David Lammy (Brexit speech)

All very true but will fall on deaf ears imo

 

And not a single word can really be argued with

 

Saw this last week. He nailed it for me, but it seems to have been very much under-reported.

 

Two problems:

Firstly, hard to equate someone looting and rioting with someone who has made a decision to exercise their democratic right

Secondly, you can find what people would usually term "left wing" reasons to support brexit or at least take a negative view of the EU, remembering the Socialist Workers Party campaigned for Brexit, for example:

In a world where 25% of human beings are at or near starvation, the Eu spends 39% of its budget on the CAP which pays farmers in stable and fertile lands not to produce food to keep prices artificially high

It has effectively set up its own tax haven in Luxembourg enabling big multinationals to pay just 5.5% Corporation tax on intellectual property rights to swerve legitimate taxation in countries such as ours that could otherwise pay for nurses, cops, hospitals, schools etc. Ever wondered why Ebay, Amazon etc are incorporated there

Its rules banned member states from protecting steel workers jobs with temporary state aid in 2016 when the chinese dumped cheap subsidised steel on the world market. Belgium did and were fined (from memory) around £200 million, we didnt, Redcar, which had been competetive and a year later when the chinese finished it would have been again, shut and remains shut (I drive past it every couple of months)

It allows state aid in what it deems economically disadvantaged areas (which it seems keen to swallow more up), backed up by soft loans and infrastructure grants, placing workers in more deveoped countries at a disadvantage beyond even the wage disparity, causing job losses. Examples include Poland with Cadbury jobs in Birmingham, Jaguar with its new Slovakian factory and Ford receiving a direct EU soft loan to expand its transit factory in Turkey (then a prospective EU member) enabling Ford to cut jobs at its Southampton factory.

The last three seem wholly slanted towards big, globalised business

But, perhaps why the whole thing is so toxic with this debate, you can not seem to sway anybody's opinion either way. As a recent joiner I have refrained from the Brexit debate but recently we seem to have been more civilised. We do have a common bond on this board and should respect other's views

 

Aren't we one of these disadvantaged areas who have benefited and continue to benefit hugely from EU funding?
I dread to think what will happen to the north south divide when the london centric Tories get absolute power and the EU are unable to help bridge the gap like they have been doing for years.

 

Just a couple of quick points to answer some of your observations .
Firstly he wasn’t comparing violence with voting he was highlighting his experiences of liaisoning with his constituents on the parliamentary findings of the cost of Brexit and why these havnt been repeated by Brexiteers to their constituents as well as the well be reight attitude some have adopted .
Also on the point of rules in the EU it is rules we made and acted on and it’s also an evolving parliament to be changed and reformed just as our parliament is also not perfect.
All those points you raised are under review by the EU just as it would be in any parliament and by highlighting some things and not others is misleading tbh I’m sure there’s many many good things the EU are doing imo

 

No we arent. I will check but last I looked rural west wales and parts of cornwall were the UK's only regions, will try and find out for sure

 

Hi Marlon, Like your quote at the bottom by the way, in a former life we may have been at some of the same soul do's. The 39% is fixed until the new budget is set in 2020. Can you imagine Macron standing up and telling the french farmers their subsidies had been cut. It caused near anarchy when he put a couple of centimes on a litre of fuel LOL

 

Still going on mate, as bad as ever... but not thought news worthy enough over here..

 

I'm not sure what technical term there is for the region we are in but I do know that between 2007 and 2013 Yorkshire had around 800million of EU funding from the european regional development fund (which gives money to poor areas to try to redress the balance) and the European social fund which is there to improve employment rates. This puts Yorkshire the second highest funded region in the UK behind the north east.

To put into context. London had £17 per head European regional development fund. We had £86 per head. Out of the £2.2b total Yorkshire had almost half a billion of it when proportionally we should have only had 200m

 

I'd like to limit bbs posts to 50 words it's like war and bloody peace sometimes .

 

Hi Marlon,
There are different grades of funding with only the cohesion funding being game changing. we are nowhere that list. Manchester and West yorks are counted as higher than average prosperity (it goes on a median income throughout the EU) and South Yorkshire was listed as a transitional area in 2014 (the last review). It is just my opinion but I think we will not see anything going forward had we stayed in south yorks beyond 2020, especially if the median income level continues to drop with proposals for absorbing countries like Albania into the EU
I can post the maps from the EU website

 

Not in the latest budget period of 2014 - 2020. The only UK enhanced fund areas currently are in fact west wales, cornwall and the valleys. In fairness the Eu paid for much of the Dearne Valley link road which I do not think a London centric government would have done. That is one of the factors in the EU's favour I did look at when voting. However, South yorks is currently transititional and I dont think will benefit going beyond 2020, even if we did stay. There are still some exceptional funds available but the criteria seems to be where you are creating jobs/expertise beyond anything that exists anywhere else in the EU (eg the Sheffield metal research facility) However, these are rare and would have become even rarer

 

Yorkshire got quite a big sum of ERDF funding in 2018. Your maps are extremely simplified and only show countries which completely ignores the fact that areas such as ours within countries get funding

 

Every moron who has ever used the term "Leave means leave", "remoaners", "lefties", "will of the people" or "unelected bureaucrats" should watch that speech and question whether they still think they voted the right way.

 

They arent my maps, they are from the EU website. I would not dispute we got some funding in 2018. However, in the Commission Implementing Decision 2014/99/EU we are listed under Annex 2 as a region under transition and therefore a tapering of funds. Given that West Yorkshire (as a close comparision) is now classed as being more developed (Annex 3), I feel that from 2020 onwards we would have moved into that catergory and as such would have been less likely to receive beneficial funding.
It is also worth remembering that we are the second biggest net contributor to the EU budget so in a sense it's some of our money we are getting back, we just don't decide how it's spent. Although like you, I do not trust a London centric government to spend any "brexit dividend" here. A sensible politician would use any such funds to make good any loss from the EU as they should easily be covered

 

When was the last time a cheque signed by Mr. Junker dropped through your letterbox? As has been previously stated, the EU funding is basically giving money to companies and local councils to keep them sweet....for now.

How has the EU enriched your life? I mean personally, not abstractly through some notion of togetherness or multiculturalism.