Brexit What Happens Next Thread ---multiple merged threads.

[jonb2]

Just now, Riedquat said:

And resorting to insults.

RQ - apologies if you took that as an insult. I try never to upset people directly. Just generally.

But you did misread another of my points when you thought I inferred we burn down leavers' properties, when I meant the rabid politicos advocating Brexit should have their Henley houses hosed.

In this case, I defend my position by saying that those that think things will get better after Brexit have been sold a fiction, like fairies.

[HairyOb1]

2 hours ago, dryrot said:

As discussed upthread, the EMA is an unwanted layer of bureaucracy on top of our own MHRA (MCA). Looking forward to not paying for it! (and the other £350m+ per week!)

Ah, ok, so the loss of jobs and peripheral incomes is nothing too?

The amount it generates far exceeds the amount we paid for it, and it's now gone, along with it's 40,000 visits, hotels rooms, restaurant visits, travel.  

But that's ok is it?  The spend was £286m a week.  Which we got back in spades.  Now we've lost one section of it and will continue losing other sections too, but that's ok.

You're genuinely a bit unhinged if you think this isn't a big thing.

[Riedquat]

4 minutes ago, jonb2 said:

RQ - apologies if you took that as an insult. I try never to upset people directly. Just generally.

But you did misread another of my points when you thought I inferred we burn down leavers' properties, when I meant the rabid politicos advocating Brexit should have their Henley houses hosed.

In this case, I defend my position by saying that those that think things will get better after Brexit have been sold a fiction, like fairies.

Apology accepted.

Depends upon how you define better. As I've argued elsewhere I regard entirely sentimental reasons as being entirely valid and strong, so leaving an organisation I've taken a dislike to is better in itself. The question is whether the downsides outweigh it, and the impact of some economic falls really don't sound anywhere near as big as some people appear to think they'll be. I'm not denying that they'll happen. And you know what I think of the "we need the EU to protect ourself from our own government!" argument. At best it's an argument for staying in until we can sort out the mess of our own system, and sorting out that mess should be a priority. Accepting bad internal governance forever is not an acceptable position.

[jonb2]

5 minutes ago, HairyOb1 said:

Ah, ok, so the loss of jobs and peripheral incomes is nothing too?

The amount it generates far exceeds the amount we paid for it, and it's now gone, along with it's 40,000 visits, hotels rooms, restaurant visits, travel.  

But that's ok is it?  The spend was £286m a week.  Which we got back in spades.  Now we've lost one section of it and will continue losing other sections too, but that's ok.

You're genuinely a bit unhinged if you think this isn't a big thing.

Yup this, and more bit by bit - brick by brick we'll get a lot poorer. But at least we'll have our sovereignty so the carpetbaggers here can extend their playground

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-passporting-rights-banks-financial-services-michel-barnier-speech-talks-david-davis-a8064836.html

[jonb2]

23 minutes ago, Riedquat said:

Apology accepted.

Depends upon how you define better. As I've argued elsewhere I regard entirely sentimental reasons as being entirely valid and strong, so leaving an organisation I've taken a dislike to is better in itself. The question is whether the downsides outweigh it, and the impact of some economic falls really don't sound anywhere near as big as some people appear to think they'll be. I'm not denying that they'll happen. And you know what I think of the "we need the EU to protect ourself from our own government!" argument. At best it's an argument for staying in until we can sort out the mess of our own system, and sorting out that mess should be a priority. Accepting bad internal governance forever is not an acceptable position.

OK, glad we're still friends RQ.

As you know I like the freedoms of the EU - I also like being part of what I consider to be the best collective of cultures in the world. This seems to annoy many leavers who feel exactly the opposite. This I can appreciate as a values based counter-view, although I don't agree with it.

However, perhaps more importantly, the pivotal argument seems to be the one you have outlined above - the EU vs the UK government. This is the main kernel of the issue for me. Despite all the hassle and uber-integration ideas of people like Juncker, I think the collective is fundamentally a benign and good idea. It needs more agreement, definition and vision - sure - but I believe these will come.

On the other hand, if we take the UK as it has been for the last 50 years. I only see Brexit as an excuse for TPTB to exercise their powers in even more negligent and malevolent ways. I seriously think the only way for change is violence and lots of it. There seem NO peaceful mechanism for the change we want on the horizon.

In the long term, people work best when they work cooperatively. Like the Airbus model. Or VW with it's multi-country brands. Or many of the inter-European research units.

I watched James May's car of the people thing last night - this episode was about how if you want to win at cars, you have to lose at war. And how we completely fecked things up here with bad management and labour disputes. So from this POV, you are right about BRAINS. But above this, there has to be a common aim and unity from top to bottom. Our system here is so utterly fecked we need the EU as we are too weak not to be part of it. Getting even weaker by excluding ourselves from the world is not the thing that will precipitate change for the better.

According to James May's observation, for real change, we need to have a war - a civil one perhaps?

Edited November 20, 2017 by jonb2

[Futuroid]

4 minutes ago, TwoTearsInABucket said:

The rebate is up front. It doesn't come back, it never goes. Plus some of the money that does actually go comes back to us anyway.  Never mind about if it may double, the fact is the £350m going to the EU is just not true. Plain and simple.

Yep, £350 million a week was and still is a lie.

No two ways about it - designed to mislead.

[dryrot]

7 minutes ago, Futuroid said:

Yep, £350 million a week was and still is a lie.

No two ways about it - designed to mislead.

We hand over £350m per week, before rebate. Some is spent by the EU in the UK. The current "net" contribution is £10bn(?) And I  would still like to have the first entire amount in the UK upfront, so we -- not the EU - could decide what to do with it.

(BTW any comments on the doubling of our contribution? Or are the official statements of EU presidents also "designed to mislead"? :))

Edited November 20, 2017 by dryrot
punctuation

[Futuroid]

1 minute ago, dryrot said:

We hand over £350m per week, before rebate. Some is spent by the EU in the UK. The current "net" contribution is £10bn(?) And I  would still like to have that in the UK upfront, and we -- not the EU - could decide what to do with it.

(BTW any comments on the doubling of our contribution? Or are the official statements of EU presidents also "designed to mislead"? :))

1) We send the EU £13 billion. For a country of our size / wealth we should be sending them £17 billion.

If it helps you, it's like applying a discount coupon when you are buying something in the supermarket. The cashier says that'll be £10 and then you hand her a £2 off coupon you clipped out of The Spectator, they then ring up -£2 and you only hand over £8.

£13 billion per year = £250 million per week (UK gross contribution to the EU)

2) THEN... the EU sends the UK some money for things like CAP payments, grants for social programmes in deprived areas, money for education schemes, etc. This amounts to £5 billion per year in direct public funding AND they also spend money on the UK private sector (i.e. they may directly employ UK companies to implement programmes, build things, etc).

£13 billion - £5 billion = £8 billion.

£8 billion per year = £154 million per week (UK NET contribution to the EU).

If you divide £154 million per week by the number of households in the UK (27 million), the cost works out at £5.70 per week.

So, for the price of one McDonalds meal deal per week per household (one of the luxury burgers, not the chavvy ones) the citizens of the UK get the benefits of free trade with the world's biggest free trade area. 

https://fullfact.org/europe/our-eu-membership-fee-55-million/

[kzb]

51 minutes ago, Futuroid said:

Yep, £350 million a week was and still is a lie.

No two ways about it - designed to mislead.

Yes, the real cost is far more than that.

Around £1 billion per week in costs to the state, including avoided tax by multinationals and benefits to EU migrants.

Then there is the small matter of £82 billion a year trade deficit.

We import some £236bn a year of goods from EU.  I don't know exactly what the average import tariff would be, but if it averages just 5% you are looking at over £11bn a year state income on EU imports if they stay the same.

[Confusion of VIs]

32 minutes ago, dryrot said:

We hand over £350m per week, before rebate. Some is spent by the EU in the UK. The current "net" contribution is £10bn(?) And I  would still like to have the first entire amount in the UK upfront, so we -- not the EU - could decide what to do with it.

(BTW any comments on the doubling of our contribution? Or are the official statements of EU presidents also "designed to mislead"? :))

There isn't really anything to comment on. It is just an idea based on increasing revenues by introducing a Tobin style tax on financial transactions. This has already been rejected once and is something the UK has a veto over.

    

[Futuroid]

1 minute ago, kzb said:

We import some £236bn a year of goods from EU.  I don't know exactly what the average import tariff would be, but if it averages just 5% you are looking at over £11bn a year state income on EU imports if they stay the same.

Priceless! If we can't succeed when trading on equal terms with other European nations, how will we manage when we are at a disadvantage? Not to mention the wonder of "Global Britain" (sorry, or was that last week's Brexit positive marketing attempt?) The answer - run away and hide! 

And where pray tell with this 5% bounty come from... out of the pockets of the UK consumer! 

 

[Confusion of VIs]

3 minutes ago, kzb said:

Yes, the real cost is far more than that.

Around £1 billion per week in costs to the state, including avoided tax by multinationals and benefits to EU migrants.

Then there is the small matter of £82 billion a year trade deficit.

We import some £236bn a year of goods from EU.  I don't know exactly what the average import tariff would be, but if it averages just 5% you are looking at over £11bn a year state income on EU imports if they stay the same.

Do you really believe that putting tariffs on trade with by far our biggest trade partner, and don't forget they also apply to everyone else, will make us richer. 

The Treasury believe that the best outcome for a Hard WTO is a loss of around 5% of GDP, or around £1.5bn a week. 

[jonb2]

22 minutes ago, Confusion of VIs said:

Do you really believe that putting tariffs on trade with by far our biggest trade partner, and don't forget they also apply to everyone else, will make us richer. 

The Treasury believe that the best outcome for a Hard WTO is a loss of around 5% of GDP, or around £1.5bn a week. 

Here's an idea for Boris and Hunt - let's put that £1.5 billion loss into the NHS and take back control.

[Guest]

41 minutes ago, Confusion of VIs said:

Do you really believe that putting tariffs on trade with by far our biggest trade partner, and don't forget they also apply to everyone else, will make us richer. 

The Treasury believe that the best outcome for a Hard WTO is a loss of around 5% of GDP, or around £1.5bn a week. 

The *worst foreseeable* type of Brexit will only cost us 5% of GDP? What's all the fuss about?

18 minutes ago, jonb2 said:

Here's an idea for Boris and Hunt - let's put that £1.5 billion loss into the NHS and take back control.

It seems perhaps a little disingenuous to compare a slight reduction in national GDP to our cold, hard tax derived cash handed over - chalk and cheese, surely?

[jonb2]

1 minute ago, highYield said:

The *worst foreseeable* type of Brexit will only cost us 5% of GDP? What's all the fuss about?

It seems perhaps a little disingenuous to compare a slight reduction in national GDP to our cold, hard tax derived cash handed over - chalk and cheese, surely?

That's rich HY.

It's not at all disingenuous judged by the 'come-on' promised by these people. They took the thing closest to the heart of most people, the NHS, manipulated it into a perfect lie knowing full well it was 100% disingenuous. Brazen.

They want to stuff their pockets with gold. I believe they will privatise anything that moves. They should be shot for their treachery.

We are going down.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, jonb2 said:

That's rich HY.

It's not at all disingenuous judged by the 'come-on' promised by these people. They took the thing closest to the heart of most people, the NHS, manipulated it into a perfect lie knowing full well it was 100% disingenuous. Brazen.

They want to stuff their pockets with gold. I believe they will privatise anything that moves. They should be shot for their treachery.

We are going down.

We were going down anyway.

But that's not my point. GDP (including the drugs and hookers) is a guess at the sum total of economic activity in the economy.

Our contribution towards the EU coffers is cold, hard cash from our pockets. 

Chalk and cheese.

 

[kzb]

1 hour ago, Futuroid said:

Priceless! If we can't succeed when trading on equal terms with other European nations, how will we manage when we are at a disadvantage? Not to mention the wonder of "Global Britain" (sorry, or was that last week's Brexit positive marketing attempt?) The answer - run away and hide! 

And where pray tell with this 5% bounty come from... out of the pockets of the UK consumer! 

 

We have a trade surplus with the rest of the world.

With the tariffs bit, I was trying to emphasise the trade imbalance figures.  In reality we are likely to source most goods at world prices, and the consumer would gain.

[Confusion of VIs]

22 minutes ago, highYield said:

The *worst foreseeable* type of Brexit will only cost us 5% of GDP? What's all the fuss about?

It seems perhaps a little disingenuous to compare a slight reduction in national GDP to our cold, hard tax derived cash handed over - chalk and cheese, surely?

That's the best case central forecast for a Hard but amicable Brexit. Less optimistically it could be 9%, it may even not be amicable.

As over half of everything is taxed in one way or the other that's a lot of cash the Chancellor won't have available to spend. Even on the optimistic 5% figure that an awful lot of cash to find, where would you like the £30-40bn of annual cuts to fall.     

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, Confusion of VIs said:

That's the best case central forecast for a Hard but amicable Brexit. Less optimistically it could be 9%, it may even not be amicable.

As over half of everything is taxed in one way or the other that's a lot of cash the Chancellor won't have available to spend. Even on the optimistic 5% figure that an awful lot of cash to find, where would you like the £30-40bn of annual cuts to fall.     

How do you derive your £30-40bn shortfall in available government finances from your 5% reduction in UK GDP? 

I'd be interested to see the workings - for example, do they include the WTO import taxes on our enormongous trade deficit - e.g the EU built cars that Hairy avows that he will continue to import?

[Futuroid]

27 minutes ago, kzb said:

We have a trade surplus with the rest of the world.

With the tariffs bit, I was trying to emphasise the trade imbalance figures.  In reality we are likely to source most goods at world prices, and the consumer would gain.

We won't have a trade surplus with the rest of the world if we stop buying the stuff from Europe because it has whopping tariffs on it will we!

We import more than we export - end of. You can stick tariffs on things if you like, but other countries will simply do the same - making our exports even less attractive. Net benefit for the UK - zero.

[Guest]

Just now, Futuroid said:

We won't have a trade surplus with the rest of the world if we stop buying the stuff from Europe because it has whopping tariffs on it will we!

We import more than we export - end of. You can stick tariffs on things if you like, but other countries will simply do the same - making our exports even less attractive. Net benefit for the UK - zero.

Would be grateful for some workings as to how you ended up with your zero figure. How did you incorporate the huge tax revenues -> UK Gov -> from e.g. WTO tariffs, reflecting our huge trade deficit with the EU?

[rollover]

 

Quote

 

Electoral Commission reopens probe into Vote Leave

The campaign paid £625,000 to clear bills allegedly run up by university student Darren Grimes with a digital agency days ahead of last June's vote. A separate group, Veterans for Britain, received £100,000 from Vote Leave. The campaign denies attempting to get round spending limits - the Electoral Commission initially accepted this but now says it has new information.

The new probe will look at whether the spending returns delivered by Mr Grimes, Veterans for Britain and Vote Leave were correct - and whether or not Vote Leave exceeded its spending limit.

Jo Maugham QC, of the Good Law Project, said: "We are 18 months after the referendum vote. It is extraordinary that only now is the Electoral Commission taking a serious look at whether the rules were complied with. And only in response to legal action." BBC

 

Do not worry they will find something. The investigation will take about 10 years.

 

[Futuroid]

2 minutes ago, highYield said:

Would be grateful for some workings as to how you ended up with your zero figure. How did you incorporate the huge tax revenues -> UK Gov -> from e.g. WTO tariffs, reflecting our huge trade deficit with the EU?

I was expecting consumers to move away from the EU products as the tariffs make them more expensive and buy the Japanese, US, Chinese, etc alternative. 

So the imbalance balance of trade with the EU reduces and we develop an imbalance of trade with the rest of the world (whomever we have free trade agreements with basically).

You aren't seriously suggesting we are going to trade with the whole world on WTO tariffs are you? That would completely destroy sectors like agriculture and a lot of UK based manufacturing.

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Futuroid said:

I was expecting consumers to move away from the EU products as the tariffs make them more expensive and buy the Japanese, US, Chinese, etc alternative. 

So the imbalance balance of trade with the EU reduces and we develop an imbalance of trade with the rest of the world (whomever we have free trade agreements with basically).

You aren't seriously suggesting we are going to trade with the whole world on WTO tariffs are you? That would completely destroy sectors like agriculture and a lot of UK based manufacturing.

No, if we go WTO with the EU, we import a LOAD of stuff from them. They import LITTLE from us.

Let's call the WTO tariffs 10% for simplicity.

It all goes WTO;

Our government wins 10% of a LOAD.

The EU wins 10% of a LITTLE.

Net revenue for us - not even regarding the big red bus money = positive.

[OnionTerror]

27 minutes ago, highYield said:

Would be grateful for some workings as to how you ended up with your zero figure. How did you incorporate the huge tax revenues -> UK Gov -> from e.g. WTO tariffs, reflecting our huge trade deficit with the EU?

This gives you some ideas of the various factors we are putting at risk by leaving the single market..

http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=86674

So writes Booker in his truncated column. He notes that, last year our car industry, on which 770,000 jobs directly and indirectly depend, exported a record 1.6 million cars, representing 12 percent of our total exports. Of those 57 percent go to the EU, worth £40 billion. 

What the MPs were told was that every single one of those cars can only be built and exported under an EU "type approval" which, when we become a "third country", will automatically lapse.

Most of our politicians seem equally oblivious, even when not dissimilar problems will face our chemicals and pharmaceuticals industries, with exports to the EU currently totalling £45 billion a year. And then there is civil aviation, with exports worth £28 billion, and food worth £12 billion.

Adding up the value of these industries, in terms of export to EU, the potential losses to the economy could be as much as £125 billion. These five sectors, therefore, amount to more than 50 percent of our EU exports.

Then, there are other potential losses. There is little dispute that UK airlines will be badly affected and we have identified the specific problem of Third Country Operator approvals which will prevent British-registered airlines flying into Europe. Exact losses are difficult to quantify but it has been estimated that spending by foreign tourists who arrived by air supported a £19.6 billion gross value added contribution to UK GDP.

There is also the financial services sector to take into account. An estimate referred to in a recent House of Lords select committee report suggests that £40–50 billion of UK financial services revenues relate to the EU, with the trade surplus for financial services for 2014 at £19 billion. As to the proportionate impact, it is difficult to estimate, but it would be fair to assert that £40-50 billion is at risk, potentially costing the UK government £20 billion in lost revenue.

However, if we look in crude GDP terms, things begin to look extremely bleak. Our calculations suggest that the possible effect of leaving the Single Market is a hit to the GDP in the order of £140 billion - or £190 billion if financial services are included. This is the cumulative effect of the export losses.

But, through direct and indirect taxation, the government takes 40 percent of GDP which suggests that a fall of that magnitude in export earnings translates into a loss of government revenue of nearly £80 billion a year. That figure would probably not stand up, but it does point up that damage to the UK economy has a direct impact on tax income. And to that, one must add, potentially, an increase of between £15-20 billion in welfare payments to cover an estimated 2.5 million unemployed.

Edited November 20, 2017 by Dave Beans