Brexit - or Article 50: the Phoenix!

[ger147]

So why did the previous one fail?

Btw Bojo's bill (for El;ection on 12/12) passed by 438 to 20 - rather more than requires for either! Oppo tried to change that date to 9/12, but that was rejected (by simple majority).

The Fixed Term Parliament motion failed as under the terms of the act, the PM gets to choose the election date if he gets the votes needed to pass the motion. Once passed, there would be nothing to stop Boris setting the next election date as 1st February as an example.

The new bill includes the election date so the opposition could be certain when the election would take place and Boris wouldn't get to pick the date.

 

[Foxholer]

The vote that passed 438 to 20 was a new bill, not a motion under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act.

I see reference to this bill now.

And I agree with CC98! FTPA is not fit for purpose! At least not without the same 2/3rd majority as per FTPA!

 

[ger147]

I see reference to this bill now.

And I agree with CC98! Fixed Term Act is not fit for purpose!

The contrary argument I suppose is at least a government has to pass new legislation to bypass the FTA, previous to that the PM could call an election whenever he/she wanted to without reference to any legislation.

So it's now more difficult than it was before for a PM to call an election, altho clearly the FTA is not fulfilling its original intention.

 

[Lord Tyrion]

I saw the one passed 438 to 20 passed and it's going through Lards.

But can't see anything about the 'temporary' Law - that would also have to have been passed through The Lords before he was able to use it!

Happy to be proven wrong, but methinks Lord Tyrion might be guessing/twaddle-ising!

I called it temporary but I really should have said it was specific and time relative. Temporary was the wrong word to use

See below taken from the ITV website

The Early Parliamentary General Election Bill must now be scrutinised in the House of Lords before it can gain Royal Assent and become law, but it is highly unlikely that the unelected Upper House would not approve it.
The one-page Bill sets aside the provisions of the Fixed-Term Parliament's Act, meaning the Government did not require a two-thirds "super majority" to get it through.

It is a new bill, only applicable for this election. Once the election has happened, designated date 12th Dec 2019, it is over, it is time specific.

 

[Foxholer]

I called it temporary but I really should have said it was specific and time relative. Temporary was the wrong word to use

See below taken from the ITV website

The Early Parliamentary General Election Bill must now be scrutinised in the House of Lords before it can gain Royal Assent and become law, but it is highly unlikely that the unelected Upper House would not approve it.
The one-page Bill sets aside the provisions of the Fixed-Term Parliament's Act, meaning the Government did not require a two-thirds "super majority" to get it through.

It is a new bill, only applicable for this election. Once the election has happened, designated date 12th Dec 2019, it is over, it is time specific.

Yep! As stated, happy to be 'disabused' of my thoughts! Do you agree that it renders the FTP At pointless/not fit for purpose? Though it was certainly passed with (just from my dodgy arithmetic) sufficient numbers to pass via FTP Act.

 

[Lord Tyrion]

Yep! As stated, happy to be 'disabused' of my thoughts! Do you agree that it renders the FTP At pointless/not fit for purpose? Though it was certainly passed with (just from my dodgy arithmetic) sufficient numbers to pass via FTP Act.

I totally agree. It seems a pretty major flaw. Why even have the law if it can be so easily bypassed?

 

[clubchamp98]

I totally agree. It seems a pretty major flaw. Why even have the law if it can be so easily bypassed?

In theory any government that has a majority in the house can call an election.
So FTPA IS USELESS .
The only thing it does is make sure there’s an end date that can’t be bypassed.

 

[Beezerk]

Pretty much, every single economic forecast predicts a drop in the UK economy due to Brexit.

Out of interest, what are the economic forecasts if we were to stay within in the EU, are there actually any out there?
All I'm reading in the news is how our economy will be hit if/when we leave, there's nothing on how it would be affected should we remain.

 

[woody69]

Out of interest, what are the economic forecasts if we were to stay within in the EU, are there actually any out there?
All I'm reading in the news is how our economy will be hit if/when we leave, there's nothing on how it would be affected should we remain.

Well the economic forecasts are basing their findings on if we stayed. If they predict a drop in the UK economy, that drop is measured from what it would be if we remained.

 

[Beezerk]

Well the economic forecasts are basing their findings on if we stayed. If they predict a drop in the UK economy, that drop is measured from what it would be if we remained.

So can you give me a link to the long term forecast of staying in the EU then?
Purely out of interest btw, I'm not purposely trying to be difficult

 

[Lord Tyrion]

So can you give me a link to the long term forecast of staying in the EU then?
Purely out of interest btw, I'm not purposely trying to be difficult

Without being on one side or the other these forecasts are guess work. Lick your finger, put it in the air. What none of these forecasts take into account are Ian Malcolm's view of Chaos Theory (might have lifted that from Juarssic Park ). In effect, banking collapse, housing collapse, who saw them coming? Germany is sticking right now, France not doing so well. Who knows how they will go? US and China trade war, will that escalate or not? How will that impact? Will oil prices go up or down? Loads and loads of things that get thrown into the mix and impact.

Economic forecasts are like sales forecasts, they are guesses. Guesses based on what could and may happen but ultimately guesses. Take all with a very large pinch of salt and don't believe anyone that uses these forecasts as gospel (you may tell that I have little faith in forecasts of all types)

 

[woody69]

So can you give me a link to the long term forecast of staying in the EU then?
Purely out of interest btw, I'm not purposely trying to be difficult

Take a look at any forecast and they take the baseline for staying in the EU.

With regards to long-term forecast, it really depends what you mean by "long-term". I'm not sure any forecast over a few years is likely to be particularly accurate. It may identify a certain trend, but it's likely to be either too pessimistic or optimistic due to the number of factors that can influence the economy.

The NIESR Forecast that has come out recently uses the baseline for continued EU membership and attempts to go out to 2029 - https://www.niesr.ac.uk/media/niesr...5-cent-smaller-under-latest-brexit-deal-13975

The IFS produced a report for the next 3 years, with "Never Brexit" as a scenario - https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/14421

 

[Hobbit]

So can you give me a link to the long term forecast of staying in the EU then?
Purely out of interest btw, I'm not purposely trying to be difficult

Just a thought. The EU forecast didn't predict the problems Germany is currently experiencing. Think they are officially in a recession after a 3rd qtr of negative growth, whatever that is.

 

[drdel]

Just a thought. The EU forecast didn't predict the problems Germany is currently experiencing. Think they are officially in a recession after a 3rd qtr of negative growth, whatever that is.

That's correct.

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Out of interest, what are the economic forecasts if we were to stay within in the EU, are there actually any out there?
All I'm reading in the news is how our economy will be hit if/when we leave, there's nothing on how it would be affected should we remain.

Maybe a look at the economic forecasts provided by various chancellors of the exchequer over the lat few years. Maybe from before the referendum?

I'm wondering what economic forecasts our current chancellor used when preparing the budget Johnson has just had to pull. Did he just make them up or did he rely upon, and trust, the forecasts being provided to him by the Treasury and other recognised expert economic advisers.

Any forecast will be provided with confidence intervals - if the confidence interval is tight then we can pretty much trust it's going to be about right - if the CI is wide - then that suggests too much uncertainty about key factors that influence the overall estimates - and/or too much uncertainly in the accuracy of the measurements that are used to inform and adjust estimates and uncertainty of the key factors driving the overall estimate.

 

[harpo_72]

The French want Brexit completed either way because of the impact to their economy and I suspect the Germans are enjoying it as well.

 

[Hobbit]

Maybe a look at the economic forecasts provided by various chancellors of the exchequer over the lat few years. Maybe from before the referendum?

I'm wondering what economic forecasts our current chancellor used when preparing the budget Johnson has just had to pull. Did he just make them up or did he rely upon, and trust, the forecasts being provided to him by the Treasury and other recognised expert economic advisers.

Any forecast will be provided with confidence intervals - if the confidence interval is tight then we can pretty much trust it's going to be about right - if the CI is wide - then that suggests too much uncertainty about key factors that influence the overall estimates - and/or too much uncertainly in the accuracy of the measurements that are used to inform and adjust estimates and uncertainty of the key factors driving the overall estimate.

If we were still in the era of double digit growth, that holy grail, the accuracy tolerance would have a decent margin. No one, as we're seeing from Germany at present, is immune from bumps in the road.

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

If we were still in the era of double digit growth, that holy grail, the accuracy tolerance would have a decent margin. No one, as we're seeing from Germany at present, is immune from bumps in the road.

In the modelling you prefer uncertainly to eventually be quite tight around the main thing you are estimating - but not that tight that your estimates can't respond to measurements that show your estimate to be more significantly in error. You need your uncertainly around your influencing factors to be consistent with the likely accuracy of the measurements you are using to calibrate your estimates of your influencing factors. So if a measurement shows something unexpected then the estimates of the influencing factors that the measurement impacts have to be able to move - and when they move your main output must have room to move.

Problems happen when something really unexpected happens and your modelling is in or approaching steady state.

I bring to your attention m'lud a radar altimeter measurement of ground clearance over a flat field that was suddenly 2m different from all preceding and what was expected for it (see also German economic growth). My colleague could only see a cow in the middle of the field...and so deduced that the measurement was off the back of the cow...

Not a very good analysis our boss thought...it did muck up our modelling and predictions. And so we look to Germany

 

[Deleted member 1147]

Fixed parliament act is surely not fit for purpose if it can just be sidelined by a one line bill.

Problem is that May had a majority when she came in as PM, then called for an election and lost the majority.
Had she left it as it was, wouldn’t we be having an election next year anyway?

 

[SocketRocket]

Problem is that May had a majority when she came in as PM, then called for an election and lost the majority.
Had she left it as it was, wouldn’t we be having an election next year anyway?

But did she. The likes of Grieve, Clark, Gauke etc were still there to frustrate Brexit.