1. Knowledgeable in what? Knowledgeable in every subject under the sun? Wow - university must be magnificent today! Yours is an utterly absurd statement to make.

2. So people who don't go to university aren't capable of critical thinking also? You outdo yourself!

3. What is absurd? Rich areas tend to vote Tory don't they - and the incidence of children attending uni in those areas is far higher than in poor ones so by your light you must think that Tory voters are more knowledgeable and capable of analytical thinking. Which I think is absurd.

You really need to get rid of this chip on your shoulder, paul!

It is still wise to listen and assess what they say.


I do? strange that since even when I studied economics I never thought that.


I believe I have said that before on these forums; but economics is still based on a few fundamental rules, and it is still possible to come to a completely different result. Consider for example how long it is going to take to negotiate trade deals once we leave. How much money comes into the country, how much money we have to pay for Roads, schools, hospitals and all the other things. How much of a disadvantage we have when negotiating those deals (I suspect a very big one since many of those markets are so much larger than us e.g. USA, India, China, Australia). These are things that are not part of those fundamental rules; they are taught by experience, and experience is by definition going to be influenced by different things.

It was for this reason I voted remain - because I did not think that the British Economy could weather that kind of shock.

Personally I have never got your opposition to the EU - since it is from the EU that we get things like the WTD and various employment rights - when we are out of the EU, what is to stop any subsequent UK government repealing them. Indeed the EU is one of the biggest attempts at wealth redistribution going - with money moving from the wealthy to the poorer countries; who can benefit by selling in a free market to larger wealthier nations; whose citizens can work in those wealthy nations and still send money back home, making them richer.

I asked you for a Marxist economist who thought the UK would be better off economically outside the EU.

You replied saying a Marxist economist "would be...". That implies there aren't any, but if there were they "would be..."

Wow indeed for your inference. I was just refuting your assertion that state education wasn't capable of providing an education. You need to be able to follow your own arguments.

Brexit will mean we can start to repair the damage caused by EU over-fishing.

Which is why it is so telling that they all acknowledge that the UK will damaged economically by Brexit. The only dissent I've seen seems to be from those one or two who think we can offset that, and perhaps more, either by flooding the UK with cheap goods or removing worker and consumer protection.

You do like your reduction ad absurdum arguments don't you? Go to University and one thing they do is teach you research - that is the pre-requisite for critical thinking because you need to be able to assess all the facts and opinions you can find. That does not mean those who did not cannot learn it but it will take longer.


Now you are just making things up! Of course what you say is absurd but then I did not say that - I said that areas where there were higher levels of social groups and education voted to remain - that is not the same thing as vote Conservative and it is demonstrably false. There are some very intelligent and educated people who do not vote Conservative


The chip on my shoulder?!!!

What about the far larger chip in your shoulder over the failure of this country to go communist in the last 60 years. I realise that with such a large chip seeing your shoulder is difficult but look to yourself before having a go at others.

It was thanks to the EU strict fishing quotas that HALTED the over fishing of our waters. Left to our own devices we would have been in a worse state than we are now. As I recall we bitterly opposed and resented being told/instructed on how to fish sensibly - we had been raping our oceans year on year. It is only very recently that the quotas have been relaxed a little as the balance is a little more restored.

The damage caused by overfishing started a century ago. The only way we can repair it is to keep to the quotas we have today.

Unless you know better.

You are of course correct. Negotiating a FTA not only gives us better access to other markets but gives others better access to ours. There is a reason why the EU doesn't have a FTA agreement with China as they are not just about tariffs and the EU doesn't want the Chinese undercutting it on services.

Even Mr Goldman Sacks Mark Carney has said that some people lose out from free trade. President Elect Trump (Mr Farage,s favourite) is talking about being more protectionist (higher tariffs on China etc). In fact while a lot of intellectuals and experts are pro free trade often people are against too much of it.

We saw that in the referendum when the right wing of the Tory party / UKIP cynically exploited the fear of eastern European immigration in order to get votes for their free market objectives (of course largely talking about 'control' of immigration rather than reduction allowing them to back track later). The people voted to protect the labour market.

So yes we need to be careful what we wish for.

What??!! The EU is a neoliberal, austerity-imposing entity run to promote the interests of Big Business over social ownership. The free movement of capital and labour ensures a ready stream of workers from countries where the standards of living are lower ready to work in richer countries for a meagre wage, all to maximise profit.

If you have a few minutes, read this -

https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/enr...ral-nightmares

Here's the incredibly knowledgeable university educated David Lammy on Mastermind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsR4Nx-ELgc

It implies no such thing.

Yes it does, otherwise you'd say "Marxist economists are..."

(and cite me one as originally requested)

No, they don't. Not even the capitalist-supporting ones say that. Many economists on both sides appeared to be rather unsavoury in my view.

Here are some unsavoury anti-EU ones (you can take Osborne and co's advisors as examples of the unsavoury pro-EU ones!)

http://www.economistsforbrexit.co.uk/

An opinion piece - how about some facts but while we are talking about opinion pieces take the following from a speech Jeremy Corbyn (one of the very few he did on the subject)

http://press.labour.org.uk/post/1452...e-labour-party


Once we leave what it to stop any government withdrawing those rights?

Austerity was imposed on Greece, Italy and Spain because they failed to keep to limits imposed by being in the Euro. It does not however change that in bringing poorer countries into Europe not only do we enforce those rights, but we also see money go from the richer countries to the poorer.

IIRC both of us have studied Economics - yet this does shows that even with the same underlying facts you can come to a different end. There are in fact studies which have shown that EU immigration has not had an adverse effect on immigration (see https://www.theguardian.com/money/20...wages-says-lse) - personally I would say it is schemes like ICTs which have, but by definition those people are not EU citizens, and further wage arbitrage opportunities are that much greater.

Incidentally the LSE is another left leaning organisation so clearly even others on the left disagree with your assertion that the EU is some right wing capitalist conspiracy.

1.

2. again.

Do you honestly believe, in your wildest dreams, that I ever thought this country would be become a socialist one (let alone communist for heaven's sake!) in my lifetime?

Please.

emoji's do not make a very cognisant argument.


Not really - I think you may have wanted it to - I just think it is ironic that you are having a go about a chip on a shoulder when you have an even bigger one on yours - especially as you had to make up what I was saying to do so.

They do, they are just offsetting that damage by

"regulation better targeted at the needs of UK competitiveness"

and:

"Unilateral free trade"

"http://www.economistsforbrexit.co.uk/a-vote-for-brexit"

In other words less protection for consumers and workers and cheap goods putting UK employees out of work.

That's what I've been saying all along.

I'm not trawling through the internet to give you examples of Marxist economists opposed to the EU just for you to say, because they are Marxist, they are not "credible".

Sorry.

Well ...................that was pretty boring. What point are you trying to make exactly?

I thought you might actually know of one.

But what you are more likely to find is that they accept that there will be ongoing economic damage from leaving the EU but consider it worth it.

1. Eh? Of course it is an opinion piece - as were the views of Cameron, Osborne, Farage and Johnson on the EU!

What we are all putting on here are opinions too - like your view that the EU is some sort of nirvana for poor workers.

2. Corbyn has been opposed to the EU for decades and still is. As for workers rights, most have been brought in by struggle at national level. Being members of the various incarnations of the EU didn't protect workers from the excesses of Thatcherite anti-TU legislation under several Tory administartions.

Once we jettison the supranational neoliberal EU we have the opportunity to eject our own neoliberal national government, elect a more progressive one and get more workers rights, not less. It is up to us.

3. What do you mean exactly? We are not in the days of the Webbs now you know!

So why would I have a chip on my shoulder about it not happening?

You on the other hand have constantly gone on about the marvellous advantages of going to uni (one can't even analyse concepts without going there seemingly} and you bewail being held back for years by not going.

That seems like a chip to me!

The £ is now at a really good level which will allow an export boom. Brexit is directly responsible for saving thousands of steel manufacturing jobs in Wales. Once we are allowed to roll back costly and pointless EU directives I expect the steel industry to boom again. Germany created these directives in order to put other EU steel producers at a disadvantage to their own.