Having just replayed the speech, again I think it was very good. He hit pretty well everything I’ve been going on about and in that respect he does speak for me, especially when it comes to democracy and opportunities. I’m not sure what you think the ‘typical’ person in Barrow is, although I would wager that Barrow employs more graduates as a percentage of the population than a great many other towns or cities. There is something for most people in his speech, indeed for most remainers also, though perhaps not for you. Which bits of the speech would you disagree with ?.........
Well there's the bit I mentioned above. He's also quoting John Stuart Mill at the moment. Are we really suggesting
On Liberty was a motivation for many leave voters (or indeed many remain voters)? He goes on to ask how many people could explain various obscure bits of EU legislature, and I doubt many could. Heck, I doubt many in the cabinet could explain them, but as I said earlier, ignorance is in rampant supply. People have shown very little understanding of the EU as a whole, just as their instincts send them awry on everything from crime levels to immigration numbers. The thing is, Johnson and Gove decried those 'experts' who do know the answer to these things. The politicians at the heart of the Brexit process continue to dismiss people who have examined these things and come to the opposite conclusion to them.
He says on immigration that he's not opposed to it and loves the diversity of Britain and the importance of being a 'magnet for ambition and drive' whilst deriding supposedly low skilled migrants. I fundamentally disagree with this, and indeed have said countless times now that the migrants we receive by virtue of free movement are 'better' on nearly every score you care to use than those who the government let in via controlled migration. The notion that the government can manage migration successfully is a nonsense. You also have to set his talk of attracting the best and brightest with repeated Tory calls for migration to be reduced to tens of thousands. Are we really suggesting that 5/6 of the migrants coming to Britain during the peak were low-skilled?
I've said this many times too, but I get that significant population changes can be disruptive to local communities, and more should be done to give councils greater flexibility over their spending, both in terms of what is collected and how it's spent. Be under no illusion though, the problems they face would be just as grave if British people moved towns more, or indeed if the birth rate of the country went up. A free flow of labour is a sign of a well functioning economy, and the government should accept that and govern more effectively rather than play dog whistle politics and pass the buck.
He says we live in a low wage, low productivity economy, which is daft and far from the truth.
He also says that UKIP have dwindled since the vote, which is largely because the Tories have done their bidding for them. It's hardly a positive trend.
He also talks towards the end about trade in and out of the EU, and that exports to Asia et al are growing, which is great, but he does nonetheless gloss over the fact that the EU have free trade agreements with Japan, with Canada and so on, all signed since we voted to leave.
He also says about the need for global standards etc. which is great, but I'm not sure how he reconciles having global standards and local sovereignty. It goes back to Dani Rodrik again, because an inevitability of global standards is that an international body will be making decisions on behalf of Britain. We will have input into those standards, but we have input into EU rules and regulations. He's being disingenuous about just what global trade entails.
It's also very naughty of him to try and blame the EU for the slow pace of house building in the UK.
One thing I do agree with him on is his point about no longer being able to blame Brussels for everything. It's just a shame that it takes us leaving for that to occur.
