Hi, my name is Phil and I like talking about politics

September 27, 2021 2:13 PM

Brexit Crisis Worsened By Rampant Capitalism

A Different Bias is a channel started in 2018 by then-teacher Phil Moorhouse to turn his "ranting about politics in the staffroom" into videos about Brexit era Britain. Over the past year the "socialist, Pro-EU, Yorkshireman" transitioned to making his videos full time, and two months ago he passed the 100,000 subscribers mark.

posted by ChurchHatesTucker (48 comments total)

This weekend Phil was interviewed by fellow European vlogger Maximilien Robespierre. It's two and a half hours long and I haven't got through it yet.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 2:15 PM on September 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

So basically The Problem With John Stewart with better makeup and lighting?
posted by pwnguin at 2:15 PM on September 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

So basically The Problem With John Stewart with better makeup and lighting?

No. Because it's a bloke talking about how his (& my) country is being destroyed, not a vehicle for you to make a snide parochial joke.
posted by ambrosen at 3:03 PM on September 27, 2021 [55 favorites]

metafilter - a vehicle for you to make a snide parochial joke.
posted by Chuffy at 3:11 PM on September 27, 2021 [20 favorites]

I just read (part of) a 1000 tweet thread on Brexit's horrible far-reaching awful effects. Will watch this Phil guy too, thank you for posting.
posted by spamandkimchi at 3:56 PM on September 27, 2021 [5 favorites]

As a North American whose family lives in East Asia, I will admit that I have been generally clueless about what Brexit impacts have been this year. The recent move to issue 3-month visas for lorry (truck) drivers and poultry workers is, um, clueless and wildly unrealistic.

"Immigrants are not a resource you can turn on and off like a tap by issuing visas. Immigrants have agency and choose—or not—to apply. Do you think they’re blind and can’t see the hostile environment that Brexit made even more hostile? Blind to their own bad treatment last year?" Sept 25 tweet from Prof Tanja Bueltmann
posted by spamandkimchi at 4:02 PM on September 27, 2021 [13 favorites]

Now that Britain has Brexited and it has been made obvious to everybody what was actually obvious all along, how realistic is it for them to Re-EU?
posted by turbid dahlia at 4:13 PM on September 27, 2021

Not for a long time.
posted by Dysk at 4:16 PM on September 27, 2021 [3 favorites]

Yeah. Also, Britain had so many opt-outs and carve outs as part of their EU agreements that won't fly in the face of new accession talks. If they come back they will be forced to join Schengen and they will be forced to join the Euro. Not to mention Spain will be a thorn in their side being able to veto any UK reaccession over Gibraltar.

Not like it will matter. The English electorate has been resolute that it only wants three of the four freedoms of the single market and the EU won't budge on them being a package deal.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 4:24 PM on September 27, 2021 [2 favorites]

Well, whoops. Sorry that the Tories fucked around and found out.
posted by turbid dahlia at 4:44 PM on September 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

Also, I like this guy and he seems like a good resource to help me get informed. Subbed.
posted by turbid dahlia at 4:45 PM on September 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

of course the UK government begrudgingly announced that they'll offer three month visas for drivers after the panic buying has already set in
posted by BungaDunga at 6:11 PM on September 27, 2021 [3 favorites]

I just read (part of) a 1000 tweet thread on Brexit's horrible far-reaching awful effects.

Link to the first tweet if you want to start on January 6th.
posted by Mitheral at 6:27 PM on September 27, 2021 [3 favorites]

Now that Britain has Brexited and it has been made obvious to everybody what was actually obvious all along

It might be obvious to you, it might be obvious to me, but the opinion polls typically only put remain a few percent ahead, with a bunch of don't knows. About the same as they were in the run up to the referendum in 2016.
posted by biffa at 9:19 PM on September 27, 2021 [3 favorites]

Australia is doing its bit! We've just announced that we're totally gonna buy a bunch of nucular summerines from the US but we're wedging the UK's name into the agreement so that's gotta be worth something?
posted by flabdablet at 11:29 PM on September 27, 2021 [3 favorites]

Now that Britain has Brexited and it has been made obvious to everybody what was actually obvious all along, how realistic is it for them to Re-EU?

If killing Britons with Covid doesn't convince the survivors, starving and freezing them with food and energy shortages won't, either.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:30 PM on September 27, 2021 [3 favorites]

Now that Britain has Brexited and it has been made obvious to everybody what was actually obvious all along, how realistic is it for them to Re-EU?

Very unlikely.

Admitting you made a mistake when it's become such a tribal part of your identity is hard to do. Rationalisation - that it's all down to Covid, that HGV driver shortages already existed before Brexit, that the EU are 'punishing us', Brexit was ages ago (when covid finally stops being an excuse) etc is much easier. I think it's far more likely that Scotland and NI will ultimately leave the UK and rejoin the EU independently. I think Irish reunification was 'priced in' as part of Brexit by English tory voters to not change minds, but possibly Scottish independence may just provide a big enough shock.

In any event, there's no way the EU would readmit the UK any time soon; our faithless and bad tempered negotiation on leaving burned a lot of bridges, and the UK government's refusal to implement what it signed in multiple areas has pretty much torched the rest. A different non-tory government may be able to rejoin the single market/customs union, but even that is probably years away, even if there was any political will in the opposition to do so, but they've decided 'don't mention the Brexit' is the best strategy since so many of their core voters switched sides to back Brexit. That that leaves a significant part of the british public unrepresented by either of the larger parties while they fight over the slowly shrinking pro-Brexit faithful in swing seats is just one more of those little ironies.

Anyway. I have to go. My fuel red light came on yesterday, and all 4 petrol stations within 10 miles were out of diesel or closed altogether. Time for another round before work to to see if they've had a delivery. If i don't get any today, I'm not going to work any more until I can fill up - it's a rural area, with no public transport to speak of, and I was 'sensible' ala stupid for not rushing out to fill up when I still had 1/3 of a tank. Thanks, Brexit!
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 12:17 AM on September 28, 2021 [22 favorites]

The lorry driver shortage is no surprise and adding 5k temporary visas will do very little to fix it.

First of all, there has been a Europe wide HGV shortage for years, it's rarely triggered noticeable shortages but it has been there in the background. The thing is, it's just not a very attractive job in terms of conditions and the pay doesn't usually make up for that either. The UK by all accounts is an even less pleasant place to drive in terms of facilities than many others, although the pay is somewhat higher than the average.

This is also why there are over 200k qualified HGV drivers in the UK not currently driving.

Second, many HGV drivers previously came over to the UK from the European mainland to drive for a few years and then went back home. This is fundamentally different to how migration worked in many other sectors where people came as immigrants and have stayed. In effect, many HGV drivers were expats and not immigrants. Thus also why there are more than 15k EU national HGV drivers with UK settled status who do not currently live in the UK. If people who have the legal right to come here permanently aren't interested, why would people come for three months? Brexit disrupted this equilibrium - yes, the people already here could stay indefinitely but even before Covid they were never doing that in very large numbers to begin with.

Third, Covid means that border closures can happen at any moment. Many people got stuck on one side or another of the channel last Christmas and that creates additional friction.

Right now, German and Dutch haulage firms are paying extra money to recruit drivers as well (for all I know others too) so the UK is not just competing with drivers staying in their home countries but with drivers earning extra money in neighbouring countries which are closer to home and less likely to close a border at short notice.

I'm sure someone will take up the visa scheme since there will always be someone looking to make extra money for a few months before Christmas but it's not the solution.
posted by atrazine at 1:17 AM on September 28, 2021 [9 favorites]

Now that Britain has Brexited and it has been made obvious to everybody what was actually obvious all along, how realistic is it for them to Re-EU?

No chance for a few reasons.

One: To some extent these temporary labour shortages are desirable to many Brexit voters if they drive wages up. Even though it was obviously a lie that there would be no disruption, many people did vote on the basis of essentially this happening and if it pushes wages up at the bottom then many of these people will feel vindicated.

One b: The coincidence of the end of Brexit and Covid has permanently obscured just how much disruption has come from which source, at the very least in the public mind and in many cases even to experts. So if bad things happen in the next 18 months, it will always be possible to cast a penumbra of doubt about whether this is really Brexit related. We have also seen this going the other way with wild claims that the wave of gas supplier failures is somehow related to Brexit when it has nothing to do with it. That means that it is not in fact obvious to everybody what was obvious all along.

Two: The EU is always in a state of dynamic equilibrium as to its relationship with member states and this is driven by the differing interests of its member states. Some of which are very keen on federalism, some of which think the EU is already too federal as it is. The loss of by far the richest anti-federal state will inevitably mean that the EU will settle down into a stable equilibrium of more integration than it historically has. That means that if the UK were ever to seek to rejoin, it would in practice be a different institution than what it left.

Three: All the historic carve-outs which made EU membership barely (or I suppose barely not) acceptable to the electorate would have to be re-negotiated. I actually think that both the currency and Schengen carve-outs would be easily agreed since a number of other countries in the EU don't use the Euro and Ireland isn't in Schengen either. It's all the other carve-outs that were irritating to EU administration that would be impossible to agree on, that budget rebate most of all.

I think it's far more likely that Scotland and NI will ultimately leave the UK and rejoin the EU independently. I think Irish reunification was 'priced in' as part of Brexit by English tory voters to not change minds, but possibly Scottish independence may just provide a big enough shock.

I think both of these are very complex and for different reasons.

Irish re-unification is the more likely of the two (although still not desired by the majority in NI) for a number of reasons, Brexit only being one of them.

Scottish independence is both made easier and harder by Brexit. Easier because one of the reasons at least some people voted no in the last referendum is that an independent Scotland would start off outside the EU and would then have to join and many Scots did not want to leave the EU. It has also reinforced a sense of permanent divergence of interests between the centre of the Scots and English electorates which means that even people who think that nationalist projects are vaguely disreputable can see the point in doing it. It wouldn't just be independence for the sake of independence. On the other hand, it is also made harder because previously it was possible to imagine a border situation between Scotland/England which was just like NI/Ireland - a smooth, barely-there line which presented few obstacles for continued economic integration. Given how tightly integrated the Scottish and English economies are, that's a pretty important selling point. That wouldn't be possible now.

So on the one hand, the complications of Scotland leaving a big integrated bloc (the UK) totally mirror the complications of the UK as a whole leaving a big integrated bloc (the EU) except even more so. On the other hand, people did not vote for Brexit on purely economic grounds (that would have been lunacy) and many really did vote on the basis of wanting less constrained national sovereignty, many Scottish voters will do the same and I suspect that purely economic arguments will be as ineffective in keeping the UK together as they were in keeping the UK in the EU.
posted by atrazine at 1:39 AM on September 28, 2021 [14 favorites]

On the UK getting back into the EU: it might happen piecemeal—specifically, if Scotland gets independence (referendum due before the end of 2023) and applies to rejoin, the EU is likely to say "yes" (Scotland voted very strongly against Brexit in the first place, and was ignored). Similarly if Northern Ireland holds a border poll and votes to leave the UK, the EU would likely welcome them.

Wales, however, doesn't seen likely to try for independence within the next decade. And England won't be allowed back in any time in the foreseeable future—at least, while the Tory party are still in charge.

As for why public opinion has shifted so little of late, bear in mind that 80% of the British press is owned by right-wing billionaires (many of them tax exiles) who turned their newspapers into campaigning vehicles promoting Brexit. And Brexit coincided with COVID19, allowing the Tories to successfully blame most of the economic disruption on the pandemic instead.

As COVID19 recedes and the damage from Brexit becomes clearer, that's when I expect to see public opinion on Brexit begin to shift.
posted by cstross at 1:39 AM on September 28, 2021 [2 favorites]

I'm half wondering whether the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal was the work of the Putinist oligarchs who bankrolled Brexit in the UK and hold stakes in the Tories doing their bit to hole NATO below the waterline.
posted by acb at 2:11 AM on September 28, 2021 [2 favorites]

On the UK getting back into the EU: it might happen piecemeal—specifically, if Scotland gets independence (referendum due before the end of 2023) and applies to rejoin, the EU is likely to say "yes" (Scotland voted very strongly against Brexit in the first place, and was ignored). Similarly if Northern Ireland holds a border poll and votes to leave the UK, the EU would likely welcome them.

The EU have explicitly said that a united Ireland would instantly be a full EU member, as it's more or less the same situation as the reunification of West and East Germany in 1990.

Scotland, however, would have obstacles, as countries like Spain that want to discourage separatist movements in their own countries could veto it.
posted by kersplunk at 2:58 AM on September 28, 2021 [5 favorites]

There is one extremely persuasive argument for Scottish independence even against (further) significant economic disruption, and his name is Boris.
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 3:48 AM on September 28, 2021 [2 favorites]

I re-listened to this (recorded in 2017) podcast on Sunday. Very interesting, knowing what we know now.

The Irish Passport: Ireland and Europe
posted by Homemade Interossiter at 4:32 AM on September 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

One selfish reason I'm hoping that Scotland leaves the UK is that a Scotland in the European common market (if not free movement zone) will need links to mainland Europe that are not at the mercy of Juche Britannia and its ongoing spiral of radicalism. This will almost certainly involve reinstating North Sea ferry links (perhaps between Leith and Rotterdam and/or Gothenburg) that were rendered uneconomical by tighter emission standards and cheap flights. I'm not a fan of cheap flights, though travelling between Sweden and the UK would currently involve at least 24 hours by train, which is somewhat impractical. Modern high-speed ferries should be able to compete with that, at least until there is high-speed rail all the way from Stockholm to Hamburg (one of these decades).

(Note that I'm not calling for maritime emissions standards to be relaxed; they have compliant ships (in the Baltic, for example), though the old ones didn't comply and replacing them with new ships was uneconomical at the time. Now, it's a different matter.)
posted by acb at 5:10 AM on September 28, 2021 [4 favorites]

Twenty reasons why there is an HGV driver shortage: Part 1, Part 2.

I'm not in the UK but this POV from a Polish journalist/truck driver was pretty comprehensive and made me understand things a lot more. The second half is more horrifying than the first.
posted by JoeZydeco at 6:35 AM on September 28, 2021 [16 favorites]

previously it was possible to imagine a border situation between Scotland/England which was just like NI/Ireland ... That wouldn't be possible now.

It is interesting to think about how a Scottish border - which was also an EU border - might work. Borders between countries which fit this criterion - such Sweden/Norway or (say) France/Switzerland - show that things can be made to work pretty seamlessly when there is co-operation and mutual trading. In the case of an independent Scotland: the country would almost certainly - like England - lie outside Schengen - so would not have to deal with that component of screening. The Scottish border is just 96 miles long with 5 major road crossings; it lies quite largely along the river Tweed. Contrast with the 310 mile NI/Ireland border - even before considering its political problems. I don't think any attempts a convincing Scots voters that the border is going to look like something from cold war Berlin - are going to get much traction.
posted by rongorongo at 7:07 AM on September 28, 2021 [5 favorites]

Spain would not oppose future independent Scotland rejoining EU - minister (2018):

Spain would have no objection to Scotland rejoining the European Union as an independent nation, as long as the secession process from the United Kingdom was legally binding, Spanish foreign minister Josep Borrell said on Tuesday.

posted by autopilot at 7:42 AM on September 28, 2021 [6 favorites]

rongorongo: in addition, the 5 major road crossings on the England/Scotland border go through some very low density territory by UK standards -- farmland and/or wilderness, not dense conurbations or suburban sprawl. Which means there's plenty of room to build customs inspection sheds, truck parks, and all the infrastructure that is proving so troublesome to cram into the Channel ports.
posted by cstross at 9:24 AM on September 28, 2021 [3 favorites]

Germany's Scholz pointed out that Brexit changed the rules for workers who used to have free movement in the EU. The people hauling gas (petrol), food, and other goods just don't find Britain speaking without that.

Unlike in the UK, companies in the EU have been able to rely on nationals from their neighbours to fill the gaps, and the problems of empty supermarket shelves and panic-buying at petrol station forecourts have been avoided.

Anna Soubry, a former Tory business minister who quit the party over Brexit, said Scholz was right and added: “It’s like something happened to our country and no one is allowed to speak truth to the power of Boris Johnson and his Brexit.”

She said: “We are now facing up to the reality of Brexit. We have got shortages. We are going to have inflation and we are not going to be the country we were before we took this decision. ... The criticism is levelled at the leaders of the leave campaign … who went out and told lies to the British people and who promised sunlit uplands.”

posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 10:17 AM on September 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

To be fair, I don't recall anybody promising that the sunlit uplands would also have petrol.
posted by flabdablet at 11:08 AM on September 28, 2021 [10 favorites]

To be fair, I don't recall anybody promising that the sunlit uplands would also have petrol.

They specifically said "sunlit" because electricity was going to cost too much.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 11:49 AM on September 28, 2021 [9 favorites]

I was thinking about about cookery writer Elizabeth David, the other day. She grew to prominence in the early1950s writing about Mediterranean ingredients like basil, garlic and olive oil. Her ingredients and recipes were deeply exotic to her British readers at the time - in an era when ingredients like sugar and meat were still rationed (and when olive oil was for cleaning your ears mainly). People read her books to dream as much as anything else, I think. I remembered her after being in a French supermarket last week and looking at apricots - there were abundant piles of several difference varieties: they are popular in France and widely grown in the sunnier regions.

I have not seen an apricot in our local supermarket in Scotland all year. Maybe they are a little niche in terms of demand here - my guess is that that haven't made the cut of foods that are worth the bother of stocking given all the supply chain problems. But it's not like I am mourning the absence of fucking paw-paws or ortalan pie here! I can survive without them, sure - but the chrominance of the world is diminished just a little. And so it goes for each other little absence of food types, the scarcity of foreign languages heard on the street, the narrowed choice of musicians stopping off here on tour. Of course, I am lucky there is food there at all and that I have money to afford it. But under Brexit life seems more like the vision of the 50s that the Tory's go on about - just not in an appealing way. A black and white throw-back world - well summed up by Cold War Steve's cartoon of petrol rationing. Less Oz more Kansas with a bad hangover.
posted by rongorongo at 12:15 PM on September 28, 2021 [11 favorites]

I've watched about ten of these now. This fellow has his act together. Is it shallow of me to wish he would fix his lighting, or maybe do some makeup, so he looks less like he is made of wax?
posted by Bee'sWing at 2:43 PM on September 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

I’ll just note that these are from after he upgraded his setup.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 3:22 PM on September 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

Has anyone actually profited from Brexit? All I can see from the news is bigger-piece-of-smaller-pie.
posted by clew at 10:16 PM on September 28, 2021

The enormous amount of truck traffic on the highways where I am (between Germany and Poland) is reflected in this chart of trade growth between the two countries. Poland has overtaken the UK in imports/exports to Germany as its fifth largest trading partner (after China, the USA, NL and France).

In terms of profiting from Brexit: it’s not so much that the pie has gotten smaller. It’s that the bakery is in the process of relocating. It’ll be interesting to see how things progress in the UK over time.
posted by romanb at 11:30 PM on September 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

Has anyone actually profited from Brexit?

Weren't a number of Brexit backers hedge-fund types who made a killing short-selling the pound/British stocks?
posted by acb at 2:46 AM on September 29, 2021 [1 favorite]

The NYT chimes in today, too.

“You have business models based on your ability to hire workers from other countries,” said David Henig, an expert on trade policy for the European Center for International Political Economy, a research institute. “You’ve suddenly reduced your labor market down to an eighth of the size it previously was. There’s a Brexit effect on business models that simply haven’t had time to adjust.”

posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 5:26 AM on September 29, 2021

There's a hilarious article on the Tagesschau website today.

https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/europa/fuehrerscheine-lkw-grossbritannien-101.html

Apparently Germans in Britain got letters from the transport secretary asking them to drive trucks because a legal loophole means people who got their driver's license in Germany before 1999 can drive trucks weighing up to 7.5 tons, even if they've never done it before.

One line in the article was, paraphrased: German investment bankers and professors rub their eyes in confusion after receiving this letter.
posted by starfishprime at 3:03 AM on October 2, 2021 [1 favorite]

I mean, that same “legal loophole” exists on pre-1997 GB licenses, so I'm intrigued as to why that would be making such a big difference.

Oh, wait, that is a backup plan I had not thought of for my prolonged burnout.
posted by ambrosen at 7:50 AM on October 2, 2021

There's a hilarious article on the Tagesschau website today.

I appreciated the lead-in with the Baroness praising the important valuable work of potential truckers … who have the opportunity to be somewhere around Dover for a few days around Christmas without sanitation facilities, food or water…
posted by romanb at 12:42 PM on October 2, 2021

and when olive oil was for cleaning your ears mainly

There is still no substitute for that subtle little tang in a batch of chips.
posted by flabdablet at 12:13 AM on October 4, 2021

“It’s the kind of catastrophic plunge which has little modern parallel. Cardboard cutouts of food? Not being able to treat water? You’d have to go back to the Weimar Republic to encounter such levels of ruin.”
Tesco have the fake asparagus out this morning.
posted by adamvasco at 8:21 AM on October 25, 2021 [3 favorites]

Potemkin asparagus, holy shit.
posted by clew at 3:21 PM on October 25, 2021

Say what you like about Brexit, but if it's ever my job to name a child then Potemkin Asparagus will be their first and middle names.
posted by flabdablet at 5:50 AM on October 26, 2021

Phil weighs in on cardboard cutout vegetables
posted by flabdablet at 9:06 AM on October 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

...and the rivers of shit that flow from the sunlit uplands
posted by flabdablet at 9:16 AM on October 27, 2021 [1 favorite]