The now-enacted will of (some of) the people

[MakemineVanilla]

18 minutes ago, Awol said:

SoftBank bought out ARM Holdings (because the shareholders were happy to sell) in June/July time and Saudi is in a JV with SoftBank for the tech fund.

So what exactly are they terrified of? 

See Michael Crichton's novel Rising Sun (1992) and film adaptation (1993) starring Sean Connery.

Xenophobic conspiracy about Japan's plot to to buy out American high-tech companies.

[Awol]

31 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said:

See Michael Crichton's novel Rising Sun (1992) and film adaptation (1993) starring Sean Connery.

I'd rather go to Hamleys! 

I perhaps mistakenly thought SoftBank setting up the tech fund in London was a vote of confidence in the UK economy and a potential boon to the tech sector, particularly start ups. 

 

[MakemineVanilla]

Just now, Awol said:

I'd rather go to Hamleys! 

I perhaps mistakenly thought SoftBank setting up the tech fund in London was a vote of confidence in the UK economy and a potential boon to the tech sector, particularly start ups. 

 

And where's the outrage about Sky being bought out by 21st Century Fox, surely Sky must be a bigger employer than ARM?

[chrisp65]

8 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said:

And where's the outrage about Sky being bought out by 21st Century Fox, surely Sky must be a bigger employer than ARM?

I can't understand why a populist newspaper like The Sun or some such wouldn't organise a populist campaign to stop a foreign take over of our british media.

I thought we were all about getting our country back.

[blandy]

On 22/11/2016 at 20:52, Awol said:

Being in the single market means retaining the customs union, means not being able to do our own trade deals beyond the protectionist block - I think Yanis Varoufakis' analogy with a cartel is apt. 

A major part of the leave campaign was about doing our own trade deals with large &/or growth economies that the EU has no existing deals with.  

I don't buy this notion people didn't understand the two were mutually exclusive. 

Perhaps it's because leave repeatedly said we'd stay in the single market and also do our own deals

 

[Awol]

@Blandy, link was posted a few pages back of Andrew Neill demolishing the video and the guy behind it for his utterly  dishonest editing. 

I think the same piece also showed Osborne, Cameron et al stating that a vote to Leave the EU was a vote to leave the single market. 

[HanoiVillan]

17 minutes ago, Awol said:

@Blandy, link was posted a few pages back of Andrew Neill demolishing the video and the guy behind it for his utterly  dishonest editing. 

I think the same piece also showed Osborne, Cameron et al stating that a vote to Leave the EU was a vote to leave the single market. 

I'm struggling to see the relevance of the Osborne, Cameron bit. If politicians repeatedly all sorts of things about the single market, sometimes contradictory (which they did) then there is no specific mandate for leaving the single market. 

[ml1dch]

23 minutes ago, Awol said:

 I think the same piece also showed Osborne, Cameron et al stating that a vote to Leave the EU was a vote to leave the single market. 

So to paraphrase, the politicians advocating we leave were lying and those advocating we stay were telling the truth regarding single market membership?

Colour me shocked.

[blandy]

17 minutes ago, Awol said:

@Blandy, link was posted a few pages back of Andrew Neill demolishing the video and the guy behind it for his utterly  dishonest editing. 

I think the same piece also showed Osborne, Cameron et al stating that a vote to Leave the EU was a vote to leave the single market. 

Sure. Wasn't the "demolition" about timing? i.e. They did say we should / would stay in the single market if we left the EU, but of the clips, most were from before the first day of official campaigning? basically loads of things have been said over many years and people held their views as a consequence of that longer time and when told two different things they get confused.

[dont_do_it_doug.]

My sister voted leave. She's not an idiot either, she's a director.

She regrets it, she felt like she was conned. I doubt she's alone. 

[Dodgyknees]

I've spoken to quite a few people who have regretted voting to leave.

[Awol]

35 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I'm struggling to see the relevance of the Osborne, Cameron bit. If politicians repeatedly all sorts of things about the single market, sometimes contradictory (which they did) then there is no specific mandate for leaving the single market. 

The relevance is that before the referendum senior people in both official Leave and Remain campaigns said a vote to leave the EU was a vote to leave the single market.

A majority then voted to leave the EU.

Remainers are now claiming the vote to leave the EU had nothing to do with leaving the single market, which suits their argument but doesn't reflect the debate that took place before the vote. 

In any case we are leaving the single market so this is pretty academic in that sense.

In her conference speech May stated that the UK will leave the jurisdiction of the European Court, reimpose border controls and the country will do its own free trade deals. None of those are compatible with single market membership, ergo we are leaving. 

[dont_do_it_doug.]

19 minutes ago, DK82 said:

I've spoken to quite a few people who have regretted voting to leave.

It only needs to be one in every fifty. And perhaps those who didn't bother last time might be more inclined to vote in a second referendum. 

The whole thing was and is a bit of a farce really. I accept the result, did so straight away, but I'm confident it doesn't hold up now. Staunch leavers only this, remainers know this, the establishment know this. It's only pig headedness and fear stopping us going back to the ballot. 

If only the Labour party had leadership. They'd be capitalising. 

[blandy]

1 hour ago, Awol said:

In any case we are leaving the single market

So we won't be having our cake then. I do agree we will leave it, which is likely to cause job losses and be significantly detrimental to the economy. It's unfortunate because the single market is probably the best bit of EU membership. it's a shame it's being sacrificed in the name of "controlling immigration" - something that the tories promised to do and didn't (not even to non-EU immigration) and something that Labour wasn't bothered about when they were in.

We've already seen the stupidity of the tories on immigration in terms of doing counter-productive things in order to still fail to meet their promises. Whether that's deporting people who are doing good work and contributing to the economy simply because they don't earn more than 35k a year, or whether it's counting overseas students as immigrants (rather than visitors) and effectively hurting UK universities and Uni funding and reducing our soft influence in the world.

I'm not massively keen on the EU - the way they behaved on things like TTIP is an utter disgrace, but I'm massively concerned that our Gov't are far worse and given tories mess everything up, I can't see it ending well.

[Xann]

23 hours ago, Awol said:

I'd rather go to Hamleys! 

I perhaps mistakenly thought SoftBank setting up the tech fund in London was a vote of confidence in the UK economy and a potential boon to the tech sector, particularly start ups. 

Timed it ok. Hamleys was becoming unbearable as I left. There were some great toys. Some of the demo people have skills, 'Mystery UFO' man in particular

 

The Saudis are balls deep in the UK, they own vast swathes of it, much of the really expensive stuff. If we break down? They lose a staggering amount of cash.

So yes, it's in their interest to make it look like they're confident in the Ununited Kingdom, but It's not a permanent arrangement. It's a fund, with a lifespan, often of around a decade.

This show of support bolsters their existing interests, without committing them to the long game.

If the economy starts heading South? Their money will start leaving the country, regardless.

If the economy heads the way they're hoping? We're all pals still. Those brave venture capitalist Saudis. Giving us support, just as we're getting started on the road of our own making. We should be grateful. We won't mention them being duplicitous snakes.

 

I can't rationalise the incongruence in attitude being shown between threads here, which in turn is reflected in global politics, but I'm not a politician trying to sell Brexit, an arms dealer or in finance.

 

[tonyh29]

16 minutes ago, Xann said:

Mystery UFO' man in particular

 the bit of invisible wire from his ear is hard to spot if you don't know where to look

[Xann]

32 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

 the bit of invisible wire from his ear is hard to spot if you don't know where to look

Arrived right near the end of his routine. Was a bit annoyed when he revealed the trick, just as I was starting to work out what was going on?

Edited December 11, 2016 by Xann

[brommy]

I think it's way too early to regret voting either way. I'll be judging whether the result was the correct decision in 10 years or so.

[Awol]

1 hour ago, Xann said:

The Saudis are balls deep in the UK, they own vast swathes of it, much of the really expensive stuff. If we break down? They lose a staggering amount of cash.

So yes, it's in their interest to make it look like they're confident in the Ununited Kingdom, but It's not a permanent arrangement. It's a fund, with a lifespan, often of around a decade.

This show of support bolsters their existing interests, without committing them to the long game.

If the economy starts heading South? Their money will start leaving the country, regardless.

If the economy heads the way they're hoping? We're all pals still. Those brave venture capitalist Saudis. Giving us support, just as we're getting started on the road of our own making. We should be grateful. We won't mention them being duplicitous snakes.

 

I can't rationalise the incongruence in attitude being shown between threads here, which in turn is reflected in global politics, but I'm not a politician trying to sell Brexit, an arms dealer or in finance.

 

Let me try to put this from the other end of the lens. Saudi investing in one fund isn't going to prop up the U.K. In any way were things to go pear shaped. 

What they and the rest of the Gulf are doing is investing as much as they can outside of their own region because 1) there is very little productive to invest in locally, and 2) the region is rapidly heading down the plug hole of history. 

Capital flight from Saudi in particular is huge at the moment and they are all burning through their sovereign funds at a rapid rate. Diversifying with what they have left is better than seeing it vanish in subsidies to increasingly restive local populations.

I don't really understand your final paragraph, but personally I despise the Saudis and everything they stand for.

However I do think it's interesting that such a large investment is going to London when supposedly the smart money should be going to Paris or Frankfurt post the Leave vote..

[Xann]

18 minutes ago, Awol said:

However I do think it's interesting that such a large investment is going to London when supposedly the smart money should be going to Paris or Frankfurt post the Leave vote..

This thread could easily descend into a lame version of 'There's A Hole In My Bucket'.

Edited December 11, 2016 by Xann