Car industry investment plummets in UK
bbc.com
bbc.com
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/may/22/what-went-w...
"The UK steel industry has been in decline for some time because of a variety of factors such as overcapacity in EU steelmaking and Chinese state-subsidised firms flooding the global market with cheap product. An industry that employed 323,000 people in 1971 now employs less than a tenth of that, at 31,900. The closure of the Redcar steelworks in 2015 was a significant blow to the sector and left the UK with only two blast furnace steelworks, which make steel from raw materials: Scunthorpe and Tata Steel-owned Port Talbot in south Wales. There are also four electric arc furnaces in the UK, which make products from recycled steel. There are three of these sites in Sheffield and one in Cardiff."
One country led a campaign against it... The UK.
Then both Scunthorpe and Port Talbot areas voted in favour of Brexit.
Though I may of missed something - please could you point a source that shows that the UK was the only country to vote to keep cheap Chinese steel imports? Asking as I thought this was actually 14 countries, and about some import duty rule that covers many things above and beyond, cheap steel.
"The fact is that the UK has been blocking this. They are not the only member state, but they are certainly the ringleader in blocking the lifting of the lesser duty rule,"
Taking into account that many small EU countries don't have a steel industry so may not have a strong view beyond wanting cheap steel.
Then, the results of the EU referendum are public facts. The areas mentioned heavily voted for Brexit.
Way to look at it is, if the EU was a company and the UK was an employee. Would you want to keep that negative vibe employee who wasn't really towing the company ethos, or just let them go?
Why?
Well, it seems to come back to China.
> Tata Steel’s head of public affairs, warned the Welsh affairs committee in February that the chancellor, George Osborne, was pushing for China to get market economy status at the World Trade Organization, which would protect Beijing from the highest EU trade barriers, and that this could exacerbate the continent’s steel crisis.
This seems to be part of a general plan of China-wooing, e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/sep/21/george-osbo... and https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-34356097 , culminating in property fraud https://www.egi.co.uk/news/fraud-team-investigates-propertie...
(Mind you, the UK's steel industry is largely a historical contingency built on local deposits of ironstone and coal which are no longer economical to mine)
In 1971 there was ore and coal being mined in the UK. Maggie Thatcher got rid of the miners so coal has to be bought on the open market. The ore for steel went similarly to having to be bought on the global market. The UK is no longer an island of coal in a sea of fish.
Economically it makes more sense to ship steel from where the ore and coal is rather than to ship the raw ore across to the other side of the world.
Also, this is the real story: Spoiler: It's not Brexit
https://www.businessinsider.com/automobile-car-industry-prod...
You can certainly argue that Brexit isn't the sole cause, but it's definitely a large factor. While the overall market for cars is declining, the switch from ICE to electric should actually stoke demand. Some of the most productive car manufacturing plants in the EU are located in the UK and either being closed or are in danger of closing; if Brexit played no part then it would make no fiscal sense to close British plants.
Even-though, after-Brexit UK won't be part of the EU. A UK factory will export cars to the EU with mandatory customs fee and taxes. If your cars have to clear customs anyway why not build them in Ukraine?
In the end, only Jaguar-LandRover (arguably the more "British" manufacturer) seems to have partially managed to pull that off with a 500m loan; everyone else (even Nissan, who supposedly got some guarantees in writing from the previous administration) decided it's not worth the trouble and is in the process of slowly divesting.
Put another way, nobody blamed joining the EU for the demise of way more manufacturing and indeed the coal industry. Yet that is what happened. Cheaper EU coal imports, then eventual erosion of manufacturing bit by bit. But that gets overlooked oddly enough.
Still the UK shifted from manufacturing to services, albeit many EU trade deals and indeed their own members, kinda fall foul in how they handle services with the EU actually looking at punishing members for not opening up their services market.
But in fairness, whilst the EU is not perfect - nothing is perfect.
The US never voted to leave the EU; they were never part of the EU, and openly fought against the French in the 7 Years War. The US voted to leave the British Empire -- and fought a war for it (with some French help later, of course).
Nearest I can tell Brexit is a confluence of UK Conservatives and foreign interests spreading Agi-Prop to A) enrich themselves at the expense of the UK as a whole, B) to split the UK from the EU in a geo-political sense, and C) to, in all likelihood, crush the UK economy.
> Put another way, nobody blamed joining the EU for the demise of way more manufacturing and indeed the coal industry. Yet that is what happened. Cheaper EU coal imports, then eventual erosion of manufacturing bit by bit. But that gets overlooked oddly enough.
Coal was on the way out regardless of European integration. The US was never in the EU and coal still vanished; Donald Trump pandering to the coal industry is not and will not bring it back. Likewise, staying out of the EU would have been, at best, a temporary stay of execution for the UK coal industry.
Without Brexit, a sector crisis might have resulted in one company closing a UK plant and another closing a plant elsewhere, weighting specific pros and cons case-by-case.
With Brexit, they both close a UK plant, because it’s now a no-brainer. The UK after Brexit will have high labor costs AND high tariffs on goods’ movement. There is almost no reason to manufacture here.
Brexit is a massive hole in the UK appeal for manufacturing that targets the EU market. This is a hard fact. Everything else is wishful thinking.
If/when the £ goes down the toilet (even more) labour will be cheap.
Hint: it doesn't look good.
I'm not saying Brexit will be pretty, but I think we'll be running back to the EU well before we end up competing with China on price.
(b) The £1bn will be spread over many years, almost none of it this year.
(c) Low global car demand leads to reduced investment. The investments that get cut first are the ones where labour is already expensive, skilled labour is about to get much harder to get and supply chains are about to be screwed up massively. Guess where that is.
On those other issues I would say it's more subtle, in that leaving the EU at least opens the door to genuine controls on migration, for example, but the major parties are united in their refusal to offer the choice to the public.
Can you be extremely clear on what you mean by this, and what you expect to achieve by restricting migration of EU nationals to the UK and UK nationals to the EU? And also acknowledge that the UK's controls on non-EU migration are extremely onerous and not a matter of EU policy?
The argument is made that leaving the EU for more or less tangible feelings around sovereignty, identity etc. is futile because leaving the EU won't deliver changes in those areas. What I'm saying is that I agree it won't on its own deliver changes, but that it at least opens the door to changes in those areas. However, genuine change would require a political party to offer genuine controls on migration, for example, which none of the major parties are offering (Brexit Party arguable). Even Boris is offering an amnesty for illegal migrants already in the UK, and not offering any hope that migration will go down under a points based system.
I don't think it's sensible to argue that we are not on the path towards a United States of Europe, and that leaving opens the door to a different future, I mean, why would the fight to keep the UK in be so fierce unless there were a lot at stake?
It's futile arguing on the substance with me as if I'm advocating for it, I'm not, I'm just analysing.
The UK already has a points based immigration system, for example: https://workpermit.com/immigration/united-kingdom/uk-visa-ti... ; so why do people think it needs one?
In a democracy the populace should be offered a choice and have their choice respected. If you don't believe that, you believe in tyranny.
A lot of people would deny this, but I'm at the stage where I am openly contemptuous of a lot of my countrymen for their aggressive refusal to listen to reason and their vindictive pursuit of policies which have harmed a lot of my friends. I count both EU and non-EU immigrants among my colleagues. Are you saying I should choose loyalty to random idiots I've never met but happen to share a birthplace with over people I actually work with and like?
> evidence of migration is glaringly obvious
People's immigration status is not written on their foreheads. What you mean is that you can see nonwhite or hear non-English-speaking people.
> In a democracy the populace should be offered a choice and have their choice respected. If you don't believe that, you believe in tyranny.
Sounds great, but what if the choice is meaningless, impossible, or infringes the rights of others? We can't "respect the choice" to, say, abolish rain on days when cricket is being played. And we should not respect the choice to take away the rights of others, such as the deportation and de-citizenship of British nationals who were born in Britain but happen to be of non-white ancestry.
Appreciate your honesty, but you live in a society and other people have strong opinions also. Your opinion doesn't trump theirs, no matter how heartfelt it is or righteous you might feel
> People's immigration status is not written on their foreheads. What you mean is that you can see nonwhite or hear non-English-speaking people.
Yes? And? So what? I'm not allowed to believe the evidence of my own eyes now else I'm racist?
> Sounds great, but what if the choice is meaningless, impossible, or infringes the rights of others? We can't "respect the choice" to, say, abolish rain on days when cricket is being played. And we should not respect the choice to take away the rights of others, such as the deportation and de-citizenship of British nationals who were born in Britain but happen to be of non-white ancestry.
Immigration could be drastically reduced if there were the political will, but all major parties are fiercely pro-immigration. And you are having a laugh if you are seriously arguing that the drastic change observable is all British nationals.
There's no point in us going much further as neither of us will convince the other. Bottom line: voters should be offered a choice, and that choice should be respected no matter how hateful you might think the motives. It's called democracy and it's all we have between us and the Gulags. Efforts to undermine it and free speech should be resisted at all costs.
Tying your identity to your country's can never end well, because every country has a nasty past and is full of despicable acts, which are very difficult to come to terms with. The UK, for instance, with its conduct when bombing Dresden, or when dealing with the famine in Bengal.
I am not sure how the EU is imposing upon the community of the UK, when it famously has some of the most stringent requirements for immigrants.
Both Dresden and the famine you cite are debatable.
But anyway you are mistaken if you think I am advocating. I'm not. I am observing/speculating that I think many people that voted leave looked at the economic arguments and rated those lower than intangible feelings about identity etc. I don't think this is controversial! Politicians everywhere even when they make economic arguments couch them in emotional terms in order to sell them. It's standard politics.
For shits and giggles, I'd LOVE to see you take a gander at justifying the inferno that was Dresden, and for extra credit, Churchill's: "I hate the Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion".
I'm all ears cause I'm Indian, see.
PS: I hope you don't get the impression that I think you're advocating for brexit. I do get that you're just explaining the Why. But I do not agree that it ISN'T controversial. Thanks to the shenanigans of the Leave dickheads, Britain has fucked not only itself, but a lot of other things as collateral.
Well, good luck in your re-education programme for the majority of the world's citizens then that identifying with their nation is horrific. Who are you, or anyone else to stand in judgement?
My view on Britain's history is that Europe/the World was a bad neighbourhood back then, and to apply today's standards is dishonest. And how far back do you want to go? Also I could throw in that India itself dealt out some pretty unpleasant ethnic cleansing during partition if you like. I suppose that's all the UK's fault as well though.
I think you are being a little bit Mary Poppins in calling out the shenanigans of the Leave side alone. It's all just politics, Leave did nothing especially egregious. Even the £350m pledge is now shown to have been accurate. UK politics sadly is becoming one long history of lies, broken manifesto pledges and xxxxing over of the British public.
The reason I'm spewing bile is because of this fallacy that both sides, Leave and Remain, were equally bad. I see the same thing when people say climate deniers should be given equal airtime, or when people say the US Democrats are just as bad as the Republicans.
No worries. But you don't get to determine how other people feel, or to tell them what to think. Acting like you do is just as dangerous as nationalism.
Edit: question for you: you said 'saying tying your identity to a nation is a cesspit to begin with' - so to take the First Nation peoples in Canada as an example (and I know there are a multiplicity of different groups here) - going by your statement it might be thought best to deprive them of ties to their traditions and history, because this equates to them tying their identity to a nation (group of people). Agree, or not? And if not, how is their situation different to any other nation?
> The reason I'm spewing bile is because of this fallacy that both sides, Leave and Remain, were equally bad. I see the same thing when people say climate deniers should be given equal airtime, or when people say the US Democrats are just as bad as the Republicans.
That's just your opinion. What makes you the omniscient, perfect judge? There are people on the other side that would argue the direct opposite of what you say - 17.4m or so of them perhaps. You would argue that they are all just stupid/ignorant/evil etc?
Wut? It's today's news that the government has already spent £ 4 billions to brexit preparations, with the prospect of spending more from here to October and beyond. There won't be any "dividend" from brexit, let alone 350m a week.
As for Churchill and India, he got 100,000 tons of wheat shipped to India, during a war. India has been invaded seven times, right? Did any of the other six ship comparable quantities of drought aid across either the Himalayas or the ocean when there were droughts in a part of India?
Treat with scepticism.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/yellow_vests
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-48154777
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-46917989
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-48983089
etc. You can find hundreds of additional articles. It's absurd how more and more frivolous and meritless these attacks on the BBC are becoming as time goes on.
One further point. You may not be referring to this, but the claim the BBC were suppressed from covering the protests was a debunked claim originating on 4chan (https://metro.co.uk/2019/01/28/bbc-ordered-stop-reporting-ye...).
The BBC's latest article, which I linked, was 14 July. The BBC aren't alone in this: it's also the most recent French protest to be covered by Reuters, CNN, and other major news organisations.
The Hong Kong protests are still a major, significant event. The French protests have dwindled and are no longer as relevant.
I don't believe they merit equivalent courage today, in nearly August 2019. No news organisation is covering the protests in France now as fervently as they were when the protests were at their zenith. The recent protest on 14 July (which the BBC covered) numbered only a few hundred, down from hundreds of thousands[1] in prior months.
[1]: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-nationalday-protes...