Current Affairs EU In or Out
- Thread starter micknick
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The Esk
Player Valuation: £70m
I think you need to read my post again. It was not about access to various countries or ability to work overseas.
It's about the youth of today, tomorrow's leaders, wondering whether they want to start their adult lives in a nation with the sort of values that create division, become protectionist and see the world through narrow self interest defined by old concepts of nationality and sovereignty.
Fair point. Why hasn't the EU equalised things more across its countries so that a sizeable portion of Poland wouldn't need to move here (they only move here at the moment because of the availability of jobs at a higher rate of pay than Poland)?
Define a "leftie" my friend....or even a true one
most of the socialist revolutionary parties: SWP, WRP, Peoples Front of Judea (Monty Python joke the last one !), Galloway, Skinner, I hope secretly Corbyn.
Bit of a motely Crew I agree but journalist John Pilger is pretty cool as is Yanis Varoufakis who is fairly anti EU but was only in favour of us remaining because of the complexity of us getting out.
What I meant is that regardless of ones opinions on the above Brexit is not just a thing right wingers vote for but is something seen as necessary by most of the far left as it is far easier to radically change society away from the neoliberal globalist economic system that provides jobs for the poor but not necessarily at a living wage and provided very little else either (why health, housing and social care are all crumbling)
Basically its a system that is currently making more and more people working poor and leading to far worse public services, infrastructure and housing and one that the more Blairite left (the non Corbynite part of the labour party) has and probably will do little to address if it got in power (as it probably would).
Id love Corbyn as pm but I don't think it will happen which is why I respect the views of those of you who would prefer a more soft left Labour that would get into power and be slightly less harmful than the Tories even though I prefer to vote for someone I really believe in in Corbyn who is the first truly moral and unselfish person I have seen in politics here in my whole life
1966efc
Player Valuation: £20m
Indeed. After yesterday's by election result, a leading Labour M P said, "But we're proud of what we did. We kept our deposit which some people said we were going to lose."
Assuming he wasn't being sarcastic, it gives a measure of the ambition of these people. Couldn't be more out of touch with both reality and the people who might in 'normal' times have supported them.
orchard
Player Valuation: £60m
If they're of a similar quality/substance as current 'leaders' perhaps it's for the best that they go abroad to pursue their own interest.
Besides, it has always been the case that those who wish to excel in their particular field will seek out and attempt to work with those leading it, irrespective of geographical borders.
Besides, it has always been the case that those who wish to excel in their particular field will seek out and attempt to work with those leading it, irrespective of geographical borders.
Britain is amongst the most economically divided nations on the planet. You could ask the same question about why people in Boston or Grimsby or wherever are not enjoying the same prosperity as those in London or Cambridge. Movement of people is one of the most effective ways of reducing poverty.
You said earlier that leaving was a vote for those who wanted change, but I'm afraid it was the exact opposite. It was a vote for people who want to stay living in the town they grew up in, for the demographics of that town to stay the same, and for the job they've always been doing to stay the job they'll always be doing.
We live in an age of unprecedented change, both in the speed and breadth, and that has meant many people have struggled to keep up. Those people have, by and large, voted for Brexit, Trump et al. They want to stop the wheel turning, not speed it up.
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Not that anyone will read it, but this was published by UCL last night:
Brexit will have high fiscal costs and a large part of that will be a consequence of what happens to migration numbers. That was the conclusion widely drawn from the Office for Budget Responsibility’s most recent Economic and Fiscal Outlook published in late November – the first since June’s referendum vote. It was illuminated further by supplementary analysis published on December 8.
To be precise, Brexit is forecast to lead to a cumulative £59 billion more in public sector borrowing over the next five years – £16 billion of which is attributed to the effect of reduced migration because of the unfavourable balance between its effects on tax revenue and government spending. Whereas the negative impact of other Brexit factors peaks in 2018-19, the effect of migration is forecast to still be rising by 2020-21.
What will happen to migration
The likely fall in migration is difficult to quantify, given the uncertainty about Brexit negotiations. As a result, the OBR’s approach to capturing it is necessarily rough and ready.
The changing political atmosphere since the vote may discourage immigration, as potential migrants expect a less welcoming reception. Eventually, the terms under which the UK withdraws may permit more restrictive migration policies for arrivals from the EU.
What the OBR does is to note that without Brexit it would have raised its estimate of future migration by about 80,000 a year. This is influenced by recent high migration levels, which have been confirmed again in the most recent migration figures. Given the referendum outcome, the OBR assumes that this increase will no longer happen and it treats this as the Brexit effect.
Past and projected net migration to the UK. Office for Budget Responsibility
This reduction falls some way short of meeting the government’s stated aspiration of cutting net migration to the tens of thousands, so it may be that the fiscal consequences of Brexit are being substantially understated. On the other hand, that target is politically contentious and widely viewed as impossibly ambitious.
Lowering net migration leads to a lower population and alters its composition. In particular, since migrants are typically young, well educated and arriving to work it leads to a population which is older and less likely to participate in the labour market. Effects of this on public finances could come through either side of the public sector balance sheet, through revenues or through spending.
Impact on tax revenues
The deleterious effect on the revenue side is easiest to understand. The lower population means less economic activity on which taxes are paid. Given that migrants tend to be younger than the average UK citizen, the OBR also predicts that fewer migrants coming in will lead to a decline in the employment rate, which reduces tax revenue further.
Because the inflow continues at the lower level year after year, the effect on the population builds up, which is why the annual effect on tax revenues continues to grow.
In its supplementary set of tables, published on December 8, the OBR explains that about half of the reduction comes through lower income tax and national insurance contributions and about a quarter through lower consumption tax receipts such as VAT. By 2020-21, the cumulative fall in tax receipts is forecast to have reached £17.3 billion. This is much the most important factor driving the increase of £16 billion in forecast borrowing by that year that the OBR attributes to lower migration as a result of Brexit.
Not much change to spending
On the expenditure side, things are more complicated. Welfare spending is treated as sensitive to migration because benefit claims are affected by the size and composition of the population, albeit that average welfare spending on migrants is lower than in the population as a whole. By 2020-21, cumulative welfare spending is forecast to be lower by £2.1 billion as a result of the lower migration. Offsetting this is an increase of £0.6 billion in debt interest spending as a consequence of the lower tax receipts.
But the largest part of spending – on public services such as education, health, police, defence and so on – is treated as fixed by prior plans. The OBR assumes that reduced migration will not lead to cutbacks in spending on these items over the horizon it considers.
Of course, migrants are entitled to use public services even if, contrary to popular perception, there is little evidence that they make excessive demands. So the OBR’s projected reduction in numbers of migrants without any change in planned spending means that pressure on those public services is implicitly being allowed to diminish somewhat. Falling population numbers are not being matched by commensurate spending cutbacks on these services and the projected increase in borrowing cannot therefore be straightforwardly interpreted as the cost of the migration changes. What the OBR is doing is making a forecast for borrowing, not evaluating the cost of lower migration after Brexit.
What the cost will be
It is perhaps helpful to compare the OBR figures to the best comprehensive costing available for the public finance impact of recent migration provided by economists Christian Dustmann and Tommaso Frattini.
Their calculations suggest that recent migration to the UK from the European Economic Area (EEA) over the period 2001-2011 benefited the exchequer by about £22 billion – with taxes paid exceeding spending costs imposed by about 34%. Over the ten-year period which they consider, EEA immigration expanded the economy by about 7m immigrant-years – calculated as about 1.4m immigrants each being in the country for an average of about five years. The net benefit to the exchequer was therefore of the order of £3,000 per additional immigrant, per year (in 2011 prices).
To compare, the OBR forecasts an increase in borrowing of £16bn over 2016-2021 for about 1.2m fewer immigrant-years. This suggests a forecast impact on borrowing of about £13,000 per missing immigrant per year. This is a significantly higher figure – but that is because it is an answer to a different question and evaluated over a different period coming after a decade of output growth and rising prices. Between 2011 and 2021, the OBR forecasts nominal GDP to rise by about 40%.
What is missing
The OBR projections ignore many possible economic effects of migration. If immigration affects UK workers’ wages or returns to capital, if it affects innovation and productivity, or affects the cost of providing public services then this is not accounted for. Although the OBR does allow for reduced migration to reduce housing demand and cut house prices, no effects on receipts from stamp duty, for example, are incorporated in the calculations of effects of migration.
Its projections also allow for no changes in the composition of migrants. If low-skilled migrants are more discouraged by Brexit than high-skilled migrants, say, then the fiscal consequences might be less pessimistic since the discouraged migrants would have paid less in taxes. However, the reductions needed to bring the government near to its target of net migration in the tens of thousands would need to cover more than the low-skilled.
International migrants are on the whole the sort of productive, economically motivated individuals that governments ought to be keen to attract. Making the country a less welcoming place and adding bureaucracy to economic relations with its nearest neighbours is not a promising route to attracting the most fiscally lucrative migrants.
Source: https://theconversation.com/why-bri...will-suffer-if-brexit-reduces-migration-69598
Brexit will have high fiscal costs and a large part of that will be a consequence of what happens to migration numbers. That was the conclusion widely drawn from the Office for Budget Responsibility’s most recent Economic and Fiscal Outlook published in late November – the first since June’s referendum vote. It was illuminated further by supplementary analysis published on December 8.
To be precise, Brexit is forecast to lead to a cumulative £59 billion more in public sector borrowing over the next five years – £16 billion of which is attributed to the effect of reduced migration because of the unfavourable balance between its effects on tax revenue and government spending. Whereas the negative impact of other Brexit factors peaks in 2018-19, the effect of migration is forecast to still be rising by 2020-21.
What will happen to migration
The likely fall in migration is difficult to quantify, given the uncertainty about Brexit negotiations. As a result, the OBR’s approach to capturing it is necessarily rough and ready.
The changing political atmosphere since the vote may discourage immigration, as potential migrants expect a less welcoming reception. Eventually, the terms under which the UK withdraws may permit more restrictive migration policies for arrivals from the EU.
What the OBR does is to note that without Brexit it would have raised its estimate of future migration by about 80,000 a year. This is influenced by recent high migration levels, which have been confirmed again in the most recent migration figures. Given the referendum outcome, the OBR assumes that this increase will no longer happen and it treats this as the Brexit effect.
Past and projected net migration to the UK. Office for Budget Responsibility
This reduction falls some way short of meeting the government’s stated aspiration of cutting net migration to the tens of thousands, so it may be that the fiscal consequences of Brexit are being substantially understated. On the other hand, that target is politically contentious and widely viewed as impossibly ambitious.
Lowering net migration leads to a lower population and alters its composition. In particular, since migrants are typically young, well educated and arriving to work it leads to a population which is older and less likely to participate in the labour market. Effects of this on public finances could come through either side of the public sector balance sheet, through revenues or through spending.
Impact on tax revenues
The deleterious effect on the revenue side is easiest to understand. The lower population means less economic activity on which taxes are paid. Given that migrants tend to be younger than the average UK citizen, the OBR also predicts that fewer migrants coming in will lead to a decline in the employment rate, which reduces tax revenue further.
Because the inflow continues at the lower level year after year, the effect on the population builds up, which is why the annual effect on tax revenues continues to grow.
In its supplementary set of tables, published on December 8, the OBR explains that about half of the reduction comes through lower income tax and national insurance contributions and about a quarter through lower consumption tax receipts such as VAT. By 2020-21, the cumulative fall in tax receipts is forecast to have reached £17.3 billion. This is much the most important factor driving the increase of £16 billion in forecast borrowing by that year that the OBR attributes to lower migration as a result of Brexit.
Not much change to spending
On the expenditure side, things are more complicated. Welfare spending is treated as sensitive to migration because benefit claims are affected by the size and composition of the population, albeit that average welfare spending on migrants is lower than in the population as a whole. By 2020-21, cumulative welfare spending is forecast to be lower by £2.1 billion as a result of the lower migration. Offsetting this is an increase of £0.6 billion in debt interest spending as a consequence of the lower tax receipts.
But the largest part of spending – on public services such as education, health, police, defence and so on – is treated as fixed by prior plans. The OBR assumes that reduced migration will not lead to cutbacks in spending on these items over the horizon it considers.
Of course, migrants are entitled to use public services even if, contrary to popular perception, there is little evidence that they make excessive demands. So the OBR’s projected reduction in numbers of migrants without any change in planned spending means that pressure on those public services is implicitly being allowed to diminish somewhat. Falling population numbers are not being matched by commensurate spending cutbacks on these services and the projected increase in borrowing cannot therefore be straightforwardly interpreted as the cost of the migration changes. What the OBR is doing is making a forecast for borrowing, not evaluating the cost of lower migration after Brexit.
What the cost will be
It is perhaps helpful to compare the OBR figures to the best comprehensive costing available for the public finance impact of recent migration provided by economists Christian Dustmann and Tommaso Frattini.
Their calculations suggest that recent migration to the UK from the European Economic Area (EEA) over the period 2001-2011 benefited the exchequer by about £22 billion – with taxes paid exceeding spending costs imposed by about 34%. Over the ten-year period which they consider, EEA immigration expanded the economy by about 7m immigrant-years – calculated as about 1.4m immigrants each being in the country for an average of about five years. The net benefit to the exchequer was therefore of the order of £3,000 per additional immigrant, per year (in 2011 prices).
To compare, the OBR forecasts an increase in borrowing of £16bn over 2016-2021 for about 1.2m fewer immigrant-years. This suggests a forecast impact on borrowing of about £13,000 per missing immigrant per year. This is a significantly higher figure – but that is because it is an answer to a different question and evaluated over a different period coming after a decade of output growth and rising prices. Between 2011 and 2021, the OBR forecasts nominal GDP to rise by about 40%.
What is missing
The OBR projections ignore many possible economic effects of migration. If immigration affects UK workers’ wages or returns to capital, if it affects innovation and productivity, or affects the cost of providing public services then this is not accounted for. Although the OBR does allow for reduced migration to reduce housing demand and cut house prices, no effects on receipts from stamp duty, for example, are incorporated in the calculations of effects of migration.
Its projections also allow for no changes in the composition of migrants. If low-skilled migrants are more discouraged by Brexit than high-skilled migrants, say, then the fiscal consequences might be less pessimistic since the discouraged migrants would have paid less in taxes. However, the reductions needed to bring the government near to its target of net migration in the tens of thousands would need to cover more than the low-skilled.
International migrants are on the whole the sort of productive, economically motivated individuals that governments ought to be keen to attract. Making the country a less welcoming place and adding bureaucracy to economic relations with its nearest neighbours is not a promising route to attracting the most fiscally lucrative migrants.
Source: https://theconversation.com/why-bri...will-suffer-if-brexit-reduces-migration-69598
Fair point and I agree with some of that but they are also screaming out against lack of prospects, decent jobs and housing for themselves and their offspring. Same in The US re voting for Trump. Same with people voting for the left and right wing parties in Europe recently.
To miss that is IMO a great mistake
I wouldn't be too hard on Corbyn. The reason he doesn't go down well as he could is he doesn't play the game but he is a truly moral and benevolent person and I think he'd make a great pm if he ever got in which he probably won't.
The reason he probably won't get in is a mixture of his own inability to put his views across, the severe media bias against him (like that against Michael Foot before him, and those of you who think the media had a pro brexit bias should look at this for what a true bias is) and the lack of the rest of the labour party to tally round and support him which is IMO a disgrace - Tories always rally round their leader when needed to win an election.
The Cowboy
Player Valuation: £60m
There are no other organisations on Earth similar to the EU. With the exception of the odd reciprocal agreement here and there (Aus/NZ, for example), every country outside of the EU matches the description you give above. Yet I haven't heard any whinging about how Canada run their country, for example.
If you're good enough, you can work anywhere. All the EU does is allow those who are good enough and those who are not good enough to work on another EU country. Whoopee.
I don't doubt that, but it is the way things are going. More and more, urban areas are the engines of economies around the world. Cities are increasingly therefore where the work is. It can't be mistaken the significant urban/rural divide that was present in both Brexit and Trump, and that's arguably a more relevant marker at the moment than left/right.
Now I don't think the kind of technological changes we're seeing can, or should, be stopped, but neither Brexit or Trump have proposed any ways to help people adapt to change. They haven't made it any easier for people to move inside a country (by giving LAs more flexible funding or relaxing property regulations). They haven't done anything about helping adult education provision so that people have the skills for a changing world. Nothing at all. We're worshiping false idols.
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1966efc
Player Valuation: £20m
Have always said he's a genuine chap - but one with poor judgment and blunted intellect.
His job is to lead Labour into power. He won't do that. Labour's job is to protect the vulnerable, raise the standard of living and aspirations of the working poor and develop public services. They won't be able to do that because they won't get a majority in the Commons.
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