6827

I think it’s just a typo - UHNWI : ultra high net worth individuals.

6828

We were discussing leaving the EU but remaining in the customs union - in which case we would lose any say in tariffs, regulations etc.

6829

Lol I literally figured out Ultra High Net Worth Individuals, from the context of billionaires, just when you were typing.

6830

which is why it’s a shit deal imho.

Stay in with full powers, not this half remain half leave that is the best your lot have managed so far.

I’m still waiting for a deal that delivers all, or indeed any, of the things promised. Until then, stay in.

6831

I am also thinking it’s just a bad idea.

Why penalise the private schools? Why not upgrade the public schools so they are as good as the private ones?

Not an easy slogan, nor would it be easy, introducing real education reform, even though it is imho well overdue.

6832

You know, I was half willing to believe the idea of a better trade deal, if I believed the UK population were willing to get very competitive and work hard.

However, and this is said with a sad heart as a British national, I don’t see that ever happening.

There’s a reason those Poles “stole” our jobs, it’s because they are willing to put in the hard graft.

I don’t see half the unemployed that I have had contact with agreeing to do agricultural work (because it is hard, seasonal, doesn’t pay all that well, isn’t very secure - all factors or reduced relevance to a seasonal worker from Romania for example, whose payout would be, relative to equivalent time working in Romania assuming they had a job, rather a lot! ) or similar.

I worked in several factories and it was almost inevitably the native born Brits who would show up late, try and leave early, extend their breaks by just a bit and not work all that hard during their hours.

It really pisses me off because these aren’t the values I was brought up with and weren’t what I was led to believe Britain was about.

Yeah i realise it’s a tired old narrative of a coddled population, but in this sense I think it is mostly true :(.

SO this idea of a wonderful trade deal just waiting for us, I don’t think it is real at all. Ontop of our not so great workforce, we also have to consider the sheer economic clout of being part of the EU versus striking it out on our own.

And we’ve seen that their negotiating team is so much better than ours.

And lastly, this sovereignty argument is simply crap from what I can tell.

An argument further undermined by the actions of Johnson wrt trying to bypass parliament.

6833

Hard to believe they’d put that concern over their, presumably urgent and necessary, surgery.

edit, and like the doctor in the video says, the NHS is full of foreigners, and imho without them it would collapse, almost immediately.

So yeah, brexit is totally bollocks and my position is hardening, just in time for the election.

6834

This isnt an isolated case. Its a thing.

this is a depressing search result

https://www.google.com/search?q=racism+hospital+doctors+uk

6835

I just find it totally baffling.

I haven’t been in a hospital in some years, and tend to take my own health into my hands, i.e. be responsible (because the consequences will hit me obviously) but I can guarantee you that if I were in a hospital, the only thing I’d care about would be competence.

6836

Oh. They care about competence. It’s just than in their heads a non-white can’t be competent.

Their loss. If it wasn’t for the distress caused to the doctors I’d say let them have the doctors they deserve.

6837

Hate to say it, but this is what I’ve seen in every Western country. I keep thinking, seeing the kids we’re trying to raise and the parents around us, we are so losing any kind of technology/industrial race to come. The Western world has gotten soft, and the edge we have is born on the backs of immigrants. Ironic then that UK is seeking to expel their greatest advantage-- that other people would want to settle here and give their best.

6838

There are several books about this.

The central theme I think is that the west’s initial advantage came from the rule of law, industrialisation and education.

All things we are losing the edge in.

Also, prosperity is perhaps our greatest enemy :S:

6839

A trope from the Cold War, when it was argued that the Commies were harder, more ruthless, more willing to sacrifice, etc. The problem is, this concept rests on a zero-sum, inhumane, and social Darwinistic view of the world as a Hobbsean jungle, It also points out how the West has had a lot of trouble adapting to the idea that the world is becoming truly multipolar, and that it is going to have to be satisfied with being super powerful, rich, and influential, but not the only powerful, rich, and influential force on the globe.

6840

It’s very much those Poles. I’m sure there are plenty of Polish layabouts too. They’re just not the ones
with the grit to move across the continent and work in the drizzle, in a field picking vegetables, to earn money to send home.

6841

This is exactly what I’ve been saying for the past year :( draxen is living in another plane of existence thinking the GB has anything of value to leverage in trade deals. Other countries will just be looking to pillage what is left of GB. Brexiters are living in a fantasy and will sink the country to not admit they are wrong.

6842

You’ll notice Draxen doesn’t say he thinks we’ll get a better trade deal, just that trade deals will be made by the UK’s negotiations, rather than the EU’s. IE, it sounds like he’s fine having the UK being worse off economically, as long as we have autonomy, even if it kills us. And then presumably, the other benefits he sees that come with ( curbing immigration at all costs?) It’s one of those two things or both, there’s not much else to talk about for Brexit folk.

6843

The thing is, most people can’t even quantify what a ‘good’ trade deal is. There isn’t anything wrong with that — it’s complicated — but saying that it is the reason you support Brexit while you can’t articulate what a good or better deal would be is really, really weird.

Of course, the cop-out is ‘sovereignty’, but making a trade deal of any significance with anyone involves weakening one’s sovereignty. And, generally speaking, the better the trade deal, the more ‘sovereignty’ one must cede. In a trade deal, there is another side whose needs must be met after all.

6844

Except for the part where industry are left in limbo for yet more years, with no idea what the UK intends in the short or the long term. And have to follow EU rules anyway, because if they don’t, they won’t be allowed to export to the EU. So much winning.

And no - you are not prevented from later negotiating a customs union. It’s just an incredibly stupid approach to take to the problem facing the UK. If the idea for your economy is that you want global preferential trade deals, it is pure idiocy to not have one with the trade block which is responsible for by far the largest volume of your trade. And if a preferential trade deal with the EU is what you want, then you gain nothing by resetting your relationship and then trying to negotiate a lot of advantages which you had once (and which you could have kept), rather than keeping the advantages, and then negotiating which ones to drop.

What Boris is doing is basically handing the perfect negotiating hand to the EU in the interest of short-term political gain - because once the deal is in place, the UK is going to need a return to those preferential trade deals a lot, lot more than the EU will. Which means the EU will unilaterally decide regulations to assure continuity where the EU most requires it (much of this legislation is doubtlessly already ready - they’ve had 2+ years to prepare by now) - and to deliver discontinuity and pain (within limits, obviously) where it matters to twist the arms of the UK negotiators when they come to the negotiating table. As I’ve explained to others in this thread, the EU will have one priority in the coming negotiations - to protect the trade interests of the EU. Once the UK is out, that will no longer include the UK - and the EU will act accordingly. Though probably not as badly as the US will screw over the UK when the British negotiators come crawling on their knees for a deal.

It’s actually not hard to draw a conclusion - the only hard thing is the cognitive dissonance required to ignore all the actual trade experts pointing out the obvious (hint: not even the UK government thinks new trade deals can compensate for the huge losses that the UK will incur in Brexit).

6845

Very much this. No way the UK gets better, more favorable treatment from outside the tent than they got inside the tent. And hoping that the US makes up for what they are losing from the EU is insane. The US is already the UK’s second largest trading partner after the EU. Is anyone expecting US / UK trade to more than double? What will we exchange, financial analysis and wheat?

6846

Pro-Brexit demos continue with ever increasing numbers

Also Doncaster, at 1030am on a Monday morning. Americans dont have the concept of a flat roof pub do they heh.