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Sorry, but I don't think this is the reason. There were vastly more people in financial services calling for us NOT to have brexit than fishermen asking for it,

by matt-p 2y ago

Sorry, but I don't think this is the reason. There were vastly more people in financial services calling for us NOT to have brexit than fishermen asking for it, even in number of people. I honestly don't think this was a numbers of people affected vs "% of GDP" affected issue. Not at all. What good did it do for us? At the time everyone was running around rubbishing and laughing at the "outrageous" claims of 10% GDP loss, and where are we now?

ben_w 2y ago
> What good did it do for us? At the time everyone was running around rubbishing and laughing at the "outrageous" claims of 10% GDP loss, and where are we now? Impossible to say, as it was swamped by the pandemic. My guess as to the fatalities due to Brexit is also untestable as a result.
- matt-p 2y ago
  true, impossible to come up with a scientific answer, but you could compare with european countries who also went through a similar covid response and start to see a bit of a trend leap out. For what it's worth I'm not sure if the number is actually 10%, but I'd hazard that it's more than 5/6.
mattmanser 2y ago
It's not actually about the fishermen, it's about the whole rural communities. Just like farming, it's everyone living out there. How the fishers and farmers are being treated is how those communities at large feel like they're being treated. And they always feel like they're being shafted, even though that's just progress and other industries got shafted much worse in the past. So for every 1 fisherman, there are 20 other votes. And they all generally vote conservative, those are blue strongholds (blue over here is conservative, red labour). For every 1 Games Workshop employee, there's no other votes. Even spouses will be fairly uninvested in how the government is treating toy exports. But on the other part of your comment, there's been no 10% GDP loss. Note, I voted remain, and would vote to rejoin in a heartbeat. But we're roughly at the same position today in the world as we were in 2016, compared to other countries. Sitting about 6/7th in the world. Everyone's suffered since covid, everyone's struggling with growth. There's been no big drop in GDP. So it was actually scaremongering. It feels like there's a conspiracy of economists who lie, heavily influence markets, but their lies don't match reality. It's ideological propaganda for free-market capitalism, rather than fact.
pjc50 2y ago
There's tons of people in email jobs who are just clamouring to get up at 6am and gut fish! /s Something not really addressed in all of this is that a lot of the people whinging about British jobs and so on, especially in high-Brexit areas, are actually themselves retirees. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-36619342 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-36619342 "Of the 30 areas with the most elderly people, 27 voted leave". Now, they're often living in economically depressed areas. I've seen Blackpool and Lowestoft (the sad little marker of the UK's easterly point, right next to a gas terminal). But you can't give them their jobs back, because they're not working any more. It's nostalgia. I'm going to keep hammering the question of "why should people move from lucrative, comfortable email jobs to harder, less lucrative factory jobs, or, god help them, fishing?" The UK is actually at ""full employment"" (NAIRU): https://obr.uk/box/the-equilibrium-unemployment-rate/ https://obr.uk/box/the-equilibrium-unemployment-rate/ - that is, economists believe it cannot go lower without causing inflation, as shortages mean you can't hire people without having to offer more wages to poach them from other jobs. (Another conundrum: people want higher wages without higher prices. How are you going to do the arithmetic on that?)

by matt-p 2y ago

ben_w 2y ago

> What good did it do for us? At the time everyone was running around rubbishing and laughing at the "outrageous" claims of 10% GDP loss, and where are we now? Impossible to say, as it was swamped by the pandemic. My guess as to the fatalities due to Brexit is also untestable as a result.

matt-p 2y ago
true, impossible to come up with a scientific answer, but you could compare with european countries who also went through a similar covid response and start to see a bit of a trend leap out. For what it's worth I'm not sure if the number is actually 10%, but I'd hazard that it's more than 5/6.

mattmanser 2y ago

It's not actually about the fishermen, it's about the whole rural communities. Just like farming, it's everyone living out there. How the fishers and farmers are being treated is how those communities at large feel like they're being treated. And they always feel like they're being shafted, even though that's just progress and other industries got shafted much worse in the past. So for every 1 fisherman, there are 20 other votes. And they all generally vote conservative, those are blue strongholds (blue over here is conservative, red labour). For every 1 Games Workshop employee, there's no other votes. Even spouses will be fairly uninvested in how the government is treating toy exports. But on the other part of your comment, there's been no 10% GDP loss. Note, I voted remain, and would vote to rejoin in a heartbeat. But we're roughly at the same position today in the world as we were in 2016, compared to other countries. Sitting about 6/7th in the world. Everyone's suffered since covid, everyone's struggling with growth. There's been no big drop in GDP. So it was actually scaremongering. It feels like there's a conspiracy of economists who lie, heavily influence markets, but their lies don't match reality. It's ideological propaganda for free-market capitalism, rather than fact.

pjc50 2y ago

There's tons of people in email jobs who are just clamouring to get up at 6am and gut fish! /s Something not really addressed in all of this is that a lot of the people whinging about British jobs and so on, especially in high-Brexit areas, are actually themselves retirees. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-36619342 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-36619342 "Of the 30 areas with the most elderly people, 27 voted leave". Now, they're often living in economically depressed areas. I've seen Blackpool and Lowestoft (the sad little marker of the UK's easterly point, right next to a gas terminal). But you can't give them their jobs back, because they're not working any more. It's nostalgia. I'm going to keep hammering the question of "why should people move from lucrative, comfortable email jobs to harder, less lucrative factory jobs, or, god help them, fishing?" The UK is actually at ""full employment"" (NAIRU): https://obr.uk/box/the-equilibrium-unemployment-rate/ https://obr.uk/box/the-equilibrium-unemployment-rate/ - that is, economists believe it cannot go lower without causing inflation, as shortages mean you can't hire people without having to offer more wages to poach them from other jobs. (Another conundrum: people want higher wages without higher prices. How are you going to do the arithmetic on that?)