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I'm not convinced about that. This worship of free trade we had was completely unrestricted. A lot of trade was completely decoupled from any real benefit or

I'm not convinced about that. This worship of free trade we had was completely unrestricted. A lot of trade was completely decoupled from any real benefit or political or social project or any environmental concerns. If KPIs from trade and financial services are the main thing that are measured, then you will always end up with trade for trade's sake. “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.” Brexit has delivered an opportunity to assess and understand what we are trading and why.

rich_sasha 3y ago
Brexit has exacerbated at least 2 industries due to labour shortages - and probably more. These in turn translate into materially worse conditions for everyone. First one is childcare. Nurseries and preschools were full of nice, dedicated people from Europe working for modest wages - for one reason or another they were happy with it. They have mostly gone home, or return soon after coming. I see this first-hand. I had to take my daughter from an increasingly understaffed nursery, with a staff turnover of, dunno, 100-200%, to a much more expensive one, staffed by very nice and very good English people, but costing 50% more. Other parents at the original nursery are told to take their kids away or accept a 30% day rate increase effective immediately. Schools are short-staffed for similar reasons. Schools are on strike for the 5th time this year, I believe, exacerbated by low staffing and overworked teachers. The parents of the grounded children won't make it to work today. Some of these people not coming to work will cause other people to not make it to work - there are train cancellations near me due to parents taking time off work to cover school strikes. The other is the NHS. Again, this was largely running on highly qualified staff from the EU. They are, also, mostly gone. And NHS complaint #1 in my area isn't actually pay, it's the insane working conditions caused by understaffing. NHS and schooling are among the top problems in the UK right now. Add social care for the elderly and agriculture, both running off immigrant workforce, and I'll say with confidence Brexit made it all much worse.
- ChuckNorris89 3y ago
  Isn't that why UK is easing migration conditions from Africa and Asia now? To cover the shortage left by the EU migrants? A friend of mine who just moved to the UK, went to a migrant GP who barely spoke English and was googling his symptoms to give him a diagnostic lol. No idea how he was allowed to practice medicine in the UK but it's terrifying.
  - rich_sasha 3y ago
    Well, quite. But it seems that, for whatever reason, the migrant workers (or, you know, expats as we'd say if it were the English going abroad) tend to be lower-skilled and, as you say, often their command of the local language is questionable. It's not a dig at people from Africa and Asia in any way, but the selection bias is obvious.
- gghhzzgghhzz 3y ago
  > NHS and schooling are among the top problems in the UK right now. Add social care for the elderly and agriculture but free trade / free movement just papered over the actual issue. You can temporarily use a form of economic imperialism to bring in people to run key services in your country for lower wages, but if won't solve the real issue and won't last forever, because it only 'works' between countries with relative unequal economies. It also does not compensate the donar country for the large issues it creates there. Key workers are not being paid anywhere near enough to compensate for their importance to the country and to the economy, we are not valuing them no matter where they come from, and we are not training and recruiting enough people locally. Until this changes, then people are not going to come here to work in the NHS, child care etc. Free movement or not. This issue was coming sooner or later, in some sectors Brexit has highlighted it. If you want more people to come work here, then support the strikes. EDIT. in addition, good quality child care should be provided free by the state, it is a massive benefit to the economy and to society. That's another core issue that was never addressed while we were inside the EU, nor is it (yet) being addressed outside it.
  - MattPalmer1086 3y ago
    I don't follow your argument. On the one hand you say that because we paid relatively more than poorer countries, this attracted a lot of people to work here. This is apparently "economic imperialism". Then you say that if we want more people to come and work here, we should pay even better than we were?
- makomk 3y ago
  Those labour shortages are happening throught Europe and the developed world though - both general shortages of labour and the specific shortages of, for example, medical staff. The argument I've sometimes seen made is that sure, the EU may have shortages of those staff, but they'll have an easier time dealing with it because they have freedom of movement to allow workers to move to where the jobs are. That makes no sense because no amount of shuffling around workers between countries can change the fact that there's not enough to go around across the entire region and the occupations in shortage are basically the same everywhere too.
  - rich_sasha 3y ago
    From a myopic UK point of view it's still a net negative. They can draw in skilled employees from elsewhere in the EU and have someone else deal with the issue. UK shot itself in the knee by banning them. And it's not even clear what the balance of benefits is, precisely. Expats often return eventually and boost the local economy with money saved while away. Certainly what's happening with Poland - yes there is a pinch from people leaving, but also a cash stream going back.
MattPalmer1086 3y ago
People trade to make money. They don't generally do it to achieve political or social goals. Saying that cutting ourselves off from our main trading partners is "an opportunity to assess what we are trading and why" is like saying that cutting off your legs is an opportunity to assess where we were walking and why.
- gghhzzgghhzz 3y ago
  Indeed. People do individual things. Governments implement policy (or at least should) to make sure these individual things are within the overall goals and policy objectives they have been elected on, and for the good of the whole of the country. Hence you have trade agreements and tariffs, tax, environmental regulations etc. And trade isn't always good. If you are exporting then you are using your own resources (human, minerals, environment) etc to do work for others. This may work for you at an individual level, but it may not work for the country. Four examples from the UK 1) Welsh Lamb. It is produced at great cost to the hill environment, including habitats and the knock on effects of flooding downstream. It was exported to the EU, while we were importing lamb from New Zealand to eat. 2) Fishing. Many of the fish caught in UK waters were exported because we were not used to eating them, while we were importing fish that we were used to eating. Individual fishermen probably did 'ok' out of this system, the companies above them doing much better. But coastal communities were not thriving, they were categorised as some of the poorest areas in the EU. Fishing didn't contribute to a sustainable environment for coastal communities. Then there is the environment, fishing stocks, discarded fishing gear etc. 3) Cars. This is a bit more difficult to solve, but we seem to spend endless resources in the EU and UK producing as many cars as possible. Despite them barely being used (a car sits idle 97% of the time) other than to financially cripple the owners. A car is very inefficient way to travel in the most populated places in the UK. Yet we have built our services around it, and continue to over produce millions of the things every year. Who is benefiting from this approach, rather than proper investment in a first class public transport system and associated planning system? 4) The drug trade. This is a trade full of highly skilled and resourceful people, it generates billions in complex imports and exports and logistics. This is good trade? No of course not.
  - 3y ago

rich_sasha 3y ago

Brexit has exacerbated at least 2 industries due to labour shortages - and probably more. These in turn translate into materially worse conditions for everyone. First one is childcare. Nurseries and preschools were full of nice, dedicated people from Europe working for modest wages - for one reason or another they were happy with it. They have mostly gone home, or return soon after coming. I see this first-hand. I had to take my daughter from an increasingly understaffed nursery, with a staff turnover of, dunno, 100-200%, to a much more expensive one, staffed by very nice and very good English people, but costing 50% more. Other parents at the original nursery are told to take their kids away or accept a 30% day rate increase effective immediately. Schools are short-staffed for similar reasons. Schools are on strike for the 5th time this year, I believe, exacerbated by low staffing and overworked teachers. The parents of the grounded children won't make it to work today. Some of these people not coming to work will cause other people to not make it to work - there are train cancellations near me due to parents taking time off work to cover school strikes. The other is the NHS. Again, this was largely running on highly qualified staff from the EU. They are, also, mostly gone. And NHS complaint #1 in my area isn't actually pay, it's the insane working conditions caused by understaffing. NHS and schooling are among the top problems in the UK right now. Add social care for the elderly and agriculture, both running off immigrant workforce, and I'll say with confidence Brexit made it all much worse.

ChuckNorris89 3y ago
Isn't that why UK is easing migration conditions from Africa and Asia now? To cover the shortage left by the EU migrants? A friend of mine who just moved to the UK, went to a migrant GP who barely spoke English and was googling his symptoms to give him a diagnostic lol. No idea how he was allowed to practice medicine in the UK but it's terrifying.
- rich_sasha 3y ago
  Well, quite. But it seems that, for whatever reason, the migrant workers (or, you know, expats as we'd say if it were the English going abroad) tend to be lower-skilled and, as you say, often their command of the local language is questionable. It's not a dig at people from Africa and Asia in any way, but the selection bias is obvious.
gghhzzgghhzz 3y ago
> NHS and schooling are among the top problems in the UK right now. Add social care for the elderly and agriculture but free trade / free movement just papered over the actual issue. You can temporarily use a form of economic imperialism to bring in people to run key services in your country for lower wages, but if won't solve the real issue and won't last forever, because it only 'works' between countries with relative unequal economies. It also does not compensate the donar country for the large issues it creates there. Key workers are not being paid anywhere near enough to compensate for their importance to the country and to the economy, we are not valuing them no matter where they come from, and we are not training and recruiting enough people locally. Until this changes, then people are not going to come here to work in the NHS, child care etc. Free movement or not. This issue was coming sooner or later, in some sectors Brexit has highlighted it. If you want more people to come work here, then support the strikes. EDIT. in addition, good quality child care should be provided free by the state, it is a massive benefit to the economy and to society. That's another core issue that was never addressed while we were inside the EU, nor is it (yet) being addressed outside it.
- MattPalmer1086 3y ago
  I don't follow your argument. On the one hand you say that because we paid relatively more than poorer countries, this attracted a lot of people to work here. This is apparently "economic imperialism". Then you say that if we want more people to come and work here, we should pay even better than we were?
makomk 3y ago
Those labour shortages are happening throught Europe and the developed world though - both general shortages of labour and the specific shortages of, for example, medical staff. The argument I've sometimes seen made is that sure, the EU may have shortages of those staff, but they'll have an easier time dealing with it because they have freedom of movement to allow workers to move to where the jobs are. That makes no sense because no amount of shuffling around workers between countries can change the fact that there's not enough to go around across the entire region and the occupations in shortage are basically the same everywhere too.
- rich_sasha 3y ago
  From a myopic UK point of view it's still a net negative. They can draw in skilled employees from elsewhere in the EU and have someone else deal with the issue. UK shot itself in the knee by banning them. And it's not even clear what the balance of benefits is, precisely. Expats often return eventually and boost the local economy with money saved while away. Certainly what's happening with Poland - yes there is a pinch from people leaving, but also a cash stream going back.

MattPalmer1086 3y ago

People trade to make money. They don't generally do it to achieve political or social goals. Saying that cutting ourselves off from our main trading partners is "an opportunity to assess what we are trading and why" is like saying that cutting off your legs is an opportunity to assess where we were walking and why.

gghhzzgghhzz 3y ago
Indeed. People do individual things. Governments implement policy (or at least should) to make sure these individual things are within the overall goals and policy objectives they have been elected on, and for the good of the whole of the country. Hence you have trade agreements and tariffs, tax, environmental regulations etc. And trade isn't always good. If you are exporting then you are using your own resources (human, minerals, environment) etc to do work for others. This may work for you at an individual level, but it may not work for the country. Four examples from the UK 1) Welsh Lamb. It is produced at great cost to the hill environment, including habitats and the knock on effects of flooding downstream. It was exported to the EU, while we were importing lamb from New Zealand to eat. 2) Fishing. Many of the fish caught in UK waters were exported because we were not used to eating them, while we were importing fish that we were used to eating. Individual fishermen probably did 'ok' out of this system, the companies above them doing much better. But coastal communities were not thriving, they were categorised as some of the poorest areas in the EU. Fishing didn't contribute to a sustainable environment for coastal communities. Then there is the environment, fishing stocks, discarded fishing gear etc. 3) Cars. This is a bit more difficult to solve, but we seem to spend endless resources in the EU and UK producing as many cars as possible. Despite them barely being used (a car sits idle 97% of the time) other than to financially cripple the owners. A car is very inefficient way to travel in the most populated places in the UK. Yet we have built our services around it, and continue to over produce millions of the things every year. Who is benefiting from this approach, rather than proper investment in a first class public transport system and associated planning system? 4) The drug trade. This is a trade full of highly skilled and resourceful people, it generates billions in complex imports and exports and logistics. This is good trade? No of course not.
- 3y ago