The head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies said: ‘High inflation, rising taxes and poor growth, still undermined more by Brexit than by the pandemic, will see real living standards barely rising and, for many, falling over the next year’.
He probably isn’t an expert though.
That quote is 5 months old.
So recent and relevant then.
I can’t be the only annoyed that the support seems to mainly be going to the better-off?
I’m annoyed, but also resigned that with the Conservative Party it was ever thus.
Not really. a) it’s no longer accurate regarding Brexit, and b) it doesn’t account for a fucking war.
I’m not discounting the effects of the war, but surely those have yet to appear? A lot of these issues have been in the making for quite a while, whereas inflation since the war started hasn’t notably spiked much above what it was already.
Are you genuinely saying the increased trade barriers since Brexit haven’t led to any inflation?
a) How?
b) That’s the same for everyone
No, I’m not saying that. It has led to inflation but last summer inflation was still only around 2%. It has rocketed since then largely due to the global rise in energy prices such that UK inflation was 5.4% in January. That isn’t a Brexit issue or a Tory issue.
The war in Ukraine is already increasing those costs. That’s most obviously felt at the fuel pump. Inflation had risen again to 6.2% in February and will be even higher now, although the official figure won’t be reported until next month.
He’s missing a massive point though. Shipping from China has more than quadrupled in the last 2 years. A landed 40ft container used to be about $9000, it’s now pushing $40000. There’s a huge chunk of your inflation as so much of what we buy and rely on is brought in from China (and other similar manufacturing countries)
a) It’s no longer a more significant impact than the pandemic.
b) quite. That’s the point.
The attitude you seem to have on Brexit is that it happened and the great crash didn’t occur straightaway all in one go, so all the doommongers got it wrong, and look! Pandemic! That’s the only game in town now regarding the collapse in living standards.
That was never the case. Brexit was always going to be a slow burn death by a thousand cuts.
Of the mess we’re in now, you can think of Brexit as being responsible for a part of it. Of course we had a pandemic to muddy the waters as well, but Brexit takes more than its share and will continue to do so.
Regarding Ukraine, I don’t think the effects of that are really biting yet. What I will say is that of all the possible reasons to suffer a collapse in standards of living, weaning ourselves off Oil and Gas and limiting Russia’s ability to terrorise its neighbours is a much more noble one that the rights of pensioners to have their blue passports back again.
Oh so brexit only happened because pensioners want their blue passports back?
You do know what and democracy works yes?
If the younger generation wanted to live in a European fallacy of utopia the answer was simple , instead of whinging about the vote maybe the lazy bastards should have got up and voted for it instead of thinking everything works their way because they are always right, if we had stayed the remainers would have been banging on about having to respect the vote , and in all likelihood many leavers probably would have …but here we are years later and remainers are still moaning and laying blame at certain parts of society because they have lost a vote they can’t accept.
Brilliant.
Brexit was always going to be a bad financial move for the UK. There was no logical reason for it .It was bad for the EU but far worse for the UK.
In 2014 Boris said " the EU is such a great thing if we did not have it we would have to invent it." Two years later he is lying to and misleading UK residents to convince them to vote to leave the EU. A typical Boris U turn.
No. I’m clearly exaggerating for comic effect.
Some of them also cared about bendy bananas as well.
I do, which is why I’ve always said that we have to deliver Brexit in some form, regardless of the fucking shitshow that it creates.
However, you do seem to be struggling with the idea that you are actually allowed to disagree with something and point out it’s flaws even if the public have voted for it.
Sorry to be a remain supporting liberal snowflake, but I dare say it’s even OK for those very passionate about the EU to actively campaign on the issue, since that’s exactly what the leavers did to secure the referendum in the first place! In a democracy, one of those things you claim to support, people are allowed to campaign for things they want to happen.
I do think the doom mongers over Brexit have got it wrong but that’s not to say I thought it was immediately going to be roses either, I didn’t. I knew it would have an immediate short term (2-5 years) negative impact, depending on the type of Brexit. I’ve acknowledged that many times pre and post Brexit.
As you know, I do think Brexit was mismanaged and could have been handled much better. May’s deal was, in most economic respects, much better than Johnson’s and, of course, I advocated for an Efta style agreement, which would have been better still.
Having said that, the UK economy has adjusted and rebounded pretty well to be back above where we were prior to Brexit even whilst also suffering the effects of a global pandemic. Slowly we are seeing some of the benefits that Brexit will bring.
The fiscal situation facing the country is multi-faceted and ever changing, as are its causes. I’d probably need to do a graph to explain roughly my view on this over the last 2.5 years!
But just over the last 9 months I’d say the principal actors have progressed roughly as follows:
Summer 2021: Brexit/Covid (more or less 50/50)
Autumn 2021: Brexit/Covid/Global energy prices (30/30/40)
Winter 2021: Brexit/Covid/GE (25/30/45)
Spring 2022: Brexit/Covid/GE/Russia (20/20/30/30)
Just to be clear. I’m not necessarily saying that the impact of Brexit has more than halved in 9 months, I’m not. I’m saying that it has become a much smaller cause proportionately to inflation, cost of living etc (although it has also had a reduced impact in isolation just not to that degree).
Also, I agree with you regarding weaning ourselves off Russian fossil fuels (and all fossil fuels generally). It’s likely a worthwhile price to pay. Similarly, that’s always been my view on leaving the EU too.
Not struggling to understand anything, just you repeat the same old mantra and everything is the fault of the people who voted for brexit blah blah blah but you have never understood without sarcasm or insult as to why they voted brexit , possibly because you are enlightened and know what’s best for everyone or possibly because you don’t want to know.
But maybe if you dropped the insults and actually engaged from a non biased pov you may get to see viewpoints differently , but in essence that’s all it is really is viewpoints because leave or remain it really doesn’t matter because elites will always screw us over in the pursuit of globalization
Is globalisation a bad thing?
Who does not want nice wine and beer for the US, or from them across the channel? Should we start to make out own phones and computers? What about fruit and veg? Even the clothes on our backs and shoes on our feet? Should we be making all of that?
Wait… Is this more cancel culture? I mean did we not invent globalisation, made it what it is today and actually, should we not therefore be proud of it? Admittedly through invasions - wait, it that the reason? Invasions led to globalisation, which is now bad…
I think there is a middle ground but that’s not that popular these days either…
I would have supported a windfall tax on the fossil fuel producing companies but I understand that the government’s argument not to is that these companies need these profits to invest in the move to renewable energy. That’s all well and good but what guarantees do we have that this windfall will be used to accelerate this process?