Intel said it didn't consider UK for new chip-making factory because of Brexit(businessinsider.com) |
Intel said it didn't consider UK for new chip-making factory because of Brexit(businessinsider.com) |
No surprise whatsoever. What on earth did Brexiteers think was going to happen?
Still, at least we now have £350m a week for the NHS (oh wait, we don't) and a whole bunch of trade deals with others (oh wait, we don't) and a thriving economy (sigh).
Obviously Covid will be used as the fall guy from now until eternity, but it's so blindingly obvious that we've been stiffed by a bunch of nutters with some totally false sense of "Being Free Again". Free from trade, partnerships and an easy way of doing business, yes.
Sorry. Bit bitter about the whole thing.
I'd wager some wanted this to happen, it makes buying up public infrastructure and companies very cheap. The sale of ARM just after the referrendum is just one example.
Oh, and do I need to mention that the jobs aren't year-round? If you want to work all year, you probably need to be able to travel, which is going to be more difficult since brexit than it was before and the pay certainly won't be as good everywhere. In some places, you aren't even afforded the same protections under the law because you are a temporary migrant worker.
When you simply quote the amount paid per hour, you cannot get the whole story here. And that's assuming that your £30 an hour quote is a flat rate per hour: I don't know how it is there, but in many cases, farm workers get paid per piece, so it might realistically be "up to £30 per hour" instead.
I’m all for bashing brexit but let’s stick to facts here (otherwise you’re no better than they are), I’m pretty sure the UK has done trade deals.
It's really no surprise international companies are not feeling the encouragement to invest in UK operations. The Prime Minister recently lied in his speech to the Conservative party conference about inward investment levels, claiming we rank much higher than we do.
I assumed this sort of thing and worse, and thought that on balance, it was worth it.
That pretty much sums up how far UK has been hijacked by chancers.
Doing business from the uk to the rest of europe is harder and more expensive now, of course it is better to do it in ireland (geographically close and speaks english natively) or somewhere else (idk, Germany or something).
While geographically correct of course, politically and economically USA with its 50 states is the center of gravity in North America just like like EU with its 27 states is center of gravity in Europe
This is not fb people realise europe is not a country, and I bet majority know difference between eu and europe.
So it's not just that Intel could have put the site anywhere in Europe, there would be some natural advantages in the UK that are undermined by Brexit.
The problem is not that it's surprising that trade deals are hard, nor even that the ones got so far are either relatively low volume affairs or involve concessions that some (all?) experienced trade negotiators consider unwise.
It's that the political class that engineered Brexit claimed that trade deals would be easy, labelled anybody who pointed out that they were wrong "remoaners", harassed career civil servants for giving honest advice, and hamstrung efforts to prepare for this frequently predicted situation.
I expected Brexit to be bad, but I was perfectly capable of having civil conversations with people who supported it. I didn't expect Brexit to be this bad, because I did not expect the Tories to be this incompetent, or the Brexit-supporting media to be this dishonest.
Now I know better.
> I didn't expect Brexit to be this bad,
I think we have different ideas of what "bad" is. There are understandable difficulties, but black-swan events in recent years have completely overshadowed any damage that Brexit may be causing. COVID-19 is "bad" in my books. Chinese/Russian influences are "bad". Also see chip shortages, global supply chain issues, etc. Arguments about fishing are not - unless you are one of the small number of people affected by this...again on the scale of a country I'm not convinced.
I think we don't: I think we have different beliefs about what the most important facts of Brexit are. I guesstimate Brexit will cause more suffering to the British people than Covid-19, though with low confidence, since one thing we agree about is the likelihood of game-changing surprises. Brexit has been a huge success for Russia, although something of a problem for China. Brexit has magnified the impact of the poor global economic situation on Britain. The fishing spat has caused quite a bit of injury to the UK's once very high reputation for diplomatic competence, although far less than the conduct of the UK's top negotiators between invoking Article 50 and signing the WA.