UKIP - The Future - Volume 4

[Strawman]

grantone said:

I think you misunderstand just how interesting the UK is to the rest of the world. We have a unique position in the world being halfway between Asia and America, it makes us ideally positioned for trade. That is what London is, a global trading hub. There are alternatives, Paris, or Luxembourg, etc... but they are not quite as attractive as London for reasons I don't really understand, but possibly language, culture and business conditions all play their part.

I agree the LSE could survive

grantone said:

We also have world class companies, including manufacturers (Nissan Sunderland is more productive than all those German car plants).

Manufacturing in the UK is a painfully small proportion of GDP, even if you include all the foreign owned companies that manufacture here, like Nissan.

grantone said:

We have momentum and history behind us as well, we have great relationships with most countries round the world in no small part due to our (not welcome at the time) colonial history.

I think that counts for far less than you imagine, there isn't much love for the UK in Ireland our closest neighbour, nor in China after the 'Opium wars', most Americans have never heard of 'the special relationship' and turfing out the red coats is part of their founding mythology, etc.

grantone said:

The UK has a lot to offer and leaving the EU does not exclude us from being a team player, you're using emotion to counter logic, because for a lot of people the logical arguments for staying in the current format of the EU do not stack up. Emotion about being a team player, averting war and portraying limiting unskilled immigration as 'uncaring' do not alter the fundamental logical problems with the EU. My two major fundamental logical problems with the EU are:

The theme of not being a team player weighs heavily with UKIP rather than the UK, which is what this thread is supposedly about. Leave the EU, reduce immigration, ignore climate change accords and get back into heavy industry and wearing stove pipe hats, can you see a theme emerging?

grantone said:

T1/ The rest of the EU currently uses or are compelled to use the Euro, currency union without political union doesn't work (see Greece), so the rest of the EU will have to become politically closer. As the UK does not, is not compelled to use and is unlikely to use the Euro, we need a different political position to better suit our currency.

I agree partly, but there is no complusion for the UK to switch to the Euro, or Denmark, or Sweden.

Edited by Strawman on Sunday 28th June 13:14

[Mojocvh]

Greg66 said:

Scuffers outed himself as a racist earlier in this volume . Nothing new there.

And promptly runs away

[4v6]

Greg66 said:

The penny's just dropped.

Hooray! We have progress.

Greg66 said:

You're the nihilist/anarchist who wants to abolish money, aren't you?

Short lived progress Greg.
I want to abolish cancer and war and pedophilia also, but that hardly makes me nihilistic or anarchistic.

Greg66 said:

So really you're the sort of person who will always push hard against the status quo, whether it is the EU, a British Govt outside the EU, or anything else,

Whearas youre the kind of person who is happy to have anyone direct you in whatever manner they see fit because you have no free will.
Youd make a brilliant EU minister of.....something.

Greg66 said:

until you have your own personal nirvana imposed on everyone else.

Pot, kettle, black as my jacksi.

Greg66 said:

Think I will bow out of this discussion now. It's not going anywhere I'm interested in going.

You mean the basic questions been too hard for you?

Awww diddums.

[grantone]

Strawman said:

...
Manufacturing in the UK is a painfully small proportion of GDP, even if you include all the foreign owned companies that manufacture here, like Nissan.
...
I think that counts for far less than you imagine, there isn't much love for the UK in Ireland our closest neighbour, nor in China after the 'Opium wars', most Americans have never heard of 'the special relationship' and turfing out the red coats is part of their founding mythology, etc.
...
The theme of not being a team player weighs heavily with UKIP rather than the UK, which is what this thread is supposedly about. Leave the EU, reduce immigration, ignore climate change accords and get back into heavy industry and wearing stove pipe hats, can you see a theme emerging?
...
I agree partly, but there is no complusion for the UK to switch to the Euro, or Denmark, or Sweden.

Apologies for the quote structure, I can't work out the nested quoting thing myself, hopefully not too much is out of context.

Manufacturing is over 20% of our GDP, pretty decent for a developed country, so while it's smaller than it was, it's still very good and not really justifiable to call it painfully small.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_...
I suppose my point is that we're not just London services, our economy is broader and we're good at those other things.

Even if Ireland as a culture isn't enamoured with us (unsure if that is true) we're still a major trading partner and we're the only group to achieve or come close to a trading surplus with them, €15-16bn each way in 2011. I can't find figures to show if this is a stable, increasing or decreasing relationship though.
http://www.cso.ie/en/statistics/externaltrade/main...
China seems similar...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25838655
'...Britain is among the top 10 nations globally for outbound Chinese investment and attracts more than double the investment of any other nation in Europe...'
I'm not sure there's a way to reach common ground on our status in the world though as it's very subjective.

I can see and understand your interpretation of the UKIP policies as not 'team players', but it's an emotional term. There are logical reasons for leaving the EU and reducing unskilled immigration, there are even logical reasons for ignoring international climate change accords if you don't agree on the science. Caricaturing supporters as backwards looking stove pipe hat wearers is fun, much like Green Party supporters are yoghurt knitters, but I don't think we shouldn't ignore everything said based on broad brush terms or we risk becoming very tribal. I'm not a UKIP supporter, but I think that their main founding policy of UK leaving the EU is right. I recognise them for it and hope that the party and their supporters can play a role in the debate on a platform that isn't undermined by people writing them off as unfit to take part (like UKIP LGBT being banned from London pride).

Sweden is compelled to use the Euro, they don't have a formal currency opt-out like Denmark or the UK, they have just chosen to ignore that for now. My expectation is that if the Euro survives as a currency and the EU get the political union to make it work Sweden will be strong-armed into having a referendum that delivers the 'right' result.

Denmark has a formal currency opt-out, but they are effectively using the Euro anyway by pegging the Krone to the Euro.

[Strawman]

grantone said:

Apologies for the quote structure, I can't work out the nested quoting thing myself, hopefully not too much is out of context.

That's fine what you post is equally intelligible without multi quotes.

grantone said:

Manufacturing is over 20% of our GDP, pretty decent for a developed country, so while it's smaller than it was, it's still very good and not really justifiable to call it painfully small.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_...
I suppose my point is that we're not just London services, our economy is broader and we're good at those other things.

Painfully small was hyperbole but worrying decline is perhaps more accurate. I'm not that familiar with the subject but the balance of trade would be heavily in the red without traded services to balance things out(for example legal and financial). Too much of British industry has been sold off like that Jaguar/LR or Mini. JCB, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca and Dyson are all I can think of off hand.

grantone said:

I'm not a UKIP supporter, but I think that their main founding policy of UK leaving the EU is right. I recognise them for it and hope that the party and their supporters can play a role in the debate on a platform that isn't undermined by people writing them off as unfit to take part (like UKIP LGBT being banned from London pride).

Farage was the only political leader to decline an interview with Pink News; Cameron, Miliband, Sturgeon etc. all managed to find time to answer questions. So the march organisers were only returning the contempt shown them.

[Scuffers]

Sincere when have JCB and Dyson been sold off?

[NicD]

Strawman said:

Farage was the only political leader to decline an interview with Pink News; Cameron, Miliband, Sturgeon etc. all managed to find time to answer questions. So the march organisers were only returning the contempt shown them.

get your facts right

Nigel Farage pulls out of answering questions from PinkNews readers

why should these people get special treatment? What other small circulation special interest media outlets got a list of readers questions answered?

and in any case, what is the connection with the Pride march?

[Strawman]

NicD said:

get your facts right

Nigel Farage pulls out of answering questions from PinkNews readers

why should these people get special treatment? What other small circulation special interest media outlets got a list of readers questions answered?

All the other political leaders managed to answer questions from that publication, because they thought it was important I suppose, how is that special treatment. If you want the most votes you best talk to all the electorate seems to be the lesson there.

[Strawman]

Scuffers said:

Sincere when have JCB and Dyson been sold off?

They haven't. There is a full stop after Mini.

[NicD]

Strawman said:

how is that special treatment?..

Did you read what I wrote? What OTHER special interest groups put forward a list of readers questions to be answered?

Did you read the questions put forward? they were pretty specific.
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2015/05/06/nigel-farage-...

NF had his reasons for not complying, maybe he just ran out of time, he is the politician, not me.

again, what has this to do with banning UKIP members from the March? I am really interested in your answer because on the surface it seems a petty and despicable decision.

In any case, some of them went.

[Strawman]

What reasons did the event organisers give for the ban?
Farage was too busy but Cameron wasn't? Doesn't really sound credible does it.

[NicD]

Strawman said:

What reasons did the event organisers give for the ban?
Farage was too busy but Cameron wasn't? Doesn't really sound credible does it.

Is this the best you can do to justify your slurs?

[FiF]

Strawman said:

Scuffers said:

Sincere when have JCB and Dyson been sold off?

They haven't. There is a full stop after Mini.

Your list, " the only ones you can think of" demonstrates just how limited your knowledge is about manufacturing. Many SME businesses contribute to the sector, not just in supplying to the big names but also exporting and selling worldwide.

It's true that the % considered to be manufacturing has shrunk, this is not peculiar to the UK but is generally a worldwide experience. One of the reasons for this is due to changes in the way the stats are allocated and reported.

There are several ways in which manufacturing output is reported and measured and dependent upon what one uses the UK can show 6th place in the world down to 11th. So let's stretch a point and say it's about in the top 10% in the world. To dismiss this important and enterprising sector in that off hand way is frankly shameful.

[Strawman]

NicD said:

Is this the best you can do to justify your slurs?

Laugh what slurs? I don't particularly care whether UKIP was banned from a gay pride march or not, you seemed enraged can you at least explain what reasons the organisers gave for banning UKIP?

[Strawman]

FiF said:

It's true that the % considered to be manufacturing has shrunk,

And that is what I was saying, leave the 'shameful' hysterical descriptions for your soap box rants.

[NicD]

Strawman said:

Laugh what slurs? I don't particularly care whether UKIP was banned from a gay pride march or not, you seemed enraged can you at least explain what reasons the organisers gave for banning UKIP?

This slur that you invented: 'So the march organisers were only returning the contempt shown them.'

I am not 'enraged' not even by sloppy work, but it doesn't go unnoticed.

and why would I research the background to your posting?

[Strawman]

NicD said:

Strawman said:

Laugh what slurs? I don't particularly care whether UKIP was banned from a gay pride march or not, you seemed enraged can you at least explain what reasons the organisers gave for banning UKIP?

This slur that you invented: 'So the march organisers were only returning the contempt shown them.'

I am not 'enraged' not even by sloppy work, but it doesn't go unnoticed.

and why would I research the background to your posting?

So from the link you posted UKIP was 'the only political party to oppose gay marriage in their election manifesto' and Farage was in your words 'perhaps too busy' unlike the leaders of all the other political parties to answer questions from pink news. Why do you think they were banned from the march? You seem to think that is unfair can you explain why UKIP should be represented on the march?

[FiF]

Strawman said:

FiF said:

It's true that the % considered to be manufacturing has shrunk,

And that is what I was saying, leave the 'shameful' hysterical descriptions for your soap box rants.

Selective quoting ignoring all the other balancing points.

Painfully small is what you said, though to be fair then went on to say you didn't know anything much about the subject.

In volume UK is in the top ten. In % of GDP it's very much in the same ball park as other developed nations although much lower in the global rankings than was the case in the 70s. True there are other nations with much higher % of gdp manufacturing sectors but many of these are developing nations which a relatively low total economic output.

The reason for UK manufacturing fall in the table of % of gdp is due to increase in manufacturing in these developing nations and diversification and expansion of other sectors in the UK.

To say that the manufacturing sector is painfully small was not hyperbole as you later admitted but flat out wrong.

Edited by FiF on Sunday 28th June 19:04

[Strawman]

FiF said:

The reason for UK manufacturing fall in the table of % of gdp is due to increase in manufacturing in these developing nations and diversification and expansion of other sectors in the UK.

To say that the manufacturing sector was not hyperbole as you later admitted but flat out wrong.

Well actually to quote myself

Strawman said:

Painfully small was hyperbole but worrying decline is perhaps more accurate.

So that you agreed with this? Where is the UK equivalent of Apple or Microsoft? I contend the manufacturing sector is being held up by overseas owned manufacturers using the UK as a European base, whether that would remain if the UK leaves is moot.

Also this doesn't make any sense

FiF said:

To say that the manufacturing sector was not hyperbole as you later admitted but flat out wrong.

[FiF]

Selective quoting again which included something that didn't make sense, now corrected, thanks for pointing it out.

If you look at world rankings the graph of total manufacturing output is flat very flat.

HoC library briefing paper said:

Between 1970 and 2002, the UK was ranked 4th or 5th in the world in terms of total manufacturing output. Since then the UK has fallen down the international rankings for manufacturing output and was 8th in 2013

The reasons for the decline in the other measures has been discussed but you seem to wish to ignore those. Not to mention that in terms of% of gdp the UK is still in a similar ball park to other developed nations UK 10% France 10% Canada 11% US 12% Spain 13% who all obviously have pitifully small manufacturing sectors by your standards it seems.