MrMonkey

I'll not labour the point about when Article 50 would have been activated as it has already been addressed above by thecrashingisles. Cameron alluded that he would activate Article 50 straight after a leave vote on a few occasions, and his own Party wanted him to remain as PM in order to do so. In regards to the point about the stock market recovery, please feel free to correct me if i an wrong. I am always happy to be corrected, especially by one who is clearly such an intellectual colossus as yourself. And as I said before, feel free to call me names of it helps you l hide the flaws and lack of evidence in your own arguments.

Feel free to start with the insults of it makes you feel better. It just highlights how insecure you are in your own views. The stock market is up now. Part of this is because of the rebound following the drop post-Brexit vote. On 24 June the markets were expecting Article 50 to be enacted on that day. A week later, when it became clear that it would take longer, share process recovered somewhat. The fall in sterling has also been credited with raising stock prices. Profits earned abroad by UK business operating overseas are worth more when converted into sterling, making a company's shares appear better value when compared with the higher profits it will make, leading to stock price rises. Sterling may recover in the medium term. But that is speculation at this point, especially with so many political and economic factors in play globally. But there will be uncertainty in the UK economy for a while, and uncertainty tends to be bad for economies. I'm not sure what your point is about low wages. I never made any comment for the reasons for this, so no need for you to throw clumsy insults suggesting that I did. However, please feel free to do so if you need to conceal the lack substance of your arguments. My point is that people on low wages will be affected by cuts to funding, loss of Single Market access, and the likely repeal of employment laws which provide protections to workers. People with insecure, low paid jobs are likely to be most harmed if workers'rights are reduced.

Well, the economic forecasts (as unreliable as this science is) indicates that there will be an economic slowdown and rise in Government borrowing as a result of the decision to leave the EU. Prior to the referendum, the expectation was that a leave vote would see Article 50 being triggered the same day and the process for leaving the EU beginning. As such, as soon as it was clear that the Leave side had won the stock markets fell, the pound dropped, and the metrics behaved as you would expect at the start of a recession. But then it became clear that Article 50 was not going to happen for a while, and the BoE released funds to calm the markets. Neither of these were previously expected, and they have (IMO) been the driver for the positive financial news of the last few months. In regards to those most affected, the EU does support deprived communities in the UK. Will the Government match this funding? I have not heard any assurances that Cornwall or Wales will be getting the funding that they currently receive. And we have already heard murmurs from the Government about repealing the Working Time Directive and other employment laws. Who benefits the most from these rules? The people on low wages in manual jobs, or the executives paid bonuses looking to make more savings in their businesses? As for the accusations of 'weasel words', if that is all you can accuse me of then feel free to do so. I am not of the view that we should be circumventing the law for the sake of convenience. Nobody benefits if we end up with a poor exit from the EU, and these processes will ensure that, although it may take longer, it will be a better result for it.

I never said that the legal challenges are not there to delay Brexit - just that regardless of the reasons for them due process should be followed. The reason for the case is unimportant. What is important is that things are done properly to ensure that the process is legitimate, and has the correct Parliamentary scrutiny (which is one of the things that the Leave campaign told us was important). The referendum was a poorly planned mess which was never designed to deal with a vote to leave the EU. There was no plan for Brexit. The referendum was advisory (hence why Parliament needs to be involved - if you want to blame somebody then David Cameron is your man). And clearly nobody even started getting proper legal advice on the complexities of leaving until we got a new PM. It is daft to suggest that "A hard Brexit should absolutely be our position". Says who? Not the 52% who voted to leave the EU. The nature of the exit deal was never put to the public. Simply leaving the EU without significant notice would have economic, political and social consequences. I expect that some of these would be quite severe. And, as is common with economic unrest, it is the poor and the vulnerable who would suffer the most. It is ironic that, on a forum where so much discussion is about the impacts of short-sighted government policy for political gain at the expense of social benefit, there is support for the Government to act without proper scrutiny and in such a way that would serve the political desires of the Government over the needs of the country. A quick Brexit would make Theresa May look powerful. But I have no confidence that it would actually make things better for the UK. For example, what would happen to UK businesses trading with the EU if they were told that they have three months to adapt to this change? We are going to leave the EU. Lets just make sure that we do it properly and do not overly damage our economic and political ties to the rest of the world in the process.

Indeed. But even if these people did not exist then the Government should be following the correct processes to leave the EU. It doesn't matter if there are people who want to campaign against Brexit (which is their right - after all, UKIP campaigned for it for years). If the Government starts circumventing the law then we will end up with a mess of a deal as we leave the UK, without the proper oversight by Parliament and without proper legal underpinning to handle the transition of powers back to the UK. For example, the last ruling was that the UK needs Parliamentary approval to trigger Article 50. If this case was not brought at the time, but was raised by the European Commission towards the end of the EU negotiations, it could void any agreements that had been made as the UK would not have been in a position to make them. Doing things properly and with due process protects the Government, not hinders it.

Its not a question of opposing it, so much as understanding the legal steps that need to be in place to make a withdrawal from the EU legitimate. The scandal is that the Government are trying to implement changes which are not legally robust. The law is not something we should ignore when it is inconvenient - the UK wants to leave the EU and it will do so, but it needs to be done properly and not on the back of a fag packet if we want it to be a success. Otherwise we risk the process being derailed at the last minute because it was not managed properly, like a moron on Grand Designs who has to pull down their expensive eco-home because they didn't bother to apply for planning permission before starting on the foundations.

But is he a leveraged landlord? If not, I imagine that more precarious landlords selling up represents an opportunity rather than a risk. Less competition, and a chance to snap up properties on the cheap, for example.

Medicine, education, and public broadcasting. Three industries which have been damaged by spending cuts which could have been alleviated if people evading tax had been paying their dues. I bet that these landlords would have expected the state's resources (police, courts, etc) if their tenants had wrecked their properties, refused to leave, or stopped paying rent. Only fair that they should have also been paying their taxes to fund these services on which they rely. These people should know better, having seen first hand the impacts of austerity. No sympathy whatsoever if they end up losing a lot because of their tax evasion. It is really easy to inform HMRC anonymously, and it is very easy for them to check if somebody is registered and paying tax. At least it would make future dinner party discussions more interesting if people are talking about their forced sales and upcoming legal cases rather than braying about perpetual HPI.

Agreed. There is nothing to be ashamed of in making use of what is available to better yourself (unless doing so has a noticeable impact on others). The boomers should be ashamed that, having benefitted from the last 50 years, they are now trying to stop anyone else enjoying the same benefits.

Wow. The Conservatives are really terrified of market forces. This stock is (IMO) going to become the supply of shared ownership housing. The Government gets a long term rent on 75% of its share, the resident takes out an overpriced mortgage on the other 25%, prices are kept high, and politicians get some photos of them handing keys over to the new owners/tenants. Everybody wins (except society, the taxpayer, and the resident).

All that money printed by the BoE has to go somewhere.

Hopefully the high-profile roll back of part of the scheme would have a dampening effect on the policy as a whole.

I can never understand the rationale of overseas buyers who buy expensive London properties. Sure, if you live in the UK then you can get caught up in the panic of buying before prices rise beyond your reach. And even if you pay over the odds you are getting some value from the purchase, as somewhere to live. But if you are overseas then the UK property market must look like a spectacular bubble ready to burst, especially compared to other areas in the EU (where prices have not inflated so rapidly, particularly where employment and quality of life are both high). And your investment will be at the whims of a UK government who could change the rules at any moment to meet its stated aim of improving home ownership. Bear in mind as well that, if you are an overseas investor with at least half a million quid burning a hole in your pocket then it is fair to assume that you have a decent head for business. Why would anyone who is financially savvy put a massive wodge of cash into an expensive illiquid, volatile asset which is showing signs of being at a peak bubble price?

Incompetently, inconsistently, and late would be my guess.

I haven't made any comments about rerunning or ignoring the referendum. I can deal with that. I can not 'deal with' racism, which what I am discussing. Stop trying to ignore a debate on racism and twisting it into an imagined attack on the referendum result. That is offensive. Who said that those who voted eave should be held responsible for racism? You are the only one bringing that up. In any case, it seems obvious that you can not actually debate like a rational adult so I will leave you to it.

The National Front holding a rally telling foreigners to go home the day after a referendum where immigration was the key issue? Can you not see how this will intimidate people? You see four men; other people will see a racist group on the streets of Newcastle where, until recently, they felt safe. That somebody would have to resort to using a Breitbart article to support their views tells me all that I need to know, yes. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/criminal-complaints-fake-bylines-and-exodus-breitbart-news-networks-chaotic-few-days/2016/03/14/3fb4dc9e-ea14-11e5-a6f3-21ccdbc5f74e_story.html

First up, I have been on this forum for a few months and do not post regularly. However, I care deeply about the issue of racial abuse and as such made my previous post. If this were an attempt to create a spoof account for a single post then it is quite an elaborate one. Secondly, I did not lay the blame for the racial abuse at any side of the debate in particular. The blame is always with the person committing the crime. We have seen fear used as a tool by many political campaigns recently, not forgetting Cameron's attempts during the London Mayoral election to link Sadiq Khan with Islamic extremism. It is up to the individual to decide whether they thought any of the players in the referendum contributed to a feeling that racial abuse is acceptable, which we are seeing play out now with a rise in hate crime. Right now, vulnerable people are frightened by the increase in hostility towards minority groups. If your response to this being raised is to discredit the message rather than condemn the act then you are helping to support this behaviour. Whether you want the UK to exit or remain in the EU, it is in everybody's interests to work towards a kinder society where everyone here feels welcomed and supported to make a contribution. Nobody should feel afraid because of the colour of their skin or the accent of their voice. Or you can just make a flippant comment based on my post count. If so, well done on showing that you have nothing constructive to say.

Agreed. Whatever your view on the EU referendum, it is hard to argue that a rise in racist abuse in the UK will lead to a poorer economy and society, and make the country look less appealing to the outside world.

A friend of mine works as a mortgage broker. She typically handles several applications at a time. On Friday three of her clients pulled out of their purchases, and another one said they are going to ask for a reduction on the price, so about half her clients in a single day. If this is representative of a mood shift, and if it spreads, then things are about to get ugly. After all, we have at least two years of uncertainty whilst the UK negotiates its exit from the EU. And the UK hasn't even officially declared its intention to leave yet.

Won't somebody think of the banks/EAs/boomers?! A 20% drop is only half of what is needed to restore any sanity to the market.

The article says the expectation is that there will be a massive sell off from 2018. If that is true then I have no sympathy. You have to be massively incompetent to have two years' warning of a crash and to not prepare for it.

I think that 30% straddles the line between house prices retaining a sense of normality (and then not growing for a while for the rest of the economy to catch up), whilst not causing an end-of-days catastrophe. Once prices drop 20-25% I expect the Government to open the credit taps as widely as they can to get prices back up, but it will take a while for the effects to be noticed.

"Its different this time", says the groupthink of every bubble ever. Maybe we are in an era of greater Government involvement in the market, taking increasingly expensive measures to prop up prices. But all this means is that when it does go bang, it will be all the more damaging. Nobody could have predicted a decade of near-zero IRs and HtB a decade ago; maybe more of this is to come which will continue to keep prices high. But home ownership rates continue to fall and the debt on the shoulders of FTBs continues to rise. Either of these could become a driving force in politics in the coming years. The large tanker is turning, but it has taken while to happen. The press has started talking about a need for house price falls and boomers are seeing their kids staying at home or locked in private rentals for decades longer than they hoped. People are realising that paying 50%+ of income for housing is harming other parts of the economy. But the main reason why it will eventually collapse is that it is a bubble. One which has been inflated by every mean at the Government's disposal. And bubbles burst.

People lose paper wealth, house prices fall, and the cost of borrowing rises as well. Not a disaster in those terms. I would rather owe £100k at 6% interest than £200k at 3% interest.