Brexit Negotiations

[Copps is Magic]

The BBC doesn't have a pro-EU bias.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/brexitinc/peter-geoghegan-adam-ramsay/whos-paying-for-these-reports-on-bbc-brexit-coverage

In fact, what the research of David Keighley (hard-line brexit supporter who's producing all this research that the Murdoch press are reproducing, and financing) actually shows (if you read it) is that the BBC didn't really much discuss brexit from 1999. He basically analysed one programme (the today show on BBC radio 4 with the odd other) and found there were less anti-EU voices heard on there (which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone because there are not many experts, professionals, or those qualified enough to talk on the radio who think brexit is a good idea).

Rigorous, peer-reviewed academic research has shown there was a bias towards showing pro-leave figures in BBC media leading up to the vote.

[auckleyflyer]

Billy, I feared that it was a decision the public were being asked to make, that no government would/could ever push through.
Much is made of the boris bus
But project fear was real, I and many others felt it. There would be an immediate and catastrophic collapse in the economy, house prices, pensions. You may argue that there has been, but wasnt immediate and it hasnt been a catastrophe. Therefore all bets are off and I think as the clock ticks the eu will turn and realize what they are loosing. You cannot surly say the eu was fit for purpose, and the change/influance from within argument has worked over the last 40 year!!!!
The leave vote would be higher im convinced. Remaiers are best off focusing on the closeness of the vote and softening the exit?

[Glyn_Wigley]

Go on then. I’ll have a weary sigh and ask what this pro-EU bias is at the BBC?

Whatever 'bias' he thinks there is, I bet it doesn't outweigh the barefaced lies in the link I posted.

[selby]

  Thanks for thinking I am not stupid then Red J, I have looked at the facts, have decided that another vote is stupid, and against the democratic standing of this country, and will vote out the next time instead of in, if a completely undemocratic vote is taken, which it will not.

[Glyn_Wigley]

What's an undemocratic vote?

[Not Now Kato]

  Thanks for thinking I am not stupid then Red J, I have looked at the facts, have decided that another vote is stupid, and against the democratic standing of this country, and will vote out the next time instead of in, if a completely undemocratic vote is taken, which it will not.

So, people not getting what they voted for is democratic?  The mind boggles!

[selby]

  The trouble with those who called therefurendum, and those who want another hoping for a different result, was and is, to believe they could, and can change minds. They did not, and cannot, and the ensuing chaos has left the government with limited authority.
  There is a realistic prospect of a radical Marxist chancellor could serve a socialist P.M. with a raft of worrying views and positions.
 On the other side is an extreme ideological faction vying for control of the Tories.
  We will find out who was right about Brexit in due time, but if you believe that the purpose of our political system is to promote stability, the referendum has not bolsted that, but unleashed a factional free for all that has not improved democracy, but has the potential to imperil it.
  Glynn apologies, lets say another stupid  vote on the same subject, will that do you?

[Glyn_Wigley]

All I would say is that if another referendum was held once the terms of exit were known it wouldn't be exactly the same subject.

[selby]

  Face it Glynn, there won't be one, a short transitional period for the big hitters to get their house in order, and that's it, out into the big new world.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Auckley.

Yes it was predicted that there would be a major economic hit if we voted out.

Have you heard this afternoon’s Treasury statement by Philip Hammond? The economic growth figures are horrendous.

In Spring 2016, it was predicted that economic growth over the next 5 years would be about 2.3% per year. Today Hammond has said that growth will be as follows:
2018: 1.5%
2019: 1.3%
2020: 1.3%
2021: 1.4%
2022: 1.5%

An average of 1.4% compared to 2.3% which we were expecting before the Brexit vote.

These are the Govt’s own figures.

Just stop and think what that means. Our economy will grow by about £18bn less than expected in every one of the next 5 years. And that comes on top of figures for 2016 and 2017 which were already lower than expected.

And these figures compound. If you lose £18bn in 2017, you’re starting 2018 £18bn lower. Your economy is therefore also £18bn weaker in 2018. Then you lose £18bn on top of that in 2018 because of lower growth in that year. So you’re now £54bn worse off. And so it goes on.

That means that by 2022, we’ll have lost something like £3-400bn compared to what we had been expecting in 2016 before the vote.

THREE-FOUR HUNDRED BILLION QUID!

That’s about £12-15,000 for every single household in the country! Lost. Gone. Forever.

Think about what that means. For that money, we could rip up every single mile of motorway in the country and replace them brand new.

Four times over.

We could build 1.5-2million new houses and give them away for free.

We could build 600 brand new big infirmaries.

We could pay the defence budget for 10 years.

We could build 10,000 new comprehensive schools.

That’s gone. Forever. Because of the Brexit vote.

And it’s actually even worse than that. Because the predictions in 2016 were made before the world economy went into a boom period which has kept the U.K. economy afloat to the level that it already is. Given the fact that pretty much every other developed country has seen its growth predictions INCREASE by about 1% whilst ours have dropped by 0.9%, it’s not unreasonable to say that the money we’ve actually lost is more than twice the amount I’ve said.

You still reckon “Project Fear” exaggerated? This is an absolute, unmitigated catastrophe. That we’ve chosen to impose on ourselves.

That’s the consequence of Brexit. Not a sudden collapse but a major long-term weakness that adds up to horrific losses over 5-10 years. So pensions and living standards don’t get hit immediately. But over a decade, we will be far, far poorer than we should be.

[Glyn_Wigley]

  Face it Glynn, there won't be one, a short transitional period for the big hitters to get their house in order, and that's it, out into the big new world.

I know there won't be one, but if there was it couldn't be as big a 'stupid vote' as the one we've already had in ignorance of the exit terms.

[Bentley Bullet]

"Because the predictions in 2016 were made before the world economy went into a boom period which has kept the U.K. economy afloat to the level that it already is".

Why didn't the experts predict a world economy boom?

[BillyStubbsTears]

BB

That’s not how macro economics works. The global economy relies on the decisions made in many, many countries all interacting. It’s far too complex to predict. You don’t know how decisions made in China and America and Germany and U.K. and Japan and India and Indonesia and everywhere else will interact. That’s why no-one can predict with any accuracy when a global boom or a global crash is coming.

Macro-economics can and does look at the effects of big decisions on single economies. They can predict with relatively good accuracy what the effect will be on a single country of that country deciding to spend more or less. Or the effect on that country of a decision to make trading easier or harder. Those predictions work relatively well. That’s why the vast majority of economists predicted back in 2010 that Austerity would lead to an extended period of sub-par growth in the UK. Which it did. The same economists predicted that a Brexit vote would make it harder for us to trade with the biggest free market in the world and that that would lead to less investment in the U.K. and less economic growth. They were bang on.

They WERE predicting back in 2016 that the effect of this would be to tip us into negative growth or, in other words, a recession. That hasn’t happened because the global economy has unexpectedly boomed.

But. While the rest of the world is booming and other countries and getting significantly richer, our growth has dropped massively.

We’re missing out on a boom and Hammond has said today that we’re going to keep missing out until we’ll into the 2020s.

[Bentley Bullet]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43380212

[BillyStubbsTears]

BB.

Your point being?

[Bentley Bullet]

It just shows a bit of positivity and suggests that things may not be so bad. Hammond says the UK economy had reached a turning point and there is light at the end of the tunnel.

OBR chief Robert Chote said: "Overall the referendum vote does seem to have weakened the economy as we and most other forecasters expected, but not quite as much as we forecast back in November 2016.

[Copps is Magic]

I'm starting to believe the EU debate has been a welcome distraction for the Tory party for the terrible economic damage their austerity policies have done. When you've got people labeling Labour's broadly Keynesian economic policies, Marxist, it also has to be an indication their propaganda machine is still in motion.

For the record, 1.4% GDP growth is not really good for a capitalist economy as a whole; and take out immigration of the productive young people who come to this country (as apparently some brexiteers want to do) economic growth is close to zero over the last 10 years.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Sweet Jesus it’s like hammering nails into your head.

Where to start?

1) Of course Hammond says there’s light. He’s a politician. He’s not going to stand up in front of Parliament and say the Govt has f**ked up.

2) November 2016 figures. Two points.
i) What really matters is not whether the economy is looking better now than it was expected to do immediately after the vote. It’s how it’s looking compared to the predictions BEFORE the vote. In the Spring 2016 Budget, the expectation was that we’d have growth of well over 2% for the foreseeable future. Now the prediction is that growth will be under 1.5%. That’s how you lose £300-400bn over 5 years.

ii) Chote seems to have forgotten his own figures from November 2016. Back then, the Autumn Statement growth predictions were:

2018 1.7%
2019 2.1%
2020 2.1%
2021 2.0%
(Figures here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38075649 )

Today they are
2018 1.5%
2019 1.3%
2020 1.3%
2021 1.4%
(Figures here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/spring-statement-2018-what-you-need-to-know# )

How you get a conclusion that the economy is doing better than we expected in November 2016 is anyone's guess, but it's obviously done the trick of convincing you BB.

[Bentley Bullet]

I'm not convinced by any forecasts, owd lad, but I find the positive ones more appealing. Whether my optimism is to no avail remains to be seen. Only time will tell.

I'll definitely get back to you in 2020 ish!

[Glyn_Wigley]

It just shows a bit of positivity and suggests that things may not be so bad. Hammond says the UK economy had reached a turning point and there is light at the end of the tunnel.

OBR chief Robert Chote said: "Overall the referendum vote does seem to have weakened the economy as we and most other forecasters expected, but not quite as much as we forecast back in November 2016.

"We're still in the shit but not as deep as we thought." Incredible positivity.

[wilts rover]

It's worthwhile remembering of course that those growth figures are best scenario figures. We have all seen the Government's own Brexit Impact Assessment figures and the consequences of no deal - 8% lower.

[BillyStubbsTears]

BB

I’m not sure what you DO listen to. You don’t like predictions about what will and you also ignore data about what HAS happened. Our economic performance HAS already slumped over the past two years while the rest of the world is surging. Just like economists were predicting it would if we voted Leave. Those predictions are no longer predictions. They are established facts.

[Bentley Bullet]

BST, predictions about what will happen? Don't you mean predictions about what might happen? What about the George Osborne prediction of tax rises and spending cuts being implemented instantly if we voted out? Likewise, what about the immediate recession that was predicted? Or what about Cameron turning his back on the country after promising he'd see the job through if we voted out?

See me, I like to wait a bit longer before reaching for the anti-depressants. You just never know exactly what is going to happen.

Like I said previously, I'll get back to you in 2020 ish.

[BillyStubbsTears]

BB

I’m struggling to count how many times I’ve said this now. We’ve already had 18 months of significantly reduced economic performance following the Brexit vote. That WAS predicted but it’s no longer a prediction. It’s a fact.

You have never once acknowledged that fact. Which makes me think you don’t really have any interest in discussing this seriously.

[Bentley Bullet]

So tiresome....... But we're STILL not in a recession as was predicted more than a year and a half ago!

I've never denied that our performance has been reduced since the vote. I even asked you several posts ago if you thought the general election could be partly blamed for it.

[BillyStubbsTears]

BB

How many times is it now that I’ve pointed this out? I’ll try just one more time to spell it out. Read it. It’s REALLY simple.

Economists predicted that the Leave vote would produce a sharp drop in economic growth. Back in 2016, we were growing at 2-2.5% or so. They said that the effect of a Leave vote could, all other things bring equal, tip us into recession. Or, in other words, knock 2-2.5% off GDP growth.

Since then, our economic growth has fallen by about 1% in the past 20 months whilst most of the G7’s has gone up by well over 1%. So it’s pretty clear that we’ve lost something like 2-2.5% of GDP growth.

We’ve been saved from going into recession because there was an unexpected surge in global growth. But we HAVE lost 2-2.5% of growth relative to the rest of the world. Just as predicted.

As for the General Election. No. I answered you on that weeks ago. Our GDP growth has already slipped rapidly before June 2017. It’s stabilised since then. So there is no evidence whatsoever that the Election has an effect. Just as I explained previously.

See. It’s really not that hard. 

[Bentley Bullet]

So, because of global growth, we haven't gone into recession, as was predicted by the experts. The fact of that is, despite your claim of unforeseeable circumstances (global growth) the experts got it wrong.

That in itself proves they're not infallible, so how can you claim that they have been right so far and will be infallible with their predictions for the future?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Sorry I’m slow replying. I’ve just been banging my head against a wall.

No the economists did NOT get it wrong when you look at what they were actually predicting.

Their predictions have been correct for our performance ALL OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL.

If the rest of the world hadn’t had a boom, we WOULD be in recession. The boom has happened so we’ve avoided recession because we’ve been swept along.

Now, if the rest of the world continues to enjoy a boom that gets even stronger then yes, we’ll get pulled along in the slipstream and we’ll do a bit better than the current predictions suggest.

BUT

We’ll still end up poorer relative to everyone else AND RELATIVE TO HOW WE WOULD HAVE DONE WITHOUT BREXIT.

THAT is what they have predicted. The effect of Brexit compared to Not-Brexit. The RELATIVE effect of Brexit. Relative to the rest of the world, and to our pre-vote performance, we have had precisely the hit that they predicted.

[Bentley Bullet]

BST. Why don't you answer my questions?

You said; "You have never once acknowledged that fact that we've had reduced economic performance following the Brexit vote".

I pointed out that I have, and you confirmed it in your penultimate post. Is an apology warranted?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Yep. I apologise.