Post-Brexit Thread

[Ramrod]

Originally Posted by Hugh

The right kind of experts are those without an axe to grind, and are not pushing either side of the agenda...

Does such a beast even exist?

[Osem]

There are no experts in what's happening because it's never been done before and for every 'expert' who says one thing there'll be another who says the opposite. The only sensible thing for us to do now is have the courage of our convictions and negotiate on that basis, not sell the UK short by giving away our negotiating position before we even start the process.

Originally Posted by martyh

I was told in no uncertain terms that they are the wrong type of expert,they don't count.

The right kind of experts are the one's that predict UKplc being swallowed up in black hole of financial ruin

A campaigning group aren't impartial. At a General Election if Unison released a paper stating that Labour had the best economic plan you would take it with a rather massive pinch of salt. A group whose very purpose is to advocate for a political position are always going to issue positive statements regarding that position.

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Incidentally actually looking at the site you don't have to find much reason to doubt them. Look at this on if the referendum is binding: http://www.lawyersforbritain.org/ref...-binding.shtml It's hardly confidence inspiring with the amount of commentary they mix in their their analysis. I mean serious releases do not end like this:

The astonishing arrogance, petulance, and desperate plotting to negate the democratic decision of the British people which has been displayed since the referendum result was announced is a deeply worrying symptom of the great damage which 40 years of EU membership has done to our sense of national and civic cohesion. The EU has persistently pursued policies which at every level are designed to weaken the bonds which bind us together as a nation. Its technique is to recruit an elite inside each Member State which regards its primary allegiance as being to the EU and not the country, and which is rewarded with power and influence in return for keeping the serfs under control.

It is by leaving the European Union that we can begin the long term process of healing our nation from this disease, and re-unify our people once again as a proud independent self-governing nation.

No matter how much you personally agree with the sentiments expressed it's not unbiased advice.

Also I am like 80% sure they're wrong anyway. I don't think you can bind Parliament to do anything. Parliament can repel the laws they make and even if that isn't case the EU vote was not a law.

Originally Posted by Damien

A campaigning group aren't impartial.

[

who says they have to be impartial to have a valid opinion and be correct in what they say .

Parliament can repel the laws they make and even if that isn't case the EU vote was not a law.

They didn't say it was law ,just binding ,which it was .Parliament would never overturn the vote of the majority .

Look at this way ,if the predictions and views of the right experts (the one's who are impartial according to you)are correct why hasn't Parliament overturned the vote for the good of the nation that's their job isn't it ? The answer is simply because no one knows for certain what can or should be done in this instance ,impartial experts have no better an idea of what should or can be done than experts fighting a cause because there are no procedures set in stone and it's never been done before .We are essentially a test case for the rest of Europe .

Originally Posted by martyh

.

They didn't say it was law ,just binding ,which it was .Parliament would never overturn the vote of the majority .

How is it binding if it isn't enforced by law? The AV vote for example was legally binding. When you link to 'lawyers for britain' I assumed you were referencing them for legal advice and not their personal opinions on politics. They're experts in law after all.

Look at this way ,if the predictions and views of the right experts (the one's who are impartial according to you)are correct why hasn't Parliament overturned the vote for the good of the nation that's their job isn't it ?

Because there would be a political cost, not a legal one. Also the Government policy isn't to have a vote anyway but they could if they wanted.

The answer is simply because no one knows for certain what can or should be done in this instance

No, there are people who know. You can legally bind the government but Parliament cannot be bound entirely, it ultimately can repeal the laws it makes.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Damien

How is it binding if it isn't enforced by law? The AV vote for example was legally binding. When you link to 'lawyers for britain' I assumed you were referencing them for legal advice and not their personal opinions on politics. They're experts in law after all.

The AV referendum was binding because as part of the act that was the legal basis for that referendum was the necessary laws to enact it.

No such provisions were made in the EU referendum. It is politically binding for sure, it would take something catastrophic to provide any justification for ignoring it, but not legally binding. I could provide a bunch of separate sources for this but it's the mainstream and accepted view, including by Parliament.

Those guys may be lawyers but they are lawyers who started off with a position then started looking for ways to prove their point, rather than looking at the law and assessing their position from that.

There are loads more lawyers on the opposite side of the argument - http://lawyers-inforbritain.uk/signatories/ - but nonetheless both need taking with a fairly hefty pinch of salt as both have an axe to grind.

Originally Posted by Ramrod

Does such a beast even exist?

The independent fact checking sites.

[Osem]

What constitutes independence or bias in the context of an issue like Brexit? Can anyone be truly unbiased on such a matter and how do we know how much 'bias' has been applied* to the gathering, interpretation and/or presentation of the 'facts' our 'experts' (on both sides) rely upon?

* whether deliberately, unintentionally, directly or indirectly.

The Beeb is supposed to be fairly unbiased isn't it? Well I've just heard a BBC TV news reporter commenting on a report (linked to a BBC investigation) about mistakes made by Concentrix in their handling of tax credit claims. In her words: 'many people were having their money stopped by mistake'.

Is that unbiased? It could be argued that it's just vague or deliberately intended to create a certain impression. If the figures are available why weren't they or even estimates given? If there are no figures how do we know it's 'many' people who're affected? What percentage of claimants have had their payments wrongly stopped? 50%, 20%, 10%, 2%, 0.01%? Even the latter might turn out to be quite a number but without any reference to actual numbers it could be argued that deliberately choosing the word 'many' was intended to give the impression of a bigger problem when using the word 'some' would have had less impact and therefore be less newsworthy. Now of course having payments stopped is likely to be a big issue for those affected and 1 mistake is 1 too many but if the overall percentage of mistakes made was just a couple of percent or even less, it's hard to imagine that much more could be done to improve matters since no system is ever perfect and some mistakes will always slip through. So is this sort of thing just sloppiness or bias? Whatever the reason/intention, something as simple as the choice of a word can have a big bearing on the conclusions which will be drawn so we can have no guarantees of veracity.

There are so many questions and unknowns surrounding everything that Brexit involves that seeking certainty, total independence or whatever is going to be like searching for the Holy Grail. Furthermore if we start dismissing every source of information because, just for example, someone involved is paid via the EU or is a member of UKIP etc. etc., I think we're going to be left with our own gut feeling to go on. Being 'biased' doesn't preclude anyone from being right but being 'independent' doesn't guarantee it either. Who's the arbiter of bias?

Originally Posted by Osem

What constitutes independence or bias in the context of an issue like Brexit? Can anyone be truly unbiased on such a matter and how do we know how much 'bias' has been applied* to the gathering, interpretation and/or presentation of the 'facts' our 'experts' (on both sides) rely upon?

* whether deliberately, unintentionally, directly or indirectly.

It's harder to find absolute certainty and sensible to acknowledge alternative scenarios to those suggested by the experts but that doesn't mean we reject expert advice wholesale because of the possibility they might be wrong. It's a balance of probabilities thing.

There are absolutes in this world. If Brexit is or is not right is not one of them but some of the information we use to make such decisions can be.

There seems to be a movement to position everything into a silo of political bias and thus reject any idea of balance or impartiality. I think it's because when you do that then you can any criticism of a particular position as politically motivated and thus wrong. Partisan expertise do exist of course but the trick is to distinguish them from those who are largely* impartial. So FullFact, a group who don't seem to have any motivation to spin or a particular position they're advocating for, should be taken more seriously than 'Lawyers for Britain' whose very existence is to campaign for a political goal. Understanding the motivations of sources helps in determining their credibility.

*as impartial as you can be. Obviously many of us taken certain concepts for granted given the society we grew up in and so on.

[Osem]

Originally Posted by Damien

It's harder to find absolute certainty and sensible to acknowledge alternative scenarios to those suggested by the experts but that doesn't mean we reject expert advice wholesale because of the possibility they might be wrong. It's a balance of probabilities thing.

There are absolutes in this world. If Brexit is or is not right is not one of them but some of the information we use to make such decisions can be.

There seems to be a movement to position everything into a silo of political bias and thus reject any idea of balance or impartiality. I think it's because when you do that then you can any criticism of a particular position as politically motivated and thus wrong. Partisan expertise do exist of course but the trick is to distinguish them from those who are largely* impartial. So FullFact, a group who don't seem to have any motivation to spin or a particular position they're advocating for, should be taken more seriously than 'Lawyers for Britain' whose very existence is to campaign for a political goal. Understanding the motivations of sources helps in determining their credibility.

*as impartial as you can be. Obviously many of us taken certain concepts for granted given the society we grew up in and so on.

Yes and there'll always be clear examples on both sides of every argument. We're still left, however, with a vast array of sources whose motives and conclusions we can't be certain of one way or the other. I think this whole argument is becoming too binary when real life isn't like that at all. It's perfectly possible for both sides of the Brexit debate to be right or wrong about certain aspects of it. It's equally likely that they're deliberately skewing 'facts' and selecting the sources which they feel best suit their argument whilst ignoring or disputing those which don't. What's the public supposed to do about that?

What's true, I feel, is that the Remain side have a whole lot more to gain by delaying/complicating this process and exploiting/creating uncertainties which may suit their argument and political standing even in the short term but won't help us to secure the best possible deal from the impending negotiations. They may not like the result but we have to get on with this now and endlessly bickering about who was more misleading than whom in the run up to the referendum is a dangerous game to play. If the House of Commons had immediately got fully behind the decision and decided to work together for the common god, would Sterling have fallen so far? I doubt it very much. In fact some may say that Sterling's value is one of the main sticks the Remain side have to beat HMG with so they have every reason to carry on creating even exaggerating uncertainties in order to put further pressure on it and thereby try to influence the general public and undermine the Government. If things carry on like this I feel we're in great danger of winding up with the worst of both worlds rather than the best or anything even approaching that. I really can't see why anyone who had the UK's interests at heart would want that.

[Ramrod]

Originally Posted by Hugh

The independent fact checking sites.

I suspect that it's only a matter of time before some fact checking site is discovered to be biased
But, yes, I agree with that for the moment

[Osem]

Originally Posted by Ramrod

I suspect that it's only a matter of time before some fact checking site is discovered to be biased
But, yes, I agree with that for the moment

Unless those gathering/interpreting the data don't have any opinions, how can we ever know that no bias whatsoever has come into play, even if those involved genuinely don't intend or realise it?

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Ramrod

I suspect that it's only a matter of time before some fact checking site is discovered to be biased
But, yes, I agree with that for the moment

They have to go overboard on checks and balances to remove bias if at all possible as, if being unbiased is your USP, the moment you can be legitimately proven to be biased you're out of business

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Originally Posted by Damien

They'll sort that. Unilever have already managed to get their prices accepted at other places. Most likely they'll cut a deal with Tesco.

Yep. They put the demand in a few weeks ago. Tesco have just decided to call their bluff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQqi_vV0ny8

[denphone]

Not a great lover of Tesco but l am glad they stood up to Unilever as if Tesco give in then who will be next.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by denphone

Not a great lover of Tesco but l am glad they stood up to Unilever as if Tesco give in then who will be next.

I'm sure they'll come to an agreement. I'm taking no sides; Unilever have seen revenues drop due to the Pound tanking and don't want to bear the costs, Tesco don't want to lose market share by charging more or lose profit margin by sucking up the increased prices Unilever is asking.

Chances are they'll strike a deal somewhere in between and the price on the shelf will have to go up. This isn't Tesco nobly standing up to big, bad Unilever. Tesco have a history of treating suppliers, especially smaller ones without the strength of Unilever, like something they just trod in. I'm sure Unilever do much the same where they can with retailers.