Comments by "Nigel Johnson" (@nigeljohnson9820) on "A year since Brexit: How bad are the UK's labour shortages now?" video.
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@gertscheper9653 so it is possible for farmers in the UK to use new technology to make the UK far more self sufficient in food supplies, including this items we have in the past imported from the EU.
What is more the effects of climate change, may make the EU far less productive in the near future.
Now to address some questions: I am not a farmer, I am a retired electronics designer. However, my farther was supplied by the local farmers, and my grandfather was a farmer. I live in the heart of the English Fans, and have had a chance to watch the damage EU membership has done to Finland agricultural, with the loss of productive farmland to a combination of EU regulations and unfair competition from the EU.
The fans were once described as the breadbasket of the UK. Supplying fruit and vegetables across the UK. Successive europhile UK government's sold out the farmers allowing property developed to buy up and build on productive farmland, producing poor quality, non productive housing, that now increases the risk of flooding in the region and destroyed the local environment and wildlife. The CAP proved a disaster for the UK, topped off by regulations that destroyed fruit and sugar beet production.
EU regulations on live animal exports were cruel. I am glad to see the back of EU interference in UK farming, but it will take decades to repair the damage EU membership has done. I hope the UK puts up trade barriers to EU farm imports. If tariffs are restricted, there are ample ways for the UK to build hidden trade barriers, on such things as animal welfare, chemical use, and disease control.
Brexit was not an end in itself, but a means to an end, but it requires a government that understands what is required and how to implement it.
Unfortunately, we still have vested self interest groups, who did very nicely out of UK membership of the EU, and do not care the damage it has done to the country. Cheap low wage Labour from the EU was never an answer, particularly when the produce was destined for UK supermarkets. This just exports money offshore into the EU economy. The same was true of selling UK assets to foreign investors. The clue is in the name, an investor expects to take out far more than they put in. At least today, the government has gone a little way to closing that loophole, allowing it to veto takeovers that are not in the national interest, both economic and military. It is only a small step, as vested interests will still try and stop the UK government from using the new law. A law that could not be implemented while the UK was an eu member. Being the lowest bidder is no longer a guarantee of getting the contract, if it is in conflict with the national interest, taking into consideration of the wider impact on the economy.
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@Razor Mouth☘️ Britain can only live on imports when it has a means of paying for them by matching exports, but membership of the EU has striped it of the ability, or will, to produce the goods to pay its way in the world. The economy needed to be rebalanced, and that was not going to happen while in the EU. It has had forty plus years to make the necessary changes while a member, it failed to do so. It is living on debt and the sale of critical assets, the means of production. Only now has it the opportunity to make the necessary changes, the option to maintain the status quo has been removed. Not the the status quo was ever that stable, as sooner or later you runout of family silver to sell.
You are incorrect to say that the UK can't produce sufficirnt food, it couldn't, but that fails to take into account agricultural improvements, and a lack of will to do so. It does not need to produce all the food it needs, just a lot of it. The problem with the world economy is that money has lost its connection with production. Countries can live on debt for years without consequences, storing up trouble for the future. I have described the EU as a Ponzi scheme,because it must continue to expand to hide its deficiencies, but the US is the ultimate Ponzi scheme, as it now prints money in the from of treasure bonds, just to service its enormous debt. The chance that it will ever be able to pay back the capital involved, disappeared years ago. The debt is self sustaining because no one wishes to face the losses that will result if the debt is ever called in as a result of a default on interest payments, so the us continues to borrow to fund these payments.. As a default will certainly crash the world economy, plunging the whole world into a depression.
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@captaincapslock8654 it is not anger, but rightful indignation at the policies of the EU. I am equally opposed to the more finished, anti democratic, corrupt, dictatorships that are currently flourishing around the world, be it Russia, China, Belarus, or Myanmar, to name but a few.
The EU is just a fledgling dictatorship, that hides its ambitions in a cloak of hypocrisy. It is as much a danger to world peace as Russia or China or the USA.
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@captaincapslock8654 that is an excuse, had the UK been the poor man of Europe, as you allege, then the UK should never have been made a net contributor to the EU budget.
The membership benefits you list were of little or no advantage to be UK, as it simply allowed the EU to export to the UK, undercutting our local producers. EU membership simply open the UK up to being pillaged by the EU.
The free movement of labour, undermined our labour market with cheap labour, that exported money out of the uk economy. No doubt it made a few were made richer, but at the expense of the rest of the country. It might have encouraged inward foreign investment, but as has been pointed out before, foreign investors expect to take out far more than they invest. For this destruction we paid a fee, its like paying to be robbed.
Given that the EU fee is far smaller that the amount that investment into the NHS has increased, it is impossible to say if all the money not paired to the EU was invested in the NHS. The money was not hypothecated explicitly. But then any money that was rebated from the EU, was invariable hypothecated by the EU towards, EU pet projects in the UK.
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@captaincapslock8654 well there was no chance of a review while a member of the EU. The UK has introduced new rules and laws to protect the UK from the sale of companies that might damage the national interest, both military and economic. The problem is they are reluctant to uses these new powers. As for the pound and stock market. The pound losses happened while a member of the EU, not helped by a europhile bank of England move to force down the value of the pound following brexit.
One might suspect that this was an attempt to ensure the banks dire predictions would be validated. Unfortunately for them it did not work.
Before you mention the growing inflation rate in the UK, this has little or nothing to do with brexit, and a lot to do with an engineered global energy crisis, and a failure of the UK government to stock pile gas when the sun was shining. A failure that can be equally applied to many EU countries.
One might speculate on the reasons for the current energy crises and the lamentable response of many governments.
The crisis maybe the fossil fuel suppliers trying to make money while they still can, or Putin using energy supply as a weapon.
The government lack of response, might be because it wants to use higher energy prices as a cheap way to make consumers cut their energy requirement, addressing that other great problem of global warming.
No doubt some see it as market forces cutting energy demand, and making consumers take the difficult decisions to cut their energy requirements, and therefore their bills. The only problem with this strategy, is that it reduces the amount of money consumers have to invest in energy saving measures.
It will be interesting to see which is the real reason for the current energy crisis. Will prices drop when Putin pulls back from the Ukrainian border?
Will prices fall when consumers reduce their spend on energy saving measures?
Will the UK government decide that it will open new oil and gas fields in the North sea. There are a lot of potential vested interests in play.
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@captaincapslock8654 you would like me to agree that EU buying power is reducing its energy bills, but this is really not the case. The EU size has simply made it a target for out in blackmail. Putin wants Germany to open the Norstrean two pipe line. This will make the EU even more dependent on Russian gas, making it easier for Putin to make demands in other areas without risk of protests from the EU.
The UK and Germany are caught in a trap of their own making. Both are committed to reducing green house gas emissions, this has stopped the UK developing new north sea oil and gas deposits, that would largely solve the UK dependence on gas imports. At the same time to emphasise its green credentials, the UK cut its bulk gas storage facilities, stopping it from buying cheap gas when the price was low. Germany has a similar problem, in that it has switched off working nuclear power plants.
While nuclear power is dangerous, it does not contribute to any significant degree to green house gas emissions. Even James Lovelock is reported as saying that nuclear energy is humanities best chance of avoiding significant global warming. So both are held in an ideological trap of their own making.
The uk government has vasalated for years over building a more resilient power network. I would argue this has only been made possible by the crutch offered by EU membership and gas imports from the EU. The solution is not EU membership, but building a better power network in the UK.
It might be argued that allowing north sea energy reserves to be developed, would not increase the UK's use of gas, or necessarily add to CO2 emmisions, as the UK will use the gas anyway, the only difference is where it is sourced, home produced or imported. The counter argument is that the UK needs the pain of expensive gas imports to force the change to greener energy supplies.
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