Brexit

I'm reminded of this article from a few months back:

Furthermore, in the wake of the Brexit win, a significant number of those who voted Leave told the media they regretted it, or didn’t understand it, or thought it could be reversed at the next election, or that they did it as a protest against austerity and the Tories.

An irate local farmer told me he voted to leave as a protest against EU bureaucracy that delayed payments of his subsidies. When I pointed out that Defra was responsible for the delays, he said, “That’s right!”. He thought Defra was an EU department. He didn’t realise it was Britain’s Department for Rural Affairs and that the EU had fined our governmental department for its incompetent administration of subsidies. No matter, we got our country back, even if it means losing the subsidies and keeping the incompetence.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/bre ... 58886.html

Even if people come round to immigration being a necessity or overall economic benefit, fewer people will probably want to come over for work in the wake of the rise of anti-immigration views. The damage may have already been done unfortunately.

Cuttooth wrote:Even if people come round to immigration being a necessity or overall economic benefit, fewer people will probably want to come over for work in the wake of the rise of anti-immigration views. The damage may have already been done unfortunately.

EU Nurses applying for much needed jobs in the NHS have declined massively.

I am strawberry floatin' amazed at the stupidity of these strawberry floating idiots that voted leave. Jesus H Christ, talk about shooting yourself in the foot. There absolutely no benefits to leaving. Sure EU is corrupt and incompetence in some areas but the work that we don't talk about... the behind the scenes stuff.... is what kept Britain afloat. You'd have to be a cretin to deny that!.

Photek wrote:Jesus.

I've listened to James O'Brien, watched Newsnight and followed things about brexit when I can. It all boils down mainly to racism imo, you can say they were misinformed and some of them were. In that scenario, right now, anyone who say's they were misinformed should now change their opinion on Brexit and anyone who still says Leave after looking at the facts or choosing not to, I think, is racist.

I am not sure that is totally true. There was definitely a huge amount of racism/xenophobia around the vote (I highly doubt many racists voted for Remain ) but that doesn’t account for all of the Leave vote.

Misinformation/lies were a big culprit, the prominent Leave campaigners lied and scaremongered and did so with no punishment at all. In fact one of them got a plum job as Foreign Secretary. Who wouldn’t want £350million extra per week put into healthcare? Who wouldn’t want to lead the world in trade? Who wouldn’t want to be free of a despotic fascist regime? Who wouldn’t want sovereignty? All of that misinformation and lies got into the heads of a huge number of people.

Ignorance is also to blame (and is linked to the above), people couldn’t be arsed to educate themselves about what the EU was, what it did and why it was a good thing for us. I see clips of O’Brien’s radio show where he always seems to be asking Leavers what law/regulation they disliked. And they can never ever answer, because they have no idea.

The Remain campaign should take some of the blame, it was a rubbish campaign and never had a comeback to any of the Leave lies.

You are right that people ought to now look at the facts and re-evaluate, but those people are still being lied to, they are still lazy ignoramuses and the top Remainers are still useless. People don’t like to admit they were wrong or stupid and it’s easy for them to get away with living in ignorance as they are still being told that “the EU are bullying us!”, “the metropolitan elite want to overrule your vote”, “ReMoaners!” and other such bollocks.

The worrying part is people leaving the country because of the uncertainty of this, and because of a small but incredibly vocal bunch of twats spouting hate filled nonsense at them.

Did I read about immigrants having to fill in post Brexit status forms?

Photek wrote:Jesus.

I've listened to James O'Brien, watched Newsnight and followed things about brexit when I can. It all boils down mainly to racism imo, you can say they were misinformed and some of them were. In that scenario, right now, anyone who say's they were misinformed should now change their opinion on Brexit and anyone who still says Leave after looking at the facts or choosing not to, I think, is racist.

Careful. Someone reported me for calling Leave voters racist before.

I think there's a growing number of farmers who want an end put to the current system where so much of their income is reliant on subsidies and different types of grants. The prices sheep and cattle farmers get for their product from processors has barely moved in the last 10 to 12 years and and the current system of selling their produce at a loss or just breaking even and hoping to turn a profit once they get their grants is strawberry floated. Basing income on a fair price from processors would be a huge benefit to younger farmers as well as the current setup keeps land prices ridiculously high as older farmers are content to maintain stock levels on their land and rely on the grant as a top up but there is no need for them to produce quality animals.


The subsidy model is broken and needs a massive overhaul.

bear wrote:I think there's a growing number of farmers who want an end put to the current system where so much of their income is reliant on subsidies and different types of grants. The prices sheep and cattle farmers get for their product from processors has barely moved in the last 10 to 12 years and and the current system of selling their produce at a loss or just breaking even and hoping to turn a profit once they get their grants is strawberry floated. Basing income on a fair price from processors would be a huge benefit to younger farmers as well as the current setup keeps land prices ridiculously high as older farmers are content to maintain stock levels on their land and rely on the grant as a top up but there is no need for them to produce quality animals.


The subsidy model is broken and needs a massive overhaul.

But the reality is that without those subsidies they will wither and die. People will turn to cheaper imports rather than pay extra.

Moggy wrote:But the reality is that without those subsidies they will wither and die. People will turn to cheaper imports rather than pay extra.

Yup. We may end up flooded with US produce too when we eventually get that trade deal done.

Garth wrote:

Moggy wrote:But the reality is that without those subsidies they will wither and die. People will turn to cheaper imports rather than pay extra.

Yup. We may end up flooded with US produce too when we eventually get that trade deal done.

Will we ever get tired of winning?

Lucien wrote:

Photek wrote:

Although this is probably the most coherent post you've ever made, unless you have an actual riposte to the man don't be a dick, eh?

Moggy wrote:

bear wrote:I think there's a growing number of farmers who want an end put to the current system where so much of their income is reliant on subsidies and different types of grants. The prices sheep and cattle farmers get for their product from processors has barely moved in the last 10 to 12 years and and the current system of selling their produce at a loss or just breaking even and hoping to turn a profit once they get their grants is strawberry floated. Basing income on a fair price from processors would be a huge benefit to younger farmers as well as the current setup keeps land prices ridiculously high as older farmers are content to maintain stock levels on their land and rely on the grant as a top up but there is no need for them to produce quality animals.


The subsidy model is broken and needs a massive overhaul.

But the reality is that without those subsidies they will wither and die. People will turn to cheaper imports rather than pay extra.

But that's because of how the system has been let develop over the past 30 or 40 years. Every time someone tries to start a conversation about how maybe farmers should be getting a fairer price for their produce it's nearly always met with "herp, they get a big grant, derpy derp" and the conversation gets shut down. As I'm writing this farmers in Ireland are currently being offered prices between €4.05 and € 4.20 per kilo for beef cattle which they will have spent up to three and a half years, if they breed cattle and don't just finish them, getting ready to sell. That beef will be sold at anything up to €30 a year kilo in a fortnight's time once it's been processed. It's a busted system that is bad for farmers as their incomes are worse now than they were 30 years ago despite producing better animals than ever before and dealing with much more regulations.


I'm not sure how it can be meaningfully changed at this point though while maintaining current quality levels. British and Irish beef and lamb is among the best in the world in pure quality terms and enough isn't made of that fact.

bear wrote:

Moggy wrote:

bear wrote:I think there's a growing number of farmers who want an end put to the current system where so much of their income is reliant on subsidies and different types of grants. The prices sheep and cattle farmers get for their product from processors has barely moved in the last 10 to 12 years and and the current system of selling their produce at a loss or just breaking even and hoping to turn a profit once they get their grants is strawberry floated. Basing income on a fair price from processors would be a huge benefit to younger farmers as well as the current setup keeps land prices ridiculously high as older farmers are content to maintain stock levels on their land and rely on the grant as a top up but there is no need for them to produce quality animals.


The subsidy model is broken and needs a massive overhaul.

But the reality is that without those subsidies they will wither and die. People will turn to cheaper imports rather than pay extra.

But that's because of how the system has been let develop over the past 30 or 40 years. Every time someone tries to start a conversation about how maybe farmers should be getting a fairer price for their produce it's nearly always met with "herp, they get a big grant, derpy derp" and the conversation gets shut down. As I'm writing this farmers in Ireland are currently being offered prices between €4.05 and € 4.20 per kilo for beef cattle which they will have spent up to three and a half years, if they breed cattle and don't just finish them, getting ready to sell. That beef will be sold at anything up to €30 a year kilo in a fortnight's time once it's been processed. It's a busted system that is bad for farmers as their incomes are worse now than they were 30 years ago despite producing better animals than ever before and dealing with much more regulations.


I'm not sure how it can be meaningfully changed at this point though while maintaining current quality levels. British and Irish beef and lamb is among the best in the world in pure quality terms and enough isn't made of that fact.

The system developed this way and there isn't much we can do about it now.

The issue now is that farmers will still expect their handouts and if they don't get them then they will have to fold. Harsh, but that is what they have voted for.

And I have never heard an argument from farmers that they want the current system of subsidy to end. The last thing I heard was that they wanted guarantees from the government that they will continue to receive their money post Brexit.

Of course they want fairer/higher prices for their goods, but they will want the subsidies as well.

Moggy wrote:And I have never heard an argument from farmers that they want the current system of subsidy to end. The last thing I heard was that they wanted guarantees from the government that they will continue to receive their money post Brexit.

Of course they want fairer/higher prices for their goods, but they will want the subsidies as well.

It's a train of thought I used to hear a lot in my old job of setting up electronic tag reading and sorting systems on farms. If a farmer was under 40 and working a farm less than 150 acres they wanted real and meaningful change in the system. If a farmer was over 40 or working more than 150 acres then they were subsidy junkies and all they ever wanted was more schemes to get a grant from. We installed strawberry float all systems for farmers like that as the conversation normally ended as soon as we responded "n" to the "is there a grant for that" question. They wouldn't even let you finish the word no. Unfortunately the one getting a big grant has more time to be involved with a union as he/she doesn't have to actually farm as much for their income.

In the short term at least importing food is going to markedly more expensive so UK produce should be more competitive in the local market, which is good for farmers. It will hurt food export of course but the UK is a net importer of food so the overall effect should be positive for the local agriculture. From that point of view I can see why some farmers might have supported Leave. Of course, I'm not sure most families will appreciate the higher shopping bills as a price worth paying for that.

CAP has long been a taxpayer funded bonanza for the landowning class in the UK so if there is to be any reform it would be a nice to see subsidies taken away from Lord such and such's grouse moor and manor estate.

Daily Moaners aren't happy about the Conservatives proposed deal to allow 3.2m EU nationals to remain here in exchange for 1m Brits being able to stay abroad:

http://www.dailyfail.co.uk/news/article ... ts-4627006

Highest rated Moan:

We don't want them here, immigration is the reason we voted out!!!!

Fine, let them pick their own strawberries rather than pick them up at Tescos and wipe their own arses when they get too old to look after themselves. I'm sure lying in their own filth is a small price to pay for not having to talk with any bloody foreigners.

The government's proposal for EU citizens certainly seems very fair on the surface. The devil will obviously be in the details but I hope it points to a far less acrimonious negotiation for the next year and a half.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40376083

PM Theresa May tells EU leaders any EU citizen living in UK for five years will be given "settled EU status

I wonder when the cut off point is.