Current Affairs EU In or Out

[Bruce Wayne]

OK so the EU has been an easy form of funds for Universities in recent years- mostly in terms of sifting money off towards the drug companies for research into medicines they then price out of the NHS market. In the times BEFORE the EU existed - our Universities were world leading in many aspects. They have been well run and funded before, and they will be so again. Perhaps less wastefully.

Again, that simply isn't true, and it isn't an easy source of finance for our universities at all. Europe is currently the most productive continent on Earth in terms of its research output. Very little of the Horizon 2020 money goes to drugs companies, but a whole lot goes in areas such as advanced materials, space science, nanotechnology and AI.

https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/sites/horizon2020/files/H2020_inBrief_EN_FinalBAT.pdf

Indeed, Carlos Moedas and his team recently published a paper on the EUs approach to science and innovation, and there is very little to argue with in it.

http://bookshop.europa.eu/en/open-i...3/?CatalogCategoryID=Gj0KABst5F4AAAEjsZAY4e5L

It's increasingly the case that research is undertaken collaboratively between academics at a number of institutions. A big part of that collaborative environment is being able to bid with our peers from across Europe. It represents a huge risk to the science base of this country to leave, not least because departments such as BIS (which contains the research councils) will probably bare the brunt of any budget squeezes as a result of Brexit, just as they did in the last funding round, as 'ring-fenced' departments remain untouched.

Again though, none of this is news, and the Science and Technology select committee published a paper in April this year revealing that the UK contributed nearly £4.3 billion to EU research projects from 2007 to 2013, but received nearly £7 billion back in the same period. So that's £3 billion that needs to be found down the back of the sofa at a time when we're likely to be heading into a recession.

No worries though hey.

 

[Brennan]

You can't have your cake and eat it.

The game is the game. Scotland's people were asked'

"Should Scotland be an independent country?

Turnout of 84% - 2,001,926 (55.3%) voting against independence.

That means, no independent vote on EU - which they knew was coming.

There will clearly be a referendum on Scottish independence now. The landscape of the union has changed massively against the will of the Scottish people. When there is a referendum the Scots will vote to leave.

 

[orly]

Yeeeeerrrrrs

Fingers crossed all day that him, McDonnell and Abbott are all gone ASAP

 

[The Blue Watch]

"Joe Liff, 67, said he was very pleased by the result of the vote.

He was also concerned about immigration.

“The thing is, it’s like if you’ve got the Hilton hotel and a greasy spoon caff,” said the pensioner. “We’re the Hilton and Bulgaria’s the greasy spoon, so of course they all want to come here.”"

@DualityNSNO

All credit to Joe for being born in Britain. An inferior being would have been born in a poorer country.

Remember folks, no racism involved in the leavers deciding to leave.

 

[tsubaki]

Yeeeeerrrrrs

Fingers crossed all day that him, McDonnell and Abbott are all gone ASAP

lol

They manage to get rid of him and that party will cease to exist within three years; possibly even less if Chilcott is an honest report.

Corbyn is the one hope they have of winning the next election. How many elections do the Blairites have to lose before they realise how hated they are?

 

[TheBlueGibbon]

lol

They manage to get rid of him and that party will cease to exist within three years; possibly even less if Chilcott is an honest report.

Corbyn is the one hope they have of winning the next election. How many elections do the Blairites have to lose before they realise how hated they are?

It would have to go to the party membership anyway, which are still overwhelmingly in support and would likely return a better result for Corbyn. It would be an incredibly stupid move by the PLP to push for such a move when re-selections are certain to happen before the next election.

 

[orly]

lol

They manage to get rid of him and that party will cease to exist within three years; possibly even less if Chilcott is an honest report.

Corbyn is the one hope they have of winning the next election. How many elections do the Blairites have to lose before they realise how hated they are?

The thing is though mate, disregard what Corbyn has said in last two months (barely audibly) , last night was a triumph of a lifetime's work for him and McDonnell . Agree on the Blairites but Labour should have been a credible opposition to any Leave motion and yet they offered virtually nothing. Inaction, criminal

 

[tsubaki]

It would have to go to the party membership anyway, which are still overwhelmingly in support and would likely return a better result for Corbyn. It would be an incredibly stupid move by the PLP to push for such a move when re-selections are certain to happen before the next election.

I agree, but of course they are incredibly stupid.

 

[GrandOldTeam]

There will clearly be a referendum on Scottish independence now. The landscape of the union has changed massively against the will of the Scottish people. When there is a referendum the Scots will vote to leave.

Not disputing that.

I've always said - as has Sturgeon/Hammond - that there will be another referendum and one day, they'll vote for it.

What I'm saying here, is - in this football fans humble opinion - the Scots voted for what they did. They knew there was an EU refendum coming up, Salmonds campaign leveraged that as "We could go out of the EU..."

If/when the EU referendum triggers another Scot referendum, even if they vote remain, there will be another referendum bubbling - it'll never stop.

 

[GrandOldTeam]

Made me smile...

 

[Joey66]

Margaret Hodge one of the instigators of the vote of no confidence on Corbyn, surprised Remian lost notice no emergency budget!

 

[Bruce Wayne]

"Joe Liff, 67, said he was very pleased by the result of the vote.

He was also concerned about immigration.

“The thing is, it’s like if you’ve got the Hilton hotel and a greasy spoon caff,” said the pensioner. “We’re the Hilton and Bulgaria’s the greasy spoon, so of course they all want to come here.”"

Presumably by his logic, London is the Hilton and some backwater hicksville hamlet that is full of little Englanders is a greasy spoon?

 

[tsubaki]

The thing is though mate, disregard what Corbyn has said in last two months (barely audibly) , last night was a triumph of a lifetime's work for him and McDonnell . Agree on the Blairites but Labour should have been a credible opposition to any Leave motion and yet they offered virtually nothing. Inaction, criminal

That does sort of ignore what Corbyn was actually saying. Take one of the last Labour remain events, for instance:

But Corbyn told the Guardian: “Some of my colleagues have been thinking about that subject; we will have that discussion; but my view is that if we have a single market with free movement of capital, there has to be free movement of labour.”

He added: “Otherwise you end up with a Nafta-type system, like the US, Canada and Mexico, where there is not free movement of labour but there is free movement of capital, and that ends up exploiting workers in Mexico, and damaging working conditions in America.”

Instead, the Labour leader insisted, the right approach was to tackle exploitation by unscrupulous employers, and boost public spending in areas where there is large-scale immigration, rather than throwing up barriers to free movement.

“I think it’s much better if instead we have an end to the undercutting, where you bring in a whole workforce from Lithuania or Estonia and pay them the minimum wage, when the going rate for the job would be say £12 an hour.”

Which is far more sensible, and immeasurably more truthful, than what Watson / Cooper / the Blairites were going around saying, that they would bring in restrictions on EU migration - which is an impossibility because the EU would never have stood for it, certainly not after a remain vote.

 

[Joey66]

Made me smile...

Ok let the scots fund the referendum, and if they leave see how they like the euro bluff, and buster from her!

 

[Michaelcoyb]

For the first time actually scared that Donald Trump will become President.

If the UK can do it, America just about has to be nailed on.