UK rejoins the EU's €100B Horizon sci-tech funding program UK scientists can once again pitch for chunks of the EU's £86 billion ($107 billion) Horizon program after the British government negotiated re-entry to the flagship fund following a Brexit-related hiatus. The UK left the EU program for technical and scientific research funding at the beginning of 2021, following its formally …
And here I thought you were getting your science back into your own hands. No more EU science dictates. Just plain old UK scientific ingenuity and progress for the sake of science UK. And now you want back to the old EU guards dictating science for you? How dare you! You need Sciexit, now!
/s
It’s a great shame. Being in Horizon is not in our national interest, and a waste of our taxpayers money. We would be far better spending the same money on our own university R&D directly, without the incompetent middleman mis-directing the research.
However, Sunak is our prime minister, democratically elected, and entitled to act as he sees fit. And we, the electorate, are entitled to act as *we* see fit, which means he’s going to be out of office in less than 12 months. The electorate is going to punish him for this, and rightly so. Hopefully, in a decade or so time, when all the fuss has died down, some other U.K. prime minister is going to decide to stop the program again. Which we would be entitled to do unilaterally, without begging for permission.
So, b0llchit, please could you give a quick rundown of all the Nobel prizes won by FP and Horizon-funded programs? €15bn annually, thirty years of Framework Programs before Horizon, total spend roughly half a *trillion* euro. Pro rata, compared to other R&D grants, you should be able to name around *forty* Nobels. In fact, there are *zero*. Zero. All there is, is endless lies written by the Commission, like this:
https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/news/all-research-and-innovation-news/eu-funded-scientists-among-nobel-prize-winners-physics-2022-10-04_en
The work that Alain Aspect did to win his Nobel Prize was done in 1982, before any of the Framework Programmes. It was done at ESO Orsay under national French funding. Nothing to do with EU.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect%27s_experiment
Let’s do another random lie-search:
https://sciencebusiness.net/news/european-research-council-reflects-its-formula-backing-nobel-prize-winners
What’s that? They’ve backed 15 Nobels? Really? Which ones? Ah, Novoselov and Geim, for the discovery of graphene at Manchester University. Which was funded by *EPSRC* in 2003. When did the EU get involved? An ERC “starting grant” in 2011, eight years after the groundbreaking work was done. Then the EU funded the Graphene Flagship billion euro project….in 2017. And co-funded the National Graphene Institute….from 2013. In other words, the EU decided to fund the work *once he was already famous*.
That’s just a random example of the lies the EU Commission tell you. Endless, endless lies. You should gain some expertise, in a real science, read the research programmes that are really ongoing, then you would be in a position to judge. Until then, you’re just another gullible idiot taken in by the lies.
Four things.
Sunak will be out on his arse because he's a useless tosser.
There are lots of far more important reasons for voting out the Tories than their Horizon programme fuckups.
It typically takes decades of research to win a Nobel prize in the sciences - longer than Horizon and its predecessors have existed.
Counting Nobel prizes is a remarkably stupid metric for assessing the impact of research.
That's two things they've got wrong then, isn't it? I've no love for Brexit, but I've no love for people making irrational decisions based on financial handouts.
Science and Reseach in the UK has been a disaster zone for decades now - long before Brexit. The Horizon program will not save it - the whole of Europe is behind the curve on investment and innovation, and the USA and China are eating our lunches.
And let's face it, if the case for Horizon was backed by rigorous evidence, no-one would have their backs put up when asked for it, would they?
Three things:
#1 The Tories indeed soon will be out on their arses for many reasons.
#2 The effective time-window for Nobel prizes does not pre-date Horizon’s predecessors. Framework Programme started in 1984. Nobel prizes for 2022: Bertozzi et al (Click Chemistry) work done in 1999+; Paabo et al (Neanderthal genome) work in 1997+; Aspect et al (Bell inequality) famous paper in 1982. Ironically, the one that the EU officially claim credit for is Aspect, which as you say the dates conclusively prove their lies.
#3 Counting Nobels *is* a stupid metric. The conventional academic metric is H-index….which the EU have explicitly chosen not to report as a KPI of the program because they rank so poorly. It was the EU who chose Nobels to put out puff pieces about, not me, and then they simply exaggerated and fabricated the truth to make it look good. On the well-accepted H-index, the benchmark varies by field. In my field, physics, an H-index of around 60-ish is considered average researcher, range maybe 40-80.
To give a feeling for the magnitude of the negative impact of EU funding on the quality research, let’s look at a controlled experiment. Novoselov and Geim discovered Graphene, and won a Nobel prize for it. So there can be no doubt as to either the skills of the researchers, or the importance of the field. The original research was done at Manchester, under EPSRC funding, EU not involved. Take the same people, same subject, and give them one billion euros under the EU Graphene FET (flagship project). What’s the output been? H-index of the project is 40. I’ll say that again: Nobel prize researchers, in the hottest research topic, given a billion euros to play with, achieve a industry-accepted KPI that is right at the bottom of normal range.
There’s been a lot of papers, and some of them good, as you would expect. But then, they’ve have had a lot of funding. The actual average research quality per paper is *poor*.
It's hard to tell whether "Justhefacts" is speaking from personal knowledge and experience or whether they are just regurgitating something from a Johnsonian or Faragist echo chamber. But either way, they are wrong (and I feel that "he is wrong" would be a fair guess at their gender, women aren't that unequivocal.)
Clearly though, "Justhefacts" doesn't understand how international scientific collaboration works and of what timescales apply. A lot of research, by the way, doesn't get spectacular results - that's why it's called "research". And in case you didn't know, Alain Aspect's famous experiment was only done because of John Stewart Bell's theoretical work done at CERN, another (non-EU) European collaboration. That's how science gets done - international collaboration.
I am very well versed in how both research and development gets done, over decades. “That's how science gets done - international collaboration.” True, but that’s a distraction burglary.
Research does require collaboration, between centres of excellence. Centres of excellence can be in California, Moscow, Delhi, Lausanne, Paris, doesn’t matter. Collaboration does not, in itself, require funding. There is no requirement, or use, for a collaboration gatekeeper. And *definitely* not one that restricts you to just 27 countries.
The researchers at a genuine centre of excellence come from all over the world. That’s how you know it is a centre of excellence. If your researchers are all European, for example, *you do not work at a centre of excellence*. You work at a possibly-useful-or-not workhorse. Sorry, just telling it how it is.
Aspect (1982) is one of the reasons I get angry about this, it’s pure gaslighting by the EU. Any physicist will know that date automatically. It’s like Einstein 1905, or Michelson-Morley 1887. You just can’t not know. For the EU Commission to claim that Aspect (1982) was enabled by EU funding starting in 1984 is Orwellian. It’s forcing scientists to agree publically things they know not to be true, to maintain their funding. It is *not* an accidental mistake. It is identical ethic to the Lords Army forcing its child soldiers into cannibalism of their enemies - once they partake, they are committed, because they become unacceptable outside the tribe. No researcher from CalTech would talk to you once you say this, they will lose your email address. Without scientific honesty we are nothing.
I’ve no idea why you think I would be unaware of CERNs seminal role in this, or in many important discoveries. I am not opposed to CERN. CERN is not the EU Commission. In fact, CERN is yet another European institution which is undermined by the Commission. Not only does U.K. contribute to CERN, so do USA and Japan. But slowly, stealthily, corruptly, the EU Commission has been shifting span of control away from CERN and Euratom (an independent body) into Commission DG Energy. Line item by line item. Did you never ask yourself how it was that European fusion research became a football in Brexit? It shouldn’t be intrinsically…..ITER is an EU Commission project, hence part of the EU hegemony. But…..Joint European Torus wasn’t. JET was funded by Euratom. Euratom is a *separate* treaty organisation. Why exactly has one of the most fundamental R&D projects moved from the control of the one treaty org which was established to do exactly that, to another? It’s a coup. A slow-rolling coup. Just like Commission taking over the vast majority of the effective control of space policy from…European Space Agency. The clue is in the name.
The electorate is going to punish him for this
You think so? And you think they are going to punish them by voting for parties who would go even further in re-establishing some sanity in our relations with the EU? Or maybe you think enough people will choose to vote for one of the parties of swivel-eyed loons to get them elected?
I don't see much evidence at all of anyone against rejoining Horizon, only the usual suspects who don't want us to have any relationship with the EU, hard right brexiteer extremists and their loyal fans, racists and bigots, who would rather see Britain destroy itself than have anything to do with the EU in any way.
The way I see it; this is a step towards giving leavers what they voted for, not what brexiteers keep pretending leavers voted for.
Most people appear to see this as one of the few things Sunak and this government has got right, that it was the delay in getting it which is lamentable. It won't save Tories from deservedly being put out of office, but that won't be because of this.
I don't see much evidence at all of anyone against rejoining Horizon, only the usual suspects who don't want us to have any relationship with the EU, hard right brexiteer extremists and their loyal fans, racists and bigots, who would rather see Britain destroy itself than have anything to do with the EU in any way.
Or this could be projection. Or a future research project for psychologists to try and understand why the Remnants are so anti-democracy, or assume that anyone who voted for independence is automatically an extremist/racist/bigot because they disagreed with you. As is their right, and as did over 50% of the UK's population who bothered to vote in the referendum.
The rest is mostly politics. Collaboration has existed in the academic world for centuries and there's no real reason other than politics that it shouldn't continue. Like justthefacts points out, academics have long collaborated with their peers and advanced our knowledge. Inserting unneccessary bureaucracy can hamper that and waste time and money advancing agendas instead. Or there are competing national interests. Fusion could be a GoodThing, if we can ever make it economically viable, so why not treat that as a national priority? It's much the same as with SMRs. Currently the only EU countries producing those are the UK and France, so why shouldn't we support our national interests?
Opinions change. Maybe not yours, but the weight of evidence that says Brexit was and still is a fucking stupid idea is very much against the decision.
Captain Hindsight it may be, but equally, vocal remainers get to say "we told you so". And so I'll say that again too because it will never get old.
Umm Pardon, I don't believe Sunak or Truss where democratically elected by the electorate, they where voted in by thier own parties, same as Bojo roiginally.
Why we need reform, a PM is ousted then a full GE should take place.
None of this party runs 4/5 years crud and they can put whomever is incompetent enough in charge as they want them out of the party anyway. so give what they want and let them screw up.
Old term promoted beyond incompetency springs to mind
Take a couple of minutes to think about this. First what does "ousted" mean? Blair decided to quit of his own acord as far as I'm aware. Should there have been an election then? You also end up with the situation where the PM is a liability to the country as a whole but the party in power doesn't want an election do they keep the figurehead in place. Is that a good outcome of your idea?
"Sunak is our prime minister, democratically elected"
Unfortunately this rather sinks the rest of your post. Sunak was not democratically elected, unless you count a majority of conservative party members as representative of the voting population of the country. 60,000 votes out of what, 45 million?
Why do people pretend that that isn't how it works even though everybody can see that they are just playing silly party politics with semantics and boring everybody else to death?
Tony Blair wasn't elected except by his constituents. Neither was Cameron. Neither was May, nor Boris, nor Truss.
Britain does not have a presidential system.
Also the Conservative party members had no say in Sunak. It was an establishment coup that removed (the now exonerated) Liz Truss.
I really wouldn't hold your breath there.
Whilst Erasmus isn't technically dependent on Freedom of Movement, the program does rely on easy movement of people. When Switzerland voted to restrict immigration from the EU, they were suspended from the program.
Erasmus membership would require immigration controls that would make the swivel-eyed loons' heads explode. So I don't see it happening under this government.
That's not to say it's impossible. Just that the barriers to entry are very much ours, not the EUs...
> When Switzerland voted to restrict immigration from the EU, they were suspended from the program.
Thte EU is engaged in a campaign to try to bully Switzerland into doing as it is told. This was part of punishment beatings, not a required action.
If the EU was willing, it would have been trivial to find a solution to that.
You mean, exactly like the EUs foot-meet-shotgun with Switzerland’s stock market equivalence?
EU insisted on Enforcing the Agreement in 2019. Switzerland was surprised….but Ok. The result was that all share-dealing in Swiss companies was immediately repatriated to Switzerland’s stock exchange SIX. This catapulted SIX to Europe’s fourth biggest stock exchange, from #7, after Euronext, London and Deutsche. Literally overnight. Arguably Euronext is just an umbrella organisation so SIX is #3 (that’s the Swiss version of this)
https://www.statista.com/statistics/693587/stock-exchanges-market-capitalization-europe
https://www.six-group.com/en/products-services/the-swiss-stock-exchange.html
The biggest problem SIX had, was that their transaction volume shot through the roof so they really struggled to handle it technically. Is that the sort of EU rule-following you had in mind?
Switzerland has an unusual position due to its à la carte agreements with the EU. Something which the EU has decided it won't be doing again, as it's a lot of bother. This is as good an example as any other of why it's a lot of bother.
So when Switzerland decided to look at passing laws that would negatively affect EU businesses and citizens, the EU naturally reacted. Switzerland is sovereign and has a right to determine its own future, but that sovereignty does not grant a right to avoid the consequence of their actions.
The EU is also sovereign, and when it saw that Switzerland was trying to do something that was very much against the spirit of closer working and cooperation that Switzerland had previously been cheering on, they had a right to react.
It's not bullying. It's cause and effect. If the EU had done it out of the blue and for no good reason than to exert power, it would be bullying. But that's very far from the situation described. Not that I think you'll want to admit that...
Your view reflects the two major problems with the Quitling's view of sovereignty - it's one-sided and ignores the possibility of consequences. It's a completely useless view because of that.
You're right that the EU could have found a solution. And they did. They made it clear to Switzerland that if they want access to their share of the benefits, they have to pay their share of the costs. The ball then went into Switzerland's court to decide whether or not the benefits were worth the cost.
As an aside, remember when major Quitlings were trying to tell us that the Switzerland model would be a fine one for us to pursue after leaving? "All of the benefits, none of the downsides?"
It might not be best to try to claim that Switzerland is being bullied lest you find yourself having to perform logical contortions when you (inevitably) hold their arrangements up in a positive light to try to downplay the benefits of Single Market membership...
Just hilarious. All that pomp about how much richer and better the country would be if we didn't have to ship untold billions to the EU. Turns out the country is too poor to stop schools from crumbling, keep roads in decent condition or meet the healthcare needs of the population.
All that Brexit hubris finally being put right one painful step at a time.
Meanwhile, those responsible oscillate from saying 'things are great' to 't'wasnt us, it was covid'. As if the UK is the only country having to deal with a pandemic it hadn't planned for.
Nobody ever said that we shouldn't cooperate with the EU on anything.
There are people opposed to this, there are people in favour of this. I have no view on that.
However I do have a view on how silly you look pretending that this vindicates your federalist ideology.
( Also if your last sentence is talking about how badly Britain has done economically since Brexit, you are a couple of weeks out of date. The ONS has substantially revised its estimates and Britain has performed far, far better than previously claimed. Perhaps try staying current. ).
> Nobody ever said that we shouldn't cooperate with the EU on anything.
Err.. so we left Horizon because we were all for co-operating with the EU right?
...'Piffle' in the words of BoJo. I never put forward a federalist ideology. And whatever the ONS data might say, just take a look at the reality - crumbling schools, failing health service, potholes galore. Yea we're doing great mate.
> Err.. so we left Horizon because we were all for co-operating with the EU right?
The EU kicked Britain out of Horizon ( despite Israel being members ). Rejoining Horizon was negotiated a few years ago but the EU decided to hold it up.
If you're going to drift off topic, the "crumbling schools" were started to be built by Harold Wilson. The problem became apparent in 1994. The urgency happened because there was an incident with this material recently meaning it was now an urgent problem. The government decided to do the right thing and close the schools affected so nobody would die from this.
The SNP in Scotland decided to just leave the schools open. Who cares if a school might collapse with the pupils still inside if it is politically expedient to just keep the schools open?
Yes, I agree, having the centre-left uniparty in power since 1997 hasn't been great, but that isn't really relevant here, is it?
The EU kicked Britain out of Horizon ( despite Israel being members ).
No, the UK could not be a full member of Horizon any more as it was not a member state any more and there was no legal basis for it to continue to be a full member of Horizon. The terms of the UK's associate status were agreed in the TCA.
Rejoining Horizon was negotiated a few years ago but the EU decided to hold it up.
There was no timeframe specified in the TCA over Horizon. However the UK did not implement many areas in the WA and TCA concerning Northern Ireland. So you're complaining about the EU taking its sweet time to do something at the same time as the UK was guilty of not keeping its side of the bargain. Oddly enough now the UK has finally promised to keep its side of the bargain the EU has stopped dragging its feet. Funny that.
The government decided to do the right thing and close the schools affected so nobody would die from this.
I suppose it also did the right thing in 2010 as well when the slithy Gove decided to stop renovating the school estate in good time (aka Building Schools for the Future) meaning nobody would have been in danger, no schools would have had to be closed at all, and nobody's education would have had to have been interrupted.
Which of course means it would have only fixed 19 schools?
There are a small number of Tory MP's who aren't centre left.
Liz Truss was an example of that ( and the papers are finally admitting they got it wrong when they brought her down ).
Kemi Badenoch is another example and she's currently the members favourite cabinet minister.
The vast majority of the Conservative party ministers, Sunak included, are centre left.
Grow up with your "hard right" nonsense.
No, really. Rishi Sunak is a right-winger
Mr Sunak’s perky and nerdy demeanour covers an overlooked fact: he is comfortably the most right-wing Conservative prime minister since Margaret Thatcher. Taking a hard position on asylum-seekers is just the beginning. On everything from social issues, devolution and the environment to Brexit and the economy, Mr Sunak is to the right of the recent Tory occupants of 10 Downing Street. Yet neither voters nor his colleagues seem to have noticed.
Stop smoking your bad tobacco. The majority of the decent Tories were booted out before or at the previous election. Those in are either church mice or go out on the outlandish limb to make sure they can move up in the circus that is the Tories.
The fact that the 1922 committee executive is dominated by right-winger Brexiteers is enough of an indicator. Woe betide you if you go up against them.
The issues with RAAC lifespan were known right back into the 1970's. Let's do a simple maths exam.
Anticipated asset life of AAC? 30 years. School built in 1990. When would be a reasonable point in time to start planning for the asset replacement?
a) 2010
b) 2020
c) 2023, a day before the term starts.
Yeah, that's how fucking incompetent the last 40 years have been from both sides. Getting to option C is a special kind of incompetence. And presiding over blatant decisions denying funding to do stuff about it too...
( Also if your last sentence is talking about how badly Britain has done economically since Brexit, you are a couple of weeks out of date. The ONS has substantially revised its estimates and Britain has performed far, far better than previously claimed. Perhaps try staying current. ).
You are correct, the ONS has revised recent statistics. Which is good. The performance, as described by The Economist has gone from "abysmal" to "poor", compared to other countries - which have not yet revised their statistics in the same manner.
Germany in recession and short of workers, France having medicine shortages.
Were the Remain side telling the truth when they made these claims before the referendum? Was their lie just leaving out that these things would happen to Germany and France rather than Britain?
From Andrew Neil just now: "German manufacturing output showed worse-than-expected 0.8% contraction over past month. 3rd month in a row that factory activity has shrunk. Economists warn that economic stagnation is the “new normal” in Germany."
Maybe they shouldn't have left the EU.
"Germany in recession and short of workers"
Just for your amusement I recently read that Germany finally managed to provide over 50% of their energy through 'green' methods. Not because the green output improved but because their economy shrunk. Not that its an EU issue affecting Germany (the green madness is killing their economy) but something of interest given our countries green obsession.
A more detailed analysis can be found on the website of the Fraunhofer Institute: https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/press-media/press-releases/2023/german-net-power-generation-in-first-half-of-2023-renewable-energy-share-of-57-percent.html
There has, indeed, effectively been some export of production such as ammonia to other countries due to higher energy prices and Germany is not alone in this. However, prices under the merit-order principle are set by the most expensive marginal producer. Capacity is down but so is load with renewables picking up the slack as nuclear and coal generation goes offline. And, after a lull, capacity, particularly, solar is increasing rapidly again.
Industry is suffering as a result of higher power prices but it's nothing like as bad as some, mainly lobbyists, would make out. Lots and lots of things still to sort out: storage, cheaper marginal production but hopefully reduced interconnection charges in areas with greater renewable capacity will start improving things.
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The country isn't too poor at all. It's just been pillaged thoroughly by the Tories and Labour refuse to do anything about it. Which is risible, as now we have a former Director of Public Prosecutions confronted with a gang of thieves and saying he can't have them arrested as they might abscond with the loot.
"Just hilarious. All that pomp about how much richer and better the country would be if we didn't have to ship untold billions to the EU. Turns out the country is too poor to stop schools from crumbling, keep roads in decent condition or meet the healthcare needs of the population."
You are aware that is an issue that has been ongoing for some time as a legacy issue while in the EU. Basically it has nothing to do with our membership at all.
"All that Brexit hubris finally being put right one painful step at a time."
Where? The 'expected' apocalypse didnt happen. There was a struggle to complain about it.
"Meanwhile, those responsible oscillate from saying 'things are great' to 't'wasnt us, it was covid'. As if the UK is the only country having to deal with a pandemic it hadn't planned for."
Sounds like those responsible might be right depending on what they are responding to.
@Charlie Clark
"No one predicted an apocalypse, just significant disadvantages as the two scientists were quoted to illustrate."
End of western civilisation. The UK will be little England and irrelevant in the world. Voting leave will cause a recession (didnt)... moved to when we begin article 50 (didnt)... moved to nebulous some point in the future (didnt).
@Charlie Clark
"More hyperbole"
What is hyperbole? The FUD from remainers that I wrote out? You asked I answered, you can admit to being wrong it wont hurt.
"The UK's growth rate has been lower than the EU since it left"
I think now is my turn to ask for sources. I ask as the EU proper (eurozone) was in recession in 2023 while the UK was not and Germany is shrinking economically.
"inflation is higher, as are interest rates."
Those two are linked. None of our economies look too healthy after covid (and could have been better before) but your grasping does re-enforce that the claimed apocalypse didnt happen.
"The post-Brexit trading relationship between the UK and EU, as set out in the ‘Trade and Cooperation Agreement’ (TCA) that came into effect on 1 January 2021, will reduce long-run productivity by 4 per cent relative to remaining in the EU. This largely reflects our view that the increase in non-tariff barriers on UK-EU trade acts as an additional impediment to the exploitation of comparative advantage."
Source: Office for Budget Responsibility.
@AC
"may be you didn't notice they still haven't implemented their own brexshit import/export rules (delayed again), due to realising it would totally fuck the UK over, what a wonderful brexshit!."
So you are saying the UK hasnt implemented something that would screw ourselves over. Which would be the sovereign decision to not do something we know would be bad to us? Wanna call that a brexit win?
I'm fairly convinced that Brexit was the first test of the sabotage of democracy by Facebook et al on a major western democracy. Without Brexit, we may not have had Trump. Bolsonaro. Modi. We may not have had the full scale invasion of Ukraine.
Will Brexit eventually lead to, or at least hasten, WWIII? Quite possibly it will. How can you call something like that a "lie"?
The only evidence that has turned out to be true in recent years about election interference was America's left wing establishment lying about Russia assisting their opponents.
For example the now disproven lie that the Hunter Biden laptop was "Russian Disinformation" in order to trick American voters into voting for Biden.
And this spread across the pond inevitably, with left wing journalists lying to the public ( eg: see The Guardian's Carole Cadwalladr and the damages she had to pay for lying )
@Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells
"For example the now disproven lie that the Hunter Biden laptop was "Russian Disinformation" in order to trick American voters into voting for Biden."
It also seems that the disinformation effort by the FBI/state department to tell social media what is(nt) true was a violation of the first amendment according to the fifth circuit court of appeals.
>” You are aware that is an issue that has been ongoing for some time as a legacy issue while in the EU. Basically it has nothing to do with our membership at all.”
I seem to remember saying (in the leave/remain debate) the cause of the UKs problems wasn’t so much Brussels but Westminster…
I think many against the UKs membership of the EU, forget it was Westminster, not Brussels, that denied UK electors a vote on the relevant membership treaties…
@Roland6
"I seem to remember saying (in the leave/remain debate) the cause of the UKs problems wasn’t so much Brussels but Westminster…"
Certainly a good portion of the problem. Including gold plating EU regs which didnt put the EU in a good light but was the implementation by our lot. My view is such overzealous implementation makes it difficult to tell where Westminster stops and the EU starts, so taking their nose out of the butt and making clear where our government is accountable does stop them from the confusion.
Just as when idiots marched on London against the 'tampon tax' which needed protesting in Brussels because our lot couldnt remove the domestic tax.
Given this is really simple to prove and is definitely true, I suppose they have to cling on to not looking this up because it might cause them to re-evaluate their entire worldview. And nobody wants to do that on a Friday.
What if voting for Brexit didn't cause WW3, for instance?
@Binraider
"No, it wasn't. The incumbents in Westminster could have acted."
I dont know where you got your belief from but you are wrong. The tampon tax could not be removed because of Brussels. The only way the UK could have removed it was to remove it before agreeing to participate in the EU. It ended up with people blaming Westminster for Brussels.
"The tampon tax could not be removed because of Brussels"
Although it was.
UK committed to removing the tampon tax in the budget in January 2021.
The EU parliament voted in March 2016 to allow member states to decide whether to continue to apply VAT. Although this was never made into EU legislation member states have used this to reduce or remove VAT (eg Eire has 0%, Germany has more than halved the VAT, other countries are moving or have moved to removing the VAT)
Yes, the UK was first - no it wasn't prevented by Brussels.
@Mooseman
"UK committed to removing the tampon tax in the budget in January 2021."
So if the UK could do so before leaving the EU why was it in the budget in 2021? The answer is the EU rules didnt allow it. The EU considered and seemingly finally got around to allowing countries to zero rate sanitary products if they want.
"So if the UK could do so before leaving the EU why was it in the budget in 2021? The answer is the EU rules didnt allow it"
In the same way that the Eu didnt allow Eire to have 0% VAT.......
I know you think that endlessly repeating the same drivel counts as "facts" for you (while denying actual facts by repeating the same tired nonsense, EU bad Trump innocent Truss best PM ever lefty media blah blah blah) but you arent fooling anyone.
@RegGuy1
"So where's (at least one) brexit bonus?"
Really? Do people still ask this question? Assuming you were in the UK you might have noticed the vaccine arriving sooner for covid. Not signing up to the covid recovery fund (aka give more money to prop up the Euro). No longer being associated with that embarrassment Ursula.
@notyetanotherid
"This is not correct. Under European law, the UK was permitted to act independently to approve the vaccine in an emergency."
I am not sure how you have got this wrong, how do you feel this is not correct? Sourcing a website called full fact does not mean you have provided full facts. The reality of the situation is very conclusive based on what actually happened in the real world.
"So where's (at least one) brexit bonus?"
I was going to keep well clear of this whole discussion, but if remainers are going to persist in this 'where's one good thing about Brexit' nonsense, it seems sensible to speak up.
There were benefits in remaining, and there are benefits in leaving.
I shall not address the benefits of remaining, since you have not asked for those.
The UK's response to the vaccine roll-out (including sign-off for use and production/acquisition), and then the ability to lift lock-down several months earlier than in the EU, saved the UK huge sums of money (plus, by re-opening access to the routine services of the NHS saved countless lives).
The UK is no longer complicit in the agricultural dumping that the EU has been doing in Africa (the last case I am aware of involved dumping milk powder, mixed with palm oil, onto the west African markets, meaning it not only under cut local farmers but meant that the poorest people there were under-nourishing their children, since the palm oil content reduces the milk's nutritional value).
The use of animals for testing cosmetics which had been made legal again by a EU ruling (in limited circumstances, true), has now been explicitly blocked, so animal testing for cosmetics is no longer permitted in the UK
(Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65623580)
We have indeed, taken back control - meaning that for most issues, UK politicians can no longer get away with blaming Brussels, like they have for decades (and like politicians in the remaining EU 27 continue to do). Thus, our politicians are now more accountable.
The UK was historically a brake on the EU federalist agenda / plan for ever closer union. With the UK having left, the EU can now more readily progress in that direction. (I'm assuming that you are not so parochial as to only want Brexit bonuses that apply to the UK).
Outside of the EU, the UK is able to make foreign policy decisions much more speedily than the EU can, since the EU typically requires consensus, which inevitably, takes time. If you doubt the value of that, you clearly were not paying attention to events 18+ months ago, when the UK was one of the few countries rushing arms to Ukraine immediately before and after the Russian invasion, while the EU (predictably and rightly, before people get upset) sought to achieve consensus amongst 27 nations.
The UK has left a customs union and pollical organisation that amounts to about 14% of the global economy (16% if including the UK), the countries of the EU 28 (ie EU27 + UK) having previously (1980's) amounted to about 25% of the global economy, and joined the free trade organisation that is CPTPP (which we could not otherwise have done), whose 11 members (prior to UK joining) amount to about 14% of the global economy, but whose importance has been growing. Furthermore, the potential expansion of the EU is limited to relatively small/relatively poor countries, plus Ukraine (which is understandably going to be a huge drain on global funds for many years after their victory against the Russians, to repair the damage the Russians have done). Oh, and Turkey, though we were all told that they were definitely not joining the EU. The current and potential candidate nations for CPTPP meanwhile include a number of significant and significantly growing economies.
The global tilt towards the indo-pacific region is not just a thing that applies to the military.
That is clearly somewhat more than one Brexit bonus, and the only bit of internet searching I had to do was to find the link to the BBC story, so with only a small amount of research, I am sure that you yourself could find many more examples of a 'Brexit bonus'. Sadly, I suspect that you would rather repeat the lie that there aren't any, than actually discover the truth.
More likely that if Brexit hadn't happened then the UK would be seeing a lot of money coming in to restore the British schools to be safe for all students. But so many issues like that are a result of stupid government regulation changes, when I was an Architecture student we were being told that you had to make all schools and hospitals physically safe, not just cheap to build.
I see all of the truth seekers are rushing to point out the factual errors in your post...
.. ah no, of course not. Just to help them, if Brexit hadn't happened, we would still have been a net contributor to the EU, so no, we would not have seen any money at all coming in to restore British schools.
At least come up with something that isn't so obviously and demonstratively false, or is that really all you've got?
Earfy brexiteers were gullible, or blinded by bigotry. To think brexit is good at this late state is beyond delusional. It's MAGA Trump levels of insanity.
https://www.ft.com/content/e39d0315-fd5b-47c8-8560-04bb786f2c13:
Almost two years after Britain left the EU, economists have reached a consensus: Brexit has significantly worsened the country’s economic performance.
Andrew Bailey, Bank of England governor, told MPs this month that the central bank assumed that Brexit would cause “a long-run downshift in the level of productivity of a bit over 3 per cent” — most of which had already happened. “We have not changed our view on that so far,” he said.
Some former officials have gone further. “Put it this way, in 2016 the British economy was 90 per cent the size of Germany’s,” said Mark Carney, former BoE governor. “Now it is less than 70 per cent."
Go on, now tell us the FT, the LSE, and all serious economists are "woke lefties"
This whole post is a complete non-sequitur. Who said anything about Brexit being good? It's been badly mishandled from the start and science and research have massively suffered from governmental incompetence at every level. However, that doesn't justify spreading disinformation about the state of the country - that's what we accused the Brexiteers of doing, so perhaps it's something we shouldn't ourselves perpetuate.
It's worth poiting out that the article you quote is nearly ten months out of date - relying on the nearly 2% incorrect GDP figures and prior to Germany entering recession.
Here's a more up to date assessment https://www.eiu.com/n/germanys-economy-records-a-third-quarter-without-growth/ (random Google link)
As for "woke lefties" - you're making some very wrong assumptions there.
>>England is not and never will be one of the "poorest regions"
Perhaps not England, however Wales was in receipt of millions(billions?) of € funding from the EU because it is one of the most deprived areas in the EU, let alone the UK. Left to their own devices, Westminster just won't bother - as indeed they haven't. Too busy futures trading on ferries that don't exist and lining the pockets of their chums.
Mind you, by here the turkeys voted for Christmas, except in Cardiff and Swansea....
The 'crumbling schools' comment is presumably related to the use of RAAC.
Used from the 1950's to the 1990's.
I've not seen any explicit discussion in the press as to why it fell out of favour, but if you bother to do a bit of reading around, you'll find that it was in the 1990's that concerns were raised over the material's integrity when it reached end-of-life, around 30 years after to manufacture. I infer from that, that the UK construction industry decided at that point to cease it's production and use.
So for 30+ years, government has been aware of this issue - including politicians of all parties, and more importantly, the civil servants responsible for ensuring schools are safe. There was no immediate call to replace this material, since it was agreed (by all, apparently) that the material, if managed properly, was safe.
However, it was the unexpected failure of a school roof earlier this summer that led to the previous advice being reviewed/revoked, and emergency measures implemented.
If you want to blame those in charge for endangering lives through use of RAAC because it was cheap to build, you need to spread your blame to every UK government from the mid-1950's onwards. And to the civil service that are responsible for providing technical advice to the politicians (we do generally agree on this site that politicians lack any degree of engineering or technical competence). Oh, and also quite a few European governments too, since I believe that RAAC has been used quite widely in Europe, as well as the UK (it will be interesting to see if/when there is media coverage of the issue as it affects non-UK sites)
As if the UK is the only country having to deal with a pandemic it hadn't planned for.
Indeed, and we're still roughly in the middle of the EU pack when it comes to the economy, so COVID hit all European countries in pretty much the same way, in the EU or not. Brexit hasn't made a significant difference either way, so far.
Sure. Because it's always a good idea to go solo on a project that has already taken decades and multiple billions from an entire economical coalition.
Even better, go solo when actual advancements are being made.
Brilliant timing !
Just like Brexit.
You don't understand - they can use this money better!
They already have several excellent bids for domestic fusion services. They include:
I think we can all agree that whoever is picked for this funding, it will be well spent and not at all a boondoggle of colossally corrupt proportions...
(Seriously though - Capita Fusion Services. If the idea of that doesn't scare you, you're a damned fool.)
Or as the EU put it:
The UK has decided not to pursue its association to Euratom and Fusion4Energy/ITER [the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor]. This decision is guided by the UK’s assessment that its industry’s long absence from Euratom and F4E/ITER programmes cannot be reversed.
Meaning... the UK's nuclear industry has fell behind so much it can't catch up? Or it just means that uk.gov doesn't want to spend any money, for a change?
I think you mean Bloody Stupid Johnson
"his legacy lives on...there is apparently no start to his talents."
Umm, are you actively hoping that tourism from EU residents stops?
Logically, what is in their pockets is what remains after they have paid tax, otherwise they would not be called taxpayers. Tourism is one way of getting hold of (some of) that remaining money, as is cross-border trade, selling UK originated goods and services to EU residents.
Perhaps you meant to say, "I hope not a cent will go from EU taxpayers' taxes to the UK."?
NN
To be fair, given the standard of our tourist attractions, making it harder for foreigners to visit may be a blessing. We are less likely to embarrass ourselves with how bad they are.
For examples, compare the standards of Alton Towers (which is falling apart, covered in chewing gum, overpriced and has major attractions out for multiple years at a time...) to Europa Park in Rust.
Yeah, if I were an EU citizen still there are plenty other places that I'd visit first. As a Brit, to be fair, I'd visit those external places first too.
"to advance our status as a science superpower."
Whether that's true or not isn't relevant. The problem is whenever we *do* invent something, there's almost no one to invest in developing it so it gets sold on to the highest bidder, or in some cases, given away. Even the so called "British Crown Jewels of IT", ARM is neither UK owned nor even being IPOd on the London Stock Exchange. Even many of our "strategically important" utilities are foreign owned.
The transfer of wealth continues.
Compare your bank account to Rishi’s or any MP’s or any EU bureaucrat.
If you think any money going to the EU is a good thing then you’re a lamb to the slaughter.
All of your tax ends up going to big corporations and then banks. Money going to the EU is just another way to siphon of your tax. Guess who’s the most invested in these corporations?
You guessed it, Rishi, all MP’s, EU bureaucrats, banks.
From the other side of the planet it looks like the UK has a whole lot of nothing. I am glad I am not a Brit. but thanks for all your refugee nurses, doctors etc fleeing your NHS train wreck.
If I were you lot I would start learning Norwegian “Jeg krysser fingrene for deg!” (No. It doesn't mean doing something obscene to Boris et al.)
The adverts aimed squarely at NHS Nurses to relocate to Australia are somewhat frequent.
I wouldn't blame them for taking it up either, after well over a decade of being shat on by ill-thought out Austerity measures that haven't even remotely made a dent in the debt and trade deficit problem we have.
The real rot kicked in in 2008 when the UK became a net energy importer, with no serious attempt made to re-establish trade balance by any political outfit.
The trouble with selling off every UK asset to address the shortfall, is that eventually there are no assets left to sell.
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