I’m quite curious how this will end in the UK. Regardless of how much Brexit has to do with this, I think the lack of actual Brexit opportunities and the contribution it has to core inflation is at one point going to change the political landscape.
Reading the UK personal finance subreddit is really sobering. Most people’s idea of a high salary (even in good industries) is less than a mediocre junior dev salary in the US.
I feel extremely fortunate to have moved into tech when I did, but even there only American companies offer top tier wages. Are there any British companies competing with FAANGs on salary?
On the plus side, maybe inflation is good for indebtedness?
For example, I live less than an hour from London and my total monthly outgoings (including a mortgage) are less than £2,000.
I don't think that the central bank solution of putting up interest rates to reduce the number of jobs is going to help, people still need to eat.
According to the government's own statistics we've seen massive increases from countries like India despite the anti-immigration rhetoric displayed by the Tories.
We've also got a partnership with India that helps fill in the gaps. Not to mention the record study visa's issued to India.
"India first again. I’m delighted that Indian nationals were issued the largest number of UK study, work and visitor visas in the year ending June 2022. More strength to the unique living bridge that connects our people." Alex Ellis, British High Commissioner to India [2]
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populati...
[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/india-receives-largest-sh...
Edit: the link above shows that in raw numbers, non-EU migration increased while EU decreased. Appears to not be a complete 1:1 replacement, though. I asked because if you only give the proportion, it can still increase if just the EU migration numbers go down.
Also relevant to reading the graph, the campaign/referendum on brexit started in 2015.
>An estimated 202,000 citizens from other EU countries immigrated to the UK in the year to September 2018, and about 145,000 emigrated abroad. So EU ‘net migration’ was around 57,000—roughly the lowest level recorded since 2009.
>In the year before the referendum, net EU migration was estimated at 189,000, so there’s been a large fall following the vote.
Obviously other countries are going to make up a higher percentage of those immigrating, but the total amount of immigrants is down according to that article.
If you look at that report you will notice that the main change to net migration was Covid-19 and even with that, it's pretty steady but you can see that EU migration is down significantly but completely compensated by non EU immigrants (page 16).
There was also the issue that some EU countries(i.e Italy) were giving italian/EU citizenship to fresh immigrants from Africa so that they can travel to the UK. For some reasons a big part of the UK didn't like that for obvious reasons.
Source for this please? As far as I understood it is extremely difficult for such people to get Italian citizenship and had never heard of this as an issue
https://www.euractiv.com/section/uk-europe/news/african-migr...
The argument was made that UK cannot control its borders from non-EU immigrants because Italy at the time was giving them enough papars so they could travel legally to the UK.
To be honest I cannot recall for sure if they were getting instant italian citizenship or just some form of residency. However in the end they could even get british citizenship because they would live in the UK long enough(i believe it's 5 years) using the EU papers. There was benefits fraud as well.
Unfortunately I cannot find the articles anymore. It's almost like a conspiracy that everything regarding immigration before Brexit is no longer search-able(I know it's just Google's algo discarding old news). Immigration was the issue number 1 for the british people before Brexit. I beleive it's not over yet as european politicians are still ignoring people's concerns on immigration.
You can't simply up sticks and go to work in Paris or Amsterdam or Vienna anymore. That birthright was stolen.
Meanwhile we had a hot summer affecting the harvest, rising cost of energy inputs to the food sector (and every other sector) and a bird flu epidemic affecting supplies of eggs and poultry.
We see that the current government is unwilling to go down that path, although Covid did throw a major spanner in the works of public finance, so the country is almost guaranteed a slow (or not so slow) decline.
This is not about whether I think Brexit is good or bad, but it did happen and that changes what the country can and should do in order to prosper under those new conditions.
The problem with this strategy is that the major trading blocks of USA, EU and China will not allow the UK to undercut them. So if the UK goes down this path, then companies based there will find themselves cut off. The UK domestic market is not large enough on its own.
China is even more controlling than the US.
London used to be the center of finance in Europe and now the EU sees an opportunity to grab that revenue / power.
Where does this leave London?
And the UK as a whole is heavily dependent on London.
I think you'll find it still is, by quite a long way
> now the EU sees an opportunity to grab that revenue / power.
the EU hasn't even managed to pry Euro clearing out of London (despite trying extremely hard)
and it'll be pushed back again
China is not relevant.
You're not making a convincing point, IMHO.
It's like how everybody got to attack May as incompetent for the Brexit she proposed, which was obviously the only Brexit possible (i.e. as far as the EU was ever going to go.) They push her out, sneering, then go on to do exactly the same deal they pushed her out for. The UK public just needs scapegoats, and the UK political class serves them on a platter.
And of course even many in her own party were out to kill her, which did not help.
Parties were saying exactly the same thing about debt in 2010 when debt / GDP ratio was lower in order to win an election and implement austerity.
Covid Debt in the UK was all QE anyway, so is effectively money we owe to ourselves.
I do agree that Truss could have done all the things she wanted to do if she had just been smarter about presentation.
Edit: Level of QE does not imply that the government did not take on massive debts as well. It's not one or the other.
QE went from 445bn before Covid to 895bn at end of 2020
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/quantitative...
EDIT: also https://neweconomics.org/2021/10/99-5-of-government-covid-de...
This has e.g. happened with the Horizon Europe research program which Switzerland is no longer part of.
That’s so self-destructive - surely the EU needs Switzerland’s powerful universities more than Switzerland needs Horizon?
I'm not saying EU would ever do something that radical, but my point is, the EU has far more screws to turn on Switzerland in case of a diplomatic conflict, than vice versa.
Which is why Switzerland tightened their banking secrecy regulations at the insistence of the EU despite Switzerland not being beholden to EU laws.
Switzerland in practical terms needs the EU more than the EU needs Switzerland. The current situation is suboptimal for both sides obviously, but from the EU side you can mostly ignore that discourse.
[0] I excluded the UK but I'm not going to check which Nordic countries are EU members.
It's well-known that the US News rankings have their problems, but it seems like they'd have to be really out of the ordinary in order to support your claims.
https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-un...
Only one EU in the top 50.
Their primary reason for existence now is for rich foreigners (mainly from China and the middle east) to give their kids a status symbol education, this includes not failing bad students because the fees are so high.
The only people to benefit from this is are the University leadership and the property developers that build luxury accommodation for all the rich students.
I'm not sure if it is that bad in Switzerland. If they properly fund higher education for native citizens maybe not.
The working visas that are created for this will remove the rights UK citizens have to make the visa holders "more attractive" to employers.
Good luck to native workers in the UK competing with an Indian on a work visa that has no working time regulations, holiday allowance, etc. and very little leverage to complain in case their visa gets revoked.
There's an important point to highlight here: low paid workers from India working long hours with no holiday will not actually be able to compete with either highly skilled Indian workers who can already get visas, or highly skilled native workers or workers from other developed countries, even if they demand holiday, high pay, etc.
Indeed, this migration report [1] suggests that immigration decreases wages for low paid workers, but increases wages for medium and high paid workers.
Immigration doesn't just boost labour supply, it boosts demand too, but not always in the same jobs, so the effects on wages can be uneven.
If it were that simple to replace highly paid workers, we'd have all already been offshored, but that never seems to materialise.
1: https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/th...
The Conservatives should've stuck with May's compromise - now Labour are likely to take power.
It was blocked by Labour and other parties.
It would have been the most practical way forward at the time. It would have been softer and better planned and with a better working relationship with the EU.
It would also have meant that Labour would have been in partial control of parliament for another 3 years as May's majority relied on people who hated her and was never going to last for every vote. Then we would have had another election this year not in 2019.
I honestly don't know what people were thinking at the time. It was obvious that not compromising would end in chaos.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/nov/20/hardline-br...
wishful thinking by journalists...
but this one's such a huge vote loser even the opposition refuse to discuss it
it's some journo that's got wind of part of some second hand discussion and has turned it into a scoop
> In July 2022, the Scottish Greens announced that, if a referendum were blocked, they would fight the next general election as a referendum instead
General elections are 25 months away. Labour is up 30 points in the polls or something like that. Brexit probably didn't help the UK economy but the economical ramifications of the Ukraine war haven't even begun to unfurl yet. Hard to take polls two years out seriously no matter how huge the margin is and yet if these things don't somehow resolve that will be a general election for the history books. The UK will simply never be the same again.
I don't have a horse in this race but it is pretty clear that Labour surfing such a populistic wave, given their current rhetoric, will turn the place into an actual banana republic. (People no doubt will get bent out of shape about this because of political ideologies but the observation is simply about populism)
Much as it pains me to say it, the French will become the new UK. And England will become like Italy.
Land borders. In Northern Ireland this creates a problem because you eitehr have to have a customs border between NI and the Republic of Ireland or between NI and Great Britain. The first can't really happen. The second is more natural but separates the Unionists (Protestants) from the UK but it's the only practical solution.
Combine this with the Republican (Catholics) population growing faster than the Unionists and Brexit has made reunification essentially inevitable.
So imagine how "Scexit" would work. A hard border between Scotland and England? It's almost as unworkable as a border between NI and Eire. This is really why Scexit has failed and that'll continue to be the case.
The situation with Northern Ireland is different because Ireland is part of the EU, and no one wants Northern Ireland mainly as a smuggling route between the EU and Great Britain. It has crossed my mind that some folks must have thought about smuggling/regulatory arbitrage as some sort of Brexit dividend for the UK as a whole, but so far this doesn't seem to be happening.
It's also significantly worse, as there's only around 25 scotland-england border crossings, whereas there are over 200 border crossings between NI and ROI (more than on the entire eastern border of the EU).
The rUK government is likely to be as bloody minded as the EU has been and acting in it's own perceived interest (which is not purely financial). It would be able to make things very difficult for an independent Scotland if it so wanted.
Why is a hard border unworkable in the Scottish case? I could definitely imagine this is true, e.g. if Scotland has to import much food or other goods. Or because Scotland depends on the pound. And maybe, in that way, it shares some parallels?
the SNP have been saying this since the first vote in 2014
If an actual referendum was allowed and held today it would perhaps be a toss up. But two harsh winters from now if the economy is still spiraling it will be a foregone conclusion.
Point being why would anyone invest in Scotland or the rest of the UK during such tumultuous times? And this political instability is set to continue for years and years now.
to what end? with no agreement from the UK government nothing will happen
> Point being why would anyone invest in Scotland or the rest of the UK during such tumultuous times?
there's no doubt it hurts investment in Scotland
however its economic impact on leaving the UK would be more or less a non-event for the rest of the UK
(Scotland's share of UK GDP being less than the UK's share of EU GDP)
Obviously to exploit anti-union sentiments for political gain.
> however its economic impact on leaving the UK would be more or less a non-event for the rest of the UK
It would be followed by Ireland and the end of the union. England will find itself with a smaller population than Italy and similarly mired in political instability and infighting.
The difference between vying for the #1 economy in Europe and #4 is quite profound.
and how effective has this been?
if the UK government doesn't permit it: it doesn't happen, end of story.
> It would be followed by Ireland and the end of the union.
I have news for you, Ireland left in 1921
(if England does end up being independent again its citizens would be significantly better off as the subsidy to the other parts of the UK are quite considerable)
Great. I hope so, I have no idea. But it won't be the UK anymore. Very different place in the world and very different internal politics. Maybe it will become like a mini-US but without the natural resources and economical clout.. doesn't seem promising.
it'll be exactly the same an England is essentially the UK (which is the SNP's problem with it)
this is explained in one very simple chart: https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-96b10105bd7d45574f1b5...
I don't think I've heard this proverb used to justify vague predictions before. It's always been the (proper) meaning of "you were right, but only by accident".
It's interesting to see it used in a "I know we've been saying that for eight years, but we'll be right at SOME point!" way.
I'm neutral on the topic of Scottish independence but from a purely tactical perspective it'd be surprising if another referendum could be won at the moment. Sturgeon appears to know that and looks a lot like she's trying to string the SNP base along by claiming to want one without actually getting another referendum.
Problems any new campaign would face:
- The EU. It could be mostly ignored last time. A large part of the SNP base is pro-EU and wants to join as a separate country, whilst another large part of the SNP base is genuinely pro-independence and wants Scotland to be ruled by Scots. These two positions can't be reconciled. EU membership means rule from Brussels. The SNP is theoretically an independence party but would be campaigning on a vision of gaining full independence and then immediately attempting to give it up again, and this would create weaknesses that any competent pro-union campaign would presumably exploit. The hard border and being required to join the Euro would also be a new requirement that wasn't a part of the debate last time.
- Relatedly the financial situation is now worse than before and the EU might not want Scotland as a consequence, as it would be expected to replace the UK's massive subsidies. Joining can take years, in the meantime it would require severe austerity measures to stabilize the new state's finances.
- The SNP has never resolved many of the open issues that caused them to lose last time. What currency would they use, would there be access to the BBC and other infrastructure, border issues, North Sea decomm etc. These questions had clearly been left to the last minute and the pro-union side hammered that fact to great effect. Yet they don't seem to have got much further with the planning since. Tactically this just strengthens the unionist attack line that the SNP don't really want independence - if they did, surely they would be obsessive about all the things they'd do differently after leaving the UK and would have whole libraries devoted to the topic.
If the SNP want to force and win another referendum they need to start having these discussions with their supporters, even if they're unpleasant (e.g. adopting the Euro is generally unpopular).
This was the Brexit lie, and it's not really a sustainable argument post-Brexit.
> Joining can take years, in the meantime it would require severe austerity measures to stabilize the new state's finances.
A referendum wouldn't require leaving immediately; again, see Brexit. Negotiate an EU entrance while preparing for exit.
> The SNP has never resolved many of the open issues that caused them to lose last time.
Again, didn't stop Brexit.
Why do you think rule from Brussels is a lie?
Because it was a lie the last time it was the talking point.
The UK still winds up having to meet EU standards if they want to sell products there; all the regulatory burden, none of the benefits. They could have decided to have blue passports any time they wanted. The 350 million pounds a week for the NHS never materialized. etc. etc. etc.
Presumably with the UK now out of the EU, many of those people would vote for independence. (And I believe Spain, which was the country people were most worried about vetoing an independent Scotland joining the EU because they don't want to encourage those regions of Spain that want to break away has since said that it would have no objection as long as Scottish independence happens in a way that is legal under UK law).
That range is significantly lower than 16.2%.
where does this rumour keep coming from?
bar during covid I haven't observed this in any supermarket (unless you go at 9pm on a Saturday night or something, where they haven't restocked yet)
Prices are rising for some lines though.
The idea that this is a "global problem" is convenient for the UK government and Brexit supporters, but not based in reality.
I don't know about reality, but what you've done is delivered anecdotes when we know that prices in the US have gone up about 10% and prices in the UK have gone up 15%. There's no need for anecdotes, especially for another round of calling Brexiteers deluded.
Eggs got expensive here but it’s generally been in stock.