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>Except we already have the powers to stop this low-wage immigration. I know. Nonetheless, nobody who runs a media outlet actually wants to acknowledge this an

>Except we already have the powers to stop this low-wage immigration. I know. Nonetheless, nobody who runs a media outlet actually wants to acknowledge this and elites on both sides Brexit campaign didn't either, so it was always going to remain largely unknown to the general public. >In addition, if a proper living wage were enacted for all residents of the UK, including recent migrants, then companies would not be able to pay migrants less for their labour Yep, but that would savage profits. Elites on the pro-Brexit side didn't want this, elites on the anti-Brexit side didn't want this. Tories don't want it and centrists in the Labour party didn't want it. The only person with any power who actually wants this is Corbyn and in 2015 almost nobody paid him any attention. >Indeed. But you cannot say that there was no warning at all. The London School of Economics and many others openly stated that leaving the EU would be disastrous. Pretty much anybody who claimed to know the effect of Brexit prior to the referendum was lying. Nobody knew. The outcome would be dependent upon the shape of a deal that hadn't yet been made. It was shocking the number of economists who came out with actual numbers. Monumentally stupid and played right into the Brexiteers' hands. sigh... It's not at all irrational to disbelieve out of touch elites when they tell you that things that they believe will be bad for them are actually bad for you. The number of times we've been condescendingly told by lying elites that jacking up the minimum wage will only trigger mass unemployment is a testament to that.

fao_ 9y ago
> It's not entirely irrational to disbelieve out of touch elites when they tell you that things that are bad for them are bad for you. Except the groups I referred to were university establishments and thinktanks. Much of the outroar came not from the 'elites', so much as middle and lower class professors... > Pretty much anybody who claimed to know the effect of Brexit prior to the referendum was lying. Nobody knew. The outcome would be dependent upon the shape of a deal that hadn't yet been made. No. The main facts that were known before the referendum were: We do not have enough legal staff in the government to handle such a large negotiation. Thus we would have to borrow or outsource much of the more backbreaking legal work to other countries. The implication of leaving the EU implies that we must renegotiate a trade deal with every single country that we are parting with, something that took the EU as a collective _decades_ to do. Britain would be put on the back-foot in any future negotiations, given that other countries are not at risk from completely and utterly losing trade with most of the world given a failed deal, but we are. Strategically it makes sense to not put yourself in such a position. Britian would have to adopt the regulations that many claimed were harmful, if it wanted to trade with the EU, just like every other country that has trade with the EU. It doesn't take a genius to see that this is not a beneficial position to be in as a country. > The outcome would be dependent upon the shape of a deal that hadn't yet been made. The deal still hasn't been made, but we can still predict that the outcome of this will be negative based on facts that are clearer to us now, but were present before the referendum took place. The fact that a large proportion of people admitted that in retrospect they did not know what they were voting for, should have been the point at which we started backpedalling and figuring out where we are.
- crdoconnor 9y ago
  >Except the groups I referred to were university establishments and thinktanks. The official response from the establishments of elite universities and the output of think tanks is almost the definition of "out of touch elites", no? >Much of the outroar came not from the 'elites', so much as middle and lower class professors... Not in the media read by people in Lincolnshire. They don't hear the outroar coming from those middle and lower class professors going on strike either. I appreciate that you might have had mates who were postdocs who had legitimate reason to be worried about science funding (so do I!), but not everybody does. >It doesn't take a genius to see that this is not a beneficial position to be in as a country. What you described above was the effect of hard Brexit. Hard Brexit wasn't even on the cards until some time after the vote, and is still not confirmed even now. >The deal still hasn't been made, but we can still predict that the outcome of this will be negative It's entirely possible to extract some good from this process even if it was better that it was never started. However, paying little attention to the actual shape of the deal, which is highly mutable, and simply re-iterating that any kind of Brexit is the worst possible thing that could ever be happening to us isn't going to do that. One way or the other it's happening. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out.
  - fao_ 9y ago
    > The official response from the establishments of elite universities and the output of think tanks is almost the definition of "out of touch elites", no? > I appreciate that you might have had mates who were postdocs who had legitimate reason to be worried about science funding (so do I!), but not everybody does. Hah. No. I was talking explicitly about the many professors that specialized in law and economics relating to the EU explicitly raising their voices that this would put the UK in a terrible financial and political position. > What you described above was the effect of hard Brexit. No. What I described above is the effect of Brexit. > Hard Brexit wasn't even on the cards until some time after the vote, and is still not confirmed even now. Eh? Teresa May has been consistent that she wants a "hard brexit", to the point of calling for it months before she defined the fucking term! (Finally defined in http://time.com/4635762/theresa-may-hard-brexit-britain/ http://time.com/4635762/theresa-may-hard-brexit-britain/) You seem to be at a severe information deficit concerning the information available to the public about brexit, before the brexit process was enacted. Please read https://voxeu.org/article/economics-brexit-pre-referendum-videos-and-columns-voxeuorg https://voxeu.org/article/economics-brexit-pre-referendum-vi...

fao_ 9y ago

> It's not entirely irrational to disbelieve out of touch elites when they tell you that things that are bad for them are bad for you. Except the groups I referred to were university establishments and thinktanks. Much of the outroar came not from the 'elites', so much as middle and lower class professors... > Pretty much anybody who claimed to know the effect of Brexit prior to the referendum was lying. Nobody knew. The outcome would be dependent upon the shape of a deal that hadn't yet been made. No. The main facts that were known before the referendum were: We do not have enough legal staff in the government to handle such a large negotiation. Thus we would have to borrow or outsource much of the more backbreaking legal work to other countries. The implication of leaving the EU implies that we must renegotiate a trade deal with every single country that we are parting with, something that took the EU as a collective _decades_ to do. Britain would be put on the back-foot in any future negotiations, given that other countries are not at risk from completely and utterly losing trade with most of the world given a failed deal, but we are. Strategically it makes sense to not put yourself in such a position. Britian would have to adopt the regulations that many claimed were harmful, if it wanted to trade with the EU, just like every other country that has trade with the EU. It doesn't take a genius to see that this is not a beneficial position to be in as a country. > The outcome would be dependent upon the shape of a deal that hadn't yet been made. The deal still hasn't been made, but we can still predict that the outcome of this will be negative based on facts that are clearer to us now, but were present before the referendum took place. The fact that a large proportion of people admitted that in retrospect they did not know what they were voting for, should have been the point at which we started backpedalling and figuring out where we are.

crdoconnor 9y ago
>Except the groups I referred to were university establishments and thinktanks. The official response from the establishments of elite universities and the output of think tanks is almost the definition of "out of touch elites", no? >Much of the outroar came not from the 'elites', so much as middle and lower class professors... Not in the media read by people in Lincolnshire. They don't hear the outroar coming from those middle and lower class professors going on strike either. I appreciate that you might have had mates who were postdocs who had legitimate reason to be worried about science funding (so do I!), but not everybody does. >It doesn't take a genius to see that this is not a beneficial position to be in as a country. What you described above was the effect of hard Brexit. Hard Brexit wasn't even on the cards until some time after the vote, and is still not confirmed even now. >The deal still hasn't been made, but we can still predict that the outcome of this will be negative It's entirely possible to extract some good from this process even if it was better that it was never started. However, paying little attention to the actual shape of the deal, which is highly mutable, and simply re-iterating that any kind of Brexit is the worst possible thing that could ever be happening to us isn't going to do that. One way or the other it's happening. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out.
- fao_ 9y ago
  > The official response from the establishments of elite universities and the output of think tanks is almost the definition of "out of touch elites", no? > I appreciate that you might have had mates who were postdocs who had legitimate reason to be worried about science funding (so do I!), but not everybody does. Hah. No. I was talking explicitly about the many professors that specialized in law and economics relating to the EU explicitly raising their voices that this would put the UK in a terrible financial and political position. > What you described above was the effect of hard Brexit. No. What I described above is the effect of Brexit. > Hard Brexit wasn't even on the cards until some time after the vote, and is still not confirmed even now. Eh? Teresa May has been consistent that she wants a "hard brexit", to the point of calling for it months before she defined the fucking term! (Finally defined in http://time.com/4635762/theresa-may-hard-brexit-britain/ http://time.com/4635762/theresa-may-hard-brexit-britain/) You seem to be at a severe information deficit concerning the information available to the public about brexit, before the brexit process was enacted. Please read https://voxeu.org/article/economics-brexit-pre-referendum-videos-and-columns-voxeuorg https://voxeu.org/article/economics-brexit-pre-referendum-vi...