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EU Referendum Discussion: Well That Worked Out Well Didn't It

Brexit, should we stay or should we go?

  • Total voters
    44
Itsgoneundertheboa said:
Yep agree. I didn't reply to SHM on speaking tosh. However as someone who has employed across EU the UK employee rights and tribunal system is by far the most protective of the worker in Europe bar France.
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The point is most people are not aware of their employment law rights, in main thanks to the destruction of unions in this country. Much of UK employment law which is now seen as workplace norms originated from the EU in the first place - again because we had our unions destroyed who used to fight for these things for us. A good example of this is in relation to discrimination law. The EU framework directive on discrimination in 2000 significantly changed UK law, introducing new protected categories so employers cannot now discriminate based on age, sexual orientation or religion.

And there are other examples: the outlawing of discrimination based on being a part-time, or fixed-term worker, the right to rest breaks, paid holiday, and leave for working parents all derive from EU directives. Sure, there are many areas of UK employment law that do not derive from Europe, and therefore would not be affected by a Brexit. These include unfair dismissal protection, the national minimum wage, and unlawful deductions of pay. Furthermore, laws promoting equal pay and banning race discrimination both pre-date the UK’s membership of the EU. In some cases, the UK has even enhanced the rights given to workers which goes beyond what was required by European directives. For example, the right to shared parental leave, and to request flexible working, are domestic in origin. I am not denying this. But there are areas of employment law reinforced by Brussels which are under threat from Brexit.

Amongst these are; The working time directive places a restriction of a maximum 48-hour working week. There are also provisions which determine paid holiday, and minimum rest periods. With recent case law allowing staff to have the right to carry forward holiday while off sick, and the need to include overtime and commission payments in holiday pay, the law in this area has become complex and uncertain, and the government may want to impart a greater discretion to employers.

There may be an introduction of a compensation cap on successful discrimination claims, which is presently unlimited (unlike unfair dismissal claims which does have a statutory cap, and probably because - going back to my original point - a hell of a lot of claims never get made due to ignorance of the system and lack of representation due to lack of unionism). As you don’t require a minimum of two years’ service to make a claim for discrimination (unlike in unfair dismissal claims), employers are seriously exposed to financial and reputational risk as soon as a claim is made. So this may change.

The agency workers directive confers certain basic employment rights on agency workers similar to those enjoyed by permanent employees, and there are also record keeping requirements. They are highly unpopular by employers and it is widely believed that this will be the first employment law area to be rolled back following a Brexit.

The Capital Requirements Directive introduced changes which included a cap on bonuses for certain bankers. The directive imposes a limit that means the bonus cannot be more than the amount of the yearly salary, which can rise to up to two times the salary with shareholder approval. The government doesn’t like it, because it constrains the freedom of the banks to determine pay, which could put them at a disadvantage when hiring top staff compared with banks in the US or the far east.

Anyway, sorry Boa, I can't agree, from what I know, that German workers have less rights than Brits. Relations between German employers and employees are extensively regulated under German labour and employment law. German labour and employment law is strongly biased in favour of employees and is probably best referred to as the “employee protection law”.

In Germany, there is no such thing as “employment at will”. By law, German employees must have written employment contracts that reflect the key aspects of the employment relationship (e.g., parties to the contract, work to be performed, gross salary and benefits, vacation, starting date of employment, place of performance, notice periods). How many UK workers have written contracts? I suggest the number is much smaller, let alone being mandatory by law. Not to mention the majority being zero hours.

Tinfoil hat time. Why was June chosen as the best time? Usually because it's the point at which the currency and stock markets are the lowest
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For the last 5 years. October, May, June, August, January. Take the tin foil hat off.

http://www.londonstockexchange.com/.../summary/summary-indices-chart.html?index=ASX
 
As ever on polling days the streets are awash with pensioners - there's good reason why this area is stuck with a Tory MP since Lembit and I have no doubt this also means a strong turnout for Leave. Unlike any other polling day I've seen here the streets are also awash with younger folk. The polling place itself had loads of people my own age and younger milling about. I'd suspect this likely means a lot more people have come out to vote than normally would which should make it a much more balanced result.

In relation to the points raised by Boa and others on reasons to vote Leave on traditionally left-leaning grounds, I do have a lot of sympathy with this position and probably would have gone that route myself if only there was some and prospect of - and vision for - a Leave win having even the slightest prospect of taking the country a bit closer to even the centre grounds let alone actually crossing over into more progressive territory. There is no vision for this that's on offer though. And the prospects of any vision any of us may care to invent for ourselves is even less visible.

The only conceivable outcome of a Leave win is yet another lurch even further to the right and we've had far too many of these going back decades now. If the best possible outcome is to try to at least limit the damage to keeping things where they stand then holding my nose and putting a cross in the Remain box was the only viable option. But I do think the issues raised over the last couple of months and the thought people up and down the country of all political persuasions have put into their decisions does at least raise the slim hope of being the beginning of a process of changing the way the EU works.

If nothing else this referendum has brought into sharp focus what can happen when politicunts are left to their own devices with little or no interest and input from the electorate. Remaining within the EU and pushing hard for change by voting in decent Euro MP candidates (assuming such exotic beasts actually exist) is far more appealing than anything that could ever come from giving those people prominent on the Leave side any kind of mandate to bring about the type of change they dream of. That truly is a nightmare vision - no matter how many problems there are with the EU its infinitely preferable than the implied changes a Leave vote risk unleashing.
 
Shambles said:
In relation to the points raised by Boa and others on reasons to vote Leave on traditionally left-leaning grounds, I do have a lot of sympathy with this position and probably would have gone that route myself if only there was some and prospect of - and vision for - a Leave win having even the slightest prospect of taking the country a bit closer to even the centre grounds let alone actually crossing over into more progressive territory. There is no vision for this that's on offer though. And the prospects of any vision any of us may care to invent for ourselves is even less visible.

The only conceivable outcome of a Leave win is yet another lurch even further to the right and we've had far too many of these going back decades now. If the best possible outcome is to try to at least limit the damage to keeping things where they stand then holding my nose and putting a cross in the Remain box was the only viable option.
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Pre-cise-ly.

I've stated, idealistically, all along, the correct position for the left would be to vote leave. Owen Jones was right - before he changed his stance, the twat (I actually quite like him really). He first said Corbyn should unite the left behind leave and take the cause away from the right. Once Corbyn started playing what he thought was populism (he doesn't even really fucking believe in remain!) he left Labour exposed if Brexit wins. He's let the right hijack the cause for all the wrong reasons. The best that can be said of that is that it has exposed half the country for the idiot racists they are. The worst, for Labour, is that if Brexit wins, that's the end of the hope for a Labour government for many, many, many years.

That's a hell of a gamble he's taken.

I can't believe the way the dynamics of this have played out have left so many people voting for something they aren't really into - just against the loons on the other side.
 
Wilson Wilson said:
So that's why major investment banks and the Eton educated Tory elite support staying in the EU? Because the EU doesn't serve their interests? Come off it. The EU is run by corrupt self-interested corporations and politicians for their own benefit, it provides absolutely nothing to the average citizen.

And before anyone pulls out the whole "the EU gave us all our worker's rights" bullshit again, that is a lie plain and simple. Not only has the UK had worker's rights before it ever joined the EU, but our regulations are actually above the EU's. For example - the EU mandates 14 weeks maternity pay while UK law provides us with 52 weeks. UK law gives us the right to 5.6 weeks holiday (assuming you work a five day week) while EU law only provides 4 weeks. And so on...

If you vote to remain, you vote in favour of unelected bureaucrats who exist only to serve the interests of the elite. This is not Nigel Farage's position, this is Jeremy Corbyn's position.
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When i said raw capitalist i meant the anarcho-capitalist/uber-libertarian/neocon versions (see patrick minford or the henry jackson society) as opposed to the state/crony capitalist version preferred by the larger part of the establishment (and the almost extinct social democracy version) - even the establishment has its lunatic fringe. I said whichever side wins the establishment/oligarchs get in, of whatever flavour - so given that, the only real result i could see would be the nasty right wing getting a boost (representative of the majority of brexit voters or not). To make progress against the entrenched power of the elites of our own country will take a lot more than brexit, and if it really happens being in the EU isn't going to stop it (we are many (when not allowing ourselves to be divided), they are few)

I can see the left arguments for brexit (and have posted them) - and respect brexiters views on left and right (racists aside). I'm still confused but like Craig i voted remain because i love my mum (and my polish neighbours)
 
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StoneHappyMonday said:
That's pretty convincing. Cheers gannets.
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The market has been going one way all day, private exit polling by the banks obviously feeding into the markets, they seen to have called it right all along, big data algos and Monte Carlo modeling may be better at predicting these things than conventional opinion polls.
 
Boris Johnson has conceded defeat according to a guy who met him on the tube, he nearly didn't bother to vote in the end so his mates in finance must have filled him in early doors today.
 
I'm fairly firmly in the 'remain' camp, but just stuck a £20 bet on leave. I've never really been a gambling man but with the given odds at present that would leave me with around £140 profit if I remember correctly...

Either I'll wake up tomorrow £20 down and satisfied that our democratic society has make a good collective decision...

...Or I'll wake up with an extra £140 in my (digital) wallet.

I think the fact that I've now secretly started to hope that we've voted to leave the EU says a lot about my personal greed.
 
the people of gibraltar have spoken: ~19000 to remain; ~800 to leave.

1 down and 381 to go.

alasdair
 
this coverage is interesting. sunderland just voted 'leave', causing the total vote to swing to 'leave' and the pound just shit the bed.

alasdair
 
This is my first post in this thread but I have been reading it.

It's not that I'm not politically minded but I genuinely could not settle on a position on this one. I didn't want to get into an argument over something I have no clear conviction for.

However, I have been glued to the coverage and I am very interested to see the result. The vast majority of my customers who mentioned it today had voted leave. I try to keep my political views private in work, so I pleaded naivety.
 
The expectation from polling experts prior to the vote was that leave at this point in the count would be well ahead with Scotland, the Labour heartlands, some Northern cities and parts of London declaring first, then that lead would slowly be eaten away at as middle England votes start to role in.

The fact that Leave are ahead at this stage suggests that Remain is fucked.

It should also mean I become $3000 better off.
 
I know there's a ways to go but 500k lead for the leave vote. It's so different than following the general election coverage. Imagine what government would look like if the election were also decided on the popular vote..
 
A rough calculation is that sterling has fallen more than the totalof its two worst days combined in 4 hours (Lehman brothers and black Wednesday) and according to Blomberg is close to levels last seen in the 1980s, what have you done?
 
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