Due to/despite Brexit

[Rewulf]

Yes I know, another Brexit thread !
But just some interesting snippets of information.
The first concerns the UK rejoining the Horizon program, and why.
This is from a piece published on the British industrial power group on Facebook.

Project Fact: The UK Remains a Science Superpower in its Own Right Ranked #4 in the World According to the annual Scimago Journal & Country Rank Index for 2022.

This is despite being effectively excluded from the “shelter/ umbrella” of EU-Run Science Projects such as Horizon Europe since Brexit. Ongoing UK membership was actually a condition of the EU-UK Trade & Co-Operation Agreement that defines how Brexit was to be implemented but the EU has since been in breach of its commitments for the last 30 months linking this to the border issue in Northern Ireland.

This annual ranking exercise is a measure of the volume of scientific journal publications and citations thereon by academic researchers attributable to a particular country, and originating from its various educational institutions.

The UK has ranked well above all of its Scientific competitors/ contemporaries since the inception of this Scimago Index in 1996, including Germany, Japan, Switzerland, France, Italy and Sweden. Whilst the UK’s actual output and performance of scientific materials has grown incrementally over the years, effectively doubling over 25 years, the only changes in the UK’s global ranking position has been to fall behind giants China (in 2004) and India (in 2022) over this 26 year period. The UK also has by far the most Nobel Laureates of its European competitors.

This ranking is therefore a testament to the great work being done in the UK’s sometimes criticised Universities, with no notable deterioration in performance witnessed, in fact more output incrementally both before and since Covid and Brexit.

British academic journals making the global Top 10 of publications are: the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Nature Reviews- Molecular Cell Biology, the Nature Medicine, the Nature Biotechnology, and the Nature Review Materials.

The issue with returning to EU driven, planned and centrally financed projects like Horizon Europe is that these are politically driven attempts to prioritise and “back winners” when it comes to achieving breakthroughs in science and technologies rather than driven by decisions derived from free market economics and efficient capital allocation by market players.

Europe's track record have not been good at backing winners over an extended period of time that has seen the region fall far behind the USA and China in this regard as in other indicators of economic vitality and this is driving Europe’s decline and inability of generate sustained economic growth.

In free economies collaboration happens between willing parties, as buyer, sellers or business partners, and there is nothing wrong with UK companies and institutions buying, selling or partnering with companies, universities and governments based in EU member states. However, engagements should be on commercial terms based purely on commercial rationale and priced according to the market, rather than based on something planned for and allocated in Brussels like state sponsored socialism.

Whilst rejoining schemes such as Horizon Europe are great “for continuity sake”, it arguably runs contrary to the concept of Brexit and Global Britain which is meant to signify openness and a level playing field in terms of collaboration with entities from ALL countries without the constraints of being decisions driven by a politically driven bloc.

Despite its relative economic size, over the decades the UK found it difficult to steer EU policies in a way that in line with mainstream British thinking. Indeed, there might be losses for the UK by participating in such schemes as it may preclude the UK from pursuing global collaborations with more dynamic partners from outside the EU as other partners may be discouraged or excluded.

Given that as this page just reported- 95% of the world’s future economic growth is coming from outside the EU between now and 2075 it doesn’t seem smart to impede global collaboration in any way as a trade off for membership of a failing club.

Whilst the EU has no universities ranked in the global Top 10, the UK has four equaled only by the USA, a country five times larger.

This is why the UK's ranking is so high and why the EU wants to benefit from this rather than the other way round as is portrayed by our lovely media.

The UK is therefore is a very strong position to go its own way with its proposed Pioneer scheme to replace Horizon. It is a one-off opportunity to grasp Global Britain in science but do our politicians have the courage to make the leap and free Northern Ireland from a border in the Irish Sea whilst they are at it?

It is incredible that as part of the Brexit deal, the UK has committed around £11bn of funding to the EU’s science projects up until 2028 whilst being frozen out since Brexit.

Horizon Europe already encompasses many countries outside the EU, so Brexit should not be an issue. The continued delays are causing intolerable uncertainty for our research and business community so it is time for bold action to properly exploit the UK’s position as a Science Superpower.

You can see the UK’s relative Science rankings in the links provided below.

#GlobalBritain #ReadyToTrade #RejoinEU #Brexit #ukscience #HorizonEurope

 

The next bit is from an ONS study , where they reported that the UK had the 4th fastest economic growth last year, but they made a mistake , we are actually 3rd, within the G7.

Project Fact: Statistical Error at the Office of National Statistics (ONS) Means that the UK was Actually the 3rd Fastest Growing G-7 Economy over the Pandemic (2020-2022) as Opposed to the "Sick Man of Europe" as Depicted by Remainers and their Media.

Edited September 7, 2023 by Rewulf
Forgot a bit.

[ditchman]

they want our brains....to have access to our inovation....they want our money (not promises).....funny how the Irish question is suddenly kicked into the ditch.....

the thing that worries me is our govts are always to easily bent over a barrel and told what to hand over.............we always give in too easily.............the EU and Europe stink....

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Oowee will be along shortly to tell you that's all wrong!    

[Scully]

The UK governments legally binding commitment to Net Zero will put paid to any economic growth. It will be superseded by all those nations who have made no such commitment. 

[Rewulf]

2 hours ago, Scully said:

The UK governments legally binding commitment to Net Zero will put paid to any economic growth. It will be superseded by all those nations who have made no such commitment. 

Yes, but at least when we are a 3rd world country, we can rest easy knowing we saved the world from climate change 😊

[enfieldspares]

5 hours ago, Scully said:

The UK governments legally binding commitment to Net Zero will put paid to any economic growth. It will be superseded by all those nations who have made no such commitment. 

Yes. This. And meanwhile the cronies of a certain ex-PM will do very nicely from having "futures" in carbon offset credits. Enough to afford an electric car for each family member to sweep past the plebs standing in the bis queue having long been forced off the road by emission penalties on their ten year old diesels they were once all encouraged to buy.

[Penelope]

14 hours ago, Rewulf said:

Yes, but at least when we are a 3rd world country, we can rest easy knowing we saved the world from climate change 😊

[old man]

17 hours ago, Scully said:

The UK governments legally binding commitment to Net Zero will put paid to any economic growth. It will be superseded by all those nations who have made no such commitment. 

Absolutely!

14 hours ago, Rewulf said:

Yes, but at least when we are a 3rd world country, we can rest easy knowing we saved the world from climate change 😊

Correct!

11 hours ago, enfieldspares said:

Yes. This. And meanwhile the cronies of a certain ex-PM will do very nicely from having "futures" in carbon offset credits. Enough to afford an electric car for each family member to sweep past the plebs standing in the bis queue having long been forced off the road by emission penalties on their ten year old diesels they were once all encouraged to buy.

They are all utterly untrustworthy, self seeking individuals!

[udderlyoffroad]

22 hours ago, Rewulf said:

Ongoing UK membership was actually a condition of the EU-UK Trade & Co-Operation Agreement that defines how Brexit was to be implemented but the EU has since been in breach of its commitments for the last 30 months linking this to the border issue in Northern Ireland.

Why the government isn't getting this message out loud and clear is a mystery.

Continued participation in Horizon was part of the withdrawal agreement, the EU must face consequences, publicly, for their intransigence.  They wouldn't hesitate to do the same to us.  Far too much metaphorical cap doffing happens towards those unelected troughers in Brussels from our nominally-elected troughers

[Scully]

I can’t recall the EU ever having to face consequences. 🤷‍♂️

[old man]

3 minutes ago, Scully said:

I can’t recall the EU ever having to face consequences. 🤷‍♂️

That day is coming there and here in some form......the future?

[matone]

16 hours ago, Rewulf said:

Yes, but at least when we are a 3rd world country, we can rest easy knowing we saved the world from climate change 😊

Aint that the truth !