6 ms·

It might not seem like the biggest issue at the moment but the departure from fact based economics seems to me to underly lots of UK’s current issues. One exam

It might not seem like the biggest issue at the moment but the departure from fact based economics seems to me to underly lots of UK’s current issues. One example. They have to find Brexit benefits so we have pointless plans to depart from eu rules. Result is higher costs for businesses and uncertainty for anyone trying to plan. This allowed someone like Truss to get into power with a fantasy economic plan. You can want Brexit for lots of reasons but the denial of its real economic impact has poisoned the discourse about how to manage the U.K. economy.

slt2021 4y ago
The whole Brexit was "Mess around & find out" thing. And looks like UK is in the "The more you mess around, the more you find out" stage, with every day they are finding out new things
- Silverback_VII 4y ago
  It's the war in Ukraine and not Brexit in my opinion.
jahnu 4y ago
“Getting Brexit Done”, a terrible, debilitating disease. One of the worst symptoms has been “trade agreements at any cost” https://davidallengreen.com/2022/11/getting-any-quick-international-trade-deal-is-easy-if-you-give-in-to-the-other-side/ https://davidallengreen.com/2022/11/getting-any-quick-intern... “ All you have to do is turn up to the negotiation, ask what the other side’s negotiators want, give it to them, and – Hey Peston! – the United Kingdom has a trade agreement.”
- 77pt77 4y ago
  Which is the opposite of what Brexit proponents claimed. They claimed the UK was so essential that it could dictate its own terms with both the EU and other trade partners.
  - jahnu 4y ago
    And the whole sorry story is bad enough, but what really gets me angry is that there have been no meaningful consequences for those that lied or were badly wrong. There has been no acknowledgement or change of heart.
    - 77pt77 4y ago
      And that's completely expected.
mike_hearn 4y ago
This generic explanation for everything always gets posted to HN whenever the UK comes up in any capacity, but it isn't "fact based economics". Inflation is surging throughout Europe and the world. Trading Economics has a useful map that visualizes it: https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/inflation-rate https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/inflation-rate Inflation is high because governments printed enormous sums of money to fund lockdowns and furloughs. Helicopter drops of money creates inflation, it's as simple as that. This effect was predicted right at the start of lockdowns and now it's here. Moreover Brexit only actually took effect at the very start of 2020 so there was all of a few months to do anything before COVID hit and the government had no time to actually do much with its new powers. Honestly, it's very tiring to see these kind of unsubstantiated comments so systematically rise to the top. If you want to prove something is causally linked to leaving the EU you need to prove it, not simply assert it and then declare anyone questioning that assertion is engaged in "denial".
- jmfldn 4y ago
  Is the OBR's own analysis of Brexit evidence enough for you? Even Jeremy Hunt has conceded Brexit is causing problems! https://www.politico.eu/article/brexit-had-significant-adverse-impact-on-uk-trade-says-public-finances-watchdog%EF%BF%BC/ https://www.politico.eu/article/brexit-had-significant-adver...
  - mike_hearn 4y ago
    Jeremy Hunt campaigned for Remain and then pushed for a second referendum when his side lost, so it's unclear why you think his anti-Brexit stance is worth remarking on. Are you thinking of someone else, perhaps? Re: OBR. We're talking about food price inflation. The article you cite in turn cites the OBR, but (a) contrary to what you're suggesting the OBR doesn't have seem to have done any of its own analysis and (b) it only mentions Brexit twice, once about immigration and the other is a single paragraph which isn't about food price inflation. It says: "Our trade forecast reflects our assumption that Brexit will result in the UK’s trade intensity being 15 per cent lower in the long run than if the UK had remained in the EU" They don't define what "long run" means and they don't state where this assumption came from. That's the quality of the OBR's in-house analysis: there isn't any. That's not a huge surprise. The civil service has a poor track record of economic forecasting in all respects, but especially on anything to do with Brexit. The government forecast before the vote that voting to leave (not leaving, just voting to leave) would trigger an immediate recession in which between 500,000 and 800,000 jobs would be lost, due to "uncertainty". In fact the economy grew and unemployment fell. They do then mention the "latest evidence suggests a significant adverse impact on UK trade", and cite two other papers. Both are only about claimed changes in UK/EU trade, not UK trade as a whole. The first ESRI paper relies on such complicated modelling it's not worth spending time on and their abstract asserts a dubious assumption right up front. The LSE paper states: "Second, the implementation of the TCA triggered a small and only temporary decline in relative UK exports to the EU in 2021. These sharply fell in January, immediately following the introduction of the TCA, but quickly recovered within half a year" It does say that the UK reduced imports from the EU significantly, but this would be expected given the currency value decline and that the EU external tariffs no longer discourage UK companies from importing from outside of Europe. The UK trade balance hasn't had a sudden improvement so it just means imports are now more balanced w.r.t. ROW.
mhh__ 4y ago
Brexit is annoying for consumers (try buying stuff from Germany as easily now) and actively lethal for some businesses. I'm feeling the sovereignty already
- VBprogrammer 4y ago
  More annoying than that. Try hiring software engineers. When I started working in London 15 years ago my colleagues were from a mixture of counties across the EU, easily greater than 50%. Now it's rare to see a CV from outside the UK except for a perhaps people from India.
  - factcheckdec 4y ago
    So? What's your issue working with British and/or Indian people?
    - mhh__ 4y ago
      European talent is more than nice to have access to.
    - pornel 4y ago
      There's no problem with them. The problem for UK is that the other people who could have worked in the UK and produce value in the country, have left and now contribute to other countries' economy.
  - ploppyploppy 4y ago
    What's wrong with that?
    - kaashif 4y ago
      What's wrong with losing access to a giant talent pool of hundreds of millions of people who can move immediately, visa free? I think it's pretty clear.
bArray 4y ago
> One example. They have to find Brexit benefits so we have pointless plans to depart from eu rules. Result is higher costs for businesses and uncertainty for anyone trying to plan. I don't think this has anything to do with Brexit, Brexit was achieved when the UK gained sovereignty. This is clearly a really dumb move to do quickly and unplanned. They are on purpose putting an insane amount of pressure on politicians to look through literally thousands of potentially important documents. One reason could be that they think the Labour party have a real chance of election in the next cycle, and they want to sabotage them from being able to rejoin the EU. I suspect the real reason has more to do with purposely destabilizing the legal system to promote growth. The idea would be that you suddenly open tonnes of holes in your legal system that relax regulation and open profitable loop-holes. In the long-term these EU laws do need to be repealed and merged with the British legal system, but you could set a more realistic target like 10% per year or something. I would at the very least commission a study to be conducted to evaluate the actual contents of these laws. I think what ends up happening if this is stuck to is that we end up with a broken system that _nobody_ understands or knows how to enforce. We then end up with rushed and messy legislation being rammed through to plug the holes, which open up other problems. We will also likely see other things being slipped in under the rug that further erode people's freedoms.
ploppyploppy 4y ago
Brexit is bound to have economical impact. Why wouldn't it? If you asked a heart surgery patient mid surgery if they're doing OK their -- and any professional's -- answer would range from "no, my chest is open" to "inconclusive until the surgery is complete.
- klelatti 4y ago
  You wouldn’t perform surgery whilst ignoring the monitors that show the patients vital signs.
de_keyboard 4y ago
> They have to find Brexit benefits so we have pointless plans to depart from eu rules The purpose of this is two-fold: 1. Make it harder for future governments to reverse Brexit or reverse parts of Brexit 2. Make it harder for Scotland to leave the UK by making it harder for an independent Scotland rejoin the EU due to regulatory differences

slt2021 4y ago

The whole Brexit was "Mess around & find out" thing. And looks like UK is in the "The more you mess around, the more you find out" stage, with every day they are finding out new things

Silverback_VII 4y ago
It's the war in Ukraine and not Brexit in my opinion.

jahnu 4y ago

“Getting Brexit Done”, a terrible, debilitating disease. One of the worst symptoms has been “trade agreements at any cost” https://davidallengreen.com/2022/11/getting-any-quick-international-trade-deal-is-easy-if-you-give-in-to-the-other-side/ https://davidallengreen.com/2022/11/getting-any-quick-intern... “ All you have to do is turn up to the negotiation, ask what the other side’s negotiators want, give it to them, and – Hey Peston! – the United Kingdom has a trade agreement.”

77pt77 4y ago
Which is the opposite of what Brexit proponents claimed. They claimed the UK was so essential that it could dictate its own terms with both the EU and other trade partners.
- jahnu 4y ago
  And the whole sorry story is bad enough, but what really gets me angry is that there have been no meaningful consequences for those that lied or were badly wrong. There has been no acknowledgement or change of heart.
  - 77pt77 4y ago
    And that's completely expected.

mike_hearn 4y ago

This generic explanation for everything always gets posted to HN whenever the UK comes up in any capacity, but it isn't "fact based economics". Inflation is surging throughout Europe and the world. Trading Economics has a useful map that visualizes it: https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/inflation-rate https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/inflation-rate Inflation is high because governments printed enormous sums of money to fund lockdowns and furloughs. Helicopter drops of money creates inflation, it's as simple as that. This effect was predicted right at the start of lockdowns and now it's here. Moreover Brexit only actually took effect at the very start of 2020 so there was all of a few months to do anything before COVID hit and the government had no time to actually do much with its new powers. Honestly, it's very tiring to see these kind of unsubstantiated comments so systematically rise to the top. If you want to prove something is causally linked to leaving the EU you need to prove it, not simply assert it and then declare anyone questioning that assertion is engaged in "denial".

jmfldn 4y ago
Is the OBR's own analysis of Brexit evidence enough for you? Even Jeremy Hunt has conceded Brexit is causing problems! https://www.politico.eu/article/brexit-had-significant-adverse-impact-on-uk-trade-says-public-finances-watchdog%EF%BF%BC/ https://www.politico.eu/article/brexit-had-significant-adver...
- mike_hearn 4y ago
  Jeremy Hunt campaigned for Remain and then pushed for a second referendum when his side lost, so it's unclear why you think his anti-Brexit stance is worth remarking on. Are you thinking of someone else, perhaps? Re: OBR. We're talking about food price inflation. The article you cite in turn cites the OBR, but (a) contrary to what you're suggesting the OBR doesn't have seem to have done any of its own analysis and (b) it only mentions Brexit twice, once about immigration and the other is a single paragraph which isn't about food price inflation. It says: "Our trade forecast reflects our assumption that Brexit will result in the UK’s trade intensity being 15 per cent lower in the long run than if the UK had remained in the EU" They don't define what "long run" means and they don't state where this assumption came from. That's the quality of the OBR's in-house analysis: there isn't any. That's not a huge surprise. The civil service has a poor track record of economic forecasting in all respects, but especially on anything to do with Brexit. The government forecast before the vote that voting to leave (not leaving, just voting to leave) would trigger an immediate recession in which between 500,000 and 800,000 jobs would be lost, due to "uncertainty". In fact the economy grew and unemployment fell. They do then mention the "latest evidence suggests a significant adverse impact on UK trade", and cite two other papers. Both are only about claimed changes in UK/EU trade, not UK trade as a whole. The first ESRI paper relies on such complicated modelling it's not worth spending time on and their abstract asserts a dubious assumption right up front. The LSE paper states: "Second, the implementation of the TCA triggered a small and only temporary decline in relative UK exports to the EU in 2021. These sharply fell in January, immediately following the introduction of the TCA, but quickly recovered within half a year" It does say that the UK reduced imports from the EU significantly, but this would be expected given the currency value decline and that the EU external tariffs no longer discourage UK companies from importing from outside of Europe. The UK trade balance hasn't had a sudden improvement so it just means imports are now more balanced w.r.t. ROW.

mhh__ 4y ago

Brexit is annoying for consumers (try buying stuff from Germany as easily now) and actively lethal for some businesses. I'm feeling the sovereignty already

VBprogrammer 4y ago
More annoying than that. Try hiring software engineers. When I started working in London 15 years ago my colleagues were from a mixture of counties across the EU, easily greater than 50%. Now it's rare to see a CV from outside the UK except for a perhaps people from India.
- factcheckdec 4y ago
  So? What's your issue working with British and/or Indian people?
  - mhh__ 4y ago
    European talent is more than nice to have access to.
  - pornel 4y ago
    There's no problem with them. The problem for UK is that the other people who could have worked in the UK and produce value in the country, have left and now contribute to other countries' economy.
- ploppyploppy 4y ago
  What's wrong with that?
  - kaashif 4y ago
    What's wrong with losing access to a giant talent pool of hundreds of millions of people who can move immediately, visa free? I think it's pretty clear.

bArray 4y ago

> One example. They have to find Brexit benefits so we have pointless plans to depart from eu rules. Result is higher costs for businesses and uncertainty for anyone trying to plan. I don't think this has anything to do with Brexit, Brexit was achieved when the UK gained sovereignty. This is clearly a really dumb move to do quickly and unplanned. They are on purpose putting an insane amount of pressure on politicians to look through literally thousands of potentially important documents. One reason could be that they think the Labour party have a real chance of election in the next cycle, and they want to sabotage them from being able to rejoin the EU. I suspect the real reason has more to do with purposely destabilizing the legal system to promote growth. The idea would be that you suddenly open tonnes of holes in your legal system that relax regulation and open profitable loop-holes. In the long-term these EU laws do need to be repealed and merged with the British legal system, but you could set a more realistic target like 10% per year or something. I would at the very least commission a study to be conducted to evaluate the actual contents of these laws. I think what ends up happening if this is stuck to is that we end up with a broken system that _nobody_ understands or knows how to enforce. We then end up with rushed and messy legislation being rammed through to plug the holes, which open up other problems. We will also likely see other things being slipped in under the rug that further erode people's freedoms.

ploppyploppy 4y ago

Brexit is bound to have economical impact. Why wouldn't it? If you asked a heart surgery patient mid surgery if they're doing OK their -- and any professional's -- answer would range from "no, my chest is open" to "inconclusive until the surgery is complete.

klelatti 4y ago
You wouldn’t perform surgery whilst ignoring the monitors that show the patients vital signs.

de_keyboard 4y ago

> They have to find Brexit benefits so we have pointless plans to depart from eu rules The purpose of this is two-fold: 1. Make it harder for future governments to reverse Brexit or reverse parts of Brexit 2. Make it harder for Scotland to leave the UK by making it harder for an independent Scotland rejoin the EU due to regulatory differences