Is Britain about to leave the EU?

[innonimatu]

The problem is that things get bad incrementally... one little concession now, start charging a symbolic tuition fee. One little concession a few years later, increase tuition fees on foreign students. One change years later, make local students pay a "fairer share" or something like that. And so on. Tis can be used to degrade any public service, not just education.

In some countries people will soon wonder what they pay taxes for, because every "public service" has its own prices: hospitals, roads, education... all used to be paid out of general taxation, all are at least partly "pay-per use" now. And that part keeps increasing. Apparently this is "better" and "necessary" or "inevitable" or something. So the very well-paid expert consultants selling studies to the government tell us. I wonder where the taxation income is being spent...

I assume thinks in the UK went down this same road.

 

[daft]

After the Agencies fold their business and jobs are gone for good and Britain falls into a major economic depression, the Brits will beg the EU to come back.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Personally, I'm getting really impatient with May. The end of March can't come soon enough!

I wouldn't get your hopes up too much, there's April as well remember.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...kdown-on-overseas-students-and-new-work-visas

Well, it's pretty telling that you're not aware of what the UK government is doing. I'd reckon the average Brexit voter is even less informed of the goings-on in the government.

Ooh well pardon me. I'll just point out that that I quite clearly stated that I didn't doubt that what you were saying was true, so this doesn't really change anything.

Aside from that, you also have a habit of jumping into conversations without knowing how it started. Someone commented that "The UK workforce just isn't big enough or skilled enough to sustain the tech sector." The topic of foreign students is naturally a corollary to that issue.

I know how it started, I read it and referred to it. My point was that you were trying to link current Tory policy to Leave voters, as if a vote to leave the EU was some sort of pledge to support the Tories in anything and everything they do, which is simply a falsehood. You're assuming Leave voters would automatically be in favour of reducing the numbers of foreign students, based only on your own prejudices I guess.

But as an aside it's not exactly a cut and dried correlation between foreign students and foreign skilled workers. Many foreign students go home again afterwards, and many foreign workers didn't study here.

 

[Arakhor]

So, now it's confirmed that the government has been sharing parts of its Brexit plan with Nissan, when it has been stridently refusing to share any of it with Parliament. This is turning into a farce.

 

[FriendlyFire]

I have a feeling that the UK Brexiter farmers are in for a rude suprise, once the UK find itself outside the protectionist arigcultural market

How Dairy Farmers in Belgium Held Up a Big E.U. Trade Deal

SIPPENAEKEN, Belgium — Christian Wiertz worked his usual 14 hours on Thursday, milking 85 cows at his family farm in this village in eastern Belgium, near the border with the Netherlands.
His farm produced 1,800 liters, or 475 gallons, of milk, to be sold the next morning at 25 euro cents a liter — barely enough to cover his production costs.

Wallonia’s regional Parliament used its veto power to block Belgium from approving the deal, which requires consensus among the 28 nations of the European Union. The veto led Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, to cancel a trip to sign the deal

Wallonia, to be sure, does not speak for all of Belgium. Support for D19-20 is stronger in Wallonia than it is in Flanders. Others see opportunity.
“Our sector is desperately looking for new markets,” said Florent Geerdens, who owns and manages a 100-acre farm in Flanders that grows apples, pears and cherries. “Especially since we lost Russia in 2014.”

“Free trade — and its liberal corollary, the free movement of peoples — have lost their mass appeal, and nowhere more so than in Wallonia,”

www.nytimes.com/2016/10/29/world/europe/belgium-farmers-block-eu-trade-deal.html?mabReward=A1&recp=0&_r=0

 

[Kyriakos]

So, now it's confirmed that the government has been sharing parts of its Brexit plan with Nissan, when it has been stridently refusing to share any of it with Parliament. This is turning into a farce.

Do labour mps focus on that, or just call for Corbyn to stand re-election again?

 

[Arakhor]

Not being a Labour MP, I really couldn't say.

The next in the series of "what is the Government playing at?" is Zack Goldsmith's choice to run as an "independent" MP over May's U-turn over the Heathrow affair. He's explicitly endorsed by UKIP and the Tories are refusing to run anyone against him, making his pretence at being "independent" all the more transparent. I'd think that right now May could do with all the pro-Brexit Tories she can get her hands on, but presumably the local Tories are scared of splitting the blue vote by running a "real" Tory.

 

[Traitorfish]

So, now it's confirmed that the government has been sharing parts of its Brexit plan with Nissan, when it has been stridently refusing to share any of it with Parliament. This is turning into a farce.

So much for Brexit representing the restoration of parliamentary sovereignty.

The problem is that things get bad incrementally... one little concession now, start charging a symbolic tuition fee. One little concession a few years later, increase tuition fees on foreign students. One change years later, make local students pay a "fairer share" or something like that. And so on. Tis can be used to degrade any public service, not just education.

You're not wrong, but that's still largely speculative, and you can't always expect people who are trying to manoeuvre through the debris of the social democratic state to think in speculative terms. There's a lack of big picture thinking, I will grant that, but to borrow EnglishEdward's point, what are these people being paid for, and are they being paid to think in terms of the big picture?

If there's going to be any serious resistance to these developments, it isn't going to come from parliamentary sub-committees and white collar union bureaucrats.

 

[Takhisis]

Inno, Uruguay charges a symbolic tuition fee to students.

 

[AdrienIer]

I'm not sure what you mean by symbolic, but this year I payed about 470 euros for my tuition fee + public health insurance (it's mandatory to get the latter if you're over 20, and it's more than half the total amount).

 

[Kyriakos]

I'm not sure what you mean by symbolic, but this year I payed about 470 euros for my tuition fee + public health insurance (it's mandatory to get the latter if you're over 20, and it's more than half the total amount).

470 euros/year may still be bad, if one needs the money, but compared to the utterly ruinous as well as ridiculous 9000 pounds/year it is not that terrible...!
You would pay less renting a place in the center of London.

Furthermore, afaik even back when i was a student there and had to pay 1000 pounds/year, that amount only was reserved for either local students or eu students (others would pay a lot more). So i am not sure how it will go now, with eu students in the UK.

 

[AdrienIer]

I fully agree. If your family is poor you don't even pay that much. The problem is mostly for the people who are just above the "poor" line, and for whom 500 euros is still a lot.

 

[really]

The High Court has ruled that the government does not have the power to trigger Article 50 on it's own - a vote in parliament must be held.

 

[Kyriakos]

The High Court has ruled that the government does not have the power to trigger Article 50 on it's own - a vote in parliament must be held.

Interesting. More chaos to follow?

 

[Arakhor]

Excellent news! (BBC link to the above)

Even Leavers should be pleased by this news, because if people are going to bleat on about how the democratic will of the people should be respected, now that Parliament is required to vote on the issue, that really will put the issue to bed if the MPs vote for Brexit too. After all, it's neither the people nor the Prime Minister who make the laws in this country.

 

[Kyriakos]

Excellent news! (BBC link to the above)

Even Leavers should be pleased by this news, because if people are going to bleat on about how the democratic will of the people should be respected, now that Parliament is required to vote on the issue, that really will put the issue to bed if the MPs vote for Brexit too. After all, it's neither the people nor the Prime Minister who make the laws in this country.

There is also the issue that the Eu stated already than the deal UK had asked for (and others it had?) if the vote was to remain has been permanently canceled. So this would seem to mean a worse deal if the UK stays -- which is a worse deal than the one already voted against, leading to brexit. So what are the parliamentarians going to be voting on, exactly? The (Cameron) deal (argued by the likes of BBC and tied media to be so awesome and a reason to stay etc etc) is not there.

I am pretty sure this will -in these first days- just lead to another call by blairites to have Corbyn stand for a third election, cause you already know his position is that the brexit should be carried on.

 

[Arakhor]

In my experience, the BBC wasn't arguing for or against "the deal", but Parliament will now presumably vote on whether to leave the EU or not. How the Prime Minister intends to handle that is her business - maybe she'll invite along representatives from Goldman Sachs and Nissan, since they know more about Brexit than Parliament does.

 

[Kyriakos]

^When is the vote going to take place?

edit: NM, i read that the british gov will appeal the court's verdict, and that it isn't likely to end soon even if parliament gets to have a vote.

 

[Arakhor]

If you listen to the Government, in two years' time, once the deal is already done. (It's no surprise that they are planning to appeal against the High Court's upholding of Parliamentary sovereignty.)