28th September 2021
Over at the Financial Times today there is an outstanding piece of journalism (again) by Sarah O’Connor.
In this article she explains why temporary/emergency migration schemes can be misconceived:
‘But it’s not always that simple. It is common for migrant workers to borrow money to pay for visas, transport and recruitment fees, which makes them vulnerable to exploitation. In addition, unlike under the EU’s free movement of labour, they are usually tied to a specific employer or recruiter which makes it hard for them to leave if they are treated poorly. As a result, the schemes can exacerbate poor pay and conditions in some sectors and calcify employers’ dependence on migrants.
‘One study by the US Economic Policy Institute concluded: “We cannot point to one historical example in which a temporary labour shortage has been remedied with a temporary labour migration programme, and then employers returned to hiring local workers.”
‘A favourite aphorism of migration experts is that there is nothing so permanent as a temporary migration programme.”
The article should be read in full here.
And then, setting out other examples, she avers:
‘None of this was inevitable. If the government had really wanted to improve the quality of jobs in the food and transport sectors, it could have done so regardless of Brexit.’
*
And on Twitter, another insightful commentator Dr Anna Jerzewska set out the following thread:
Plenty of "we all knew Brexit was going to be a disaster" tweets in my feed.
A reminder that it's not necessarily this simple.
Yes, it was always going to be economically damaging but it did not have to be this bad.
/1
— Dr Anna Jerzewska (@AnnaJerzewska) September 27, 2021
There are the short and long-term economic effects of Brexit which were inevitable.
E.g. it's now more difficult and more expensive to trade with the EU.
But then there is also bad project management.
/3
— Dr Anna Jerzewska (@AnnaJerzewska) September 27, 2021
And yes, we also had the pandemic and other factors contributing to the "perfect storm". But the pandemic has been going on for quite a while now and we all remember where we were the same time last year – crying out for more guidance
/5
— Dr Anna Jerzewska (@AnnaJerzewska) September 27, 2021
Remember that? How last-minute everything was?
Said it before and will say it again, this is not how you deliver a project to make it a success.
And when the industry speaks out you don't treat them as a nuisance and work with them.
/end
— Dr Anna Jerzewska (@AnnaJerzewska) September 27, 2021
And today Jerzewska correctly comments on O’Connor’s piece:
And again. Brexit is one issue. But if we blame everything on Brexit we're forgetting that the Gov had years to prepare for the type of Brexit they were pursuing. https://t.co/NRdT23UDOi
— Dr Anna Jerzewska (@AnnaJerzewska) September 28, 2021
*
There are purists who will say that any Brexit would be bad, for there was no way the process of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union could have gone well.
To an extent, the purists are correct: there was no way such a fundamental shift to settled commercial, policy and legal relations could go uniformly well.
But.
There is no reason why Brexit had to be done this botched way.
And this is not just the captaincy of hindsight.
(For example, in 2017 I set out some practical suggestions for how Brexit could be done better.)
Yet for political reasons, Brexit was done in a rush and with no planning or real thought (that is, with no real policy) as to what post-Brexit arrangements should be put in place.
And it is this policy failure – literally, the failure to have a policy – which is, alongside Brexit and Covid, the cause of so many of the current discontents and disruptions.
What Brexit is revealing and exposing are the policy failures of successive government, and especially recent governments.
Like discovered checks in chess, things have moved that show deep vulnerabilities that had hitherto been hidden.
And because the post-Brexit government is not serious about policy, and has no grasp of dealing with complex situations, we get expediency and bluster instead.
*
Perhaps – like a policy equivalent to a market adjustment – a new group of politicians will now emerge to supply the policy seriousness that is now demanded.
This would be like how in many wars, new worldly commanders come to the fore to replace the clumsy peacetime generals who make the initial mistakes.
Perhaps.
But unless we soon have a generation of politicians that have the measure of the practical problems facing the United Kingdom then there can only be more chaos and crisis-management, instead of planning, thought and policy.
Brace brace.
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I agree. It is like in court that even the best lawyer can’t win every case but the poor one can lose the best of cases.
I am still taken aback at the lack of planning for Brexit. I was always wondering if there was a cunning plan in the background.
thanks for this insightful piece, David. As always very interesting.
Would Proportional Representation help our benighted country? What are your thoughts on that issue?
I think it would because it would encourage more people to vote feeling they could vote for a party that represented their viewpoint. Democracy would be invigorated. The necessity for coalition government would mean that politicians would have to listen to one another and compromise and thus have a more respectful and genuine dialogue. Note that currently in Germany they expect to take many weeks or months to form a coalition government because it must be done carefully and with guaranteed commitments. The checks of coalition constraints would inhibit autocratic control by a prime minister and a tiny group of individuals as we are experiencing in UK government now. It would reset politics here in a healthier direction.
Binary politics are inherently unhealthy, and can never encompass nor reflect the range of views of a whole society.
The problem with PR is, to adapt the famous joke about the Irish farmer giving directions: If I was going there I wouldn’t start from here.
What remotely plausible route can you see to the UK adopting PR, given both main parties will lose votes by implementing it?
Revolution?
The only Countries in Europe which use simple FPTP for parliamentary elections are Belarus and the UK, worth thinking about the state of democracy in both of them,
But – I suspect – Labour would be pretty comfortable in a “progressive alliance” style of government, working with other broadly like-minded parties on matters of common interest.
One of the best things about PR is that this would be anathema to the Tories.
Proportional representation covers a wide variety of systems. Ireland uses multi-member constituencies with the Single Transferrable Vote, which is an excellent system. It gives the voters very good control over who gets elected, while ensuring that those elected represent a reasonable cross-section of the electorate. This system does not recognise political parties (except to the extent that the candidate may have their party indicated on the ballot paper).
Spain uses a closed-list system, whereby political parties choose a list of candidates and (approximately) voters choose which party to vote for. This gives political parties considerable power as a candidate who is controversial within a party, but popular with the electorate can be put on the list at a place where they are unlikely to get elected. Consequently it is better than the UK’s FPTP in that you don’t get one party with a large majority even though they got a minority of votes, but not as good as STV as parties have disproportionate and unjustified influence on the result.
Exactly. If you’re going to have PR avoid the list system. In full STV the customer (voter) is king. Irish political parties pick over constituency results in detail after every GE, to see where they missed out on votes or transfers. Candidate selection by political parties is entirely driven by what the electorate will vote for.
And – joy of joys – over time the voters realise the power they have and engage with the political system because they know they own it. How different from having to decide whether to vote for a donkey with a red rosette or a donkey with a blue rosette.
But as I said above, it’s hard to see how the UK can get to this, short of revolution.
Yes those comments are sensible, and it is quite clear that the British government has been quite brilliant at making a bad situation worse by basic failures, however I do see a sad lack of the sorts of politicians on any side to provide the solutions that are suggested, the best economic analysis of the dangers of Brexit are here, long but spot on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9Hz_6QV3eY
Posen’s prognosis is chilling on how the consequences will accelerate the UK economic decline through effect on investment and productivity, there has been far too little coverage of these issues- Economics coverage in the British media with the exception of the FT and the Economist is very poor
Thanks for posting the link. All that and a short and pithy contribution from Martin Wolf, what more could one ask for.
The current approach of bluster and groundless optimism will continue while it delivers good opinion poll numbers. Only when those numbers are consistently bad will we get a change, either through a change of party at an election or, more likely, the Tory party ruthlessly removing its leader well before the election and substituting someone with a different approach. If we wanted serious politicians, like Germany has, we would have to get into the German habit of voting for competent people even if they’re a bit boring.
The reason no planning for this type of brexit took place is simple – in order to plan one would have to admit that the “project fear” / yellowhammer consequences were correct, which would then show up brexit to be unpolishable.
#KRO ;-)
Competence in government (see today’s FT leader) – could this now become an election issue? I hope, so, but fear not. Either way, it’s time Labour woke up and smelt the coffee rather than tearing themselves to pieces over identity issues. There might just be an open goal . . .
Sadly, “there is every reason why Brexit had to be done in this botched way”; Theresa May and then Boris Johnson wanted to cling to power and had to bend over backwards to keep the ERG on side (the DUP were just useful idiots and could be ignored once their votes were no longer significant). Johnson had the numbers (post Dec 2019) to do “Brexit right” (an oxymoron, if ever there was one), but Johnson has no interest in, or grasp of, detail. He wanted (and still wants) the adulation of the Eurosceptic wing and to appeal to a (supposed) populist faction of the electorate. I suspect (on observation) he holds no true political views or vision. The “levelling up”; “build back better”; “get Brexit done”; “oven ready deal”; “global Britain” etc are all just hollow slogans devoid of any substance or even thought. He surrounds himself with sycophants and incompetents to prop up his own position. Indeed, you can point to an earlier captain of the ship of fools for laying on this disasterous course: David Cameron – the dolt who let the Brexit genie out of the bottle without a thought or a plan. Had he enfranchised long-standing EU residents in the UK or the expatriot community in the EU, imposed a super majority or insisted that an advisory vote was just that, all of this mess would have been avoided.
Absolutely agree.
Also throughout the forty years of membership politicians should have had the courage to promote the advantages of the EU and encourage a positive appreciation of us all being European citizens with a shared desire for peace and mutual support.
I agree, Dr. Mike.
It is impossible – and unnecessarily excusatory – to separate the mess we’re in from the people who made the decisions that have put us in it.
Given the individuals and institutions that have caused this shambles, I would argue strongly that all of this was inevitable.
The only way it could have been otherwise – again with a nod to Dr. Mike’s observations – would be if Brexit had never happened in the first place.
Dr Mike C mentioned
“oven ready deal”
It is becoming evident that the “oven ready deal” is actually a goose, which is now being cooked.
Assertions that the goose once upon a time laid golden eggs are rapidly fading away into mythical status.
The whole Brexit issue has been bedevilled by the fundamental question faced by the UK regarding what sort of relationship it wants with Continental Europe.
There has been no happening of any consequence in Greater Britain for the last two thousand years that has not been significantly impacted by events on the Continent. None. And this situation is not going to change whether we are a part of the EU or not.
Our traditional policy from Tudor times on was to ensure a balance of power in Europe. With the development of the EU this policy was no longer viable and the possible reduction in access/exclusion from our traditional Continental markets lead to membership of the EU.
The Conservatives, who lead the charge on this issue, are fundamentally conflicted. They want the economic benefits of membership of the EU but they hate the adherence to the rules that membership of the EU requires. Even when they sign up to things the character of the Prime Minister is such that he will attempt to wriggle out of what he sees as unnecessary restraints.
Until the Conservatives can arrive at a lasting consensus among themselves the Country will continue to stagger from pillar to post. Covid has just made resolving the dilemma more difficult but the dilemma will remain when the Pandemic is over.
“But unless we soon have a generation of politicians that have the measure of the practical problems facing the United Kingdom then there can only be more chaos and crisis-management, instead of planning, thought and policy.”
It seems that a significant proportion of politicians are mediocre at best. To what extend are more able individuals, who would probably be better politicians, put off by how they would be treated in the media by the popular right wing tabloids.
The ‘policy’ is to acquiesce to Conservative Party Donors: everything else is secondary (until there is a ‘public relations problem’ – defined by cutting through to the ‘common cause of a chaotic approach’ voter base).
This then brings out the Distractions (as amplified by Express-Mail-Telegraph and undercut by part of the ‘matter-of-fact’ mainstream BBC: many BBC Journalists are outstanding robust news people – it’s not a broad brush).
Distractions then move from ‘the defined’ that are ‘easily pictured’ like ‘world class Bridges or Tunnels’ especially to places where there are ‘Brexit Voters’ (of various hues) and Populist Politicians (grouped enough to ‘align’ with Spartans-ERG-Straight-up-Donor-Soul-Sellers or be disruptive enough to demonstrate they can support both sides of an argument for just long enough to move onto the next chaotic moment).
All policies are mentally checked first against donors (which are not only relied on for oiling Brexit MPs rewards / finances but they are also ‘loyal’ and will never pull the rug out from the merry-go-round): an Authoritarian Trope (so Left-Right and Unionist-Nationalist also become ‘less relevant’ including to the point of also serving as distractions for the Inner Core Brexit Circle to have free reign on any of the UK’s checks, balances, rules, traditions, myths, judicial review, electoral systems – that they can ‘get their paws on’).
There will never be a ‘Timid Thatcher’ situation with Boris Johnson: a point where a Prime Minister gets elected Leader (1975) in a way where (her) MP supporters believe her to be ‘of a certain political disposition’ but she rolls the dice in the form of a vision that becomes an ‘ism’.
The Brexiteers don’t have a ‘comparable’ policy framework. They can only fail or fail badly: the extent to which the brake is applied is controlled by Boris Johnson: despite ‘everything’ so much comes down to the emotional intelligence of his wife and the overt appearance of anything on the street that will ‘upset’ his core base (that exist at times almost purely to support anything that he does to upset the ‘non-chaotic elite’ (at least he has a ‘chaos gene’ in common with (them) / ‘us’.
One big problem is that the Civil Service has been denuded of competent people. Broadly speaking, anyone who drew attention to practical issues with Brexit, either in how to negotiate the exit arrangements or manage trade post exit, was sidelined as a “non-believer”.
The incompetents took over. Think Frost.
Perhaps a lack of takers for lorry driving jobs is exactly what to expect in a high wage high skill job market – like the UK. We have to be high wage high skill because house prices/rents are so high, that is the starting position.
There lies a big snag – there is no sane route into high wage high skill job for the average kid from a cr*p town with no parental support for transport or lodging. The old days of pitch up, get an apprenticeship and board/lodging are over – all the cheap lodgings are taken. Social and market stasis.
Right at the root of this problem is the unavailability of cheap(ish) housing and fixing that requires the slaughter of a few sacred cows – or some sane policy. This was the position pre-Brexit and the situation is now just the same – but nothing will be done. Those short visas will surely turn into long ones, that’s the easy way. Keep smiling Priti.
The growing labour and skill shortages across the economy of the United Kingdom are fundamentally down to the explosion of the UK’s demographic time bomb.
Over ten years ago, lowly Executive Officers in DWP, like myself, were briefing Jobcentre colleagues and external partners across the country about the consequences for the labour market of the bomb exploding.
The most significant short, medium and long term answer to the UK’s problem, but not the only one, was and remains foreign born labour to substitute for the native-born workers who were never born.
Alternatively, the population of the UK accepts a poorer standard of living for the foreseeable future.
Unsurprisingly, this was an aspect of Brexit that the Leave Campaign avoided during their campaign, although I guess cakeism sort of covered it then and up until last December.
We were once promised all the benefits of the Single Market, even when we were out of the club.
Freedom of Movement in a labour market made up of 32 states now 31, with us outside, worked to mostly defuse the UK’s demographic time bomb.
Ending Freedom of Movement mostly created the labour and skill shortages the UK economy is now facing.
There was a straw in the wind as to what might happen.
Despite Farage’s, McCluskey’s and Corbyn’s claims to the contrary, Eastern European building workers did not drive down pay, terms and conditions in UK construction.
According to Markit monthly industry surveys as far back as mid 2017, even with migrants in the mix (cue groan at niche pun) the demand for labour in UK construction was exceeding its supply, forcing employers to raise pay, terms and conditions as they competed for scarce labour and skills.
The labour market problem is decades old.
The key policy solution was migration and, courtesy of the Single Market a relatively hassle free process of moving between countries for work and to set up or take over a business.
The negative consequences of the end of Freedom of Movement on business formation and ownership in the UK has yet to really surface in the debate.
The key stakeholders knew that migration was the most significant answer to the demographic time bomb and still do, although I detect a degree of panic, even a few displays of cognitive dissonance, amongst some informed people as to the consequences of admitting where things are going whilst Priti Patel remains Home Secretary.
Her unique selling point in any future Tory leadership race in which she chooses to take part will be her stance on (im)migration.
The obvious and only major practical policy solution has to be a replication of Freedom of Movement and, in particular, the ability to put down roots in the UK so as to live and work here and not just be treated as unwelcome, but necessary guest workers, brought in as and when with Cinderella style work visas.
Patel will not wear it and neither will Labour, according to Rachel Reeves, who, incidentally has crafted in her policy of buy, make and sell more in Britain (to boost British exports!) a wheeze almost guaranteed, if enacted to drive a further wedge between the UK and the EU as well as antagonise the USA and most other trading nations around the world.
https://jodatu.wordpress.com/2021/07/31/is-labours-proposed-policy-of-buy-make-and-sell-more-in-britain-much-ado-about-nothing-or-potentially-harmful-to-the-united-kingdoms-export-trade/
When will the dictatorship of the dwindling number of hardcore Leave voting, Britain (really England) First fanatics end, given it has to date, survived two General Elections since 2016?
When will Conservative and Labour politicians speak truth unto what now amounts in 2021 to a minority of the electorate?
Excellent article from Sarah O’Connor and comments from Anna Jerzewska. Brexit isn’t the only cause but Posen and Wolf agree that it is fundamental, all the consequences can be linked to it. Labour cannot be seen to be 100% anti, so many of their voters won’t return, but isn’t there a nuanced approach that points out the continuing mess that the government oversees? Is a step by step rejoin process possible? Surely there are enough voters willing to embark on that course.
Teaching grandmother etc… I used to do some work both in IT and in safety, and a common theme across both was that when you had a major problem there was/were usually a number of different contributory factors. Had the contributory factors (the root causes) not come together then the problem would not have happened. The process to get to the bottom of what had gone wrong was/is ‘root cause analysis’. The way to fix the problem was then to stop/fix each of the root causes. Sounds simple enough but of course was not, is not so simple to carry out. Trade, logistics, supply processes are complicated, take years to build up. They look deceptively simple from the outside but inside are lots and lots of spinning wheels. To mix some metaphores, the government has throw a huge amount of sand into a machine that was already fragile. Taking out the sand is a lot harder than throwing it in, and appears to be well beyond the capabilities of the lying shyster ‘leading’ the government and his protective shield of incompetent numpties.
Dr Anna Jerzewska: “And again. Brexit is one issue. But if we blame everything on Brexit we’re forgetting that the Gov had years to prepare for the type of Brexit they were pursuing.”
From the above (and other) comments to this and to previous posts, I can’t help drawing the conclusion that the general sentiment of cultured and well informed contributors (as distinct from the ordinary man) is not that Brexit be the mother of all evils but rather the way in which it was negotiated and done.
This I find rather amazing, as I find amazing that the above (cultured and well informed) contributor be surprised of all the subsequent hard Brexit-consistent government acts. What else was to be expected from the break-away, isolationist engineers of a monster like soft or hard Brexit?
I hesitate (from my position of zero credibility in such matters) to suggest that Dr. J is missing the point, but…
She’s missing the point.
She is (understandably, but as all the available evidence suggests, incorrectly) assuming that the cabal responsible care even a little bit about the current and likely impact of Brexit on the country.
Indeed, I’d go as far as to speculate (yes, it sticks in my craw to ascribe this degree of intelligence and foresight to them) that we’re precisely where we’re supposed to be: the venture capitalists backing this particular Brexit have been, and are, raking in their pieces of silver; and the majority of the press is still happily lying to its readers that everything is the EU’s fault.
This is what The Promised Land looks like to the ERG et al.
The fact that we’re running out of food; paying more for it; are less able to move it about because there are no drivers or fuel to put in the lorries for the absent drivers not to drive; and likely to freeze this Winter due to sky-rocketing electicity and gas prices – these minutiae won’t trouble them for an instant.
So rather than berate the government for “not preparing”, I’d suggest that what we’re looking at is Mission (on its way to being) Accomplished.
Jeremy Warner of the Daily Telegraph tells it as it is:
“..But it is worse in Britain than elsewhere, and that’s because during more than 45 years of membership of the EU, Britain has become more dependent on cheap migrant labour from Europe than almost anywhere else, particularly in the last two decades of EU expansion into Eastern Europe….”
We will, likely get over today’s little petrol difficulty ….but the preparations made by this government fundamentally misread to the cost of the hard brexit we’ve got.
I don’t want to live in exciting times anymore. I feel as though l’m all ‘braced’ out. I don’t think Politics should be like this, especially if you got through the Thatcher years as a kid. What have l done now, and many others, to deserve King Boris’s ‘Golden Age’! It’s truly a rotten age.
Eleven years of what seems like failed Government and a lack of commitment, especially by the Brexit Government, to seriously tackle issues that were jumping up and down for attention has left my features permanently disfigured by the G force created by our descent into chaos. Hurtling from one disaster to another and littered with ‘can’t be bothered to sort this out properly policies’, lying scattered by the wayside like casualties of war on a battle field that was self inflicted.
Oh for a responsible and Government that wants to get on with the business of governing to do good by us all.
Seconded
Perfectly and eloquently summed up.
I am at least slightly encouraged by Keir Starmer’s stated position – that to him, winning the next election is The Only Thing; and that inter-party unity has therefore to take a backseat, if that’s the price to pay.
I agree with this entirely: it’s clear that for many in Labour, the preferred position is one of righteous indignation in opposition – some people love to play the victim, I suppose – but that attitude necessarily presupposes defeat, and I’d argue that the country can take no more of this particular status quo.