I actually sympathise to an extent with your feelings on this Fire. Over the last few months, as negotiations have slowly developed and the parties have attempted to define their stances (or not, some might feel!), I have personally had very mixed feelings on this.Originally Posted by great_fire
On the one hand I have read the various sides of the economic arguments and have come to the conclusion that the evidence for substantial economic damage that would be caused by a hard brexit (leaving the Customs Union with no agreement) seems to outweigh, quite substantially any possible benefits from leaving without a deal and attempting to compensate with trade deals worldwide. Probably the most compelling summarised data is:
https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/art...tmare-for-many
although there are many other reports that back this scenario up.
I have argued on here about my concerns over immigration, especially into Northern towns such as my home town being used to undercut local work forces and pin wages down. However, last week’s episode of the Mash Report (of all things!) brought to my attention the report from the Centre for Economic Performance in 2016 that researched the economic impact of immigration to the UK overall (from 1995 to 2015) and found that, in contrast to making regions with heavy EU immigration poorer, it actually helped made the regions wealthier. It actually makes a very interesting read:
http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/brexit05.pdf
It can still be said that this positive economic data can be negated by the slightly less positive immigration data from the rest of the world (which we have discussed previously and I know your feelings on this!), which tend on balance to have an older workforce with greater integration challenges. However, crucially, when you put all of this together, the net economic +/- of immigration is minimal and looking at it purely from an economic point of view there is little there to persuade me away from the softer Brexit option with as much CU/SM benefit as possible, with the obvious trade-offs on free movement or whatever we are bargaining with/against.
That leaves the very important aspect of the cultural impact of immigration and again focused on the Northern towns. I have made clear on here my concerns about unstructured and unfocused immigration that has allowed segregated cultures to develop in many towns and in my opinion this issue will remain and escalate until politicians lead a strong initiative to integrate. I can totally understand how these areas, with large Leave voters will feel disappointed with Corbyn’s policy shift and were quietly (or vociferously!) hoping that he would put the pressure on May also for a hard Brexit and a solid halt to immigration. However, there is far more to consider than this when balancing up final stances.
In fairness to Corbyn on his decision here, the former bland non committed approach up to now has allowed him to keep his cards on the table, look at research data as it has unfolded, examine the stance of the Tories and monitor the range of opinions in his own party before making this, relatively small, policy development. That way he has avoided any accusations of U-turns and this fits within the party’s general ‘jobs first Brexit’ that they have blandly stuck to so far. He has played, and continues to plays a savvy approach to Brexit, even now getting many plaudits from business and economic leaders in response to his speech, in contrast to the Tories perceived ‘irresponsible’ and ‘business wrecking’ plunge towards a hard Brexit. These times are not strange – they are downright ****ing weird!
It will of course cause a huge backlash from the former labour supporting Leave voters, but Corbyn at the same time has to balance that with the huge strength of feeling within party members, his own cabinet and even his own former convictions to arrive at this policy shift that at least, and at last puts some clear water between the two parties. I support it but with a heavy heart and not without reservations, just through the balance of evidence presented so far.
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