Posted on 04/24/2019 11:56:02 PM PDT by Cronos
The never-ending conversation about leaving the EU has stalled all other progress on economic policy.
.. only prolongs a paralysis in necessary economic decision-making, which is already taking its toll.
...In effect, the day-to-day business of government has been stymied. After a decade of austerity, major decisions on taxation and expenditure—including a spending review this year—remain limited by the need to keep fiscal headroom for various Brexit scenarios. Meanwhile, attempts to get domestic legislation moving, including reforms for stretched public services like health and social care, have been thwarted by civil servants being redeployed to focus on EU exit issues, key ministers being occupied by the Brexit debate, and the churn in personnel.
The immediate costs of political uncertainty since the referendum have been high. Some estimates suggest that the U.K. may have lost up to $1 billion per week, or around 2 percent of GDP overall, relative to a status quo scenario. The loss of business confidence in the economy, and the need for contingency planning, has been a key driver. Some car manufacturers are putting plans on hold, banks are relocating jobs (though less than previously forecast), and some multinationals are shifting their European headquarters onto the continent. The audit firm EY estimates that financial services firms are moving around $1.2 trillion in assets from the U.K. to Europe.
..With firms in the U.K. cutting investment for a fourth straight quarter at the end of 2018, and R&D spending also stagnating. Yet the opportunity cost of the tumultuous and elongated process of Brexit so far is also likely to be just as significant for Britain’s future. It dropped out of the world’s top five economies in 2017 and is soon set to be overtaken by India.
(Excerpt) Read more at foreignpolicy.com ...
As someone who has both argued that Brexit is a false allure AND that the UK needs to experience a Hard Brexit as 40 years of euromyths have hopelessly divided the electorate, I still hold that even worse than Brexit for the UK will be the continuing uncertainty.
AGREED!!!!!!!
ACT.
OR DECIDE NOT TO.
BUT DECIDE!!!
What an unmitigated disaster.
That combined with their Increasing police state for even whispering something about muslims...I don’t know about this country’s future.
But they have that london mayor to keep them going...
ACT.
OR DECIDE NOT TO.
BUT DECIDE!!!
seriously?
Don’t know who you are but when you answer with one absurd word, you aren’t worthy of a response other than this one.
Read the article. Reading is fundamental.
Leave already. At one time, the sun never set on the British Empire. Men who can accomplish that, should be able to leave and figure out the speedbumps along the way. The colonies did.
Wrexit
Lack of a decision more often than not can be worse than making a wrong decision.
Theresa May is working with Jeremy Corbyn to cut a deal and sell out Brexit approving a deal they will call Brexit but won’t be.
I hope they fail.
Real Brexit can’t be allowed to happen and the political machine is determined that it won’t.
What she’s been working toward from the start is not only a non-Brexit Brexit, but a non-Brexit Brexit that will take away the UK’s ability to be able to decide to leave (that is, to leave) in the future.
The goal is not only no Brexit but new terms that take away the UK’s right to leave the EU in the future (that is, without the EU deciding that it wants to permit the UK to leave).
Brilliant:)
The decision was made with the vote.
My two cents as a person who lived in the UK for five years and decided not to continue and in fact that it wasn’t a family oriented environment (at least the South-East)
1. The UK decayed when its schooling system decayed. I knew 30 somethings (now 40 somethings) who, when in school, had the option to drop history. The majority of Brits know only drabs of their history and they don’t know both sides 0- they are either “oh the British Empire was heaven” or “white people ruined everything” where the reality is between and depends on the place and time
2. They have given up their religion. I lived in Brighton and we had a strong Catholic community among the youth, but out of the 25 odd people in the young adults group, only 2 were English. And the Anglican community was worse. There were strong Catholic, Baptist and Coptic church communities, but the rest of the place was spiritually DEAD. There were people who had no idea about Christ (yes, incredible) - native Brits.
3. They have, since the 70s, harboured terrorists and others who attacked secular regimes in the Middle East and South Asia. Playing colonial games. And now its come to bite them in the a$$
you read about the Pakistani gangrape gangs targeting white girls in Rotherham, but you don’t read that the white communities there are like poor black communities in the USA - no fathers, mostly on the dole. And unlike black families in the USA, these white families in the UK have no religion and no culture besides the TV. Perfect targets and no wonder the Muslims despise them and treat them like animals.
This would never have happened in a place that retained its culture and religion.
Is it the end for the UK? I personally believe it is the end for the UK and it will devolve into its constituent parts. That’s my opinion and I could be wrong. Scotland culturally was equally a desert both in culture and religion as England. I don’t know about Wales or NI.
It is sad - when I moved there in 2000 I was filled with the idea of this being an Edwardian country with people speaking like Wodehouse or Sir Humphrey, with a deep sense of history and culture. I was bitterly disappointed. So was my wife, a fellow Anglophile but from Poland. We didn’t see it as a place to raise kids and don’t regret that decision.
With regards to Brexit, this is classic indecision, but the Brits MUST leave. Their politicians have passed the buck for so long, they must stand up and learn.
I do not see this as a conservative versus liberal issue - we should not be taken in by the party name. I don’t see the UKIP or the Farage crew as remedying the destruction of culture and religion in the UK, so I don’t see any real difference. I do see the UK, Netherlands, Germany ganging up against real social conservatives in Central Europe, so i am happy to see that crew weakened.
If the UK is to revive, it should return to Christ. Full stop. The same thing for the other European countries.
Indecision is worse than a bad decision.
These are not the same men. The British of today are not the same as their great-great-grandfathers
Before the British Empire the sun never set on the Spanish Empire, but by 1800 it was a weak man of Europe and by 1900 had no empire and was poor.
The Ottomans were unstoppable in 1550 but they decayed.
Ditto for every superpower, starting from Akkad in 2200 BC.
latest news is that it isn’t happening. Corbyn gains nothing from this - he is anti-EU and wants to leave both the EU and the customs union.
LOL! Anyone who’s ever owned a cat understands that perfectly!
That’s what you don’t get - the vote was framed as a non-binding, referential vote (stupid, yes), with no conditions or anything. They were just badly prepared.
Then 37% of the possible voters (and 52% of those who bothered to vote) went for leave. They decided.
Now the UK is where parliament is sovereign, not the people. When parliament decided to call for Article 50, THAT was the decision time.
The parliament decided to accept May’s “let’s leave on March 29, 2019) statement.
But the UK government now can’t decide whether to live up to its own statements.
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