Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Yea. Plenty on RF.
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Leaving the EU has been a disaster for the UK
- Thread starter Altfish
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Heyo
Veteran Member
As usual with the Brits, they where all at sea. But the Europeans mostly fled when sighting the British fishing Navy. England again rules the sea (around the island).
That's...err...pithy.
What do you think Brexit IS responsible for?
It would've been impossible for the UK to leave the EU if it hadn't been a sovereign independent country.
People still have long term memory and recall that that period (2016-2020) was made up of threatening, blackmailing, intimidation, etc..etc...
If it had been a sovereign country, there wouldn't have been such an ideological war.
I don't know, given the other circumstances of the lockdowns and the recessions all around the Anglosphere and in the EU it's difficult for me to fairly judge. Our country is doing incredibly badly but coming from one of the poorest areas of England to start with I only see a trend that started well before Brexit or the Tories and their neoliberalism destroying this country. Brexit was used as a way for old fashioned conservatives and Old Labour to yell at the government, usually from the poor region I came from and others like it. We wanted to be recognised. If you were housing immigrants so well, why were we being kicked out of our homes? But nobody listened. It was usually Northern English shouting at Westminster to get out of its London bubble. It will likely not happen. If anything Brexit probably furthered the Tories' neoliberalism and worsened the rift.
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Thanks for the perspective. It makes sense to me that trying to split out the impacts of Brexit from the impacts of other unusual events (eg. The pandemic) can make things challenging to assess.
What's the second most politically impactful city/region in England? Or is it just London or bust?
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exchemist
Veteran Member
I didn't know you had a lithp.
London or bust, generally. London may as well be its own country. England is the most centralised state in Europe; the money barely reaches anywhere else. The South-East (where I moved) is still better than everywhere else, but in terms of transport, infrastructure etc. it's just not London.
See also this kind of thing:
The English National Opera's boss has dismissed a plan to move out of London and slash its funding as "not doable". On Friday, Arts Council England said it would axe the company's entire £12.6m annual grant from 2023, instead giving it £17m over three years - but only if it relocates, possibly to Manchester.
People are desperately trying to move the centre of gravity out of London to help deprived areas (esp. the North) but London isn't having it. Everything simply has to be in London.
Successive governments have been dabbling in that since i was a child and failing.
Both government and the EU put up millions of pounds for regeneration / relocation and it's had little impact overall
exchemist
Veteran Member
There is little doubt that Brexit, as implemented in "hard" form by Bozo and his acolytes, is responsible for making the UK's position uniquely weak. It has undermined business investment, seriously damaged our export trade and created labour shortages, which are inflationary. Mark Carney gave an interview, reported over the weekend, saying everything he warned about is coming true. I read the Financial Times and almost every day there are stories about the damage Brexit is doing to some business or other, or to the British economy in general.
In fairness to Brexit voters, though, you, @Rival, were actually the first person to point out to me how the people that voted for Brexit were comprehensively misled by Bozo and co. At the time of the vote, everyone was making reassuring noises that we would stay in the Single Market, have a Norway or Switzerland type of relationship with the EU and so on, so there would be little change. However what actually happened was that after the vote the extremists seized the controls, aided by an inveterate liar who promised different, incompatible, things to different groups of people, with the result that what was promised was not delivered at all and we are left with a huge mess, with more bureaucracy than before, that is driving up costs and stifling business.
The big problem with Brexit was that it was a vote against something and not a vote for anything to replace it. Everyone had his or her own vision of what should happen afterwards - and these visions were incompatible. Half the Tory party, still in thrall to Thatcher's free market economics, wanted "Singapore-on-Thames", a deregulated business free-for-all, with sweatshop labour and no welfare state. (Fat chance of that in modern Britain, in my personal view, but that's what they hoped for.) Many of the Red Wall voters wanted interventionist government to level up the poorer areas of the country and stop immigration. The conflicts were never resolved. To do so would have been a tall order for anyone, but obviously would never be addressed with an arse like Bozo at the helm.
So here we are, with a government stuck with the consequences of a hard Brexit, trying to talk it up and blaming everyone in sight for its increasingly obvious failure: the civil service, the "Remoaner Blob", even business! But the imagined trade agreements have not been forthcoming (surprise, surprise), investment is in the doldrums (as foretold) and we have stubborn inflation (also as foretold).
They're just polishing a turd.
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Yes, I would largely agree. Many would have been happy with a Norway deal or otherwise and we were/are not the kinds of conservatives the Tories are, which is why I brought up Old Labour.
exchemist
Veteran Member
I think that's an interesting point. I remember back in the 70s when Wilson held a referendum on whether we should stay in the then EEC, the Old Labour left (Peter Shore, Wedgie Benn, Michael Foot etc.) were against it, because its free market principles precluded the sort of dirigiste government interference in the economy that they favoured, being socialists. So maybe indeed this is how the EU was still seen in the Red Wall areas of Britain, at the time of the 2016 referendum.
This is old but interesting,
I'm definitely in the Protestant, Erastian camp. I am culturally very Anglican.
BN: Probably the main theory concerns economics. If you are going to benefit from the E.U. economically, the theory goes, you are going to support it. If not, you are going to resist it. People also think that support for the E.U. depends on educational levels, income levels, gender and how much you know about the E.U. We tested religion against all of those other factors, and we found that yes, there is some explanatory power in all these theories. But we also find that, controlling for everything else, religion remains a very strong contributor. In survey after survey, religion remains a factor in explaining attitudes toward the E.U.
And the XXXVIIth of the Articles of Religion begins:
THE King's Majesty hath the chief power in this Realm of England, and other his Dominions, unto whom the chief Government of all Estates of this Realm, whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil, in all causes doth appertain, and is not, nor ought to be, subject to any foreign Jurisdiction.
You can see how this has stuck.
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Never really considered that lens, but Catholics are conditioned from birth to believe there is a global body which should rightly have a level of input into domestic affairs (obviously mostly in a much looser sense that in medieval times...lol).
And the Church of England was formed more specifically to do the opposite.
Maybe you should have reincarnated old Henry to run this Brexit. The exit from the Catholic hegemony managed to stand the test of time.
I have never been conditioned from birth to believe that.
The opposite: in school we are taught the separation of Church and State as fundamental principle.
Do you mind me asking what you mean by that?
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Legally and in a modern lens? Sure.I have never been conditioned from birth to believe that.
The opposite: in school we are taught the separation of Church and State as fundamental principle.
Do you mind me asking what you mean by that?
That represents an unpicking of almost 2000 years of Papal influence in sometimes very direct ways throughout Europe.
Compare the global impact and influence of a statement made by the Pope to one made by the Archbishop of Canterbury. It's night and day. Catholics listen to the Pope.
Put that aside though. Uniquely, the Pope is a head of state. The US impacts on global politics, quite apart from what the constitution of various countries suggests. The Vatican can too, if in different ways and to a lesser degree. The Archbishop of Canterbury...not so much.
No...they don't. All Catholics I know in Italy have premarital sex and use contraception.
Yet, they go to church, every now and then.
Head of the tiniest state in the world. Insignificant.
He has no power over other countries.
I'm not sure your immediate circle...or even Italians...are a good measuring stick here.
If we were going that route, we'd get caught up in a discussion on reproductive rights. You'd argue from a legal standpoint, and I'd argue from a measured impact perspective. (Eg. Access to abortion). But that seems fruitless, honestly.
Poland and the Phillipines might be simpler examples.
Legally.
You'd think, but we have entered a strange period of parochialism, and I suspect an argument will be made that the Vatican has the same power as any other nation of a thousand. Like Tokelau. Same impact. I'm sure if a travelling roadshow from Tokelau turned up in Poland, 2.5 million people would go watch.
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