Cost of Brexit: The impact on business and the economy so far

[cyprusgrump]

Just exactly how, is swapping one political dogma for another going to remedy the current crisis in the NHS, housing & social care in the UK?. This current Government has been in power for 7years, their record on these subjects speaks for itself.

It isn't swapping one for the other - the UK still pays for the massive Westminster machine. Think of it as removing an additional, hugely expensive layer of political dogma...

[Jim B]

The size of the beaurocrocy that runs the EU is about 33000 which about the same size as the administration that runs Derbyshire; not a massively expensive layer of dogma when looking at the big picture as you suggest.

Jim

[cyprusgrump]

The size of the beaurocrocy that runs the EU is about 33000 which about the same size as the administration that runs Derbyshire; not a massively expensive layer of dogma when looking at the big picture as you suggest.

Jim

That is still 33,000 (some 10,000 earning more than the PM) in addition to the Westminster machine...

Question; does the administration of Derbyshire up sticks and move to another county every other month...?

[kingfisher]

On the subject of unnecessary layers of legislation, the boss of one of the world's biggest exchange groups said EU markets rules are the 'worst piece of legislation' he's ever seen:

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/boss- ... 01807.html

[Cogs123]

Of course.....I forgot.....we'd be getting back £350million per week to put into the NHS.

I don't doubt that anyone in the financial sector would lay scorn on any legislation that tried to impose more transparency on their dealings.....& rightly so, considering that it was the Banks that caused the World financial crisis in 2008.

[jeba]

If you look at the way the EU is structured, it is not the way it is because it has evolved that way, it is actually undemocratic by design.

If you look at mainland Europe after the war, you see a continent devastated and in economic chaos, a situation it would be difficult not to lay at the door of the Nationalist aspirations of Hitler, Mussolini and, to a certain extent at least, Petain. So how do you defuse that nationalist potential and make sure it never happens again? Well you break down the main element of nationalism, the independent nation state, so that any conflict in Europe can no longer be along national lines,

That doesn´t sound like a terribly bad idea to me. Maybe because of the background of German history. There were more than 1500 independent German states before Napoleon did away with most of them. That scattered nationalism had been a source of war and misery. German unification in the 19th century was a good thing in my eyes as it made wars between e. g. Bavaria and Prussia unthinkable (ok, it could have been done better - e. g. without going to war with France in 1870). Trying to achieve the same in Europe as a whole is at least a noble idea. Unfortunately, it seems an unrealistic one.

In addition the very reason that the situation had risen in the first place seemed to be that there was always the danger that charismatic ideologues would use the democratic process to whip up the mob and again bring chaos to Europe.

Are you sure that danger has been eradicated?

So the answer was clear, define a political process which made national boundaries an irrelevance, and took the decision making process out of the hands of the easily swayed mob, and into the hands of a trained political class, not dependent on popular support, but guided by their own expertise and conscience.

That wasn´t the answer to what happened in world war II but had already been the basis for the the first German Parliament in 1848 which consisted mainly of University professors as representatives (not delegates) of their constituencies. As far as I understand that principle of representative democracy is also the basis of British democracy. And you named good reasons for that principle.

The situation in the UK couldn't have been more different, we had just won a war [although it was somewhat a pyrrhic victory] , where our strength [so it appeared to us, anyway] in fact our main uniting factor was that very same nationalism, we were fighting a war, so we were told, for democracy and our major ally held democratic ideals in even higher regard. This was also in the tradition of common law, where legal principles naturally emerge from the exercise of the legal process, rather than simply authorised by our betters.

At least regarding the fact that you also have a representative rather than direct democracy shows that the situation in the UK wasn´t that much different in that regard. In my view the fact that you rely completely on common law without a constitution poses a potential danger as that flexibility lowers the hurdle for abuse of the judicial system. Under the bottom line I think the problem is unsolvable because no system can exclude human stupidity. Nationalism however, as history has shown (especially German history) is usually a bad thing.

So we end up with a Europe culturally divided, where continental Europe believes the western worlds current woe's arose from aggressive nationalism fuelling a drive for the imperfect system of democracy to generate dangerous ideologues, and therefore peace could only be guaranteed by a benevolent dictatorship of the elite, and the UK and the US, who saw dictatorship, however benevolent it claims to be as the problem [with the obvious exception of the emerging political and chattering classes, who of course believe dictatorship is not a bad idea, as long as they are the dictators, of course ] and that the remedy for this, and the only guarantee of peace and prosperity is a fierce defence of the democratic process and personal freedom. Traditional liberalism if you will, in the John Stuart Mill sense, at least.

You lost me here. While I do think that aggressive nationalism is a risk to peace and prosperity I doubt that it´s justified to claim that continental Europe sees a benevolent dictatorship as a solution (even though it can work as the example of Singapore showed).

[Pete G]

Yes, that's entirely my point. Cultural differences and different histories means that what looks like a good idea to the Germans, French, and Italians, for very good reasons, looks like a very bad idea to the British, as it subverts the exact principles from which we think we draw our strength, just because those principles have not worked for you.

You cannot create a community with any real cohesion without having a common basis for establishing it, and it was stupid to try [on the part of the British, I mean], as I'm sure the British globalists and bureaucrats appreciated as they lied, frequently and consistently in the 1970's that joining the EEC would have no effect on British Sovereignty. They did this because they knew that admission would lose them the referendum.

Meanwhile, rules that made perfect sense when they were implemented between six countries with roughly similar constitutions, political systems, and centrally economies, where capital was free to move between members, and people were free to pursue business and employment opportunites within the bloc, are woefully inadequate to control widely disparate economies with vastly different levels of personal wealth, as the German exchequer is currently finding out, and cannot cope with modern issues such as the mass immigration from the middle east and Africa as they self-destruct, anti competitive but well meaning labour legislation that leaves economies easy targets for predatory Asian enterprises, and haphazard and uncoordinated diplomatic and defence policies which appear to be focussed on a simultaneous belligerence with Russia with a downscaling of defence commitments.

Nothing illustrates the cultural difference better that your comment on common law [we do have a constitution by the way, it's just not all written down, and those bits that are written down are all in different places, in true common law fashion]. Whilst you see it as lowering the hurdle for abuse of the judicial system, our experience is that it controls the abuse of the legislators. How can the judiciary decide on basic issues of justice [we think], when the law they are applying is laid out for them to enforce, rather than general principles, moulded by equity?

If you look at product liability as an example. In Europe areas have been practically deforested in order to generate acres of Civil Law code on the subject, debated in parliaments, codified, ratified, detailed, amended, reprinted, etc., etc, and is constantly found wanting. In England a single case in 1932 set a standard of general fairness against which every future case can be judged and it has survived pretty much intact, and been expanded into many other areas of criminal law and tort and, more importantly it has never been anywhere near a politician. And that's just how we like it.

I'm glad Germany, and France, and Italy, have found comfort and security in a codified law system, it seems to suit you as far as I can tell. You appear to see the overturning of member states referendums, the effective replacement of the Italian Government, dismissal of a Greek Premier, and the replacement of their finance department etc., etc. and crucially the neutering of member states supreme courts, merely as applying expertise to make the European model work more efficiently and it does, to a certain extent [the 'benevolent dictatorship to which I referred].

However in the UK we have always set more store on direct democracy and rather than the continental model where the constitution gives legitimacy to the government, the English model more closely depends on the separation of powers by the constitution which only gets its legitimacy from the people.

I'm not saying one is good and one is bad, I'm just saying that different systems suit different people, and it's a mistake to try and fuse the two.

I mean look at the Swiss. They have levels of direct democracy that put us both to shame, and they don't seem to be doing too badly on it, do they?

[cyprusgrump]

Thanks for taking the time again Pete G

[jeba]

Yes, that's entirely my point. Cultural differences and different histories means that what looks like a good idea to the Germans, French, and Italians, for very good reasons, looks like a very bad idea to the British, as it subverts the exact principles from which we think we draw our strength, just because those principles have not worked for you.

I have my doubts whether British strength comes from nationalism. I guess it comes more from things like the level of education, natural resources, trade, global interconnectiveness, rule of law, property rights etc.

You cannot create a community with any real cohesion without having a common basis for establishing it,

The question remains how much of a common basis you need. I don´t think the differences between the Brits and the continent are bigger than those between say Prussia and Bavaria in the 19th century were - which history proves could be overcome. We´re not talking about forming a union between hugely different countries like say Britain and Saudi Arabia. The main problem for the EU, as I see it, is in the economic field. Cultures are certainly different but not to an extent that makes them uncompatible.

Meanwhile, rules that made perfect sense when they were implemented between six countries with roughly similar constitutions, political systems, and centrally economies, where capital was free to move between members, and people were free to pursue business and employment opportunites within the bloc, are woefully inadequate to control widely disparate economies with vastly different levels of personal wealth, as the German exchequer is currently finding out,

Those rules are still making sense but for their application you don´t need the EU. The EEA would be good enough for that. However, it seems that the UK wants to even leave the EEA. I doubt this is a clever move. Regarding the problem of differences in individual wealth and it´s effect on public finances (I guess this is what you mean when you mention the German exchequer) the European Court of justice has recently ruled that there is no right to freedom of movement into welfare systems of other member states. So this problem should have become solvable now.

and cannot cope with modern issues such as the mass immigration from the middle east and Africa as they self-destruct, anti competitive but well meaning labour legislation that leaves economies easy targets for predatory Asian enterprises, and haphazard and uncoordinated diplomatic and defence policies which appear to be focussed on a simultaneous belligerence with Russia with a downscaling of defence commitments.

That´s true unfortunately. However, that´s not a problem which would go away even if the EU dissolved (and it wasn´t among the reasons for creating it). Economic refuguees won´t care about who is and who isn´t in the EU - otherwise e. g. Jordan and the Libanon would have a lot less worries (btw. Jordan had to ration water in order to be able to have enough of it for refugees - just to give some colour to the extent other countries are affected). To stop them you´d either have to accept them drowning in the Mediterranean or adopt a policy like Australia, outsourcing the problem.

Nothing illustrates the cultural difference better that your comment on common law [we do have a constitution by the way, it's just not all written down, and those bits that are written down are all in different places, in true common law fashion]. Whilst you see it as lowering the hurdle for abuse of the judicial system, our experience is that it controls the abuse of the legislators. How can the judiciary decide on basic issues of justice [we think], when the law they are applying is laid out for them to enforce, rather than general principles, moulded by equity?[/quote]

The lack of a written constitution would make me very uncomfortable. I still remember to this day that I couldn´t belive it when our teacher told us the UK had no written constitution. I thought I had heard wrong. Why should a judge have more authority to set law than an elected parliament? But while you´re correct that this is a big difference why should it stand in the way of cooperation?

If you look at product liability as an example. In Europe areas have been practically deforested in order to generate acres of Civil Law code on the subject, debated in parliaments, codified, ratified, detailed, amended, reprinted, etc., etc, and is constantly found wanting. In England a single case in 1932 set a standard of general fairness against which every future case can be judged and it has survived pretty much intact, and been expanded into many other areas of criminal law and tort and, more importantly it has never been anywhere near a politician. And that's just how we like it.

I know nothing about product liability in the UK but I´m under the impression that those laws are working not too badly within the EU either. So I´m not quite sure what was your point. Isn´t EU law regarding product liability applying to the UK as well?

I'm glad Germany, and France, and Italy, have found comfort and security in a codified law system, it seems to suit you as far as I can tell. You appear to see the overturning of member states referendums, the effective replacement of the Italian Government, dismissal of a Greek Premier, and the replacement of their finance department etc., etc. and crucially the neutering of member states supreme courts, merely as applying expertise to make the European model work more efficiently and it does, to a certain extent [the 'benevolent dictatorship to which I referred].

I personally dislike referendums (btw. in Germany they are banned on the federal level) for reasons you already mentioned in a previous post. Also, I don´t know what you´re talking about when you speak of effectively replacing the Italian government or dismissing the Greek Premier. The German constitutional court could still uphold the German constitution if they tought EU law would be conflicting with it. I guess the same would be true for the UK (don´t know about whether you have an equivalent of a constitutional court though). Of course, to some extent national jurisdiction will have to be transferred to a bigger entity, just as municipal rights had to be transferred to the state for the sake of the common good. And of, course, there will be mistakes made. Mistakes are unavoidable though, whichever system you have.

However in the UK we have always set more store on direct democracy and rather than the continental model where the constitution gives legitimacy to the government, the English model more closely depends on the separation of powers by the constitution which only gets its legitimacy from the people.

It´s not the constitution that gives legitimacy to government. Parliament does.

I'm not saying one is good and one is bad, I'm just saying that different systems suit different people, and it's a mistake to try and fuse the two.

I mean look at the Swiss. They have levels of direct democracy that put us both to shame, and they don't seem to be doing too badly on it, do they?

I think so. E. g. until the 70ies women had no vote in Switzerland - hardly a hallmark of democratic fairness, is it? The fact that they are doing well economically isn´t due to their system of direct democracy in my view but rather in spite of it (and their membership of the EEA). I wouldn´t like a system of direct democracy in Germany. I´d be too afraid of the rule of the mob. But isn´t that a moot point? The EU hasn´t tried to force a constitution the UK.

[Pete G]

Yet again you make my point for me. I don't doubt that you doubt that British strength comes from nationalism, especially given the effect nationalist movements have had on your country, but that is neither the experience of nor the perception of the majority of English people. Unlike Germany, our entire reformation was nationalist based, not on theological ground as with your Lutherian and confessional traditions, but a simple repudiation of the Popes influence, with nationalist drivers for all of the other major beneficial movements in most aspects of our history afterwards including our repudiation of fascism in the 30's [Mosely was dismissed not as an ideologue but as a traitor], and our motivation in the ensuing conflict. Nationalism and the accompanying drive for unfettered self determination is deeply buried in the English psyche, and the UK and European globalists have continually tried to dismiss this, to their detriment, it now appears

The Germans do not get to say nationalism doesn't work for us, and therefore it can't work for you, in the same way that we can't say civil law doesn't work for us, therefore it can't possibly work for Germany. We are different people with different traditions and different cultural drivers. Germany, as you say, is a relatively young country, and it's experiments with German 'nationalism' both in terms of fascism and the ensuing trepidation to enter world affairs in the west, and its crushing by an even more pernicious ideology in the east have had devastating results both on your politics and your culture, and we appreciate that. But our experience is not that, and we rather resent other countries [and our own political and chattering classes] telling us it should be.

In terms of what commonalities you need, that is quite difficult to determine, but I can certainly have a stab at those differences that I think render effective community impossible [as we would have realised in the 1970s, had we not been so information poor, and in the grip of alternating authoritarian socialist governments and pathetically weak tory ones at the time]

Countries that follow the Napoleonic code always [effectively because of that code] had in 'modern times' the ethos that the government is ultimately beneficial, laying down prescribed behaviour for the common good, and granting people positive rights for them to enjoy under government protection. It seems to work well for you.

The experience in the UK is the exact antithesis of this, especially [ironically] post the Hanoverian influence and therefore [consequentially one can easily imagine], more similar to the American ethos. The legal system and the constitution as it has developed in England assumes the establishment generally and the government specifically is a tyranny in waiting, and the constitution protects us from that, not least by the common law system that legislation is action by prohibition, that an Englishman may do anything that is not prohibited, and if the government is going to prohibit something it better have a damn good reason for doing it. That is why continental Europe integrated the ECHR in its civil law format so seamlessly, but Bliar reading it, unamended, into English law has been such an unmitigated disaster for us.

The other insurmountable obstacle is our respective attitudes to trade. Protectionism and other trade restrictions are a complete anathema for us, even to the extent [to our eternal shame] of permitting the use of foreign slaves in the colonies [foreign slaves had not been permitted in England since the Planagenets] and therefore the CAP, the massive protectionist shield we euphemistically refer to as the 'customs union' which has destroyed our trade with the commonwealth and condemned ex-colonial Africa to 50 years of merciless grinding poverty, the unforgivable open collusion of the EC to allow the Spanish to break quota in British Fisheries [in fact the whole CFP, actually], and the attempted introduction of 'fair' practices in order to make Frankfurt competitive wrt London all lead us to believe that this is not the sort of organisation, either legally, politically, or financially we want to be a part of, at least at the level of closeness prescribed by the EC.

Are these really insurmountable? Well maybe not. Had Cameron gone to Junker to consider a less close union and he hadn't have just said "bugger off" then maybe the relationship was saveable.

But that particular horse has not only bolted, but disappeared over the horizon, died of old age and is now holding up some wallpaper somewhere

[cyprusgrump]

But that particular horse has not only bolted, but disappeared over the horizon, died of old age and is now holding up some wallpaper somewhere

[Jim B]

But that particular horse has not only bolted, but disappeared over the horizon, died of old age and is now holding up some wallpaper somewhere

But all that is only your particular opinion. The pendulum is starting to swing as the realisation is starting to sink in that the pain isnt worth any possible gain. The latest poll in the FT shows the UK is split right down the middle so your take on the psyche of the English is a bit off the mark.

Jim

[Pete G]

But that particular horse has not only bolted, but disappeared over the horizon, died of old age and is now holding up some wallpaper somewhere

But all that is only your particular opinion. The pendulum is starting to swing as the realisation is starting to sink in that the pain isnt worth any possible gain. The latest poll in the FT shows the UK is split right down the middle so your take on the psyche of the English is a bit off the mark.

Jim

I guess we'll find out in June.

Care for a small side bet, what with the FT poll and all, I'm sure I could raid my piggy bank?

[Jim B]

You are going off on a tangent; presently there are as many who wish to stay as wish to go according to the FT and the Metro. Whether the people allow themselves to be mislead by buzzwords and catchphrases in June, well we'll have to wait and see.

Jim

[Rita Sherry]

Jim B

Have you arranged for your vote yet?

Pete G

Very interesting threads from you . Thank you. Oh and Jeba not to miss you out - good discussions without rancour.

Rita

[Jim B]

Hello Rita

Hope you are well. Completed the Proxy form for my sister to vote for me as you suggested. Surprisingly the Ward I lived in for nearly thirty years and was out and out Tory is now in the hands of Labour.

Take Care

Jim