[Malcolm Armsteen]

He's just trying to stop it being a foetid shithole full of snowflakes...

[The Weeping Angel]

Funny how the why aren't Labour taxing the rich are silent about stuff like this.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Yeah, anything that isn't the latest hobby horse doesn't count. See also private school fees, inheritance on farms. There are a couple more they could do along these lines- very large law firms, for instance. But you'll run out of these after a while. Sounds like something's going to give on fiscal rules.

[Tubby Isaacs]

This isn't the Tory position at all. The Tory position is "freer trade except not with the EU". But it is the Reform position, and a massive one more generally in Labour "heartlands". I think Starmer's right to acknowledge that, and I think too that the prospects for free trade without its strongest historical advocate may be overrated- I'll believe the EU (with all the protectionist challenges in member states) filling all the gap when I see it.

But this talk is going too far.



https://bsky.app/profile/chadbourn.bsky ... 5hykv6hs2x

[Youngian]

Tories and Reform are globalist libertarians. They object to politics internationalising to challenge global capital.
And neither is anyone following Trump’s actions but the opposite is happening. Even Mercusor and the EU have hammered out a deal they've been discussing for two decades. Is Starmer withdrawing the UK from CPTPP or will we become a North European national autarky with an Asia Paciifc tilt? The mind boggles.

[The Weeping Angel]

This isn't the Tory position at all. The Tory position is "freer trade except not with the EU". But it is the Reform position, and a massive one more generally in Labour "heartlands". I think Starmer's right to acknowledge that, and I think too that the prospects for free trade without its strongest historical advocate may be overrated- I'll believe the EU (with all the protectionist challenges in member states) filling all the gap when I see it.

But this talk is going too far.



https://bsky.app/profile/chadbourn.bsky ... 5hykv6hs2x

Which part is going to far?

[Tubby Isaacs]

"Globalisation" as a process has been flagging lately, per Anthony Painter. I think it's less than nailed on that it revives without its most powerful traditional advocate. I assume the RN in France put forward someone without Le Pen's previous (and surname) and remain at least the second force in presidential politics. I think they'll be very happy running against free trade deals with Bolivia.

Free trade is an underrated problem in Labour heartlands. Tristram Hunt wasted ages trying to tell Stoke that trade barriers with the biggest market weren't going to revive local ceramics. Starmer is using this moment to make a nod towards that. I think they went too far, but I noticed Darren Jones talking about cheap imported televisions. That might resonate a bit in Neath, where there used to be a big Hitachi factory well within the memory of most people.

In policy terms, we'll have to see what happens, but there's fiscal space for "government backs Sunderland firms by building stuff they should pay for themselves". That's happening already with carbon capture in various places with high polluting industries.

I think inferences over the EU reset are overdone. That's very much understood as helping UK exporters, so not really any sort of political problem.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Which part is going to far?

Globalisation being dead. It might be as a process, it might not. Few post-Covid would dispute that more local resilience was a good thing, but you don't want to sound like you're chucking the baby out with the bathwater.

[The Weeping Angel]

Which part is going to far?

Globalisation being dead. It might be as a process, it might not. Few post-Covid would dispute that more local resilience was a good thing, but you don't want to sound like you're chucking the baby out with the bathwater.

Fair enough we'll just have to see what he says tomorrow.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I may have overestimated the RN up there. I've seen more people at some county cricket matches.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Fair enough we'll just have to see what he says tomorrow.

My guess is there's some stuff that's been planned for a while that's been given a slightly clumsy post Trump trade war messaging. A few years ago everyone agreed that globalisation had shattered lots of Britain and that we'd paid a very heavy price for lack of local capacity in the time of Covid. But I expect it'll be "deluded" if Starmer says.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned by anyone is carbon capture. Centred on industrial hubs, as it is so far, and as it was by Sunak, it's the government forking out to help industries in poorer regions that will get flattened by carbon taxes otherwise. You can't really get more of an industrial policy than that really. And causes no problem with fiscal rules- which Reeves changed to allow for more investment. So I wonder if we'll see more stuff like this.

It'll probably be rubbish, won't it?

[Youngian]

Had they come to see Varafakous and Melenchon give speeches?

[Bones McCoy]

Y is she protesting at a mosk?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Had they come to see Varafakous and Melenchon give speeches?

Or some British newspaper columnists, who are very sure that it was terrible she'd been nicked for fraud.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Iregular verb. We "appease the dictator and fail", they "make sensible offers which will be refused".

[Youngian]

Trump's narrative changes by the day, he could offer the EU, UK and his neighbours a zero tariff deal and sell it to Maga voters as a victory.

[Abernathy]

I’m beginning to think that it is now at least possible that in the face of Trump’s crazed tariff attack on the entireity of world trade, Starmer/Reeves may just risk abandoning their fiscal rules, and/or accelerating some kind of agreement with the EU that gets us back to a place where the UK can benefit from being in solidarity with, if not back as a member state of, the European Union. Trump’s psychotic behaviour might just be the blessing-in-disguise chance that is needed to at least begin the process of reversing Brexit.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The fiscal rules are basically fine. Bring forward all the capital investment you can if the economy needs a boost, that's exempt.

I assume (though this might be a big assumption) that a big rapprochement with the EU right now would get noticed and risk EU-level tariffs. A low key deal next month on a few points, as has been planned for a while, is good enough for now.

There's been a lot of talk of joining the Customs Union, but the way it operates with Turkey is not considered a credible solution for the UK. It wouldn't be credible in Turkey if it didn't exist already.

https://ukandeu.ac.uk/explainers/explai ... any%20case.

There's the Lib Dem possibility of a different type of Customs Union, but that would be a huge thing to negotiate, and (like Single Market membership) I can't see that they'd waste their time with Farage and Kemi saying they'd tear it up.

[Abernathy]

Isn't what we’re aiming for something more like the sort of arrangments the Swiss have with the EU ?

[The Weeping Angel]

Iregular verb. We "appease the dictator and fail", they "make sensible offers which will be refused".

I sometimes think that for a lot of people on Bluesky the EU is less a political organisation but more an ideal that is in stark contrast to horrible backward, insular Britian.