Brexit Thread IX - Voters' Remorse

[really]

https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/1188...fly-advertised-for-sale-on-australian-website
It seems the Irish navy is looking at buying these two barely used New Zealand patrol boats for duties in the Irish sea, freeing up our bigger patrol boats for work in the Atlantic.

Directly Brexit related as this didn't need to be policed as much up to now.

 

[Hrothbern]

Let me turn this the other way round.

What benefits did the UK gain from a UK European knowledge connect between 1973 and 2021 ?

I suspect that the transfer of knowledge was more on US-UK and Japan-UK connects.

Similar to the comment of Samson:

From working 30 years in metal industry, zooming in to a world more known to you: purchasing. In my experience case mostly production machines.
My career was operational, then assistant to the boss of most of Europe (his span growing to more than a hundred production facilities) with some very niche plants still under my operational care, and then again focus on operational for a dozen plants with still as assistant all investments and some other stuff going over my desk.
I saw many investment proposals for machines and had to dig in enough for my responsibility, including indepth meetings with the big machine suppliers.
In all those years only UK plants forwarded sometimes some auxiliary UK made machines. The backbone of machines was German, some French (from mostly my Frenche colleagues) and some more Italian machines (again mostly auxiliary, but now because of price forwarded from all plants in Europe). Some niche Swedish and niche Japanese (both excellent engineering countries).
A new machine is always a big opportunity for a plant. It means better specs and higher throughput. It is the lifeblood for the future of plants.
It is also a risk.
Not so much by buying a machine that takes longer than planned to utilise (the risk for the beancounters), but because some plant managers are (often together with their (key) employee base) too conservative and go for more of the same, facing in the 10 year term a machine park not fit for the higher specced (and better priced !) components in the future, and/or facing a too slow throughput piece time in the future, facing being no longer price competitive. EDIT such machines have typically a technical lifetime of 20 years.
Competition between machine building companies in Germany and the circle around is of a maddening intensity. The German culture, the engineering cost-up thinking & the craving desire to build the best specs and quality performance.
My English colleagues always complained on those "overengineered" and "too expensive" German machines, but still bought them. And even for the less critical machines the Italian pricing did win.

This has everything to do with labor and capital productivity and has a knock-on effect in productivity on the products delivered to B2B customers who produce goods in the UK, which can be countered by buying/importing the complete machines. But in terms of knowledge synergies the general engineering pool knowledge level will decrease because you end up buying/importing more and more,

I do not think that the UK is able to engineer and build main production machines that can compete with EU companies with their market scale and competition drivers based on the EU area,
(I am not talking about smaller kits and some niche).
The Industrial attitude, and even general attitude, is strongly characterised by outsourcing thinking, by over-using consultants-specialists to pick their brains when needed and not building something up for yourself. You end up with nobody in your house able to judge technically good enough what you need to have.
It is similar to a withdrawing government leaving it all to the free market. And when something is needed to purchase such governments are at the mercy of "friends" that need their benefits.

 

[innonimatu]

From working in science through quite a bit of that time, I think it is massive. There is the direct EU grants to research, but bigger than that is the EU wide "talking shops", that provide the essential inter personal connections that make science work. Without a control group to compare it will never be provable, but from where I am sitting I think we benefited loads, and will miss that benefit.

The EU collects money from governments, spends a good portion of that money to pay its own bureaucracy, then distributes the reminder back to the people of the countries that handed over the money to the EU.

As with other parasitical forms of exploitation, I say cut the middlemen. The UK, and all the other countries, can fund their own universities. Hand them the grants directly, as it was before the EU managed to make itself the middlemen and skim from the financing. No need to stick labels thanking the EU for the project money everywhere.

 

[innonimatu]

I do not think that the UK is able to engineer and build main production machines that can compete with EU companies with their market scale and competition drivers based on the EU area,

You lengthy arguments pro-EU boils down to one thing, and one thing only: size.
Please take a look at the table listing the word's top machine-making countries. Notice there, among others, Switzerland and Taiwan.

The claim that a large size is necessary to develop anything is simply false. The fact that several small countries either maintained (Switzerland) or developed (Taiwan) a machine industry proves it is false. What is necessary is a strategy of industrial development. One that the EU treaties explicitly forbid to its parties. Though several countries of course ignore that.
The claim weight have had some weight in the pre-WTO days. When you stated your career. But big markers are now open to foreign machine makers. The largest one is the chinese and what do they care if they're buying from the UK or Germany?

I would love to see the WTO dismantled. But it's not about to happen just now. Hence market size cannot be an argument to claim the UK is at a disadvantage.
Plus the claim that the UK is a small country/small market is laughable in itself. It's larger than South Korea! Half the size of Japan! And those actually roes as industrial powerhouses in the pre-WTO days, when it was harder (SK in the transition period already).

The UK won't be in for an industrial renaissance because it lacks a government willing to sponsor that, direct investment into that. The City is too powerful. Not because it has left the EU or because it is in any way too small.

 

[Hrothbern]

You lengthy arguments pro-EU boils down to one thing, and one thing only: size.
Please take a look at the table listing the word's top machine-making countries. Notice there, among others, Switzerland and Taiwan.

The claim that a large size is necessary to develop anything is simply false. The fact that several small countries either maintained (Switzerland) or developed (Taiwan) a machine industry proves it is false. What is necessary is a strategy of industrial development. One that the EU treaties explicitly forbid to its parties. Though several countries of course ignore that.
The claim weight have had some weight in the pre-WTO days. When you stated your career. But big markers are now open to foreign machine makers. The largest one is the chinese and what do they care if they're buying from the UK or Germany?

I would love to see the WTO dismantled. But it's not about to happen just now. Hence market size cannot be an argument to claim the UK is at a disadvantage.
Plus the claim that the UK is a small country/small market is laughable in itself. It's larger than South Korea! Half the size of Japan! And those actually roes as industrial powerhouses in the pre-WTO days, when it was harder (SK in the transition period already).

The UK won't be in for an industrial renaissance because it lacks a government willing to sponsor that, direct investment into that. The City is too powerful. Not because it has left the EU or because it is in any way too small.

I should have mentioned Switzerland for the highquality precision (machining) machines. But those are a niche with the total Germanic industrial market and that of Italy and somewhat France/UK generating that customer scale size. And yes expensive, also because of the CHF-Euro development (the CHF became much more in value) after the GFC.
Switzerland has a good education system in general and like Germany, Austria still the apprentice system fully effective for industry.

My practical experience in comparisons ended 5 years ago, but for around 10 years I did peer review big investments (greenfields) for China. Until 5 years ago the practical situation was such that we still invested non-Chinese machines in China, because the Chinese machines were not capable of delivering the reliable specs. The problem situation was then ofc that quality issues from Chinese competitors with Chinese equipment were treated differently by customers then for us (=> we could not use Chinese equipment, but faced the price pressure from those awfully cheap Chinese machines). But most of our orders were for Tier 1 Automotive suppliers from Germany and US who wanted practically their parts made on the same machines as what we did for them in "western" countries.
Critical high quality components are "sticky". Sticky to suppliers: both the production companies as the machine building companies, the people with the trade secrets experience and the machines.
And ofc the Chinese were rapidly absorbing all our knowhow through their employees that hopped from our plants to "their own" once knowing enough. All those investments were tricky and needed good contracts with our western customers. Their machines improving as well. But 5 years ago no match.
Don't underestimate technical knowhow of the kind (high end) you cannot patent into IP or you do not want to patent to prevent illegal copying.
Building up in a new plant, a greenfield, the necessary amount of knowhow in my former field of products is taking 10-20 years with support close by.

 

[innonimatu]

I do not underestimate the chinese at all. It's a matter of some 10 years more until they have the whole tool chain, even in advanced chop manufacturing. I mean, they have it now already, in all areas of tool-making (silicon production, software for design, lithography, etching, vapor depositions, etc - they have new companies in all those areas), but it's not optimized enough to compete with the leaders elsewhere. It's only a matter of time though. Even Lam and ASML will be hard pressed to compete when the chinese finish development and scaling of their home-protected tool chain
Engineering must follow production, and research follows close behind. You are right that this takes about 20 years, they have entered these high-tech fields close to the turn of the century.

But what they did, though vaster in scale (covering many more fields - was what Taiwan and SK have a couple of decades earlier done. Japan is a case apart, or rather it was more like china now than Taiwan or SK: they manager to enter a very broad set of industrial fields. Size does matter, for the breath of ambitions that is achievable. But size is not that important to achieve industrial dominance in chosen fields: that was SK and Taiwan's success story. And it was my point above.

I agree with you also that developing industrial know-how is not easy. My own more direct knowledge is the mouldmaking industry, one where there are some relevant still around here. They faced competition from China cost but so far have prevailed. Went through some trouble fighting industrial espionage, which is unsurprising - I would be doing if I were chinese and catching up. And survived because manufacturers outside china decided they preferred to source closer and with more reliable quality, at last for the time being. They depend indeed on the european car industry as clients. But just as the swiss manufacturers can sell to the large german or french corporations while Switzerland is outside the EU, so could companies in a Portugal that had remained outside the EU sell to them. So can the (for one example) british catalyst industry sell to the german chemical industry after the UK left the EU. And afaik wings for the Airbus places continue to be manufactured in the UK, brexit didn't move the plant elsewhere.

 

[really]

https://m.imgur.com/a/XUkT0WW
A comparison of headlines in the French and British press of the fishermen's protest in Jersey.

 

[Verbose]

https://m.imgur.com/a/XUkT0WW
A comparison of headlines in the French and British press of the fishermen's protest in Jersey.

Protests that also involved Jersey fishing vessels joining the French, but do not involve Guernsey right next door – because Guernsey decided not to try to shut the French fishing vessels out for... Brexit-reasons.

Apparently now the local authorities in Jersey are getting antsy, because their little local power-play has suddenly come to involve both London and Paris and national politics.

 

[Arakhor]

Johnson gets to do something rash which plays well to the supporters and detracts from other bad news stories? Of course the press will run with that.

 

[FriendlyFire]

The EU collects money from governments, spends a good portion of that money to pay its own bureaucracy, then distributes the reminder back to the people of the countries that handed over the money to the EU.

As with other parasitical forms of exploitation, I say cut the middlemen. The UK, and all the other countries, can fund their own universities. Hand them the grants directly, as it was before the EU managed to make itself the middlemen and skim from the financing. No need to stick labels thanking the EU for the project money everywhere.

First most of EU money goes to development of the poorer members of the EU
I dont mind if the EU budget is stopped. It will just mean back to the old days where you have powerful EU countries and their protectorates instead.
Money will probably still flow to protectorates in the forms of aid or loans. The bureaucracy would exist to oversee the money but it would be a multitude smaller.

And Iam pretty sure that the EU is headed that way anyways unless changes are made

Spoiler :

 

[Verbose]

Let me turn this the other way round.

What benefits did the UK gain from a UK European knowledge connect between 1973 and 2021 ?

I suspect that the transfer of knowledge was more on US-UK and Japan-UK connects.

Tosh. These days Germany and France are picking up Nobel Prizes again with a certain regularity – the UK less so. And that's because investments in fundamental research done there in the 1980's has now matured nicely.

And then LOTS of European scientists also gravitated to UK unis and labs – forming a considerable boost to the collective brains in the UK.

And if you get a PhD in Oxford and Cambridge and the like, not buying-down in transfer in the the next stage of an academic career for some British researchers may well involve getting a contract with fx one of the German Mac Planck Institutes. (They're not universities btw, so you probably won't see them in the kind of international uni rankings where the UK tends to do well – it isn't always as complimentary about UK science as it might seem.)

 

[innonimatu]

First most of EU money goes to development of the poorer members of the EU
I dont mind if the EU budget is stopped. It will just mean back to the old days where you have powerful EU countries and their protectorates instead.
Money will probably still flow to protectorates in the forms of aid or loans. The bureaucracy would exist to oversee the money but it would be a multitude smaller.

And Iam pretty sure that the EU is headed that way anyways unless changes are made

Spoiler :

Since the introduction of the Euro the EU has achieved diverge between its members locked into that imperial construction.

By all means, do bring about the old days of wealthy countries and what you wrongly called "protectorates" countries each with its own appropriate policies, slowly converging as both became wealthier. Rather that the European would-be-empire where the wealthy set policy and the poor obey and get poorer.
They were independent countries in the past. Now they're poorer provinces to be left behind as wealth and even population is drained to the centre by the inevitable political concentration of wealth there. The way all imperial projects turn out.

 

[EnglishEdward]

This is the question I asked:

Let me turn this the other way round.

What benefits did the UK gain from a UK European knowledge connect between 1973 and 2021 ?

I suspect that the transfer of knowledge was more on US-UK and Japan-UK connects.

This is the answer you gave:

Tosh. These days Germany and France are picking up Nobel Prizes again with a certain regularity – the UK less so. And that's because investments in fundamental research done there in the 1980's has now matured nicely.

And then LOTS of European scientists also gravitated to UK unis and labs – forming a considerable boost to the collective brains in the UK.

And if you get a PhD in Oxford and Cambridge and the like, not buying-down in transfer in the the next stage of an academic career for some British researchers may well involve getting a contract with fx one of the German Mac Planck Institutes. (They're not universities btw, so you probably won't see them in the kind of international uni rankings where the UK tends to do well – it isn't always as complimentary about UK science as it might seem.)

I am not arguing with your response about the Nobel Prize league table and comparison of institutions. No doubt many European scientists
may have as individuals benefited from attending UK universities, and perhaps vice-versa with UK individuals attending German institutions.
However that does not address my question to @ Hrothbern as to what benefits the UK gained from the UK European knowledge connect?

 

[Gorbles]

Why does "additional science input to UK universities and laboratories" not fulfill an answer to the question to "what benefits has the UK received"? Surely that is an answer. It might not be every benefit we have received, but it is unilaterally a benefit. This science input would take more effort and cost to broker (if even being possible at all) from outside the EU. Which (regardless of any nitpicking over possible input gained in the absence of the EU) translates to a direct difference in scientific progress between a) the historical record, of a UK partnered with the EU and b) a suggested alternate history, where the UK is not a part of the EU at all.

 

[EnglishEdward]

If the European researchers at UK universities merely displaced UK researchers or
US researchers or South Korean researchers, then it is not an additional input.

 

[Samson]

If the European researchers at UK universities merely displaced UK researchers or
US researchers or South Korean researchers, then it is not an additional input.

My point was about collaboration. This is not a zero sum process, it helps everyone to get together, get drunk and talk about your ideas. The EU has been very good at this, I am not aware of another such organisation that has done it as well anywhere.

 

[Gorbles]

What Samson said. It's not "one researcher in, another researcher out".

 

[FriendlyFire]

Since the introduction of the Euro the EU has achieved diverge between its members locked into that imperial construction.

By all means, do bring about the old days of wealthy countries and what you wrongly called "protectorates" countries each with its own appropriate policies, slowly converging as both became wealthier. Rather that the European would-be-empire where the wealthy set policy and the poor obey and get poorer.
They were independent countries in the past. Now they're poorer provinces to be left behind as wealth and even population is drained to the centre by the inevitable political concentration of wealth there. The way all imperial projects turn out.

We are deluding ourselves here if you dont think smaller countres will not ally themselves to powerful EU countries, or that the powerful EU countries will not use their influence, political, military and economical to push their own agendas onto the smaller countries. It will just be a different kind of "imperial construction", some of it will be better some of it will be worse.

I agree that there are many problems that are very real. But to think that Germany would not leave behind the smaller EU countries in terms of its growing wealth, or that people wouldnt be tempted to leave to work in Germany, or that the a powerful German would not use its power and wealth to get its way is pure fantasy.

 

[innonimatu]

The smaller must play diplomatically with the larger, sure. But the smaller have more freedom of action, get better deals, in a multipolar world, in a stage where there is competition around alliances. The static world of the EU institutional straitjacket weakens the already weak, restricts they ability to play diplomatically. It's harmful.

This is not theoretical. You can look at the paths of different countries before and after the latest of the EU institutional frameworks imposed on countries, or compare those inside and outside it. Th Euro. Do it, 20 years have passed, it's more than enough to draw conclusions. Did the positions of the smaller/weaker countries improve or worsen by being within it?

 

[Samson]

The smaller must play diplomatically with the larger, sure. But the smaller have more freedom of action, get better deals, in a multipolar world, in a stage where there is competition around alliances. The static world of the EU institutional straitjacket weakens the already weak, restricts they ability to play diplomatically. It's harmful.

This is not theoretical. You can look at the paths of different countries before and after the latest of the EU institutional frameworks imposed on countries, or compare those inside and outside it. Th Euro. Do it, 20 years have passed, it's more than enough to draw conclusions. Did the positions of the smaller/weaker countries improve or worsen by being within it?

I was tempted to plot this, but what to compare them against? If we compare the same countries before and after the historical factors will overwhelm any signal (iron curtain collapse mostly). If we compare it to other countries, what would be appropriate? Croatia against Serbia would look good for the EU, but would not be appropriate considering the bombing. Against more distant bits of the world will be even worse. I think you would need a very complex model, and I am not building that.