Not really. The thing is I'm not the sort of person to cancel an ideal just because it's difficult. Circa 95% of burglery goes unsloved in this country. That's not a reason to stop investigating or to make it legal. The fundemental priciple is burglery is wrong. I feel the fundemental principle of Brexit is right, given the lack of appetite for reforming the EU into the trading and co-opertaive group it should be (and once was) and not the political behemoth it is now.
That’s a very bizarre analogy. The thing is politics is about what you can get done. If Brexit can’t be done, then all you have is utopian fantasy. A fundamental misunderstanding of how the World now works. That’s hardly the same as making sure burglaries are investigated which would just take a few more police and maybe the use of more household security tech.
In what universe is it going a darn site better? Genuine question. Farming ****ed. Fishing ****ed. Shellfish industry destroyed. Empty shelves. Fuel shortages. Crops rotting. Pigs incinerated. Care homes critically understaffed. Hotels and restaurants cutting rooms and sittings due to no staff. Northern Ireland (ironically the best off part of UK but the proddy ****wits intent on trouble) Musicians locked out of touring Europe. Inflation starting to go up. Benefits? Blue passport? Crown on pint glass?
Thanks for the feedback. In what ways, specifically, has Brexit been mismanaged in your opinion? How does the pandemic make Brexit worse? How do you come up with a 5-10 year timeframe before a coherent conclusion can be drawn? No need to answer any of the above if you are not inclined to. I'm just interested in what people expected and why they think Brexit will still deliver what they believed they voted for.
I had a hope that we would get a decent government in to do so but to be honest our wings have been clipped somewhat with recent events. Looks like we might need to get a replacement in for Starmer and we have a chance
Quite a lot of that is down to the pandemeic also but many of the issues raised are actually doew to the missmanagement of the exit negotiations. Understaffing is an issue but I raised earlier on why is relying on cheap European labour good? Why is wage supression good? I don't really care where the workers come from, I've actually advocated more immigration especially skilled where it is needed. What I'm against is cheaper labour being imported to take jobs away from our kids. It's actually quite a left leaning position. When we have good emplyment figures then we shoudl relax visa restrictions. Brexit allows us to do it, it's just the government are slow in utilising that ability.
Missmangement on both sides in my opinion. delay instead of getting the details hammered out before the deadline. The government not listening to various industries and taking/addressing their concerns in advance of exit for example. Obviously the pandemic quirte rightly deflected time and resources away from other things. It made sorting stuff out difficult when peopel were not at work, or in hospital amonst other reasons. Givent that the world has pretty much been at a standstill for 18 months that has to be factored into a timeframe for drawing a rational conclusion. As we have seen negotiations and changes to practice take time. The effect of these changes then need to kick in I think that timescale is fair. Obviously this is not all encompassing just trying to answer some of your claifications.
A chance of what? I'm not sure I get this - are you hoping Starmer is replaced by a Brexiteer so Labour can save Brexit?
Unless you have cheap labour in some sectors, nobody is going to do it. 'Our kids' have plenty of jobs available. They would rather not pick cabbages or clean bogs thank you very much, but somebody is going to have to - cue either massive pay increases across the board for all 'menial' jobs, and therefore rampant inflation, or death of whole sectors like fruit and veg. We do not have a high enough birth rate for these jobs to be filled now or in the future. Your point about mismanagement is also contradictory. We never really had any leverage (contrary to what the buffoons who are guilty of the 'mismanagenent' told you at the time) so the only non-catastrophic version of brexit would involve the Single Market or Customs Union or both in some form, and bang goes stopping freedom of movement. The pandemic hit all countries. Only brexit has turned it into the shitttshow we are having
I certainly think the decision not to extend the transition period was a massive mistake. I'm not totally convinced that the pandemic made Brexit worse. In my opinion, I think it has been used as something to blame for some of the negative impacts of Brexit. But I guess that is difficult to prove either way. I'm still unclear why things will suddenly be better in 5-10 years. May be some industries will be more "used" to the bureaucracy and processes needed to import and export to the EU but I would hope that would happen a lot sooner tbh! It should be noted that we are still not implementing the checks and controls on imports so, if anything, things are likely to get worse. Personally my biggest concern is the on going dispute over the Northern Ireland Protocol. If the UK government does decide to trigger article 16 then I think it will be the start of a very damaging trade war between the EU and the UK. It also doesn't end the protocol, as some people believe, so the issues still need to be addressed. In the meantime there is the ever present threat of violence returning to the province. So far Brexit, if anything, has been worse than I expected and the narrative that "things will be better tomorrow" is wearing a bit thing now as well as being, to me at least, totally unconvincing.
No hoping that Starmer is replaced by soemone who actually has a vision and can lead the party to be a viable oposition to take this government to account and maybe even be acceptible to take over at the next election. I have no love for the Tories just prefered their policies up until now.
I think the shortage of unskilled labour was illustrated best by Boston where there was an unemployment rate of about 3% at the time of the referendum. The percentage of EU migrants living in the town was about 17%.
I understand. I think things still need to be hammered out and yes processes take time to bed in, that's why I do support the idea that it's really too early to make a sweeping conclusion.
So you are against immigration for low paid roles such as fruit picking as that's taking away jobs from our kids - but you are all for bringing in skilled workers. Would bringing in skilled workers not take away high paid jobs from UK citizens? I'd rather live in a country where I can go on to easily get a high paying skilled job without competing with the worlds best than one where I get the chance of earning £8 an hour fruit picking for a few years as a teenager because there's no immigrants doing it for £5 anymore. Within the EU the UK had many opportunities to reduce immigration and control who could stay. It would be as simple as raising minimum wage and not letting people stay unless they are employed. Arguing for brexit so that we could increase wages for the lower paid people is naive, and anyone who says they voted for a campaign led by Johnson, Farage, and Rees-Moog in order to improve wages for low paid workers is either a liar or living in a fantasy world.
Sigh. We spent years in the run up to the referendum at full employment. How this 'taking our kids' jobs' narrative ever took hold is beyond me. The fact it's still being trotted out now...
We could be living through a facsimile of Lord of the Flies and Brexit folk would be just give it a few more years.
You may hate him, but this is the most succinct summing up of the current situation I've seen. https://twitter.com/LBC/status/1445378612585185282 God how I hate this government. They have destroyed us.
This is not what I am saying. I'm against wage suppression. Where a business imports labour because it's the only way to get people to do the job at the salary they are paying that is wrong. Salaries need to rise and training needs to be invested in to enourage our 500K young unemployed into work. Obviously focussing on the young as they tend to have a lower salary due to experience. The care industry for example. They don't have the staffing levels because traditionally there is a high percentage of foreign labour in the sector and attracting foreign labour is dicfficult at the moment. Why is there traditionally a large percentage of foreign labour in that sector? Because that sector doesn't pay enough or value their staff enough for it to be attractive to our younger generations. Clive has a very good thread on the pressures and corner cutting. It's wrong. They get away with employing cheap labour becaue they can, not because it's right. Obviously in the short term we need the staffing levels to go up but the industry needs to be addressed long term so we are not reliant on this "cheap" labour. Where the government has gone wrong (in part due to the pandemic also) is cutting off the supply without adequate future sustainability planning. I hope I've now clarifed my position. It's quite a left leaning policy in my opinion and I'm supprsied that there is such a wave of disagreement.
But the simple fact is that we have an ageing population and a low birth rate. The economy needs more workers than we produce domestically. We need immigrants. Yes, I understand the argument that we can have controlled immigration with a "points system" so we only get skilled migrants coming in. But they are the jobs that we should be training UK educated people to do. Now we seemed to be arguing the UK people, who have had the benefit of an education paid for by the taxpayer, go out and pick fruit while importing the best of the world to do our skilled jobs. Madness imho. And the simple solution to increase the pay of the lowest paid workers is to increase the minimum wage. There has been a massive shortage of care workers for years. They were even advertising for "expats" to return home to work in the industry when I was in Spain recently. If it were simply a matter of supply and demand wages and conditions would have risen already.
I don't think we did , the previous years were spent moaning about austerity public service cuts etc admittedly whilst the "we are all in this together" mob were getting 5% tax cuts . But , for sure, we were never at full employment, unless we disregard those that were unemployed
Full employment, in economic terms, does not mean zero unemployment. There are a few definitions and measures of full employment one of which is an unemployment rate below 5%. The UK has been at, or near to, full employment for some time. Edit: this is where we were just before Brexit: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.ft.com/content/fd9f99c4-9123-11e4-914a-00144feabdc0 You can see how difficult full employment is to define but there was general agreement in 2015 that we were close to it.
Again not really what I'm saying and it's taking the situation to the extreme to reinforce the point. Lets look at it from the other angle. Youth unemplyoment is knocking on 13%. That's a fair margin from the 5% or so figure that is accepted as full employment. Why is this sector more unemployed, yet older more experienced workers must adjust the balance and be lower than the 5% to hit the average overall. Some suggestions, not saying these are the case but there needs to ba a reason for the above. Entry level / lower paid jobs are just not available? Our youngsters are unemployable due to lack of education ability or experience. The benefits system is too generous and the motivation to work to earn less isn't there. Suggested answers We know that this isn't the case, there is a skills shortage. Do we not have enough youngsters? Well over 500K unemployed would suggest we do. Admit that and admit failure in the education system that is aparently producing better and better grades and more graduates every year. It can't be the case that we're persuing grades to satisfy statistics but not actually educating fro work could it? Even cutting the £20 a week temporary top up is causing all sorts of blowback try admitting publically that it's too easy to sit on your arse off the back of other people and not work than accept a starter job. Having had 3 periods of unemployment in my time and also actively dealing with them to try and recruit people, I can tell you that the jobcentre (plus) system is a complete and utter joke. It's a box ticking excercise and merely seems to exist to give quite a few jobsworths an income at the taxpayers expense. What I do know is that importing cheap labour (and deinitely long term) is certainly not going to assist with the issue. Improving training, relavent education & salries has to be the answer.
We started our vaccine roll-out several months earlier than others, that benefit is not lost merely because others have caught up. The UK isn't suffering vaccine supply problems, it's suffering anti-vax problems mainly within the young, the ethnic minorities and the "government tell us to have the vaccine - well I'll do the opposite, whatever they say" camp, and this is not backed by the mandatory forcing that is apparent in other nations, like France.
Expecting us to have gone through this brexit transition in the middle of the pandemic smoothly and trouble free really is in cloud cuckoo land, and anyone voting either for or against brexit on the basis of the benefits seen in the first few years, really is bonkers. Just watch us go when the economic recovery (that will be required all over the world) starts to kick in free from the lumbering giant of the EU, as we duck, dive and nimbly legislate for our own challenges as the EU lumbers on. It already looks like we are the fastest growing economy in the G7.
There is no reason why with years to prepare we can't expect post Brexit to be as resilient as pre Brexit would have been. It's clearly not. We got a poor deal and there was no plan. As for the notion that our growth is the fastest in the G7 - Yes, because we fell the furthest in 2020 due to the awful management of the pandemic. The rest is just hot air and soundbites. 'Duck, dive and nimbly legislate'. Utterly meaningless.
Youth unemployment is always skewed by the fact that the majority are still in full time education. By definition, those "actively looking for work" are the least educated and capable because those that are able will be at college/university or in an apprenticeship. It's hardly surprising that a large % of early leavers are not highly employable. I would suggest that is the problem that needs to be addressed. And the fact that farmers can still not get fruit & vegetable pickers (despite allegedly offering as much as £30 an hour) and the care industry don't seem interested in employing them, would suggest that just stopping migrants doing the jobs isn't going to mean the UK youth will do them instead. Personally I would like those youth that "fall through the cracks" and end up in long term unemployment to be given training and basic skills so they are more employable. As I said, the demographics of the UK is such that we need migrants. I would prefer those migrants to be doing the less skilled jobs (with a decent minimum wage and good working conditions) and maximise the UK citizen's opportunities, including the youth, to get occupational training so they can do the higher skilled jobs. A points system that is based on a minimum wage job and already highly skilled migrants, while stopping unskilled migration, has the reverse effect to that imho.
[QUOTE="sydney_horn, post: 3056705, member: 3721"8] As I said, the demographics of the UK is such that we need migrants. I would prefer those migrants to be doing the less skilled jobs (with a decent minimum wage and good working conditions) and maximise the UK citizen's opportunities, including the youth, to get occupational training so they can do the higher skilled jobs. A points system that is based on a minimum wage job and already highly skilled migrants while stopping unskilled migration has the reverse effect to that imho.[/QUOTE] This. It is so, so obvious. It's almost impossible to argue against with a straight face.
Sadly, I think there is a culture problem within the young when it comes to getting a job. They want it "now" rather than later. By "it" I mean a very well paid job. They don't like the thought of being on the bottom rung, and having to work up. They have £600 Xboxes, £50 games, and £1,000 iPhones to finance, and cars to buy and insure, as their parents try and cut them loose to look after themselves. All across social media they see young kids making a fortune as "influencers" or popstars, or footballers, so they're not interested in just working their way up the ladder. Of course that is a generalisation, but those I describe are a growing, significant proportion of today's youth and young adults. "Give me money, I want it now!" To be fair, it isn't neceassarily their fault. Many have been spoon-fed with whatever they have wanted by their parents who want to keep up with the Jones's parents and social media pressure to the extent that parents start work later so they can drop off little Johnny outside the school gates in their designer clothes and trainers, and with TV's, PlayStations, and mobiles in their bedrooms.Full marks to those parents that have managed to resist this pressure. As uncomfortable as it is, I don't see any government solving this problem, certainly not with any sort of carrot. I can only see the "stick" working, and maybe that is making jobless being financially uncomfortable, and working financially worthwhile by increasing pay and improving conditions over a time. Government can help with FE, HE and apprenticeships, but it is only scratching the surface. The apprentices I see at the DfE are fantastic young people, a real credit, bright and hard-working, they can see the light, and I have a young apprentice working with me right now that is working on International initiatives in Education, and she will go far, and will be a G7 on £50k by the time she is 27 or so, with the security of a civil service employment. But I think such people would probably have succeeded anyway, it is the millions of others I fear for.
On the whole agree. A points based system needs to be based on required skills and sector vacancies rather than the blunt instrument of salary.
Absolutely agree. I look at what my mates kids have and it makes me shudder. A mate's late teenage daughter when denied a 2nd pair of £100+ triners within a month asked him if they were poor.
With respect, if a "smooth and trouble free" Brexit was not possible during a pandemic, why didn't we extend the transition period and deal with the pandemic first and then complete Brexit. That was an option.
I certainly agree that society in general, and perhaps particularly the youth, have become more materialistic and image obsessed. I suspect social media has a lot to do with it.
Not this again. I’ve no doubt the first time you wrote it it was they just want betamax or VHS, to play Pac-Man and get a new Raleigh Bicycle.
