Part 2: Q&A, your questions about Brexit answered

Hello again everybody. Given the large number of questions I have received on my last Brexit Q&A, I am going to do a part 2 to the Q&A about Brexit - I have been reading a large number of articles online but some of them do not cover the angels I am going to be talking about in this post and I have received a lot of interesting questions about Brexit.

I shall answer your questions about Brexit.

Q1: Why are the rich British people in the UK so mean towards poor British people? Where is the compassion - why do they look down on the poor instead of helping those less privileged, in the same country?

A: Everything is relative and that relativity affects our capacity for compassion. A poor person in England will never go hungry - he may not be able to have fine food, but he will never go to bed without dinner. Likewise, he may not be able to buy nice shoes, but he will never walk down the street barefoot. He may not have gone to a particularly good school, but at least he would have had an education. He will have a roof over his head, it may not be a particularly nice flat, but he will not be sleeping in the streets. Compare that to the desperate people living in a refugee camp in Africa or the Middle East: these are the people who will go to bed without dinner, who will have to walk around without shoes, will never have a school to go to and many are homeless. Who do we offer our compassion and our charity to? The rich in the UK would gladly donate to charities helping the latter, but feel that the former already get plenty of help from the government. Such is the politics of envy - the poor think they deserve more help, but the rich disagree and would rather help some poor Africans build a school or hospital in their village.  Who deserves more help then? And in what form should that help take? It is not simply that the rich have no compassion, it is more complex than that.

Q2: Yeah but that's hardly fair to the poor, in a country like the UK where there's plenty of wealth, right?

A: You must have heard the saying, "give the man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach the man how to catch fish and he will never go hungry". I believe that help should come in the form of helping these poorer folks acquire the skills for them to gain access to more highly skilled jobs. The problem is that many of them are not willing or able to go through that route - instead, they simply demand for pay rises and ask for more money because they think it is unfair that others are paid more than them in society. I don't think using the word 'fair' or 'fairness' helps the situation as life is inherently unfair. More to the point, appealing to those who have the money to share it with you on the basis of fairness is unlikely to get you what you want. If I wanted a pay rise from my boss, I might argue that it would motivate me to work harder, that it would raise morale and productivity and he would get a huge return on his small investment by simply giving me a 10% pay rise. That is probably a far more convincing argument then, "because others in society earn more than me, life in the city is expensive, so it would only be fair to pay me more." I'm a businessman - so I know exactly how to negotiate with people and get what I want but I'm afraid that is not a skill that most people have. Poorer people on the other hand, get stuck on the concept of 'fairness' and it does them no favour whatsoever.

Is the UK really that rich?

I think that many people get the impression that somehow the UK is rich - that is hardly an accurate reflection of the situation. Many tourists who come to the UK visit only the main tourist attractions, they go shopping in central London, visit the Burberry boutique in Mayfair and they really only see the richer side of the UK. Imagine if a tourist visits Singapore, somehow falls asleep in the taxi ride between the airport and Marina Bay Sands and never ever sees a single block of HDB flats. The tourist then spends a few days on Sentosa, on Orchard Road and never ventures outside that downtown area, then exhausted by all the shopping, he falls asleep in the taxi back to the airport - he then walks away with the impression that Singapore is a super rich country because he hasn't actually spent any time looking at how ordinary folks in the heartlands live. You don't have to go very far to find poor people even in London - but they don't live near the tourist attractions or the main shopping areas. The fact is rich people do jealously guard their wealth and there is a lot of segregation in British society between the rich and the poor - not quite on the scale of like South Africa or India, but this is but a by product of capitalism.

Q3: Can you try to compare this with the situation in Singapore, where people are sick and tired of the influx of foreigners coming into the city for the sake of economic growth? I know the UK is different, but could you compare?

A: Well, let me state how it is different. Firstly, the immigrants coming into the UK are different: Eastern Europeans are coming from places like Poland, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia etc - these are by no means poor countries at all, they are just relatively poorer than the UK. However, the migrants coming to Singapore are from much poorer countries like the Philippines, India and China. They certainly have no intention of returning to their countries of origins and have every intention to settle in Singapore. For the UK, immigration from the EU has been tied into the bigger, more complex relationship of trade and politics, as part of the bigger EU project. Whereas for Singapore, it was more a matter of opening the borders to get more cheap labour to do the jobs that Singaporeans don't want to do and fill the gaps in the market where the local talent does not exist. There is still a compulsory work permit system in Singapore (even if it is rather liberal and easy to obtain a work permit) whilst in the EU, there is free movement of labour and no work permit is required at present - well, until we leave the EU. And of course, the British government did give the people a say on the issue whilst Singapore's PAP will rule with an iron fist and tell the people what is best for them.

How can the situation in London be compared to Singapore?

Q4: Surely you can see the comparison so many people are making with Singapore, as Singapore left the Malaysian Federation in 1965 to become an independent country? Look at Singapore's incredible success story since.

A: Well, it's not a suitable comparison in any case. The relationship the UK had with the EU is nothing like what Singapore had with the Malaysian Federation. As a part of the EU, the UK had access to the world's largest common market - that's great for British businesses looking for a bigger market to export their goods to. Some British people do want to go live/study/work in the EU whereas few Singaporeans want to work in Malaysia. However, it is bad news for those at the bottom of the food chain because that also meant competing with Eastern European economic migrants, who came to the UK in search of well paid work. In leaving the EU, you're killing the goose that lays the golden eggs: British businesses will suffer greatly when they no longer have free access to the European market - as a result they will shed more staff as businesses struggle, those still in employment will have their pay cut and if the poor thought they will be better off without the competition from Eastern Europeans, no they will be worse off. The sad reality for them is that either way, whether we're in or out of the EU,  they lose. There is no easy fix for the poor people in the UK to lift them out of poverty and if you think that leaving the EU would somehow make them better off, they're in for a rude shock. Many who voted 'leave' don't even have a clue what they were voting for.

But I digress: what kind of market can Malaysia offer Singapore? Whilst the geographical proximity with Malaysia does mean that it will always be a major trading partner, nonetheless Singapore is a very international city and does business with countries as far away as America, Germany and Australia so losing tariff-free access to the Malaysian market is not going to hurt Singapore's economy at all. In any case, Singapore had Lee Kuan Yew to steer Singapore's economy in the right direction and deliver the economic miracle that is still the envy of the world. Do we have a charismatic leader with a vision in the UK now? Shit, no. We are stuck with Boris Johnson to negotiate the terms of Brexit and he ran a terrible campaign based on lies, misleading the public into believing totally baseless bullshit just so he can kick Cameron out and become the next prime minister. Oh and just to make matters worse, Labour is tearing itself apart, trying to get rid of Jeremy Corbyn thus allowing the Tories to stay in power despite them having made a total mess of the situation. The two situations cannot be more different so it is a bad comparison to say the least.

Q5: How will this affect Singaporeans looking to move to the UK? Will it be harder or easier for Singaporeans to get jobs in the UK, to get ILR (indefinite leave to remain, the British equivalent of permanent residency/'green card')?

A: To be honest, it is hard to tell! On one hand, if the UK does leave the EU and tighten up the immigration system, limiting the number of migrants coming in from the EU, that would result in gaps in the labour market that still need to be filled by foreigners. Singaporeans then have a level playing field with other migrants from the EU in terms of competing for those jobs - in the past, it was always easier for British businesses to hire EU nationals because you don't have to go through the hassle of applying for work permits. So by that token, it may make it easier for Singaporeans to gain access to British jobs post-Brexit. However, the sentiment is currently that of anti-immigration: that could put more pressure on the government to tighten up the conditions whereby work permits are granted, in order to force company to consider British applicants first before turning to foreigners. This will be against the will of big businesses of course who really just want to hire the best talent for the jobs, but we have seen how public opinion has managed to force the hand of the British government time and time again, so it may work out that Singaporeans may find it even harder to get a work permit for the UK if the government change the rules yet again, which they may do post-Brexit in order to win more votes from the same people who voted for Brexit.

Q6: Should Singaporeans even consider working in the UK after recent events?

A: I think it all depends entirely on whether or not you can get a good job here. The British economy has been through good and bad times even when it was within the EU and even after it leaves, it will go through good and bad times too. How good your life will be depends far more on whether you have a good job and how much you earn a month, rather than the broader macroeconomic outlook for the economy. It also depends a lot on your personal circumstances: I think I've used this example before, I have a friend from university who has two kids. He has a decent job and earns pretty good money - yet his wife insists on spending virtually all their money on their beloved children, because her precious children must have the best of everything. Like even if they had carrots for dinner, her children can only eat the finest, freshest organic carrots that cost like five times more than ordinary carrots (and probably taste the same). As a result, he actually has very little money left after he pays his mortgage, taxes and his wife spends the rest of it on their kids (who incidentally are total spoilt brats, given how mummy gives them the best of everything). So on paper, he may look like a man who earns a lot of money, but can you consider him rich, when he actually has so little money to spend on himself? His wife's spending decisions has a far greater impact on his standard of living than Brexit.

We are not sure what will happen next...

Q7: What will happen in terms of immigration to the UK after Brexit then?

A: The UK has managed to make itself very unpopular with migrant workers who have come in search of well paid work - but within the EU, there are plenty of other countries which have a very high standard of living, plenty of other thriving cities where young people can go to in search of better opportunities. So these migrant workers will go to Paris, Berlin, Milan, Vienna, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Brussels, Rome and other vibrant EU cities instead. It is not like London will grind to a halt without these migrant workers - work permits will be quickly granted to those who are essential to keep big businesses going, but it would be incredibly difficult for unskilled Eastern European immigrants to turn up in London and start looking for work. I'm sure there will be some kind of arrangement with recruitment agencies to recruit manual labour directly from Eastern Europe to do the kind of work that British people don't want to do - except of course, these people will be more like the migrant workers in Singapore and have less rights: their right to stay and work in the UK is tied to that work permit, that will lead to exploitation inevitably.

Q8: You talk a lot about Eastern European migrant workers in the UK - why don't British workers go work elsewhere in the EU then and take advantage of the single market and freedom of movement, like you have?

A: Indeed, I have worked in France, Belgium and Germany in recent years and really enjoyed the experience. They could in principle, but they don't. Some rare exceptions like me do, but I'm rare in that I can speak another European language well enough to work in an English-free environment. Most British people are hopelessly monolingual and even if they did a second language at school, they could probably just about order a meal at a restaurant or purchase a ticket at the train station, but are they able to function in an English-free environment, say in an office in Paris where everyone speaks French, where meetings are held in French and official documents are all written only in French? Even for those lower down the food chain, you still need to be able to take instruction in the local language and speak to your colleagues - the migrant workers who come to the UK usually all speak English to a reasonably high standard, but the fact that virtually all British people are unable to speak another European language fluently is a failure of the British education system and it keeps them in the UK. They could go to Ireland of course, but Ireland is a poorer country where wages are even lower than the UK. You know, I've got family in Ireland and even I am not fond of it.

Q9: Amongst the locals, who will be hardest hit by Brexit and by the same token, who will it least affect?

Well, the weaker pound will affect those who travel a lot as trips abroad will be more expensive. Secondly, the uncertainty in the market will also affect businesses looking to make long term plans: there is uncertainty about how Brexit will affect our credit rating and long term future with Europe, as we don't know what the terms of Brexit will be and how this will affect our access to the European market. In short, companies which do business with Europe cannot make long term plans, cannot get credit for expansion easily and this will stagnate growth in the short run until we have a clearer idea what the government is going to do and how they will negotiate the terms of Brexit. So if you're a young person looking for work, well, you don't need to be particularly young, if you're looking for work regardless of your age, then Brexit is going to hit you hard as there will be fewer new jobs in the next few years as we undergo this transition from having a very close relationship with the European market to whatever the post-Brexit arrangements will be. There will also be more austerity in light of this and the poor will be hit the hardest as public spending is cut. If you work for a business that exports a lot to Europe, then you will be hit very hard. But if say, you're a school teacher, then you will always have students to teach regardless of our EU membership status.

If you are too poor to travel abroad, then the weaker pound will affect you less; but imports will be more expensive - but the poor will feel more pain if food prices go up by 10%, the rich will barely notice it as they can afford it. If you are already retired or semi-retired, then at least you won't be affected by the changes in the job market as the economy sinks into recession. Though if you have children in their 20s, they may become unemployed and you may have to help them out. If you are very highly skilled (eg. a brain surgeon), you will be far more likely to have a job than someone who is unskilled and uneducated when a recession hits. If you are single, then it is far easier for you to adapt to the changing environment then if you have a lot of commitments like young children and ageing parents. If you rich, then you will have enough money to spend to ensure that you do not see a drop in your living standards - but if you're poor, then you will probably see a significant drop in your living standards. If you're old, then you're not going to live and suffer for long as the young people, who will have to suffer the consequences of Brexit for a far longer time.

IMHO, Brexit is a big mistake.

Q10: So by that token, how badly affected are you? Why are you so angry then? 

A: Ironically, I'm barely going to be affected since I am rich enough to weather any recession. I can afford to retire today and not do a day's work for the rest of my life, but the only reason why I keep working is because there are things I want to prove and achieve, it is not to pay the bills. I am also relieved that things are probably not going to be as bad as we though, with the markets recovering already after the initial shock. The fact that I have no dependents and am in good health also makes my financial situation a lot easier. None of my work currently depends on exporting to the EU, so really that doesn't affect me either. I'm not a young person fresh out of university trying to get a job, instead I am an older man who doesn't have to worry about money at all. I suppose I am angry because I was firmly on the remain side of the argument and it was a matter of principle for me - this has been a deeply divisive episode in the history of the UK and part of the reason why I am blogging so much about it is because many Singaporeans actually know surprisingly little about the UK and many assume that it is quite homogeneous. Well, this episode proves that this country is anything but homogeneous but in fact has huge regional disparities and is very divided indeed. I am angry because the people who voted leave did so as a gesture of protest, to 'attack' those in power - but they are not going to gain anything in the process when Brexit does happen. It is just the whole stupidity of the situation that has left me so frustrated - the country is paying a heavy price because of David Cameron's bad judgement.

Alright, so that's another ten questions answered. Please let me know what you think about Brexit and I'd be glad to take more questions about it. I have a feeling we're going to be talking about Brexit for a while yet, Thanks for reading.