EU membership referendum debate thread

[raspberry-blower]

HFT is not really about fundamentals, more about arbitrage and statistics. Although HFT provides some liquidity describing it as Market Making is something I would not do.

Again you have it totally backwards. Nevermind.

[raspberry-blower]

Someone who was woken up and smelt the coffee: John Snow A confession

The woeful campaigns by both Leave and Remain have allowed us to blame the ‘other’ without ever looking at ourselves. Race, religion, class and more have all played their part in the most unpleasant domestic political campaign most of us have ever witnessed.

The referendum challenges us to render our democratic institutions more truly representative of and responsive to who we are and the lives we lead.

This must become a day for renewal. Let negotiations with Europe take their course, they will not resolve the crisis at the heart of our own society. A government enjoying 36.9 per cent of a General Election vote has to begin accept that it governs for us all, whatever our condition or our politics.

Dangerous choices lie ahead. We can survive them and prosper if we begin to understand and act upon what this referendum has told us. Act now to reverse the consequences of austerity and cuts. We can only prosper if we all share the burden of bringing us all through to a fairer and more egalitarian future.

[woodburner]

Fascinating times.

I wonder how the loss of CAP subsidies is going to pan out (especially for NI - the bulk [87% according to one source] of farmers' income there is subsidy).

I hope farmers will have time to transition away from subsidies and produce a diversity of food for their localities and not so much monoculture for export.

That makes me wonder if you know any farmers, oobers.

Yeah, farmers producing food? Whatever next?

[woodburner]

Ms Sturgeon seems not to understand the world. She said Scotland had been taken out of the EU against its will. Against her will perhaps, but this was a referendum in which each vote had the same value as any other vote. For a general election many votes have no significant value while some have a lot of value.

In the last election the SNP got loads of MPs into the UK parliament, as compared with UKIPs one MP, but with far fewer votes than UKIP got.

So Miss Nicola, stop your arrogant rhetoric about the Scottisn people want another referendum for independance, (when you don't actually care what they want) the vote for this recent one was a UK vote, not a constituency or country vote.

"Scotland" total remain votes 62%, leave 38% turnout average 67%. So the remain vote was 41.5% (less than half). If we look at Glasgow, votes to remain were 37.5% of the electorate, and leave was 18.7%. Not really a ringing endorsement justifying another Scottish independance vote. The SNP obviously didn't convey the importance of this referendum to the voters who didn't turn out to vote.

For all the results http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics/eu_r ... ts/local/g

[kenneal - lagger]

How can we continue to have growth when there are limits to debt and the only way of increasing the money supply to increase growth is to increase debt when we have reached the limits to debt?

Or something like that!

[woodburner]

How can we continue to have growth when there are limits to debt and the only way of increasing the money supply to increase growth is to increase debt when we have reached the limits to debt?

Or something like that!

It's simple. The best I can do is to suggest researching the works of Mr. Charles Ponzi, circa 1920. Present day economics operate on a similar principle, narrowly avoiding prosecution.

[kenneal - lagger]

How can we continue to have growth when there are limits to debt and the only way of increasing the money supply to increase growth is to increase debt when we have reached the limits to debt?

Or something like that!

It's simple. The best I can do is to suggest researching the works of Mr. Charles Ponzi, circa 1920. Present day economics operate on a similar principle, narrowly avoiding prosecution.

I thought that might be one answer. Thanks WB.

[3rdRock]

Caroline Lucas writing in the Guardian this afternoon:

Our democracy is broken. How else to explain the depth of the divisions that scar our country, and were revealed in all their visceral rawness by this bleak and all too often bitter referendum campaign? Yet if we are to start the process of healing these divisions and rebuilding our politics, we first need to understand the degree of people’s resentment and alienation in the face of economic and technological forces beyond their control.

I know that many people who voted remain will be angry with those who opted to leave, but such feelings are misplaced. To dismiss them as bigots or racists would be a serious mistake. Instead what we should recognise from these results is a profound rage at a political and economic elite who have held power and wealth close to their chests for far too long. The leaders of the leave gang are about as anti-establishment as the Duke of Edinburgh, but we cannot dismiss the fact that they tapped into something profound occurring in Britain, and the daily dose of fear from some remain campaigners wasn’t enough to sway people towards remain.

Immigration was a useful scapegoat for very real and legitimate anxieties about access to public services, affordable housing and secure jobs. Perhaps that’s no surprise, given that a cross-party consensus emerged at the last election that saw pledges and mugs promising immigration controls – at the very same time as agreement across the board on cuts to public services. While the Green party celebrated migration, and pledged to share the economic bonuses it brings, others raced to the bottom on rhetoric and failed to stand up to Ukip’s outrageous myths. A country ravaged by austerity and fed a daily dose of lies about migrants was always bound to kick back.

It’s now down to people who believe in multiculturalism to make a serious stand for it – we cannot shy away. We need an urgent campaign to rebuild the infrastructure necessary to bind us all together, along with a plan to share the benefits of immigration more broadly. Key to this would be an “immigration dividend” paid specifically to areas under most pressure, and invested in local communities – in everything from libraries to leisure centres – so everyone benefits.

My city, Brighton and Hove, knows what a Tory handling of a financial crisis looks like; and I shudder at the thought of further children’s centre closures, longer queues at doctors’ surgeries, and more jobs being lost in the public sector. Yet that seems likely, alongside the threatened bonfire of environmental and workplace protections – even though my city didn’t vote to leave the EU and didn’t vote for this government. It is vital that progressives unite to fight this.

And more than that, we need a political system that enables people’s voices to be heard. Giving people a genuine opportunity to shape their own futures via the ballot box is fundamental to addressing the disaffection that has brought us to this point. That’s why pressing for progressive reforms to the British constitution as part of the Brexit discussion is crucial. In the referendum every vote mattered, and that needs to be the case each time we go to the polls. And I say that as someone devastated by this result.

Like the millions of other supporters of the European Union, my party is grieving today. We fought for a vision of a generous, confident and outward-looking country, committed to playing its part in making the world a better place. But we lost – and it’s crucial that we accept the will of the majority.

Perhaps it’s no wonder that leave’s message to “take back control” stuck. People do feel powerless. Not least the almost 4 million people who voted for Ukip at the last general election who have just one MP representing them. As the one MP for more than a million voters I know all too well how our electoral system isn’t up to the task of representing genuine political differences that exist in Britain.

So here’s my challenge to Brexiters: if you’re serious about giving people back control, then join the campaign for a proportional voting system and for an elected second chamber in our parliament. Let’s have a constitutional convention – and take this conversation to the country. This could be the start of something truly cross-party, and genuinely exciting. If we can take anything from this referendum, it’s that the people want more of a voice.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... nal-voting

The voice of sanity.

[UndercoverElephant]

Ah right. So 70+% of the electorate vote on an issue where every vote actually counts, and this is the time to say our democracy is broken. This is one of the rare occasions when our democracy actually functioned like one.

She doesn't get it, like most of the middle class don't get it. Immigration wasn't a scapegoat. It was the elephant in the room that her class will not accept is a real elephant.

And I doubt many of the people who voted Brexit are in favour of our broken parliamentary electoral system. That is one of the things that has denied them a voice, because most of them live in safe Labour seats.

[fuzzy]

You nailed it there, UE. In fact many of those pissed off at immigration might not be so motivated about the corrupt moneywasting EU. It's not because the clowns in Westminster will do better, it's to tell every arse in gov to shut the bloody door.

[johnhemming2]

What is important about democracy is that the decision of the people (even if wrong) is implemented. That ensures that there is public assent to the decisions being implemented.

Hence we must now leave the EU (Even if we end up in the EEA)

[woodburner]

Caroline Lucas I think is a nice person, but expecting a continually improving world is unrealistic until population is "brought under control", or in nature's way, drastically reduced - permanently. So before this better world, there is going to be a very unpleasant period, which when it happens, most of us won't survive. The world may even then not be better for humans, but it will certainly improve for most other living things.

[raspberry-blower]

Ian Welsh has had some interesting things to say

Consequences of Britain's vote to leave the EU

Basically, people who are doing well voted for the status quo, those who aren’t voted against. Scotland doesn’t trust London to run Scotland (which should be no surprise) and wants Brussels as a counter-weight. (Scotland should have left Britain and stayed in the EU, I’d judge).

So be it. If you don’t make your country work for at least the majority, I will hear no complaints when the majority pulls the rug out.

Then, he has scribed another essay:
More on Brexit and why it happened

This is now completely on Britons. You can turn this into a great victory for a humane economic and political regime. It’s on you.

But remember the secret. Your fellow citizens are what you made them. If you don’t like what they are, it’s up to you to change how you treat them, by changing how you run your country.

I wish all the best to Britain, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and so on. But the EU crutch is gone. Figure out how to be decent human beings, politically, to each other, or suffer the consequences.

[Lord Beria3]

Great result by the electorate.

So proud of the bravery of the British public.

[cubes]

Bravery? No so sure, only time will tell if it's the right choice (I don't think it is personally).