[Zelandakh]

fromageGB, on 2016-May-15, 12:17, said:

Those of us voting out from a centrist position have to tolerate left-wingers such as Ian Duncan Smith

Is this some new definition of centrist meaning "somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan"?

[Vampyr]

fromageGB, on 2016-May-15, 12:17, said:

Something else that disappoints me is Corbyn's bowing to the MPs rather than standing up for his principles. He does have principles, and was elected by the people for them. It is a shame.

By the people? You mean the Labour MPs, the trade unions and those who have paid to be members of the Labour Party? I think that Corbyn is unelectable in a general election, and the party leadership election is too full of true believers.

You know, a good alternative to Brezit might be a new provision that net contributors to the EU can opt out of whatever the hell they please. It seems only fair.

[Al_U_Card]

[1eyedjack]

In the last couple of days of political posturing our (UK) chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, warns the UK electorate that a Brexit vote would cause a downturn in house prices.

For context, Osborne is part of the Bremain camp, and we should assume that his public comments are designed to bolster support for his political agenda, ie to persuade the electorate, on balance, to waver in favour of voting to remain in EU.

I am having a bit of difficulty following the logic. There may be some doubt about whether a (significant) downturn would indeed materialise. But let us assume for now that the assessment is accurate.

Instinctively I would have thought that a one-off correction in the housing market should not have a significant impact on voting intentions, but if it does then there are certainly a proportion of voters who would welcome such a development.

There are certainly some who would be upset by a downturn:

The construction industry
Those expecting to inherit their shortly-to-be-deceased parents' estates
Those using the property market as an investment opportunity relying on capital appreciation for their return, including but not restricted to the buy-to-let market
Possibly a sundry smattering of others.

On the other side of the coin there are those looking to buy - a very substantial subset of the population.

On the edge of the coin are those already with owned properties, possibly mortgaged, who may be minded to move properties. If moving up the property chain, then they should be encouraged by a downturn in prices. If moving to smaller properties, ie those moving into retirement seeking to downsize and realise their (surplus) capital, would be discouraged.

But on the whole, I would guess that with one vote per person, those currently having problems getting on the housing ladder, *and* their parents, make up such a slice of the total cake that were I Osborne I might have been inclined to keep quiet about this particular statistic.

[Zelandakh]

Portillo also mentioned this on the weekly BBC politics show, Jack. But the official position of the Leave campaign is to deny that any such price change would occur.

[mike777]

ok so what are the UK posters position and why?

[Vampyr]

Zelandakh, on 2016-May-21, 17:42, said:

Portillo also mentioned this on the weekly BBC politics show, Jack. But the official position of the Leave campaign is to deny that any such price change would occur.

On the other hand, as Jack alludes to, the problem with house prices is that they are too high. A reduction would be a boon for people tying to get on the property ladder. And if buy-to-let people have high mortgages on these properties and have negative cash-flow, good. They are a poison in the housing market.

People who have mortgages on their own homes will not be affected. At least in the UK, homeowners tend to stay in their house or flat basically forever. Even if there is a downturn, people staying in their home will not be affected, and if they do move, well, anyone who has been in a home for,a few years has seen a huge rise in the value of their home. So,they will still gain, and their new home will be cheaper.

I am talking about the situation in London, and don't know the situation in other parts of the country. But I doubt Bremain has much traction in other parts of the country anyway.

[mike777]

Given London is a world city, perhaps the World City....I doubt that prices will drop so far that the middle class can live in the city boundaries and raise a family in the next few decades....that means move...move outside of the city.


You do have the rest of the UK ...the rest of the world....just not the city of LOndon. the tiny tiny city of london.
-------------------


In any event posters avoid voting on brexit....silly

[fromageGB]

Vampyr, on 2016-May-21, 19:18, said:

They (but-to-let owners) are a poison in the housing market.

Can't agree with you here, and I am not one of those owners. One of the big problems in this country is residential mobility, or the lack of it. People without work in an area of few jobs need to move to where work is available. Many of these (my assumption) are not owner-occupiers. They need to be able to rent somewhere, and without the buy-to-let owners there would be far fewer properties available to rent. The situation would be worse.

[Cyberyeti]

fromageGB, on 2016-May-22, 10:57, said:

Can't agree with you here, and I am not one of those owners. One of the big problems in this country is residential mobility, or the lack of it. People without work in an area of few jobs need to move to where work is available. Many of these (my assumption) are not owner-occupiers. They need to be able to rent somewhere, and without the buy-to-let owners there would be far fewer properties available to rent. The situation would be worse.

But the rents are unaffordable to them. Without the buy-to-letters, a number of those properties would be owned by people who currently rent, freeing up others. Whether properties are buy-to-let or owner occupied doesn't change the number of properties. All buy-to-let does is enrich a lot of estate/letting agents.

[manudude03]

I'd be voting to stay within the EU. I simply don't think the country can afford to cut itself off right now. Increased import taxes would mean that any resources we are currently importing become more expensive while the increased export taxes may make some current EU countries look elsewhere for the resources they require. With the economy barely recovering from the recession, any solutions dealing with the interim period until we become almost self-sufficient (if such a thing would even be possible) would have to entail mass privatisation which would more than likely include our hospitals and whatever transport we have left (Translink, and its subsidiaries which run all public buses and trains here in Northern Ireland are government owned, I know it has already become somewhat privatised in the mainland), something that is part of our identity as Britain.

I suspect if the outcome was in favour of Brexit, referendums will quickly follow regarding the status of Scotland and Northern Ireland within the UK.

[Al_U_Card]

Here, one of our problems is the fusion of small towns to create municipalities in order to save on duplicated or less efficient services. Sadly, without exception, we always end up with a less efficient and rather bloated bureaucracy.
GB has accepted yet another layer of government with ADDITIONAL bureaucrats. Unelected and unaccountable. Worse yet, it costs you more and more. Economically risible.

[Vampyr]

The Private Eye had a good cartoon. A man is holding a ballot paper. The two options on it are: Too frightened to leave the EU; Too frightened to stay in the EU.

What I wonder is, whenif we vote to get out, what will happen to all the European nationals living and working here?

I hope that they will eligible for a special visa; surely they won't be ordered to leave?

[helene_t]

Vampyr, on 2016-May-23, 08:16, said:

I hope that they will eligible for a special visa; surely they won't be ordered to leave?

Heh, I would hope for Northern England to join Scotland in that case.

More seriously, I don't think anyone knows what Brexit really means. It could be a Norwegian solution, i.e. still an EU member for almost all practical purposes except the British influence on the EU would be less than it currently is. Or it could be back to stage zero and take a place in the queue behind Turkey and Kazakhstan. Probably closer to the first option. But who knows.

[Vampyr]

helene_t, on 2016-May-23, 09:29, said:

Heh, I would hope for Northern England to join Scotland in that case.

More seriously, I don't think anyone knows what Brexit really means. It could be a Norwegian solution, i.e. still an EU member for almost all practical purposes except the British influence on the EU would be less than it currently is. Or it could be back to stage zero and take a place in the queue behind Turkey and Kazakhstan. Probably closer to the first option. But who knows.

People talk about no influence on the EU as if it were a bad thing. It seems to me that influence is useless if you don't have to follow the regulations and policies.

I don't know if Britain is unique in that a lot of the regulations and policies seem to be unsuitable for us. And we are not keen on a general loss of sovereignty, while Europeans seem to think that that is really great.

I think that Britain (and before that, England) has always had a bit of a superiority complex. Standing alone in WWII did nothing to diminish this. I thought that Eurovision was created to foster a post-war fellowship among nations. That should have been enough,

[helene_t]

I would think that lower roaming charges, holiday pay, equal pay for men and women, maternity leave, max 48h/week, food labelling standards are all things that are just as beneficial in the UK as elsewhere in Europe. I suppose most of those things would have been introduced in individual countries without EU dictate also. But there is always the temptation to lower local standards to boost the competitive strength of local industries, so protecting consumers and workers is sometimes more feasible for EU than for individual countries/counties/cities/villages.

[Zelandakh]

Vampyr, on 2016-May-23, 10:12, said:

I don't know if Britain is unique in that a lot of the regulations and policies seem to be unsuitable for us. And we are not keen on a general loss of sovereignty, while Europeans seem to think that that is really great.

This rather misses the point Stefanie. If Britain were outside of the EU it would not mean that we could opt out of regulations that we deem unsuitable. Part of the cost of getting tariff-free access to the free market is signing up to all of those policies regardless of how suitable they might be.

The difference will be that those regulations are even less suitable for the UK if we are not part of the negotiations. Any "red lines" that get crossed, and for certain they would, would mean either accepting expensive trade tariffs or sucking it up. Neither would be good for the economy.

Of course a lot of that could be mitigated by using the cash that is saved. It seems likely that the result in the long term would be a loss of competitiveness for British businesses though.

[1eyedjack]

Zelandakh, on 2016-May-23, 11:46, said:

The difference will be that those regulations are even less suitable for the UK if we are not part of the negotiations. Any "red lines" that get crossed, and for certain they would, would mean either accepting expensive trade tariffs or sucking it up. Neither would be good for the economy.

nor would they be particularly good for the businesses in the EU that will continue to want to trade in the UK. It is possible that they may make their voices heard.

[1eyedjack]

Vampyr, on 2016-May-23, 08:16, said:

The Private Eye had a good cartoon.

I can't remember where it was originally printed, but I also liked the cartoon reproduced in The Week, wherein some marketing bod is saying to his audience:

"In order to engage with the social media population, we have decided to name June 23rd .... Votey McVoteface"

[hrothgar]

I thought that the reason that Britain joined the EU was an attempt to outgrow "perfidious Albion"