If we were to rejoin the EU tomorrow, what benefits would you miss most about Brexit?

[mangocrazy]

So all the short term disadvantages, costs and pain will somehow change into long term advantages, rewards and sunlit uplands? How exactly is that supposed to work and what is the timescale?

We need to turn the UK into a high tech, high spec, high wage economy, with a safety net welfare system. That was never possible with low wage EU workers having free access. We have cut the free access, now we have to build the high tech/spec workforce, reward them with high wages, and tighten the screw on the dross who chose not to engage. More or less in that order. The benefits will start in 10 - 15 years, the real changes will take probably 2 generations.

It will not be easy, or quick. The alternative, muddling along in an increasingly centralised bureacratic EU waiting for the implosion is easy, but not where I want to go. Federal states have a huge problem, the US shows well the tensions that exist and that has been a single country for some time now. The US of Europe is coming, but will IMO self destruct soon afterwards, and the fall out will be nasty.

This is complete pie in the sky. The low wage EU workers were doing work that UK workers weren't prepared to do, such as fruit picking and driving lorries for stupid hours and no breaks. The last thing this government intend to do is build a high tech/spec workforce. This is just highfalutin' nonsense that drips from the mouths of government ministers in lieu of any realistic proposals. What the UK is doing is engaging in a race to the bottom, whereby the majority of workers are on zero hours contracts. The high tech side of things is being ruthlessly automated so that the number of real high tech workers will be vanishingly small and most of those will be located in India or the Philippines.

Before I retired a year or so ago I saw all this in action where I worked, in HSBC IT. Anything that could be shipped out to India was, even when good sense told you that it wasn't a smart idea. I'm talking operators in the data centres who have to control critical incidents, for example. I lost count of the number of leaving dos I attended for colleagues who had been made redundant and their function offshored.

If you actually believe what you have written, and aren't just parrotting some party line, then you are clearly deluded. Take a look around you - where are all these high tech/spec jobs and why couldn't they have been created 10, 20, 30 years ago? They don't exist and they won't exist, except a very small number in very specialised pockets of industry. The reality for the overwhelming majority of UK inhabitants will be a slow decline in living standards. There are no sunlit uplands, I'm afraid. It was all just a mirage.

[slowsider]

So all the short term disadvantages, costs and pain will somehow change into long term advantages, rewards and sunlit uplands? How exactly is that supposed to work and what is the timescale?

We need to turn the UK into a high tech, high spec, high wage economy, with a safety net welfare system. That was never possible with low wage EU workers having free access. We have cut the free access, now we have to build the high tech/spec workforce, reward them with high wages, and tighten the screw on the dross who chose not to engage. More or less in that order. The benefits will start in 10 - 15 years, the real changes will take probably 2 generations.

It will not be easy, or quick. The alternative, muddling along in an increasingly centralised bureacratic EU waiting for the implosion is easy, but not where I want to go. Federal states have a huge problem, the US shows well the tensions that exist and that has been a single country for some time now. The US of Europe is coming, but will IMO self destruct soon afterwards, and the fall out will be nasty.

It wasn't even possible when the UK was at the centre of an exploitative colonial empire with the ability to project naval power globally, so how exactly will it be accomplished when trade deals have to be negotiated with stronger partners?
If you want Britain to be the Singapore of the North Sea, bear in mind nearly a third of their population is non resident foreigners.

[DefTrap]

.

If you actually believe what you have written, and aren't just parrotting some party line, then you are clearly deluded. Take a look around you - where are all these high tech/spec jobs and why couldn't they have been created 10, 20, 30 years ago? They don't exist and they won't exist, except a very small number in very specialised pockets of industry. The reality for the overwhelming majority of UK inhabitants will be a slow decline in living standards. There are no sunlit uplands, I'm afraid. It was all just a mirage.

Most of us desk jockeys should be shitting ourselves. If there's one thing covid showed it's that it's perfectly possible to work 100% from home (if you wanna ignore mental health and probably h&s) without productivity going to shit, so farming it out to cheap Eastern Europe and beyond is the cheaper option and you can turn them on and off like a lightbulb.

So if uk high tech was a brexit policy (and it definitely wasn't), that horse has bolted. Let's hope Boris and his minions have another fib policy to throw into the ring.

[Cousin Jack]

So, who are you going to get to do all the low paid jobs that no one wants to do? You know, the manual, no career progression, manual labour, long hours picking strawberries, lettuce, apples etc

Why do we have such jobs? Because the labour is cheap, if it isn't those jobs will get automated. You know, like telephone operators got replaced with machines.

[Lutin]

So, who are you going to get to do all the low paid jobs that no one wants to do? You know, the manual, no career progression, manual labour, long hours picking strawberries, lettuce, apples etc

Why do we have such jobs? Because the labour is cheap, if it isn't those jobs will get automated. You know, like telephone operators got replaced with machines.

But how long will it take to develop replacements for -

Seasonal fruit pickers
Refuge collectors (or should that be recyclable collectors - or even bin men (in old money))
Care workers - either residential or home visit
Grounds men and women - the ones that mow the grass and prune the shrubs and trees
the list goes on and on.

Yes, it's a great aspiration but it's all a long way off. So, where do you get the bods to fill the low skills jobs in the meantime since the UK, apparently, doesn't want any stinking foreign labour.

By the way, there's a very interesting article in issue 44 of Delayed Gratification which dealt with migrant workers and the failure of farmers to encourage local workers. One farmer manager had two locals start and one left after an hour with "Sorry mate, but it's not for me". So, if it isn't for him - who is it for?

This is not being flippant. Just who is going to do these jobs NOW?

[Felix]

Grounds men and women - the ones that mow the grass and prune the shrubs and trees

This is not being flippant. Just who is going to do these jobs NOW?

Me and making a not bad living from it. Never going to make my millions but happy enough. Think we still have a bin man here or at least the driver. The bin lads i speak to when pulling the bins back in all sound local to me so no need to panic there about the cheap foreign labour. Having said that i dont know about in Englandshire but we still have our Easter European fruit and veg pickers as well as the odd school leaver wanting to make a few bob before Uni starts. Only thing i see changed here is less small groups of Europeans sitting around in the park drinking. They seemed to have fucked off or the council had a crack down on the drinking in public bylaw.

[Hoonercat]

.

If you actually believe what you have written, and aren't just parrotting some party line, then you are clearly deluded. Take a look around you - where are all these high tech/spec jobs and why couldn't they have been created 10, 20, 30 years ago? They don't exist and they won't exist, except a very small number in very specialised pockets of industry. The reality for the overwhelming majority of UK inhabitants will be a slow decline in living standards. There are no sunlit uplands, I'm afraid. It was all just a mirage.

Most of us desk jockeys should be shitting ourselves. If there's one thing covid showed it's that it's perfectly possible to work 100% from home (if you wanna ignore mental health and probably h&s) without productivity going to shit, so farming it out to cheap Eastern Europe and beyond is the cheaper option and you can turn them on and off like a lightbulb.

So if uk high tech was a brexit policy (and it definitely wasn't), that horse has bolted. Let's hope Boris and his minions have another fib policy to throw into the ring.

Ssshhh!! There's plenty of very well paid English-speaking jobs here (compared to the cost of living). The UK might be importing more Indians to make up for the Eastern Europeans, but it's also exporting plenty of jobs to Eastern Europe* for us expats. Keep it under your hate though, you know how frothy they get about that sort of thing

*Great for Bulgaria though, many young'uns returning from the UK and working in outsourcing, thanks to the language skills they built in the UK.

[Cousin Jack]

Once upona time we had small farms, local farm labouers, and it worked. Farm labourers hated cutting brocolli because it was a freezing and back breaking job in winter. They were ok with driving a combine or a tractor in summer. Both were part of their job, and they took the rough with the smooth.
Now we have big agribusineses that have specialist drivers and just want people to do the back breaking jobs, 52 weeks a year.
The solution is obvious, redesign the job, and the career path. Yes, shit jobs still need doing, but just as a part of a better whole.

[JackyJoll]

Once upona time we had small farms, local farm labouers, and it worked. Farm labourers hated cutting brocolli because it was a freezing and back breaking job in winter. They were ok with driving a combine or a tractor in summer. Both were part of their job, and they took the rough with the smooth.
Now we have big agribusineses that have specialist drivers and just want people to do the back breaking jobs, 52 weeks a year.
The solution is obvious, redesign the job, and the career path. Yes, shit jobs still need doing, but just as a part of a better whole.

I was a farm servant for three years.

Did you just say “career path!”

[Asian Boss]

Getting it done, sending them back and defending the statues. That's the Brexit we voted for.

[Asian Boss]

Of course we will rejoin the EU. It's inevitable.

We won't have the golden ticket we had before either. We will rejoin along the likes of Romania. With fewer perks and privileges.

Which is a good thing. The UK has too much inherited privilege. We may not pay the reparations we should but we should have fewer perks which were gained through immoral means.

[JackyJoll]

Of course we will rejoin the EU. It's inevitable.

We won't have the golden ticket we had before either. We will rejoin along the likes of Romania. With fewer perks and privileges.

Which is a good thing. The UK has too much inherited privilege. We may not pay the reparations we should but we should have fewer perks which were gained through immoral means.

You’re a nutter, mate.

[mangocrazy]

Of course we will rejoin the EU. It's inevitable.

We won't have the golden ticket we had before either. We will rejoin along the likes of Romania. With fewer perks and privileges.

Which is a good thing. The UK has too much inherited privilege. We may not pay the reparations we should but we should have fewer perks which were gained through immoral means.

I agree with the conclusion you reach, but not the means by which you reach it.

When we left the EU we squandered a very advantageous position, which we would never be able to re-attain. In leaving the EU, and the farcical manner in which we did it, we trashed a hard won reputation for probity, diplomacy and common sense. Instead we are now viewed as something of a laughing stock, due to the self-inflicted pain we have imposed on our nation for reasons (if they can be called that) which defy rational explanation.

As a result, if/when we do reapply to join the EU it will be as supplicants, holding a begging bowl.

[Kneerly Down]

What the UK is doing is engaging in a race to the bottom, whereby the majority of workers are on zero hours contracts.

Why write stuff that is easily shown to be untrue?
Employees on zero hour contracts has been effectively static for the past 6 years at 2.8% of the workforce.

[mangocrazy]

What the UK is doing is engaging in a race to the bottom, whereby the majority of workers are on zero hours contracts.

Why write stuff that is easily shown to be untrue?
Employees on zero hour contracts has been effectively static for the past 6 years at 2.8% of the workforce.

Nice piece of cherry-picking. Show me your proof for that statistic.

[weeksy]

https://www.statista.com/statistics/414 ... cts-share/

Took me 12s on Google

2021, 2.8 percent of all workers in the United Kingdom were on a zero-hours contract, compared with just 0.4 percent in the mid-2000s. There has been a significant expansion in zero-hours work contracts since 2000, with the most considerable annual increase occurring between 2012 and 2013, with a peak of three percent occurring in 2020, when the number of people in zero-hours work was estimated to be 978 thousand.

[mangocrazy]

OK, replace 'the majority of' with 'a significant number of' and the rest of my point still stands.

I don't feel the need to validate someone else's assertion. That's their job.

[weeksy]

OK, replace 'the majority of' with 'a significant number of' and the rest of my point still stands.

I don't feel the need to validate someone else's assertion. That's their job.

I don't really do politics but no, a 2.8% figure is not a significant number. Not really. It's 2.8%. that's like 97.2% from 100. Lol.

Sure, it's some people but that's it.

[Asian Boss]

Don't worry about all that zero hours contract bollocks.

As long as we can keep giving that extra £350 million a week to the NHS and sending the buggers back (or to Rwanda) in some sort of belief that gives ourselves and people like us a small and highly debatable advantage, then Brexit is winning. That's before we even get started on the huge farming and fishing benefits I think we've all felt the results of.

Can someone remind me when the Festival of Brexit is again? It's all going so well.

[Hoonercat]

Zero-hours contracts aren't that bad, It encourages big business to invest in the UK, knowing they can just fuck them off at a moments notice.