Tag: Politics

Um 2021

Grae  
Published under: Reflection, Society

I’ve been trying to write something; some sort of retrospective of 2021. I’m struggling with it. So when I work out what I want to say, I’ll put that here. In the meantime, here are some things to be getting on with – giving some hints on where my thinking has been so far:

On Europe

Grae  
Published under: All

Political

  • Much easier to influence our neighbours from inside their club. Much harder from outside.
  • Leaving gives a green light to facists / ultra-nationalists to start campaigning against all foreigners and immigration — and we know where that can lead
  • We leave certain treaties that give workers rights; stop doctors working ridiculous and unsafe hours; generally what I would call civilised laws
  • Scotland will almost certainly vote to leave the UK if there is a vote to leave the EU.

Economic

  • Stepping away from a bunch of existing trade deals will cause an economic shock which will cost jobs and cause business failures.  This actually looks pretty certain.
  • View from outside countries/economies may cause pound to fall / currency uncertainty

Why Brexit is a bad idea:

  1. It won’t solve the immigration question. Govt and economy still needs migrants to grow and for health etc to function, and still need to face what to do.  There are really no shortage of levers to control immigration now; there is just a fundamental conflict between economic prosperity and lowering immigration.
  2. It will lead to currency uncertainty
  3. It will lead to new and difficult trade negotiations
  4. It will destabalise the current government
  5. It will lead to Scotland departing the Union.