Benefits of Brexit for Britain

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sheldrake
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by sheldrake » Fri Oct 08, 2021 2:11 pm

Japan is supporting our application to join the CPTPP, a much more flexible trade association than the EU's single market or customs union

https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/03/wh ... rt-move-uk
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temptar
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by temptar » Fri Oct 08, 2021 2:17 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Fri Oct 08, 2021 12:07 pm
Lew Dolby wrote:
Fri Oct 08, 2021 11:54 am
sheldrake wrote:
Fri Oct 08, 2021 11:36 am
We can ban employers from discriminating against women who want to wear the hijab
But we won't. In some jobs such wear would be a safety consideration.
Such as?

I also don't think genuine safety issues would qualify as discrimination.


That said, I don't think the EU ruling means that member states have to ban face coverings etc. It just means that EU legislation doesn't always protect workers from employers' bans.

Still a disappointing ruling from the EU, though. A worker's right to religious freedom should trump a client's preference for them not to have any.
You know, interestingly, the generation of women who had to wear headscarves in Ireland in the past don't see scarves as anything other than repression, not freedom. And if it is indoctrinated from birth, is it truly freedom? In short, the underlying principle can be a little more complex.

That being said, I am not sure being able to ban companies from banning specific items of clothing is a benefit you will see the House of Commons apply soon given the record of your PM vis a vis veiled women.
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by sheldrake » Fri Oct 08, 2021 2:25 pm

temptar wrote:
Fri Oct 08, 2021 2:17 pm
That being said, I am not sure being able to ban companies from banning specific items of clothing is a benefit you will see the House of Commons apply soon given the record of your PM vis a vis veiled women.
It would already be religious descrimination in the UK to ban people from wearing hijab except for very clear safety or security reasons https://fullfact.org/law/what-are-rules ... niqabs-uk/
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by temptar » Fri Oct 08, 2021 2:26 pm

So you didn't need Brexit for that
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by Bird on a Fire » Fri Oct 08, 2021 2:31 pm

temptar wrote:
Fri Oct 08, 2021 2:17 pm
You know, interestingly, the generation of women who had to wear headscarves in Ireland in the past don't see scarves as anything other than repression, not freedom. And if it is indoctrinated from birth, is it truly freedom? In short, the underlying principle can be a little more complex.

That being said, I am not sure being able to ban companies from banning specific items of clothing is a benefit you will see the House of Commons apply soon given the record of your PM vis a vis veiled women.
Yes, discussion of hijabs etc. is tricky because it is ultimately a debate on the existence and nature of free will.

I'm not convinced that passing laws further restricting the opportunities of women from particular ethnic backgrounds is the right way to reduce their oppression.
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by sheldrake » Fri Oct 08, 2021 4:46 pm

1000 EU financial services firms opened offices in London to make sure they had accesss to our market

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56155531
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by plodder » Fri Oct 08, 2021 6:01 pm

sheldrake wrote:
Fri Oct 08, 2021 4:46 pm
1000 EU financial services firms opened offices in London to make sure they had accesss to our market

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56155531
Spam post. It’s from last February, it’s “planned to open” and it ends:

Mr Johnson said the figures indicated the importance of reaching a decision on financial services equivalence between the EU and UK.
"They suggest that financial services firms across Europe recognise London's potency as a global financial centre and want to be able to conduct business here.
"Regulatory equivalence decisions would therefore benefit businesses on both sides of the channel."

Remind me where we are with regulatory equivalence?
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by sheldrake » Fri Oct 08, 2021 6:24 pm

plodder wrote:
Fri Oct 08, 2021 6:01 pm
sheldrake wrote:
Fri Oct 08, 2021 4:46 pm
1000 EU financial services firms opened offices in London to make sure they had accesss to our market

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56155531
Spam post. It’s from last February, it’s “planned to open” and it ends:

Mr Johnson said the figures indicated the importance of reaching a decision on financial services equivalence between the EU and UK.
"They suggest that financial services firms across Europe recognise London's potency as a global financial centre and want to be able to conduct business here.
"Regulatory equivalence decisions would therefore benefit businesses on both sides of the channel."

Remind me where we are with regulatory equivalence?
These jobs weren't contingent on regulatory equivalence, they were EU-based firms looking to operate in the UK who had already applied for permits. Regulatory equivalence is something you'd need to operate in the London from the EU or visa versa. I don't see a problem with posting something from February if nobody has posted it before and there's no reason to believe it is false. The mention of regulatory equivalence is Johnson nudging his EU counterparts to use these permits to remind them that EU firms want to do business in the UK, too.

I did a query on the ONS 'Nomis' service for financial sector full time jobs in greater London here https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/query/asv2htm.aspx

These are the results:-

June 1996 314,723
June 1997 317,817
June 1998 315,655
June 1999 306,653
June 2000 311,120
June 2001 330,844
June 2002 317,298
June 2003 332,525
June 2004 307,600
June 2005 299,315
June 2006 309,177
June 2007 322,351
June 2008 338,211
June 2009 329,791
June 2010 319,054
June 2011 334,571
June 2012 342,881
June 2013 326,435
June 2014 321,728
June 2015 332,080
June 2016 355,138
June 2017 349,537
June 2018 345,745
June 2019 374,838
June 2020 369,260
June 2021 377,048

I think this shows increasing financial sector employment in London.
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sat Oct 09, 2021 8:53 pm

Leaving the EU means the UK can be way more ambitious about influencing the carbon market. It can regulate its finance sector independently, without worrying about making Frankfurt and Paris divest from their fossil assets too. It can independently implement a border tax on emissions in all its new trade deals. It can reform agricultural subsidies to support regenerative farming and carbon sequestration, and other ecosystem services.

The EU has been historically quite slow on climate change (especially the land-use side) (even if it's been better than most other places), and the UK was widely considered a driving force behind genuine progress. If we're going to prioritise "going back" to some past era where the UK was a positive influence on the world, please can it be that one. At least it's genuinely true, and a genuinely worthwhile cause.

Rather than a dysfunctional oligarchy ripping up regs and providing political support for as many antequated anachronistic gasbags as possible.
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by plodder » Mon Oct 11, 2021 7:47 am

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Sat Oct 09, 2021 8:53 pm
Leaving the EU means the UK can be way more ambitious about influencing the carbon market. It can regulate its finance sector independently, without worrying about making Frankfurt and Paris divest from their fossil assets too. It can independently implement a border tax on emissions in all its new trade deals. It can reform agricultural subsidies to support regenerative farming and carbon sequestration, and other ecosystem services.

The EU has been historically quite slow on climate change (especially the land-use side) (even if it's been better than most other places), and the UK was widely considered a driving force behind genuine progress. If we're going to prioritise "going back" to some past era where the UK was a positive influence on the world, please can it be that one. At least it's genuinely true, and a genuinely worthwhile cause.

Rather than a dysfunctional oligarchy ripping up regs and providing political support for as many antequated anachronistic gasbags as possible.
So in other words we are now freer to to <idealistic thing> but are more likely to do <not necessary thing>. Yeah, that’s about how I see it.

One consequence/benefit is that someone gets to fill the funny-shaped political void that used to have the EU in it.
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by sheldrake » Mon Oct 11, 2021 8:23 am

plodder wrote:
Mon Oct 11, 2021 7:47 am


So in other words we are now freer to to <idealistic thing> but are more likely to do <not necessary thing>. Yeah, that’s about how I see it.

One consequence/benefit is that someone gets to fill the funny-shaped political void that used to have the EU in it.
I think you can have at least some of the idealistic things if you can make the Labour party an effective opposition again. It will be a lot of work, but it's not impossible.
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by sheldrake » Thu Oct 14, 2021 5:49 pm

This is old but a good reflection from the left of the spectrum on how to see Brexit as an opportunity instead of a problem

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... m-problems
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by nekomatic » Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:02 pm

No it isn’t. The ‘opportunities’ suggested in that article consist of
  • State aid for manufacturing
  • Er
  • Something unspecified but it involves artificial intelligence somehow
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by sheldrake » Fri Oct 15, 2021 4:31 pm

nekomatic wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:02 pm
No it isn’t. The ‘opportunities’ suggested in that article consist of
  • State aid for manufacturing
  • Er
  • Something unspecified but it involves artificial intelligence somehow
Tell me what you don't like about state aid for manufacturing.
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by Trinucleus » Fri Oct 15, 2021 5:33 pm

Given that it actually happens on EU countries, I don't think it counts as a benefit of Brexit
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by nekomatic » Fri Oct 15, 2021 5:46 pm

What I think about it is neither here nor there. What I think about it as a proposed opportunity of Brexit is that a) as Trinucleus says, states in the EU can and do support their manufacturing industries; b) the WTO and our various trading partners may have a view if we want to go significantly beyond the kind of support that was already possible inside the EU; c) any benefit to manufacturing has to be set against the clearly apparent newly added challenges of importing materials from and exporting products to the very large market on our doorstep; and d) I don’t trust that anything this government says about wanting to support manufacturing goes any more than soundbite deep, or will be remembered in more than half an hour’s time.

But obviously, I’m just not believing hard enough.
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by sheldrake » Fri Oct 15, 2021 7:20 pm

Trinucleus wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 5:33 pm
Given that it actually happens on EU countries, I don't think it counts as a benefit of Brexit
The economics editor of even the Guardian is well aware of what the EU single market state aid rules are.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_aid ... ean_Union)
Measures which fall within the definition of state aid are considered unlawful unless provided under an exemption or notified by the European Commission.
We no longer need to apply for exemptions or request permission.
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by Trinucleus » Fri Oct 15, 2021 8:38 pm

sheldrake wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 7:20 pm
Trinucleus wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 5:33 pm
Given that it actually happens on EU countries, I don't think it counts as a benefit of Brexit
The economics editor of even the Guardian is well aware of what the EU single market state aid rules are.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_aid ... ean_Union)
Measures which fall within the definition of state aid are considered unlawful unless provided under an exemption or notified by the European Commission.
We no longer need to apply for exemptions or request permission.
So the benefit is that we just don't have to get permission?
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by Bird on a Fire » Fri Oct 15, 2021 8:43 pm

Taking back control, innit.
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by sheldrake » Fri Oct 15, 2021 8:52 pm

Trinucleus wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 8:38 pm
sheldrake wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 7:20 pm
Trinucleus wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 5:33 pm
Given that it actually happens on EU countries, I don't think it counts as a benefit of Brexit
The economics editor of even the Guardian is well aware of what the EU single market state aid rules are.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_aid ... ean_Union)
Measures which fall within the definition of state aid are considered unlawful unless provided under an exemption or notified by the European Commission.
We no longer need to apply for exemptions or request permission.
So the benefit is that we just don't have to get permission?
That could be a significant benefit. It would certainly seem like it if you asked permission and didn't get it.
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by temptar » Sat Oct 16, 2021 6:17 am

Doesn't mean you get to export those state aided manufactured good elsewhere if they come under the heading of dumping though.

At least in the EU you might have a market had you got permission.

That being said, state aid is usually anethema to fiscal conservatives. You seem inconsistent here.
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by plodder » Sat Oct 16, 2021 6:26 am

We did state aid before, and we had powers - the cosy deal with Nissan during the original Brexit negotiations, for example. The fact that we don't have to ask permission is a benefit, but I'm not sure it's going to be measurable, especially as there's an implicit suggestion that state aid is typically propping up dead wood.

eta obvs lots of talk about subsidies to support carbon reduction - but every country has this issue.
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by sheldrake » Sat Oct 16, 2021 7:54 am

I'm a bit long in the tooth to worry too much about theoretical consistency, but I agree with plodder's angle as an example. I expect we're going to need to support all kinds of energy intensive industries through an enforced transition of our energy supplies. I suspect we might also need to invest much more in cleaner forms of nuclear power. Best not to be tangled up with EU bureaucracy whilst deciding these things.
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by plodder » Sat Oct 16, 2021 7:57 am

sheldrake wrote:
Sat Oct 16, 2021 7:54 am
I'm a bit long in the tooth to worry too much about theoretical consistency, but I agree with plodder's angle as an example. I expect we're going to need to support all kinds of energy intensive industries through an enforced transition of our energy supplies. I suspect we might also need to invest much more in cleaner forms of nuclear power. Best not to be tangled up with EU bureaucracy whilst deciding these things.
You do need to be clear on what exactly you think we gain from working in a looser governance environment - we've had loads of green initiatives over the years already - they typically get scrapped by lazy chancellors though.
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Re: Benefits of Brexit for Britain

Post by sheldrake » Sat Oct 16, 2021 8:01 am

plodder wrote:
Sat Oct 16, 2021 7:57 am
You do need to be clear on what exactly you think we gain from working in a looser governance environment
Faster decision making that's more accountable to UK voters.
- we've had loads of green initiatives over the years already - they typically get scrapped by lazy chancellors though.
I think that just has to be fixed by voting. If we're going to force the economy off of fossil fuels we can't just push all of the heavy industry jobs and carbon footprint to run on chinese coal.
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