If we vote for Brexit what happens

A_Pict_In_A_Past_Life

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

I don't see at all how government can predict that in advance - nor manage that in advance - the best they can do is ensure a ready quantity of well trained labour is available in those areas, or to move to those areas, and then throw funding at infrastructure afterwards.

The trouble is though that certainly the infrastructure needed for mobility isn't there to begin with which allows your labour to reach the work in the first place.

It's no good having workers if there's then no way to get them to the work, just as the opposite applies;what's the point in creating mega job opportunities if there are no workers nearby and no transport infrastructure to get the workers to your jobs?

Our road network is appalling and has been underfunded for years, leading to the congestion which anyone using the motorways knows only too well.
And we are probably better not discussing public transport and the national rail network in particular.

Is this perhaps not why London grows so fast when the rest of the UK does not?
Look at your own charts - the growth is centered around areas easily accessible and not around western Scotland, East Anglia or the southwest for example.

It may also explain the post above.
"we have actually been pulling jobs back into London from the Regions even though wages are obviously much higher in London. because we basically couldn't find the numbers and quality of staff we needed where that office was based previously" (thanks to Filo25 for that).

kabayiri and yourself are both right in that infrastructure IS needed first but in reality it's not workable.
Attitudes need to change to MAKE it workable if we want to prosper as a country rather than just blunder along as we were/are.
Now may be as ideal a time for these attitudes to change as we will ever see.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

A_Pict_In_A_Past_Life wrote: »

The trouble is though that certainly the infrastructure needed for mobility isn't there to begin with which allows your labour to reach the work in the first place.

It's no good having workers if there's then no way to get them to the work, just as the opposite applies;what's the point in creating mega job opportunities if there are no workers nearby and no transport infrastructure to get the workers to your jobs?

I think the part most people don't really get is that the vast majority of jobs are created by small businesses - and it's in tiny numbers at a time - and scattered all over the UK.

No small business in just about anywhere in the UK (I can think of a very few exceptions but it's incredibly rare) is going to think twice about adding a handful of jobs this year because of infrastructure - their people manage to get to work just fine today - and will continue to do so if they add a few more staff.

And this bit about infrastructure and EU migrants is really a bit of a red herring - they are only about 5% of the population - so 95% of the traffic, housing need, etc, would still exist without them.

kabayiri and yourself are both right in that infrastructure IS needed first but in reality it's not workable.

kabayiri is right that infrastructure is needed - he's not right that it's 'needed first' - because in reality that is unworkable as it's impossible to plan or command where or when most businesses will become successful and grow.

And I prefer to deal with reality.

I'm all for rapid funding increases to invest in infrastructure in areas that need it however you're right when you say attitudes would need to change markedly to make that workable.

NIMBYism would have to be eradicated for a start - and a lot of the UK's horribly bureaucratic processes for building things torn up and thrown away.

It can be done - but there seems little will to do it.

A_Medium_Size_Jock

It looks like - following the collapse of an Italian agreement with Libya to send back refugees spotted in Libyan waters last week - there are estimates of up to a million African migrants on their way towards Europe:

The warning by Joe Walker-Cousins, head of the UK’s Libya mission between 2012 and 2014 comes as European governments struggle to find a response to the flow of migrants from the Mediterranean, and the appalling conditions in detention camps run by traffickers or the Libyan government.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/apr/02/1m-african-migrants-may-be-en-route-to-europe-says-former-uk-envoy

Many African countries have been reluctant to prevent the flow of migrants to Europe partly due to the vast remittances migrants send back to their countries.

A_Medium_Size_Jock

Some advice from the Financial Times for pro-EU remainers:

The battle for Britain in Europe is still worth fighting, and now may be the best time to start. You might say that it is a bit mad to talk about this less than a week after Theresa May, the UK prime minister, triggered the two-year joyride towards Brexit. So here it is: my advice to pro-Europeans in the UK on how to get back into the EU. And this is for real, not a belated April fools joke.

My second piece of advice follows directly from the first. Stop being angry. Stop behaving as though you are still campaigning. And stop complaining that stupid voters chose to believe the lies of the Brexiters and not your own, more sophisticated lies.

https://www.ft.com/content/88cfc674-1613-11e7-b0c1-37e417ee6c76

(As usual, if you find this to be paywalled search "How to get Britain back into the EU".)

BobQ

Another opportunity for the Brexit supporters to play the man and not the ball.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/theresa-must-change-brexit-avoid-10142898

It is why I recommend a strategy that robs Brussels of all room to manoeuvre.
That is: Request a Norway-like agreement for an interim period – something that they cannot refuse – and empower the next UK parliament to design and pursue Britain’s
long-term relationship with the EU.

A_Medium_Size_Jock

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

kabayiri is right that infrastructure is needed - he's not right that it's 'needed first' - because in reality that is unworkable as it's impossible to plan or command where or when most businesses will become successful and grow.

And I prefer to deal with reality.

I'm all for rapid funding increases to invest in infrastructure in areas that need it however you're right when you say attitudes would need to change markedly to make that workable.

NIMBYism would have to be eradicated for a start - and a lot of the UK's horribly bureaucratic processes for building things torn up and thrown away.

It can be done - but there seems little will to do it.

There is some truth in there - though just some.
For example you suggest that forward planning of infrastructure is impossible; not so.

Look at our motorways for just one example, built starting in the late 50's before the true rise of the automobile in the UK.
In the early 60's most households did not own a car but by the turn of the decade ownership was 60%.

In London itself over 1.5 million cars were registered by the mid-60's - and that despite the availability and usage of public transport there.
Also in the 1960s, London's traffic problem was considered to affect only the evening and morning rush hours in central London. It was not until the 1980s that congestion came to be a problem across London at more or less all hours of the day, where the problem remains to this day despite various attempts at easing this congestion.
One great example being the M25, opened in 1986 and already inadequate when it opened.

Despite nimbyism this new motorway was built.
Yes at great expense, blah blah blah.
But would it really have taken so much more to make the M25 say five lanes in each direction instead - think how much improved that could have made progress around it?

The same can be said of our other motorway arteries and this without considering the myriad minor routes.
It is only recently that most of the old A1 has been relieved of the tortuous roundabouts for example (some still exist) - and parts which have been widened to three lanes each way could surely have been widened to four?
This for what is the main artery for road transport for the whole of the east of England, right up to the Scottish border (and don't even get me started on Scottish roads!).

So please don't talk of reality without acknowledging that the reality is not primarily nimbyism; nor is it unworkable/impossible-to-plan.
It is shortsighted, almost to the point of neglectfull.
THAT is the reality.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

A_Medium_Size_Jock wrote: »

you suggest that forward planning of infrastructure is impossible; not so..

Sure we can build motorways or add rail capacity around the main arterial routes. But we can do that now if we choose to.

Kabayiri's argument appears to be that we should only allow more people in once the local infrastructure has been upgraded - that central planning is required to forecast where these people will go - what jobs will exist for them to take - and when those jobs will be created, many years in advance so as to complete needed infrastructure upgrades first.

This is obviously nonsensical.

Because in a nimble, entrepreneurial, rapidly changing employment market, you can't possibly hope to plan in advance where all the jobs will be created.

But what you can do is allocate funding to help local authority areas that are up-and-coming cope much better with infrastructure investment for rapid change.

Let the economy grow - let the jobs be created where the market determines - and let the market attract people to fill those jobs.

Then upgrade infrastructure as required.

Moby

A list of things this govt has not thought of in relation to Brexit:-
Scotland, N Ireland, Gibraltar, anything important!

padington

Why ukkippers are so unhappy ...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/commentisfree/2017/apr/02/unhappy-ukippers-maybe-europe-wasnt-the-issue-brexit-article-50-david-mitchell?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

:rotfl:

Herzlos

This makes for pretty depressing reading too: https://www.buzzfeed.com/emilydugan/these-europeans-are-already-leaving-the-uk-because-of-brexit?utm_term=.jqzlldyrwn#.ocQjjlW1Bk

I'm trying to see the good from it, maybe it'll push up wages a bit (and make some businesses unviable whilst costing everyone more), and reduce housing pressure a bit. But it's the brain drain I've been worried about; the Europeans that are the contributors are more likely to leave for a better life whilst those that are the "problematic" drains are more likely to just stay.

Did we really think this through?