Brexit

[Travs]

By the way, Come on you Bluebirds!

To get this thread onto a real topic..... after a couple of life-threatening trips to the old Ninian Park, I am by no means a fan of Cardiff City.... but anyone who turns Wolves over gets my vote!

[Witton Park]

I guess aggressive deregulation means making the UK more competitive by cutting costs (both private and public sector). Does the UK population want that? i.e workers rights, environmental regulations, health and social care.

I would consider myself to be left of centre and have no problem with paying more tax as long as it is well spent.

Many people voted for Brexit becasue they are pissed off with the status quo (and not without good reason), I would not think they voted to make their situation even worse.

I don't see "aggressive deregulation" as the way forward, but the point to make, is that there will be a choice at General Elections on such matters that we have not been able to make before.

Do we need VAT? I know it raises a shed load of tax, but it is so bureaucratically heavy. A policy of removal of VAT would go some way to ameliorating the border issues, especially at the Northern Irish border.

I would describe that as radical deregulation. A series of other taxes could be tweaked up to recover the lost revenue elsewhere although the boost to growth would raise other tax revenues anyway.

VAT is a regressive tax as it works mostly as a retail tax, proportionately hitting those on lower incomes.

For businesses it is just a burden.

For large businesses they need teams and procedures to collect and pay or reclaim. It is revenue neutral but can affect cashflow. It can cause penalties when errors are made.

For small business it can put a lid on growth, as they strive to keep below the VAT threshold, fearing the bureaucracy and HMRC crawling all over them.

It's an awful tax and if I was Chancellor, I would look optimistically at a WTO Brexit and have a plan in place to phase out VAT.

[shaunaneto]

Narr. His days are numbered.

It’d amuse me no end to see the flailing from the extreme end of the deregulation mobs faces as their dream of removing obstacles to workforce exploitation disappear another decade down the line.

[Witton Park]

It’d amuse me no end to see the flailing from the extreme end of the deregulation mobs faces as their dream of removing obstacles to workforce exploitation disappear another decade down the line.

I don't know where you get this workforce exploitation from.

I don't think the Tories have done much to help, other than some minor issues around zero hours contracts, but I don't see there's any sign of it being mooted.

The problem with workforce issues is the drive to use blunt instruments such as minimum wage.

The Govt can increase it 50p an hour annually. It costs them nothing. It saves them in-work benefits and increases the Income Tax and National Insurance.

It puts the cost on to employers, and is not different as far as an employer is concerned to increasing employers NI by 10%.

It is a hidden tax.

The more MW is increased, the more the low-skilled worker is unaffordable, or the more the employer looks to mitigate.

For example, if you can keep your employees wage under £163 per week, you don't pay any Employers NI. So increasing the MW means employers use more part time contracts - we currently have around 10 million part time workers.


If you are a part-time worker on 25 hours and £8 and hour, you get 50p an hour, whoopee do - an increase of max £12.
But if you get 10 extra hours.....

So if a Government want to help the low paid, they should merge employees NI with income tax, and they should make employers NI flat rate (say 8%) on all income.

Employers are driving down weekly working hours of the lower paid to keep a lid on the NI cost.

Take an Aldi store worker.
"Work-Life Balance
Your usual contracted hours will be 25 hours a week, but can vary from 15-30"

That's typical for retail, care sector, hospitality. What I find ironic is they talk of work-life balance, but you have no clue what your shift pattern is from one week to the next, so taking a 2nd job is not feasible.

They also have you working 3 weekends out of every 4. So hardly work-life balance when you tend to work at times when your family would otherwise have some activity, like a fell race :/

[noel]

I suspect we'll abolish VAT day 1 post-brexit.

PS. That was sarcasm, WP

[Llani Boy]

Perhaps we could sort this EU business out with a Brexit Fell Race.

Three teams, Remainers, Leavers and Couldn't give a Tossers.

First ten runners from each team to count.

If the Remainers lost they would not be able to request a rerun on the grounds that they did not know that GPS was banned.

If the Couldn't give a Tossers won then the word Brexit is barred from this Forum.

If the Leavers won we would leave the EU.

Simples!

[Witton Park]

I suspect we'll abolish VAT day 1 post-brexit.

PS. That was sarcasm, WP

Just as well you explained it Noel as I thought for a minute you were a convert.

And whilst I appreciate your sarcasm, as I agree it will not happen, but the point I am making is that this is the type of policy we should be considering.

[anthonykay]

Perhaps we could sort this EU business out with a Brexit Fell Race.

Three teams, Remainers, Leavers and Couldn't give a Tossers.

First ten runners from each team to count.

If the Remainers lost they would not be able to request a rerun on the grounds that they did not know that GPS was banned.

If the Couldn't give a Tossers won then the word Brexit is barred from this Forum.

If the Leavers won we would leave the EU.

Simples!

The problem is, the Couldn't Give a Tossers couldn't give a toss about a Brexit Fell Race. But there's still scope for a good battle in the M60 class between me and Llani Boy, and I'm sure the Leavers could put up a good challenger to Graham Breeze in the M70's, given the big majority for Leave among the older part of the population.

[CL]

How do you feel about post Brexit Britain being led by Corbyn?

I would feel bad really bad. But I'd also have to ask to myself what difference does it make when you have a corrupt leader like Teresa May in charge. Before the last general election she sounded like Corbyn's right hand Man. With her in power Labour wouldn't need to get in as she'll do the job for them.

[CL]

I guess aggressive deregulation means making the UK more competitive by cutting costs (both private and public sector). Does the UK population want that? i.e workers rights, environmental regulations, health and social care.

I would consider myself to be left of centre and have no problem with paying more tax as long as it is well spent.

Many people voted for Brexit becasue they are pissed off with the status quo (and not without good reason), I would not think they voted to make their situation even worse.

But that's the thing Pat. People don't think they're voting to make their situation worse, but as history shows people continually support policies and governments that do make their situation worse. And you're/we're not an exemption to this. And I'm not talking about Brexit because the positive vs negative outcome is unknown.