EU Referendum: The result and aftermath...

[muddythefish]

The EU is in a state of terminal decline thanks to continual mission creep, and the UK leaving only serves to accelerate that process, thanks to the Brexit effect of emboldening protectionists and nationalists globally.

It's astonishing how people on our little island have never understood Europe or its commitment to the EU that has brought peace and prosperity to the continent for the past 70 years. Populists and nationalists were roundly defeated in elections in France, Holland, Austria and Italy this year, and Merkel is about to see off the anti-Eu AfD in Germany too. In polls across Europe, the EU is more popular than ever, partly because Brexit has brought the continent together. The eurozone is also one of the fastest growing regions in the world, compared to the sclerotic UK where growth is stalling. So much for a "state of terminal decline".

 

[muddythefish]

A thousand square kilometre polder in the Thames Estuary would go a long way to easing the housing issues in the South East.

But we will never be able to get that.

Symptom rather than cause. The real problem is too much economic activity in one area and not enough across the rest of the country.

 

[AlterEgo]

It's astonishing how people on our little island have never understood Europe or its commitment to the EU that has brought peace and prosperity to the continent for the past 70 years. Populists and nationalists were roundly defeated in elections in France, Holland, Austria and Italy this year, and Merkel is about to see off the anti-Eu AfD in Germany too. In polls across Europe, the EU is more popular than ever, partly because Brexit has brought the continent together. The eurozone is also one of the fastest growing regions in the world, compared to the sclerotic UK where growth is stalling. So much for a "state of terminal decline".

The terminal decline is marked by the EU being monolithic and resistant to change. Most EU citizens want a referendum on membership. Most EU citizens think the UK's departure is bad for the EU. Most EU citizens want their national governments to have greater control over immigration. About half of EU citizens think Germany has too much influence in the Union.

The EU is in favour precisely because of a human need to rally round in the short term (and bear in mind, just over a year after the vote is no time at all in the scheme of things). Many Europeans are dissatisfied at how the EU works and resolves issues, particularly over free movement and refugees. http://www.pewglobal.org/2017/06/15/post-brexit-europeans-more-favorable-toward-eu/

Ultimately, the EU is now too large, and has too wide a remit to function effectively as a democratic unit. For this reason alone, it will eventually wither and die, leaving a husk of itself - probably a single market of some kind.

The language coming out of the EU of late is not the language of a healthy and secure democracy.

I voted to Remain as I thought it was more sensible to stay in the bus as it was slowing to a halt, as opposed to throwing ourselves out of the window. But it's done now. I've long been sceptical of the EU and it's capacity for delivering human happiness, and post-Brexit that scepticism has only increased drastically.

 

[radamfi]

I just can't see property values in the south-east crashing dramatically. Not whilst we are being told every tiny little space needs to be built over to meet 'demand', whilst many cannot but notice this is accompanied by high levels of immigration.

But there have been property bubbles and crashes before. What is so different this time?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Must be Barnier's inner Stalin coming out.

I wonder if this is a simple language issue. In English, the verb 'educate', and the noun 'consequences' when used in certain ways can both have unpleasant overtones implying punishment, even though that is not the primary meaning of either word. And that seems to be the way that all the usual anti-EU mob have interpreted the comments. But Michel Barnier is French, so presumably only speaks English as a 2nd language, so it's plausible he might not be aware of those secondary connotations of the words 'educate' and 'consequences'. If so, he may well have simply meant that he wanted to make sure we were aware of things that some people might not have been aware of, without there being any ill-intent implied.

Actually I'm not even clear whether he was speaking in English, or whether what we're seeing is a (possibly, poor) translation of remarks made in another language. I looked to see if there was a recording online of his remarks but couldn't find one.

To be honest, I'm pretty sceptical about this. Yes, maybe there is something bad that his comments reveal. But the most prominent Euro-sceptic politicans and much of the media have repeatedly proved themselves so willing to deliberately (mis)interpret everything anyone in the EU does or says in the worst way possible no matter what the real intentions might be, that I no longer pay much attention to those 'so-and-so-in-the-EU-said-X. How dreadful!' storms.

 

[bramling]

But there have been property bubbles and crashes before. What is so different this time?

A very rapidly rising population size, most of all in London. This simply wasn't the case before to anything like the same extent.

 

[AM9]

A very rapidly rising population size, most of all in London. This simply wasn't the case before to anything like the same extent.

Interesting data here that I've never seen discussed either in support of or against migration policies:

https://londonist.com/2016/04/london-migration

 

[radamfi]

A very rapidly rising population size, most of all in London. This simply wasn't the case before to anything like the same extent.

There was significant immigration from the Commonwealth from the 50s to 80s, yet there was a huge crash in the late 80s, primarily in London and the south.

 

[northwichcat]

There was significant immigration from the Commonwealth from the 50s to 80s, yet there was a huge crash in the late 80s, primarily in London and the south.

The government also placed restrictions on people born in Commonwealth countries getting British citizenship, starting with those born in 1982. Hence why those born after 1982 have to fill out an additional section on a passport application, compared to those born before.

 

[HSTEd]

Symptom rather than cause. The real problem is too much economic activity in one area and not enough across the rest of the country.

And short of introducing internal passports and gestapo tactics to prevent people going to London anyway - this is virtually impossible to prevent.

Unless you are seriously suggesting that its a good idea to treat people as simple cattle who go where the state commands whether they want to live in Maryport or not?

The only thing that can compete in draw with an Alpha category World City is another Alpha Category World City.

So unless you want to build another eight-ten million person city [and I do].... we are a bit stuck

You said the EU has no interest in a deal. I said the EU doesn't need one. You don't need a degree to see the connection.

And neither does the UK.

The lack of a deal is not going to turn Britain into some sort of Mad Max esque dystopia.
It would likely be measurably poorer, but it will not collapse overnight.

 

[AM9]

And short of introducing internal passports and gestapo tactics to prevent people going to London anyway - this is virtually impossible to prevent.

Unless you are seriously suggesting that its a good idea to treat people as simple cattle who go where the state commands whether they want to live in Maryport or not?

The only thing that can compete in draw with an Alpha category World City is another Alpha Category World City.

So unless you want to build another eight-ten million person city [and I do].... we are a bit stuck



And neither does the UK.

The lack of a deal is not going to turn Britain into some sort of Mad Max esque dystopia.
It would likely be measurably poorer, but it will not collapse overnight.

Which in a way is unfortunate as such a shock might wake those who would be in control and those who put them there up before it is too late. Instead it will slowly slide into a poorer country with a small self-serving economy which the more successful ones will dip into when it suits them.

 

[HSTEd]

Which in a way is unfortunate as such a shock might wake those who would be in control and those who put them there up before it is too late. Instead it will slowly slide into a poorer country with a small self-serving economy which the more successful ones will dip into when it suits them.

I am honestly not sure what will happen.
The cost of long distance shipping is now so cheap that it is worthwhile to fly prawns caught in the UK to Thailand, process the and then ship them back.

Or where the cost of moving a container from Felixstowe to its destination is less than the cost of hauling it from Shanghai to Felixstowe.
I have some sympathy with the idea that geographical proximity is no longer a particularily strong driver for a country with very good maritime access.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I am honestly not sure what will happen.
The cost of long distance shipping is now so cheap that it is worthwhile to fly prawns caught in the UK to Thailand, process the and then ship them back.

Or where the cost of moving a container from Felixstowe to its destination is less than the cost of hauling it from Shanghai to Felixstowe.
I have some sympathy with the idea that geographical proximity is no longer a particularily strong driver for a country with very good maritime access.

But does cheap shipping simply reflect that shipping companies are being effectively subsidised by virtue of not having to pay for the environmental damage they cause? And if the answer to that is, 'yes', then is that really going to continue into the future if awareness of environmental issues continues to grow. My suspicion is that companies that ship by sea have had it very good up to now because until recently there's been very little public awareness of marine pollution (and also because it's extremely hard to regulate an industry that is international and often operates outside any country's borders.) But awareness is growing. Maybe in 10 years time, shipping 5000 miles will start to make a lot less sense in more people's eyes compare to shipping 50 miles or so across the channel?

 

[HSTEd]

But does cheap shipping simply reflect that shipping companies are being effectively subsidised by virtue of not having to pay for the environmental damage they cause?

Outside of carbon and air pollution from low quality bunker fuels, I don't think there are any serious impacts to long distance container shipping.
Even if they were made to burn LNG or low carbon fuels they would still be far cheaper to operate per mile - they consume far less energy.

And if the answer to that is, 'yes', then is that really going to continue into the future if awareness of environmental issues continues to grow. My suspicion is that companies that ship by sea have had it very good up to now because until recently there's been very little public awareness of marine pollution (and also because it's extremely hard to regulate an industry that is international and often operates outside any country's borders.) But awareness is growing.

This is likely to force a switch to low sulfur bunker fuels, or to the fitting of desulphurisation systems to the exhaust of container ships.
If they did that, the fuel consumption would probably be less than the last fifty miles to the destination.

Maybe in 10 years time, shipping 5000 miles will start to make a lot less sense in more people's eyes compare to shipping 50 miles or so across the channel?

You can't use a 22,000TEU+ container ship on a cross channel run practically - and in the middle of the century the route to China will get much shorter due to the opening of the Northern Sea Route.

 

[AM9]

... - and in the middle of the century the route to China will get much shorter due to the opening of the Northern Sea Route.

Well that's a strange justification for hasting the demise of northern sea ice, just increase greenhouse gases so that we can get cheap goods from China via a shorter sea route.
I could understand somebody my age suggesting that on the grounds that they won't be around by the mid 21st century, but somebody less than 40 would begin to feel the heat by then (so to speak).

 

[HSTEd]

Well that's a strange justification for hasting the demise of northern sea ice, just increase greenhouse gases so that we can get cheap goods from China via a shorter sea route.

The sea ice is already doomed.
Trying to stop it at this time is Canute-esque behaviour of the highest order.

And shipping containers from China 'over the top' will cut costs by 30% or more, in fact probably more since all draught restrictions would be removed, allowing Supra-Malaccamax ships to be used on the trade effectively.

The fact remains that modern container ships are so efficient that shipping goods from china is less damaging than shipping them a tiny fraction of the distance by almost any other mechanism.

This seems to indicate that moving a TEU between Shanghai and Felixstowe on the Emma Maersk emits roughly 1200kg of carbon dioxide.
The Triple-E class are also indicated to use roughly 20% less fuel than her, which is 960kg to move a twenty foot container on the route.
[The container contains roughly 11 tonnes of payload, which is about 87kg per tonne, and the Northern Sea route could cut that to ~60kg]

Which gets you something like a thousand kilometres or less by road, depending on who's figures you believe for carbon emissions.
Which is shorter than a journey into the European interior could easily be.

 

[muddythefish]

And short of introducing internal passports and gestapo tactics to prevent people going to London anyway - this is virtually impossible to prevent.

Unless you are seriously suggesting that its a good idea to treat people as simple cattle who go where the state commands whether they want to live in Maryport or not?

The only thing that can compete in draw with an Alpha category World City is another Alpha Category World City.

So unless you want to build another eight-ten million person city [and I do].... we are a bit stuck

Nope, just run the country for the nation as a whole, not just one small corner of it.

We could start be moving government lock stock and barrel out of London.

 

[HSTEd]

Nope, just run the country for the nation as a whole, not just one small corner of it.

And when people refuse to live outside London or refuse to move their businesses out of London?
How will they be made to obey?

And this 'small corner of it' [NUTS regions of London and the South East] contains 16.4 million people according to government figures.
This is well over a quarter of the population of the UK, and since both regions are growing faster than the average, that proportion will only increase.

We could start be moving government lock stock and barrel out of London.

Are you willing to pay the requisite costs for the construction of enormous new government facilities, and for the enormous relocation grants or retraining required to persuade the many tens of thousands of public servants or replace them when they decide not to move to some new location?

It would be an entirely new city, which would have to be established from scratch with massive infrastructure spend, and such a city would be so entirely dependant on public spending that it would make Brasillia look economically vibrant.

It could easily run to many tens of even hundreds of billions of pounds.
It would easily be far more expensive than a new city constructed for non government purposes.

And as Washington DC demonstrates, it would do little to damage the dominance of London.

 

[fowler9]

And when people refuse to live outside London or refuse to move their businesses out of London?
How will they be made to obey?



Are you willing to pay the requisite costs for the construction of enormous new government facilities, and for the enormous relocation grants or retraining required to persuade the many tens of thousands of public servants or replace them when they decide not to move to some new location?

It would be an entirely new city, which would have to be established from scratch with massive infrastructure spend, and such a city would be so entirely dependant on public spending that it would make Brasillia look economically vibrant.

It could easily run to many tens of even hundreds of billions of pounds.
It would easily be far more expensive than a new city constructed for non government purposes.

And as Washington DC demonstrates, it would do little to damage the dominance of London.

You move, get redundancy or as happened in my last job because it was a fixed term contract you just loose your job. I don't see why London is a special case? Don't get me wrong that is an extreme example but hey. We can't carry on just trying to squeeze everything in to one corner of the country.

 

[HSTEd]

You move, get redundancy or as happened in my last job because it was a fixed term contract you just loose your job. I don't see why London is a special case? Don't get me wrong that is an extreme example but hey. We can't carry on just trying to squeeze everything in to one corner of the country.

Yes, and where will the huge numbers of replacement staff, with training, come from? You could never replace the shear number of people who would chose to take private sector jobs rather than move to god knows where.

And if we want to spread things across the country, I assume we will be sending large numbers of people to live in Caithness or Sutherland or the Western Isles?

 

[fowler9]

Yes, and where will the huge numbers of replacement staff, with training, come from? You could never replace the shear number of people who would chose to take private sector jobs rather than move to god knows where.

And if we want to spread things across the country, I assume we will be sending large numbers of people to live in Caithness or Sutherland or the Western Isles?

You have a good point but there are huge numbers of civil service staff in the North West and also the North East already. I have a flattering number of friends in the North already who do a lot of travelling to train staff. I don't think anyone is proposing to just shut down London overnight.

 

[HSTEd]

You have a good point but there are huge numbers of civil service staff in the North West and also the North East already. I have a flattering number of friends in the North already who do a lot of travelling to train staff. I don't think anyone is proposing to just shut down London overnight.

I am not entirely sure the entire civil service could be spread evenly over the entire country - it seems likely that many departmental officials and such would have to be positioned near wherever the elected government actually is.

Now the idea of a city on the Great Glen is intriguing, but I imagine the NIMBYs would do their nut over such a thing. It would however flood Scotland with a million voters who's jobs depend on the union......

 

[fowler9]

I am not entirely sure the entire civil service could be spread evenly over the entire country - it seems likely that many departmental officials and such would have to be positioned near wherever the elected government actually is.

Now the idea of a city on the Great Glen is intriguing, but I imagine the NIMBYs would do their nut over such a thing. It would however flood Scotland with a million voters who's jobs depend on the union......

Why would it require a city to be built on the Great Glen? I'm not suggesting they take London and rebuild it in a field in Scotland. It may seem like departmental officials need to be near where the elected Government actually is but they haven't flown them all out to Japan with Theresa May have they, they seem to be able to communicate somehow.

 

[HSTEd]

Why would it require a city to be built on the Great Glen? I'm not suggesting they take London and rebuild it in a field in Scotland. It may seem like departmental officials need to be near where the elected Government actually is but they haven't flown them all out to Japan with Theresa May have they, they seem to be able to communicate somehow.

Yeah, but how long has Theresa May been gone? If she was in Japan permanently it would become more problematic.

Regular meetings are an important feature of government - and despite numerous attempts to eliminate face to face meetings in the public and private sectors, Skype and similar video conferencing technologies have been shown repeatedly to not really be up to the job.

 

[najaB]

Despite numerous attempts to eliminate face to face meetings in the public and private sectors, Skype and similar video conferencing technologies have been shown repeatedly to not really be up to the job.

To be fair to the technology, video conferencing is entirely up to the job where formal meetings are concerned. What it can't so easily replicate is the idea-generating spontaneous chat in the corridor or the sense of team that comes with someone making you a cup of tea on a cold day.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Outside of carbon and air pollution from low quality bunker fuels, I don't think there are any serious impacts to long distance container shipping.

Aside from atmospheric emissions, there's discharge of sewage, ballast water and other waste into the sea, impact of sound pollution on marine life and risk of oil spills. You're right to think of air pollution from the point of view of both climate change and discharge of other toxic substances into the air, but it's not the only environmental impact of shipping by a long way.

 

[AM9]

Nope, just run the country for the nation as a whole, not just one small corner of it.

We could start be moving government lock stock and barrel out of London.

Whether everybody likes it or not, London is the magnet for many things. Just look at the mess that the BBC has made by trying to move almost everything out of London. Apart from their own lead staff refusing to budge, the fact is that most talent just doesn't see the need to visit Manchester just for an inteview, even to promote their latest piece of work. That's why Broadcasting House is bigger than it's ever been, and why more outsourced production companies are using studios in the London area when making programmes for the BBC.
Despite the claim that many jobs have been created in Media City, many of those have been with the smaller creative companies drawn to Salford from other parts of the region so no real net growth outside London once the builders had finished. The BBC had to recruit some staff locally, but there was no net reduction in the south-east if the outsourced companies are included.
The Government is suggesting that Channel 4 should do the same, partly to please some of the possible centres into which they could settle, (Sheffield, Birmingham, Liverpool, West Yorkshire, Manchester, Bristol and Brighton), -probably only Brighton would attract the necessry talent easily. Channel 4 no doubt seeing the impact on the BBC of its limited dependence on Manchester said that employees leaving because of a forced relocation could join rivals requiring replacement from a “considerably smaller and less experienced pool of talent” outside London. This government's hostility towards licence fee funded broadcasters would seem to be an issue here, maybe to hasten the handover to fully commercial TV with no PSO.
So any bright idea of forcing moves out of London doesn't really do anybody much good. Almost every important visitor from overseas - especially outside the EU, (e.g. politicians and business leaders) only wants to go to London unless it's to cut a ribbon somewhere else. It's not fair or unfair, just the way it is.

 

[bramling]

There was significant immigration from the Commonwealth from the 50s to 80s, yet there was a huge crash in the late 80s, primarily in London and the south.

Not so much pressure on space then - plenty of new housing was built in the 60s and 70s, much of it high density. Sadly one could argue that Grenfell is one legacy of this approach.

Also there was clearly space in the surrounding area for overspill towns to be established, with good transport links both locally and to London. Fast forward a few decades and many of these places don't have room to expand, plus the transport is at saturation point.

 

[HSTEd]

Aside from atmospheric emissions, there's discharge of sewage, ballast water and other waste into the sea, impact of sound pollution on marine life and risk of oil spills. You're right to think of air pollution from the point of view of both climate change and discharge of other toxic substances into the air, but it's not the only environmental impact of shipping by a long way.

Discharge of sewage is becoming less of an issue since it tends to scale by the crew of the vessel, and crew increases incredibly slowly (if at all) as vessel tonnage increases.

Ballast water is also less of an issue these days in that most of the environmental damage from ballast water is already done. Almost all the invasive species that can be spread by it, especially zebra mussels, have already been spread by it.
Additionally ballast exchange systems being installed drastically reduce the carriage of foreign organisms to other coastal waters by constantly changing the ballast water whilst the vessel is underway - dumping out most of the original water somewhere in the deep ocean.

And the risk of oil spills is really rather negligible considering the tonnages moved and shrinks even year thanks to improvements in vessel design and operational practices - especially improvements in navigation infrastructure.

Deep Sea container shipment is really really cheap and has not many impacts at all.
This is truly a global world in which we live now.

 

[muddythefish]

A
Are you willing to pay the requisite costs for the construction of enormous new government facilities, and for the enormous relocation grants or retraining required to persuade the many tens of thousands of public servants or replace them when they decide not to move to some new location?

n.

Refurbishing the Houses of Parliament is estimated to cost billions and billions - more than enough to fund the cost of moving the govt out of London.

We should start by moving govt departments and then parliament itself.

They could be spread across the north and poorer parts of the west - such as Plymouth.

No other major industrialised country is as centralised as the UK. No other major economy is as unequal as the UK's. England as a whole is one of the poorest countries in Europe. Go to Germany and you see equal wealth across a huge number of cities.

Addressing this inequality needs radical measures - not some tinkering with Northern Powerhouse schemes. We should start by moving the decision makers out of the capital. Wealth will follow.