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

[OhSusana]

Nestlé set to cut 300 UK jobs and move production of Blue Riband bars to Poland
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/busin ... 01206.html
job losses predominantly to hit York and Fawdon in Newcastle, through 2017 and 2018.,,,

I have close family who work for Nestle - but fortunately based in Switzerland for many years now.

[Jimgym]

Varky
If you can't get your head around how the system works it's a bit pointless trying to explain it. You Brexiteers give the impression of passengers on a bus that's driven off the edge of a cliff and you keep saying to each other, so far so good, so far so good.
Jim

That's the point. The system doesn't work for the electorate, only for those with the snouts in the trough and as far as you are concerned two words come to mind ostrich and sand. So can you now stop insulting people and stop your bully boy tactics brought over from CL.

Summed it up quite neatly Varky. I would say how funny your analogy is, but I leave that sort of things to those on here who are easily amused.....

[cyprusgrump]

Nestlé set to cut 300 UK jobs and move production of Blue Riband bars to Poland
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/busin ... 01206.html
job losses predominantly to hit York and Fawdon in Newcastle, through 2017 and 2018.,,,

I have close family who work for Nestle - but fortunately based in Switzerland for many years now.

0.0009% of UK jobs lost shock!

[Cogs123]

I would just like to say that's a pretty flippant remark, considering Nestle, (or as we in York still call it, Rowntrees), is one of the largest employers in the city.

[cyprusgrump]

I would just like to say that's a pretty flippant remark, considering Nestle, (or as we in York still call it, Rowntrees), is one of the largest employers in the city.

Big, small, medium or large... 300 jobs is hardly worthy of a post-Brexit doom and gloom story is it...?

How many do they employ...? I'm guessing their annual 'churn' is more than 300...

[Varky]

If logical argument is bully boy tactics then I stand accused. But if you want to talk about snout in the trough why don't you look at the activities of one of your leading Brexiteers, Rees Mogg who's just had a massive grant awarded by the Tory Government to refurbish his house and these are the people you want to give back control to.
Jim

If you can't win an argument then throw up a smokescreen by going off at a tangent. Non so blind as those that cannot see, comes to mind.

[Steve - SJD]

Thought this was an interesting article and wonder if at the end of this process the public
will question was it worth it :

Anti-EU ministers show 'invincible ignorance' over European Court, says top ex-judge

Cheers

Steve

[jeba]

Aren´t the Commissionars named by their respective democraticly elected governments representing the will of their people? Isn´t that enough of legitimation? Not even the German Chancellor needs to be a member of Parliament and (s)he isn´t up for direct voting. That´s the very essence of representative democracy.

No really, consider ex-Tribune lefty and arch EU trougher Kinnock, rejected twice by the electorate as a representative of the country rather than his constituency, yet appointed by Blair to perform exactly that function,

I don´t know that guy but he was appointed by a PM with democratic legitimation. If that was a stupid decision it wasn´t the first stupid decision perfectly in line with democratic principles. There are many examples for that ranging from building bridges where there are no streets to connect to electing Hitler, just to name 2 examples from my home country. Democracy doesn´t protect from stupidity.

[jeba]

Nobody gets to vote on the decisions made by the EU Commission, which, in some cases, are against the wishes of the electorate of individual countries

Isn´t it normal that government decisions taken within it´s range of power by a government aren´t always welcomed by certain constituencies? Is every decision the PM takes welcomed in every county in the UK? Or is every decision Merkel takes welcomed by every federal state in Germany?

[jeba]

0.0009% of UK jobs lost shock!

Are you sure there won´t be more?

[Jim B]

Varley
It was you who brought up snouts in the trough; I just pointed out you should look closer to home.

Jim

[Varky]

Varley
It was you who brought up snouts in the trough; I just pointed out you should look closer to home.
Jim

I am not saying there are no UK snouts in troughs, both pro and anti Brexit but they should be controlled by the democratically elected UK parliament. Problem is that there seems to be no effective democratic control over the back door 'snouts in troughs'. We are discussing the pros and cons of Brexit aren't we, not UK parliamentary practices.

[cyprusgrump]

0.0009% of UK jobs lost shock!

Are you sure there won´t be more?

No.

But the point was that the doom and gloom anti-Brexit 'Independent' (which is anything but) has headlined the loss of 300 jobs which is not only statistically insignificant but comes at a time of record employment rates.

[Pete G]

I don´t know that guy but he was appointed by a PM with democratic legitimation. If that was a stupid decision it wasn´t the first stupid decision perfectly in line with democratic principles. There are many examples for that ranging from building bridges where there are no streets to connect to electing Hitler, just to name 2 examples from my home country. Democracy doesn´t protect from stupidity.

I think you have just put your finger on not only the immediate problems, but why the UK were never a particularly comfortable member of the EU anyway.

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, but would need to be effectively an ideologically based civil war which thanks to brilliantly good and brilliantly bad contributions made by your fellow countrymen [the German tradition of theological criticism and the idealism of Hegel and Marx] the two main potential vectors for that war, dogmatic religion and communism had effectively been defanged. 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.

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. The legislative tradition of Civil Justice [where massive tomes of regulation dispense justice from above] also gave them an ideal vector for doing that.

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.

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.

Hence the clash in the UK, between the traditionalist adherence to democracy, common law, personal liberty, traditional liberalism and natural communities formed by cultural accretion, and the soi-disant elites would be political dictatorship of the 'culturally better equipped' where democracy is 'popularism' if it questions their judgement, positive cultural accretion is bigotry, and dictatorship is 'acting in the peoples best interest' as they are clearly too stupid to be able to work it out for themselves, being so 'low information' as they are.

Philosophically and practically, I know which side I'm on, but then again maybe I'm just a victim of my cultural programming and 'low information' status

[Dominic]

I just wish I could find some way of harnassing the hot air generated by threads like this. It could power a small village.

[cyprusgrump]

I don´t know that guy but he was appointed by a PM with democratic legitimation. If that was a stupid decision it wasn´t the first stupid decision perfectly in line with democratic principles. There are many examples for that ranging from building bridges where there are no streets to connect to electing Hitler, just to name 2 examples from my home country. Democracy doesn´t protect from stupidity.

I think you have just put your finger on not only the immediate problems, but why the UK were never a particularly comfortable member of the EU anyway.

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, but would need to be effectively an ideologically based civil war which thanks to brilliantly good and brilliantly bad contributions made by your fellow countrymen [the German tradition of theological criticism and the idealism of Hegel and Marx] the two main potential vectors for that war, dogmatic religion and communism had effectively been defanged. 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.

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. The legislative tradition of Civil Justice [where massive tomes of regulation dispense justice from above] also gave them an ideal vector for doing that.

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.

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.

Hence the clash in the UK, between the traditionalist adherence to democracy, common law, personal liberty, traditional liberalism and natural communities formed by cultural accretion, and the soi-disant elites would be political dictatorship of the 'culturally better equipped' where democracy is 'popularism' if it questions their judgement, positive cultural accretion is bigotry, and dictatorship is 'acting in the peoples best interest' as they are clearly too stupid to be able to work it out for themselves, being so 'low information' as they are.

Philosophically and practically, I know which side I'm on, but then again maybe I'm just a victim of my cultural programming and 'low information' status

Well Dominic may not appreciate it - but I enjoyed reading it. Thank you.

[Jim B]

Philosophically and practically, I know which side I'm on, but then again maybe I'm just a victim of my cultural programming and 'low information' status

Possibly

[Royal]

Great post Pete G - succinct and a totally accurate assessment. Philosophically and practically I am in the same camp as you.

Maybe I, too, am so intellectually weak that I should be deferring to the great and the good in Europe rather than maintaining that we are an independent and sovereign nation able to make our own way in the Global Economy. Then again, if that means blindly following Junckers, Mandelson, Kinnock, Farron, Merkel et al, I feel more comfortable being classed as a Neanderthal and giving them all the appropriate response that the majority of those who voted in the Referndum gave last year.

[Cogs123]

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.

[kingfisher]

Pete G- Your post is a breath of fresh air- thank you!
You highlight the fundamental and inescapable dilemma involved in expecting the UK with its long history of common law to be subservient to the European structure of civil law. This is the REAL loss of sovereignity!
BTW, pearls and swine suddenly leapt into my head- can't think why!