EU Referendum: what it means for ME (+ a poll)

[sarah darwins]

So, now the UK has turned itself into the world's largest isolation ward (saving you all from the risk of further BPS contamination — you're welcome, world), has anyone changed their mind? And is the picture for research any clearer?

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

So, now the UK has turned itself into the world's largest isolation ward (saving you all from the risk of further BPS contamination — you're welcome, world), has anyone changed their mind? And is the picture for research any clearer?

The picture for research is crystal clear - it has nothing to do with the dinosaur of EU funding and will carry on just as before - with a positive outlook for new interest from a wide range of disciplines.

I see nothing isolationist about Brexit. I think it is the British inviting all other peoples to join the human race rather than the tribes of neoliberalism or neoconservatism that in the form of the EU want to rip off ordinary people by selling them BMWs at an extortionate price. Everyone else will have followed by Christmas - mark my words. At present the Germans are making complete fools of themselves saying Britain cannot have any favours because then everyone else will want them - well of course they already do and are banking on it. The nakedness of the international monetary emperors and empresses is now on full view.

 

[BurnA]

I think it's too early to tell, nobody knows what will happen.

If anything I predict fewer countries to follow suit until the full ramifications are known. A lot of things have to be negotiated. There is no reason for any other country to leave until Britain does, and that will take 2 years at least.

Don't expect any answers anytime soon I'd say.

 

[A.B.]

Everyone else will have followed by Christmas - mark my words.

Seems more like there is renewed interest in strenghtening the EU and increasing federalization. So either that, or fragmentation because there is opposition to that idea. Not sure how it will turn out.

I don't think that any other country (with any sense) will leave until the consequences of the Brexit are clear. And the consequences could increase support for the EU rather than decrease it.

 

[sarah darwins]

Thanks, all. I'm really just interested in what people in this relatively restrained forum have to say. Emotionally, I'm being pulled every which way right now and have trouble seeing straight about it all.

 

[worldbackwards]

They'll be more cuts and I'm scared. I think it's an utter catastrophe.

 

[JamBob]

@sarah darwins I am deeply saddened by the outcome of the vote. Aside from the sudden loss of my rights as a (soon to be former) citizen of an EU country, it seems likely we will lose two unions and England will be condemned to eternal Tory rule.

I fail to understand why people are so quick to blame inequality of income and life chances on the EU and immigrants, when it is the government that has been responsible for society's deepening inequality. It's UK politicians who make choices to cut people's benefits or not to build houses or to underfund the NHS while making other choices to give tax cuts to their friends in the city. Now, with an eternal Tory government, we will see what real cuts to services are and it will be dire.

On a personal level, I have relatives and friends from EU countries who have lived and worked in the UK for decades who feel unwelcome and unsure of their future and UK relatives who live and work in EU countries who now feel like they have had their rights stripped from under them.

 

[Esther12]

At present the Germans are making complete fools of themselves saying Britain cannot have any favours because then everyone else will want them

I think we'd be better off in, and that the good things about the EU outweigh the bad, but the talk from some with power in the EU does make it clear that they see it as a project driven by ideology rather than a cautious attempt to implement systems that will address the concerns and improve the live of EU citizens. If allowing more minimal EU membership would lead to lots of countries opting for this instead of full membership... maybe that's a sign that this is where the EU should be heading?

There have been really mixed messages following the result from the EU, with some indicating that Brexit could be a really good thing for spurring real reform and a change of priorities in the EU, and some at the EU seem to want to speed up down their pre-planned course.

The fears an older generation had of war between France and Germany just do not resonate with younger, and avoiding this unimaginable war is not something people are willing to make sacrifices for. I also think that there's less fear of nationalism, and a desire to tame it, than there was. Maybe the rise in racist attacks post-Brexit shows that we've forgotten what we're playing with there? I realise that I've grown up in a society where racism has never been seen as acceptable - I don't know how widespread racist instincts are as they will have been hidden away for so long.

I hope the EU does succeed as a project. Having some sort of transnational governance in a free trade area seems preferable to just having different governments compete amongst themselves to see who can best serve the interests of capital.

 

[Sean]

All I have to say about it is that leaving seems a rather, um, novel way of reuniting Ireland.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

There is no reason for any other country to leave until Britain does, and that will take 2 years at least.

Seems more like there is renewed interest in strenghtening the EU and increasing federalization. So either that, or fragmentation because there is opposition to that idea. Not sure how it will turn out.

I don't think that any other country (with any sense) will leave until the consequences of the Brexit are clear. And the consequences could increase support for the EU rather than decrease it.

I am not actually predicting that even Britain will leave the EU, but that people in other countries will indicate they agree with the British people. There is renewed interest amongst the bureaucrats in strengthening the EU but equally there is increasing dislike for them by the people. As the Greek situation showed the EU rules do not work. By the end of this year I suspect some of the EU leaders will find themselves in the same position as Mr Cameron - no longer wanted. Hopefully the EU can then be reborn as something people want.

 

[Cheesus]

The picture for research is crystal clear - it has nothing to do with the dinosaur of EU funding and will carry on just as before - with a positive outlook for new interest from a wide range of disciplines.

The analysis from the Royal Society suggests that we receive more in EU research funding than we put in:

The UK contributes more overall to the EU budget than it receives. However, the UK is one of the largest recipients of research funding in the EU: it receives a greater amount of EU funding for research and development than the proportion of its contribution analyses suggests is earmarked for this.

https://royalsociety.org/~/media/policy/projects/eu-uk-funding/uk-membership-of-eu.pdf

Though we give more to the EU in funding than we receive overall, that does not take into account our taxation revenue gained from EU membership. I have seen no reliable figures on taxation revenue the UK government receives from EU membership, but it is likely significant. The amount we send to the EU each week that is not returned in funding will be significantly if not entirely offset by that revenue.

My mother, who is an academic, is currently working on a very large EU funded project with multiple other centres across Europe. A colleague of hers has already been notified that they will not be welcome to submit further funding applications and has been withdrawn from an existing application.

What this will mean for ME funding specifically is unknown at this stage. If we do have anything left of the 350m after all is said and done (note: we do not actually send 350m/week to the EU), I doubt that any UK government currently on the cards will equitably distribute funding. We will have to wait and see what happens.

Hopefully the EU can then be reborn as something people want.

That would be fantastic. Remain and reform.

 

[Cheesus]

Some of the Leave campaign was geared towards the pursuit of greater democracy. I would now encourage everyone in the UK to contact their MP asking for constitutional reform, specifically to move towards a system of proportional representation and a fully elected second chamber.

 

[Cheesus]

Thanks, all. I'm really just interested in what people in this relatively restrained forum have to say. Emotionally, I'm being pulled every which way right now and have trouble seeing straight about it all.

I notice you're in Cornwall. Cornwall voted to Leave the EU, but now the county council is asking for their EU funding to be ring-fenced. Neither May nor Boris have a particularly good history of ensuring the funding of local councils (unless it is their own http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/23/cabinet-ministers-councils-least-hit-budget-cuts ).

 

[sarah darwins]

it seems likely we will lose two unions and England will be condemned to eternal Tory rule.

I don't know. The mood I'm feeling is that if Labour manage to choose a plausible leader this time (ok, big if) they might actually have a chance of winning an election now, which they certainly didn't a week ago. If Labour are smart about it, they'll get a huge surge in support from young voters and dismayed Remainers.

I notice you're in Cornwall. Cornwall voted to Leave the EU, but now the county council is asking for their EU funding to be ring-fenced.

I think I said somewhere else that I wished the referendum could have had a third option: "A bit of both"!

 

[AndyPR]

I'm not quite sure how I feel, I've just discovered that I'm of the same opinion on something as Wessely (and other researchers thankfully..).

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/06/researchers-deplore-uk-decision-leave-european-union
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/06/researchers-deplore-uk-decision-leave-european-union
I would very much like to be wrong but I believe that, generally, this will have a very negative effect on the most vulnerable people in the UK. George Osbourne has already warned that there will need to be spending cuts as well as increased taxation. The number of people who will be dumped off of benefits will increase and we already know that PwME are more vulnerable to that than many other illnesses.

And, as Cheesus references above, the poor areas of the UK that were receiving large amounts of EU cash will be cast aside once more, despite most of them bizarrely voting Leave www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/25/view-wales-town-showered-eu-cash-votes-leave-ebbw-vale

 

[sarah darwins]

I'm reading that the 'Visegrad group' (Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia) and now drawing up their plans for a reconfigured, lighter touch EU. It would certainly be ironic if Britain had to leave the EU to get the EU it wanted to be in.

 

[alex3619]

As the Greek situation showed the EU rules do not work.

I agree. Its largely economic ideology rather than empirical fact and sound analysis that is being used - with a single currency the primary means of adjusting for local economic woes, weakening the currency, is gone. Yet they will not even consider it. This puts a huge burden on Europe without fixing underlying issues. Its the same for speculative capital and mega-corporations that are more powerful than a great many governments. Fixing the issues runs against vested interests.

Last I read at least three countries in mainland Europe have a majority wanting their country to leave the EU. If that goes to vote, and sentiments do not change, it will fracture Europe.

Let me add something that is being missed ... technology firms and publicly funded research take a hit in highly uncertain economic times. Investors and governments become very careful (stingy) with their money. Its not so much that the money is not around, its that it wont be spent. So science will suffer, but a lot of that will be applied science. Since ME and CFS research are not high priorities (a massive understatement) this research might take a big hit. Just look at the CDC and the current issue of reducing the ME/CFS budget to zero, again. This happened last year and was stopped.

Unless the market bounces back, the UK will already be seeing decreased tax revenues from income tax, and a very small hit to the GST. Under these conditions government often look to slash budgets, unless they are following Keynsian practices (i.e. spend big in hard times, save in good times).

Yet we also have to look at short term and long term issues. In the long run I think this will help UK science. Europe is less certain.

Scottish parliamentarians are also now talking about another referendum.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

Unless the market bounces back,....

The markets are already back to what they have been for months - at least FTSE. I think all this stuff about needing more cuts is simply scaremongering.

And the only research grant from the EU that i know of for ME/CFS involving the UK does not actually fund any research. It may not even cover the cost of writing the reports it requires. I cannot se the need for doom and gloom here. We need about a million people, mostly in London and the south east, to relocate back to countries they have come from and then we will have some hope of coping with pollution and have some chance of having enough hospital and schools for the population. The only reason for bringing people in to the country has been to provide cheap labour to line the pockets of the rich. The countries they come from need these people back - they are suffering depopulation and house price collapse (I know because I am in Latvia at present). The problem has nothing to do with racism or intolerance. it is simply that the south of England is no longer a fit place to live because of overcrowding. All the sparrows in London are dead. They used to use canaries to tell things were not right - much the same now.

 

[alex3619]

I think all this stuff about needing more cuts is simply scaremongering.

Its as much ideology as scaremongering. Its also what many governments tend to do, but the countries that did not do this are improving conditions much faster.

 

[BurnA]

We need about a million people, mostly in London and the south east, to relocate back to countries they have come from and then we will have some hope of coping with pollution and have some chance of having enough hospital and schools for the population.

Presumably a lot of these million people are working ? Their jobs would need to be filled or else their jobs evaporate in which case that's a big chunk out of the economy.

If the idea is just to depopulate London surely there are other methods rather than leaving the EU. In fact i don't see how leaving the EU would help in the long term. All major cities have an overpopulation issue, brought on by the fact that most politicians don't want to deal with it because it is a long term issue with no quick fix and would require a lot of spending.

I think a lot of people want to use the EU as an excuse for the ills of modern life but generally a lot of these ills should be sorted at a local or national level.

Seems like the UK are spending a lot of cash to treat their expat retirees in the EU, if all of these were to return to the UK the strain on the hospitals would increase not decrease i imagine.

Summary
1. There are around 1.2 million British born people living in another EU country, according to figures provided by the UN. Around 800,000 will be workers and their dependants. This is much less than the estimated 3.3 million people born in another EU country who now live in the UK, of which 2.1 million are working.

The British in Europe
2. According to the United Nations Population Division, the number of British people living in the EU is 1.2 million[1]. (The largest communities are in Spain – 309,000, Ireland – 255,000, France – 185,000 and Germany – 103,000. See Annex A.)

3. Many of the British emigrants to Europe, especially Ireland, Italy, Germany, Cyprus, France and Spain, are self-sufficient retirees so the numbers in employment are fewer than the total number of residents. The data on the total number of British workers in EU countries is however unavailable since many countries do not collect this. We do know that there are around 400,000 pensioners in receipt of a DWP pension living in Ireland, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Cyprus, the Netherlands and Germany and we can therefore assume that these people are not working[2]. From this we can estimate that of the 1.2 million British people living in in another EU country, around 800,000 will be workers and their dependants.

4. In 2013/14 the UK spent £1.4 billion on state pension payments to recipients living elsewhere in the European Union[3].

5. EU partners charge the NHS for the costs of treating British pensioners. In 2013/14 the UK paid £580 million to other EEA countries for the treatment of British pensioners resident in the EEA while it received just £12 million from other EEA countries in the same year for the treatment of EEA pensioners in the UK[4].