The Brexit Thread

[Diable Rouge]

Andrew Marr wasn't always the dimmest, most self regarding dullest tool in the shed.

He did have a stroke lately.

[Diable Rouge]

Appears the counter-demo has comfortably outnumbered Yaxley-Lennon's protest.

[Del Usory]

isn't the point that the carbon tax follows tax cuts for the wealthy,? and your relatives in "embra" (which has reasonable public transport) are not really relevant to rural france.

whilst " fuck off any cunt who thinks a carbon tax that hits themselves is unjust" seems a bit harsh on those for whom a carbon tax, takes them below the breadline.

It's not the carbon tax that's taking them below the breadline.

It's a lack of either adequate income for their labours, or the absence of a universal basic income.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Being generous you have to tackle industry re pollution to make any real dent. But fuck off any cunt who thinks a carbon tax that hits themselves is unjust. Ourselves in the West need to get hammered, whether individuals or corporations, to reduce needless consumption of fossil fuels. I’ve got relatives up in arms about possible bans on driving in Embra city centre who also happen to live max 200 fucking yards from a main bus route. Get over yrselves, driving should be made as unpleasant as possible in urban areas short of shooting at ye.

My thoughts entirely. It's like with the support for Brexit. You're not actually striking a huge blow against the powerful. When you attack rises in petrol taxes, you're saying exactly what lots of people who are completely opposed to environmentalism want you to say.

Apologies for wasting everybody's time with Blakeley last night.

[Nefertiti2]

It's not the carbon tax that's taking them below the breadline.

It's a lack of either adequate income for their labours, or the absence of a universal basic income.

You’re being dumb. If a tax reduces your income then you’re not going to say great tax but I need a universal basic income.

[Tubby Isaacs]

It's not the carbon tax that's taking them below the breadline.

It's a lack of either adequate income for their labours, or the absence of a universal basic income.

A UBI that covered people driving long distances is going to be far too expensive to work, I think.

[anton pulisov]

Fix income inequality

Petrol tax is obviously a much bigger hit on poor people than rich people

[Nefertiti2]

especially when you've just given s big tax cut to rich people, making the "carbon tax" a tax on poor people

[Nefertiti2]

https://twitter.com/TomSteyer/status/1071521802969591808

[Tubby Isaacs]

especially when you've just given s big tax cut to rich people, making the "carbon tax" a tax on poor people

The poorest people don't have cars at all. Poorer families have fewer cars and use them less. They're less likely to drive the biggest polluting cars. They use buses and walk more. They're more likely to live in places with high pollution, and have health affected by it. Their kids are more likely to get run over. Fuel costs are less than half the cost of motoring overall, and real terms motoring has got cheaper because of the improvements in cars.

[Pérou Flaquettes]

N

[Pérou Flaquettes]

Nef is essentially right on this.

Re the above tweet: it's one of their many messages (unsurprising obvs.) but the reality of the movement (their demands etc.) is much more complex (and simplistic at the same time), see the French thread.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Yeah, I get that lots of the engaged have a progressive agenda overall, but going down the road of "I'm not paying for my pollution until something else happens" is disastrous. It's like supporting Lexit, it's a gift to people who are the complete opposite of you.

As far as I can tell, France has a reasonably good record on climate change anyway by the standards of comparable countries. So I don't really get this premise that French "corporations" (it's one of my biggest bugbears that people think of these as being completely separate from us, as if taxes and controls are a free lunch) are running amok with pollution.

There's lots wrong with the UK, but if petrol taxes went up, most of us would surely think that was good. The IFS reckon that freezing fuel duty since 2010 has cost £45bn. That's bad, surely?

[Pérou Flaquettes]

Maybe not the right thread for this but not sure where to put it. Went to a 50th birthday party to an Italian restaurant last night, average food (gone downhill since it changed hands 3 yrs ago and was patronised by Newcastle United footballers, saw Davide Santon and Gabriel Obertan in there, it wasn’t a posh place at all – 3 courses = £25 a head – but the Italian owner was great and a Darras Hall neighbour of those footballers, and the food was excellent so a wide range of customers flocked there) but cracking party atmosphere, there was a great female singer there and nice staff (British, Italian, Romanian, Cuban… And that’s in the North East with one of the lowest % of furriners – how on earth will the UK manage post Brexit is anyone's guess. Those Tory pledges to bring down net migration "to the tens of thousands" will go pop before you can shout through a loudhailer, standing on the White Cliffs of Dover: "We are pulling up the drawbridge, stay away" .

Anyway, as often when I’m sbronzo (pissed) I genuinely believe I can speak 23 languages fluently, Smartphones are great for giving you delusions of polyglotism. So I tried to inflict my poor Italian on one of the chattier Italian waiters, a smiling Sicilian gent in his 60s. He started to talk to me passionately in broken English about the south of Italy and Sicily, it was all very festive and theatrical (he was gesticulating like a true Mediterranean, "This is great", I thought – I was brought up in this mad high-spirited Mediterranean culture) when his smile suddenly turned into a grimace and he went: "Italy and Sicily are in trouble, it’s bad, do you know why?" Jokingly I replied: "No, let me guess… Your wine’s not very good? US Palermo is rubbish now Zamparini no longer runs the club?" NOOOO he said and continued, in an alarmed voice: "No… Immigrants, too many immigrants… No good for Italy, no good for Sicily, it was much better before […] Sicily was rich before but not anymore".

I thought "Here we fucking go"… I really didn’t want to go in there but before I could fob him off politely he carried on telling me about those halcyon days when Sicily was so fantastically great (he never clarified was era he was referring to, "the past" in general most probably, and I certainly wasn’t going to ask him for clarifications), he went on about when Sicily had the farming, the fishing, the olive oil etc. (I’d sort of switched off at this point) before the other (much younger) Italian waiter said something to him in Italian and the Sicilian rushed to another table (don’t know what the younger waiter said but probably "Haway man stop yabbering, we’re busy" or maybe "Stop talking such fucking bollocks").

[Pérou Flaquettes]

Yeah, I get that lots of the engaged have a progressive agenda overall, but going down the road of "I'm not paying for my pollution until something else happens" is disastrous. It's like supporting Lexit, it's a gift to people who are the complete opposite of you.

As far as I can tell, France has a reasonably good record on climate change anyway by the standards of comparable countries. So I don't really get this premise that French "corporations" (it's one of my biggest bugbears that people think of these as being completely separate from us, as if taxes and controls are a free lunch) are running amok with pollution.

There's lots wrong with the UK, but if petrol taxes went up, most of us would surely think that was good. The IFS reckon that freezing fuel duty since 2010 has cost £45bn. That's bad, surely?

The French eco-tax on diesel or whatever it's called was just the catalyst, the last straw. I can give you some reading matter on this if you want (corporations, Co2 emission and inequality). Piketty has written a lot about it for instance, in English (he can barely speak English so it must have been translated but let me know). I'm not a specialist, Christ, far from it, I'm only starting now to read about it, it's interesting.

[ursus arctos]

He's not alone, and by "immigrants" he means people of colour.

M5S is now by far the largest party on the island, with very close to 50% of the vote in 2018.

[Nefertiti2]

Yeah, I get that lots of the engaged have a progressive agenda overall, but going down the road of "I'm not paying for my pollution until something else happens" is disastrous. It's like supporting Lexit, it's a gift to people who are the complete opposite of you.

As far as I can tell, France has a reasonably good record on climate change anyway by the standards of comparable countries. So I don't really get this premise that French "corporations" (it's one of my biggest bugbears that people think of these as being completely separate from us, as if taxes and controls are a free lunch) are running amok with pollution.

There's lots wrong with the UK, but if petrol taxes went up, most of us would surely think that was good. The IFS reckon that freezing fuel duty since 2010 has cost £45bn. That's bad, surely?

if you live without public transport,- most of the UK - and you need to shop or go to the bank or have children then the only alternative is petrol. You may not own your own car, but you share or give people petrol. Without a car you're fucked.

You must know this- you live in Wales. Until public transport is plentiful and cheaper than driving a carbon tax will e a tax on the poor. You need to give people alterantives, rather than explain to them why they aren't poorer although their income has dropped.

[Nefertiti2]

If we're talking about refugees I just did my Christmas Shopping

[Pérou Flaquettes]

He's not alone, and by "immigrants" he means people of colour.

Of course but you don't necessarily expect to hear that from a restaurant waiter on a busy Saturday evening (although we've come to expect anything now, people are far more brazen post Brexit, eg the sort of comments my wife hears in her shop, pre Brexit she hardly heard any).

M5S is now by far the largest party on the island, with very close to 50% of the vote in 2018.

Yes, very sad. The lack of penetration of Renzi's Partito Democratico or the centre-left in general in the bottom half of the country also explains that.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The French eco-tax on diesel or whatever it's called was just the catalyst, the last straw. I can give you some reading matter on this if you want (corporations, Co2 emission and inequality). Piketty has written a lot about it for instance, in English (he can barely speak English so it must have been translated but let me know). I'm not a specialist, Christ, far from it, I'm only starting now to read about it, it's interesting.

Yeah, I'll have a look. Though among corporations I'd like to take a financial hit, oil companies come right at the top of my list. That would improve France's balance of payments too. I expect there have been tax and benefit changes that have hurt lots of people on modest incomes, but these are the problem not the petrol taxes. I'm not close to things, but it seems like the likeliest response from the government is that the petrol taxes go and the other stuff stays, which would be disastrous

There are obviously all sorts of people with different agendas and political views opposing these petrol taxes, but to return to where I came in on this thread, the left take is particularly baffling. When it comes to economic policy, the solution is for France to devalue. Devaluation isn't exactly a boon to affordable petrol.

[Pérou Flaquettes]

Yeah, I get that lots of the engaged have a progressive agenda overall, but going down the road of "I'm not paying for my pollution until something else happens" is disastrous. It's like supporting Lexit, it's a gift to people who are the complete opposite of you.

As far as I can tell, France has a reasonably good record on climate change anyway by the standards of comparable countries. So I don't really get this premise that French "corporations" (it's one of my biggest bugbears that people think of these as being completely separate from us, as if taxes and controls are a free lunch) are running amok with pollution.

There's lots wrong with the UK, but if petrol taxes went up, most of us would surely think that was good. The IFS reckon that freezing fuel duty since 2010 has cost £45bn. That's bad, surely?

Yes, France has a good record but that's a bit beside the point here. What matters is public perception, the fact that big corporations have a poor carbon record and they're not held to account on this or on taxation. The latter (low taxation for the big players, high for the rest of society) is the driver of the current protests now (although it didn't take long for he Gilets Jaunes demands, and this grassroots uprising, to spread in all directions).

Re the Co2 emission in France in relation to income: this France-specific article La taxe carbone pèse plus de 4 fois plus sur le budget des plus pauvres is worth a read, as is this 2015 worldwide study: Carbon and inequality: from Kyoto to Paris. I’ve only read bits, very informative.

[Tubby Isaacs]

if you live without public transport,- most of the UK - and you need to shop or go to the bank or have children then the only alternative is petrol. You may not own your own car, but you share or give people petrol. Without a car you're fucked.

You must know this- you live in Wales. Until public transport is plentiful and cheaper than driving a carbon tax will e a tax on the poor. You need to give people alterantives, rather than explain to them why they aren't poorer although their income has dropped.

Living in Wales has actually confirmed my thinking. I can see for myself that poorer people have smaller cars, take buses etc. The Welsh Government deserve credit for maintaining a decent level of bus service, even with cuts to their grant, and there's no reason why France (which taxes about 12p in every pound more than the UK) can't afford to fund that.

[Flynnie]

If the EU are the real enemy, according to the Lexit premise, then the only choice is to stay and fight from within. It’s abundantly obvious the massive trading bloc next door will turn the screws on the UK and essentially tie the country to their policies, as we’ve seen with May’s Brexit deal that no one who knows anything thinks can be amended.

Likewise, the new buzzword from Novara and Blakeley is there is no pan-European demos, which is an obscurantist way of saying most of Labour’s natural allies in Europe, whether social democratic like the SPD or PSOE or radical socialist like Podemos and Linke, think Labour’s policies on this are insane. It’s like Owen Jones’ main reason for supporting Remain... Podemos’ people told me I was barmy, and they’re suffering far worse austerity than the UK is and don’t control their currency. At least Jones saw the light. The only people who seem to be supporting this are MMT acolytes, Ronan Burtenshaw and Costas Lapavitsas. Beware of Greeks bearing gifts, particularly ones with axes to grind because their negotiations with the EU failed spectacularly.

It makes me worry what their plan for the economy is, I’m seeing basically some sort of siege economy based on autarky with wholesale nationalisation without compensation or Labour using the Treasury to buy off business. How they expect to do such a radical restructure of the economy and retain the consent of the public will be very tricky, considering Labour still struggle to get over 40% of the vote and two out of the four UK nations want little to do with them.

Leaving the EU is all well and good, but the acolytes seem to have forgotten we can rejoin. In which case we will be meekly taking the euro and their plans will be for nowt.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Yes, France has a good record but that's a bit beside the point here. What matters is public perception, the fact that big corporations have a poor carbon record and they're not held to account on this or on taxation. The latter (low taxation for the big players, high for the rest of society) is the driver of the current protests now (although it didn't take long for he Gilets Jaunes demands, and this grassroots uprising, to spread in all directions).

Re the Co2 emission in France in relation to income: this France-specific article La taxe carbone pèse plus de 4 fois plus sur le budget des plus pauvres is worth a read, as is this 2015 worldwide study: Carbon and inequality: from Kyoto to Paris. I’ve only read bits, very informative.

Thanks, I'll have a look. Those figures are very striking.

[Diable Rouge]

Barry Gardiner is the Labour rep on the Channel Four debate, so you're better off sticking with the snooker.