this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2024

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Brexit’s Lasting Damage Is Looking Inescapable (www.bloomberg.com)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Poor Scotland. They voted against Brexit, but were dragged into the quagmire by England.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 8 months ago (1 children)

38% of Scotland voted to Leave. 44% of Northern Ireland voted to Leave. 52% of Wales voted to Leave.

The idea that this is merely a mess of England's making is a little unfair, because there's plenty of blame to go around; Why did 44% of people in Northern Ireland think leaving the EU would be a good idea?

They pushed a question on people that they had no real ability to answer, and then forced us to answer that question with what was essentially a Yes/No answer.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago

Why did 44% of people in Northern Ireland think leaving the EU would be a good idea?

I mean that one's easy, they wanted to break the Good Friday Agreement and put up a border in Ireland. Didn't work out for them but they managed to break it anyway by going into government with the Tories.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Don't forget that London on the whole voted to remain.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Agreed. I'm sick of Londoners being dragged down by all these feckless provincials.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

I'm sick of being lumped in with people that elected Trump because I live in the United States. But that's how it is, we're part of a collective.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Time for London't.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Yep. 60%. Only 5 out of 33 boroughs voted leave and they are peripheral.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago

And Wales don't let them off the hook

[–] [email protected] 23 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Depends on your perspective. Brexit has been great for the Kremlin, not that they had anything to do with it...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

They definitely helped it happen.

[+] [email protected] -15 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Our GDP per capita and productivity have been underperforming since 2003. There's more going on here than just Brexit.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Please provide a source.

According to Worldbank GDP/capita increased from '94-07, dove with the financial crisis, rose again until 2014, and then dove with Brexit, then dove with Covid/hard Brexit. Almost recovered 21, but is currently trending slightly downward, probably hobbled by war making recovery efforts difficult.

Brexit seems to have set the economy back about 5-6 years of growth, and is also dampening new growth (making recovery slower).

The data does not support your conclusion.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Sure! Here's the ONS data for GDP: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/timeseries/mwb6/ukea

Here's the ONS data for Productivity: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/labourproductivity/timeseries/lzvb/prdy

I was wrong on my dates; however. It's more like 2008 rather than 2003, so ties in with the financial crisis.

You also miss my point. I'm not arguing whether Brexit did or didn't affect our economy, I'm pointing out that the data shows we had economic issues long before 2020, and so pointing the finger of blame solely at Brexit is missing the wider picture.

Also, whilst I don't disagree re. your comments on recovery, it's worth bearing in mind that Foreign Direct Investment in the UK remains respectably high as of 2022: https://unctad.org/node/41440

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Thank you for providing sources.

I'm still not clear how your data supports "having issues pre-2020, your data only shows a 2008 dip, which we've explained as a one-off event that UK recovered from before the dip 2020. There's no Brexit dip, which seems suspect, but I'm unwilling to trawl through raw data sources and so will cede that maybe it didn't dip in 2014.

Then we still have the 2019-2020 dip, which coincides with Covid and Hard Brexit. Covid effects aren't expected until 2020, whereas Brexit ones would be felt 2019. Even if we disagree about why, I see no no indication at all in your data, that there were problems pre-2020, no significant dip in neither GDP nor productivity. So where does your conclusion come from?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

If you extrapolate out a trend line from pre-2008 to now on the GDP graph you'll see that the position where we would have been prior to the financial crash is higher than our current position. The same is true on the productivity chart, albeit a lot closer. My point it that we were already in a bad point prior to Brexit.

See, for example, ONS graphs for unemployment: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/unemployment/timeseries/mgsx/lms

Or adjusted pay: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/timeseries/kac3/lms

That's all I'm saying. The issue with with placing that blame exclusively at the feet of Brexit a) ignores the inherent difficulty in separating the economic affects of Covid and Brexit and b) shifts blame from decades of economic and political missteps by our government and onto an convenient scapegoat. The whole things a mess, but Brexit cannot be viewed in isolation.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

If your extrapolate a line during the run up to ANY recession you'll create a line that never gets hit again. Your extrapolation theory reminds me of this Trump "extrapolating" a hurricane path

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It's not just a 'run up to a recession' it's over 12 years of continuous growth arrested in 2008. I'd argue that's more than enough data points to extrapolate a trend line. Don't take my word for it, though. Here's an example of the ONS doing the same thing: https://www.ons.gov.uk/visualisations/dvc496/Recession/chart5/index.html

[–] [email protected] -2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Oh my god, it's even worse when you zoom out. We'll never catch up to the trend lines set by the years of unsustainable growth before the recessions in the 70's. Oh the permanent damage we caused. It's an absolute tragedy that after a recession we never get back to the trend line that was set by the bubble before it burst. I'm not patient enough for the slow and steady fundamental growth of humanity through time, I want continuous fast exponential growth so the shareholders can he happy all the time!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

This isn't about shareholders, this is about demonstrating the economic performance of the UK in the lead up to Brexit as it pertains to our current situation. In your previous comment you seemed to be implying that you can't extrapolate a trend line prior to a recession and I demonstrated that you could because the lead up was measured in years. I'm not arguing that damage from a recession is permanent, I'm arguing that it put us in an already bad place in terms of productivity etc prior to 2020.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Here you go...

UK GDPPer Capita

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

2008 crash then austerity. Austerity was politically motivated. Most economists I've read/heard follow Maynard Keynes. That who country's credit card nonsense has got to go. Educate the electorate, don't pander to ignorance.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

It was also based on a spreadsheet that didn't have all the cells selected when "averaging".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22223190

[+] [email protected] -21 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It's a convenient scapegoat for the neoliberal political class, since it was the only decision actually made by the people. It allows them to throw all the blame on the working class, which they love doing anyway.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Totally, do you ever get frustrated when people keep telling you that you're not that bright, well fuckem, they're all woke work shy immigrants I bet!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Are you people even capable of hiding your classism for five minutes?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Hating the rich is like hating murderers, it's not a feeling you should hide in polite company like racism. Every minute of their breathing lives they choose to take more from society than they give back. That's how these dragons of modern times create their unimaginable hoards. No knight in stories of old hid their desire to slay the foul beasts, because doing so is always virtuous and worthy of praise.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

How is this classism? Your original comment also changed ordinary people to working class, which I consider myself to be both part of.

You are suggesting that Brexit was some fight against some elite. The EU is a neo liberal mess, but the Tories who pushed this through by stoking bigotry are full on fascist and fully just taking advantage of useful idiots like yourself. Disaster capitalism is not a new concept

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blood-Streets-Investment-Profits-World/dp/067162735X

Victorian pencil made a fortune out of this shit show.

And of course David Cameron is laughing all the way as he whistles his way out of power by giving a big fuck you to the EU tax laws

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/07/david-cameron-offshore-trusts-eu-tax-crackdown-2013

Yeah, you show them elites...