osbourne's claim or even Obama's claim? I won't go into some of the claims by our friends in the EU, as they have been discussed.
As for the 'lies'? I think people old enough to vote should understand what they are voting for. I would also say that the 'false picture painted' is an erroneous comment as we have only been out for less than 2 weeks and don't know what deals will be made, so until then we cannot say they lied. We can argue about £350M but i also remember Farage saying other stuff about deals and that is yet to be seen. TBH i am not a Farage fan or supporter but he knows his stuff on the EU even if he doesn't articulate to everyone's taste.
I would also point out that saying all the Brexit mob has 'disappeared' is also debatable. Give it some time and you will see them again. Boris could be offered a job in cabinet. Gove should keep his. IDS will carry on as usual. I expect Leadsom to be offered something on the Brexit team. Farage was never going to be part of the government team. He did his job. I'm afraid the ones that will disappear will be Cameron, Osbourn, Corbyn.
We shall all have to wait and see what happens. We knew there would be uncertainty especially with the pound (that was obvious) however as FACTS have shown the markets are recovering and the forecasts look good.
I don't claim to be some expert on economics but read a lot and listen to experts (a bit like the ones in the remain camp). I have worked around the World and i know our country is tops in many areas and that won't change, being in the EU or not.
At the end of the day we can sit around and bitch or get on with it. The result will not change.
Please don't expect me to keep up this level of research!
Took me ages (the pound had probably fallen again by the time I'd finished).
Hope you don't include me in the 'having a go' bunch Ellers. Don't think I have on this thread anyway. I think a lot of people on both sides voted without a good understanding of the issues because of the crap campaigns, as you point out. Some are going to be disappointed in the result of Brexit because even in the best of circumstances it could never deliver the things they thought they would get. It would have been the same had Remain won, though I think expectations were a little less elevated.
On the upside it does shut me up for a bit........I immediately started looking up stuff to challenge every point you made (there are a few decent rebuttals!) but then thought 'give it a rest, you're on holiday and it's a ****ing long list. Plus Col has put the effort in'. And Goldie is right, it is too soon to make definitive judgements. I will try to restrain myself (not a promise!) for a bit.......
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It's bizarre that this journalist is blaming May for the Rotherham ****phile rapes, forced marriage and genital mutilation. His extreme views simply undermine this article.
He's right however that the UK Border Force has been underfunded in theses times of austerity. I think the Brexit vote and the terrorist atrocities in Paris and Brussels will make our leaders think again about economising in this area. Personally, I'm in favour of identify cards too. It can't be beyond the wit of man to devise something technically effective, using fingerprint and iris.
This journalist criticises May for lack of collegiality. Good. I hope she's a hard, unsociable bitch, focusing on getting the job done. First stop, a visit to Mad Juncker. Interesting that after all the vitriol he's been throwing at the UK, Juncker's now making conciliatory noises about not wanting hostile negotiations. An independent UK may be out of the club but we'll always be a part of Europe - The UK and the EU need each other, and the sooner the leaders realise that, the sooner we get a workable agreement for the benefit of all.
OK, I've had time to think about this more. And I'll preface the following by letting you know that I AM a Business Analyst - this stuff is my job. I'm not giving you someone else's opinion here. This is what my life is dealing with right now.
You are right that companies relocate - although not all the time. There are many different factors that companies are constantly evaluating to determine what business decisions they make, and where they do business is just one of those decisions.
So let's take a look at that decision to relocate out of the UK. Not a decision any company will take lightly. With 'normal' economic, political and logistical background noise, let's be generous and say that a company is 98% likely, at any given time, to stay where they are and make no changes, because the cost of relocating is far outweighed by the benefits of staying put. That's the reason people stay put - not ou of a sense of loyalty to staff or their location, but because it would not be good business to relocate without a very good reason.
Suddenly, the price of the materials and goods they need to import goes up, because the pound has dropped against the Dollar, to the point from 1.49 to 1.30 (where it is now). Similar scale of drop against the Euro. Logistics are hit, because it costs more to fill the vehicles they use to ship their goods, and there's only so much they can pass on to their customers before sales are hit too much to swallow. As a result, they reevaluate the position on relocating, and they evaluate it at 95%. Still far more likely to stay in the UK, but now - instead of a 1 in 50 chance of relocating, we're at 1 in 20.
Then there's the unknown changes in the way that the company trades with it's customers, a third of which are in other European countries. There are two factors here. Firstly there's the trade agreements themselves. It's a given that we won't get an agreement that provides MORE favorable conditions for UK companies that EU companies get, because the EU will never send the message that leaving the EU is better than staying. The question is how far from current trade agreements will we need to move in order to get a deal? The second factor is utterly out of our control: what the EU does independently to safeguard their own member state companies by making it more advantageous for a French company to buy from a Spanish company instead of a company from outside the EU. If EU companies see it as better business to buy from an EU partner than from outside (remember, this was something else Leave were saying was a restriction we were under as a member) then they will seriously consider switching, and out company is hit far harder. Now the percentage will be reevaluated, and even just on the risk of this happening, we're now at 80%. Still more likely to stay, the rose-tinted optimists would have you believe. But that original 1 in 50 is now one in FIVE.
Throw in the political uncertainty, the threat of TTIP, the additional costs being placed on them by the other UK companies from which they buy goods and services - all of whom are facing the same questions and pressures - and the picture becomes even more uncertain. And that's the thing. Business abhors uncertainty. And there's so much around at the moment, that companies are being forced into asking the question about relocating, at a time when such a question would otherwise have been way down their priority list.
That's the reality of what businesses are thinking. And it's a reality caused by simply not knowing what's going on. They have to make decisions on what is best for their company, their shareholders, their business, their customers and their employees, based on no real understanding of what tomorrow will look like. I know that's going on, because I'm seeing it every day now. Businesses are tightening their purse strings. Projects are being put on hold. Spending on non-essential items is pretty much zero (which has a large knock-on effect on their supplier base, all of whom, as I mentioned, are asking exactly the same questions about their own businesses). It's a worrying time out there.
And the only response we get, when this is pointed out, is 'doom and gloom' or 'project fear' - as if that even starts to address any of the very real concerns people have. That's not a counter-argument, it's avoiding the argument.
So - to recap. Yes, companies can, and do, relocate at other times. However, in voting Leave, we as a country have forced businesses to a position where the question is being asked far more frequently, and where the factors that determine whether such a decision will be made are far less likely to result in the company deciding to stay put. Arguably the odds are that they will sit it out, but when those odds have dropped from 1 in 50 to 1 in 5, and the question is being more seriously looked at, it's no wonder so many people view the short- and medium-term outlook with genuine concern.
Having conducted significantly less research than Col, I can reveal even more good news:
Eggs are now tasting sweeter and the yolks are more golden.
Sir Richard Branson has promised to completely withdraw from any form of public life.
The petrol in your car may not become cheaper, but you will be able to control what it does with a new App.
Simon Cowell has agreed to cut off his penis for charity.
Theresa May has vowed to go to the country in the autumn; Cotswolds I think, nice little cottage outside of Lechlade.
Concorde is coming back, but only a single seater version.
The Liberal Party is to rebrand as the UKDP to campaign for membership of the EU in 2026.
More later when the effect of my meds have worn off.
Eggs are now tasting sweeter and the yolks are more golden.
Sir Richard Branson has promised to completely withdraw from any form of public life.
The petrol in your car may not become cheaper, but you will be able to control what it does with a new App.
Simon Cowell has agreed to cut off his penis for charity.
Theresa May has vowed to go to the country in the autumn; Cotswolds I think, nice little cottage outside of Lechlade.
Concorde is coming back, but only a single seater version.
The Liberal Party is to rebrand as the UKDP to campaign for membership of the EU in 2026.
More later when the effect of my meds have worn off.
I was looking at the £ against various currencies last night. Yesterday it improved a touch probably on the new and quick PM news. It is still down close to 10% against all I checked since the Brexit vote.
A good insight and I agree on certain points.
However the dollar you mention was inflated. Surely being 'a Business Analyst' (and that's not a dig) you would have known that? I am not an analyst I know how it's been for the last 7 years. The Euro was 1 to 1 just a few ago? The many analysts on the business channel have all said the same. You also talk about relocation of companies, in a well-described point. I don't know who will leave and who will stay but once again when watching the news the analysts said companies move all the time but nothing has happened yet. I seem to remember during the campaign a list of major companies threating to leave. Well so far how many of these big hitters have left? In fact, all I keep reading and hearing are new deals and investment.
I am not saying it will all be plain sailing but i know how we do things here and how good the British are, So I am optimistic.
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Oslo it has been over inflated for ages now. You say it's 10% down after Brexit but what is it on a seven-year forecast? It has been falling since December. The Pound/Euro is actually stronger now than parts of 2013/14. Many businessmen made Dollar/Euro go up before Brexit to make money.
It went down late winter when the vote was announced on fear of a Brexit, and about 10% at the vote. I was looking at numbers and graphs over the last year, after the oil price fall, and the major downturns and the overall fall in this time are clearly Brexit driven. It don't mean it won't get back up to Pre Brexit fear levels eventually, and other things can happen of course to impact the £. But it has a long way to go, and probably it will need a far more rapid agreement that the UK will remain in the European free market zone than seems likely now, for a recovery to happen soon.
OK, let's break that down.
Firstly, before the referendum, the Dollar was at $1.4833 against the pound the day before the referendum. It's currently at $1.33 after a bounce since Theresa May was confirmed as PM. So no - I've not inflated the numbers at all. The referendum result clearly hit the valuation of sterling - the figures make that undeniable. We can all go back years, or decades - in 1971 it was at $2.40 - but the valid data is that which encompasses the situation we are in now.
Secondly, I did say that companies could make these decisions at any time, however, in voting to leave, we have created the very circumstances where such decisions will be considered, and an extremely uncertain environment in which they are considering that decision. The fact that no large companies have pulled the trigger yet actually underlines the uncertainty that they are feeling. it's a big step, and the odds are still for remaining in the UK - but the tipping point for when such a decision becomes far closer to reality than it would be in a more stable, certain operating environment.
Honestly, I deal with this stuff all day, every day at the moment. I'm not making this stuff up.
Finally, I admire your optimism, but really, that's immaterial. You can be as optimistic as you like, but what matters is how business sees this. And they are far more pragmatic and realistic, and their general levels of confidence in what they see is considerably lower than it was pre-referendum.