Well given Cameron sold the British Steel industry down the river by siding with the Chinese instead of the EU over their imports into the UK and he was supposedly pro EU I think it is time to get a bit excited about it before we find that Boris has sold off the NHS to an American insurance company and agreed to take all their GM crops.
Brexited | the worst threads live the longest
- Thread starter Silva
- Start date
I highly doubt this government will sell off the NHS. It would be the most politically risky of moves.
Sorry about the NHS Theresa, Donald assured me they were magic beans though.
The sad part is Liam Fox doesn't give a deck about consumer protection.
Will there be a select committee overseeing these deals?
I doubt it. Not very thoroughly anyway. The essence of these deals will be speed. The Tories (and the EU) want Brexit to happen reasonably quickly, and they (Tories this time, not so much EU) want us to have free trade deals already in place. It has to be seamless. We cant go for 2 years in limbo trading on the basis of WTO rules alone, because that will massively undermine the economy and the Tories generally will get the blame for it. So the number one priority will be to have agreements in place. That there are free trade agreements in place in time for actual Brexit will be far more important than the terms of the agreements. My guess is the Tories will accept pretty much anything. That's scary enough when it comes to the US, where standards are a shit load lower than they are here, but when it comes to China it could be devastating.
That's brilliant.
I'm surprised by how high he rates the chances of Northern Irish and London(!) independence. I think Scotland will get independence and Northern Ireland will get more powers (especially wrt the border) but I doubt anything will change with Wales and London.
I also doubt Britain will be able to stall on Article 50 for more than a year. Even the US would just want it over and done with by then. The uncertainty would affect Britain economically more than anyone because it's their status that will be most in doubt and they would still be bound by EU rules and unable to make any of their own at a time when no one in the EU is willing to work with them (at least on future EU matters).
His videos always are. He's done fantastic videos on the EU, the British voting system and things like the Royal Family and the Papacy.
Yeah Im not sure I agree with the odds he gives either. I think full Brexit is more likely than he suggests, and the "Norway Model" route is far less likely. I dont think it would save face as it has been roundly ridiculed.
Still, made me laugh.
Still, made me laugh.
I was following the discussion the last few days and like to add a few things.
First of all it is important to understand the differences between a FTA/PTA (free trade agreement/preferential trade agreement) and the European single market.
FTA: FTAs reduce or abolish trade barriers. The most common trade barriers are tariffs and export subsidies (“tariff barriers”) or quotas, subsidies, special taxes, special regulation, VERs et al. (non-tariff barriers). Most FTAs don’t abolish all trade barriers and are not perfect. Still reducing tariff barriers is fairly easy nowadays and most countries in the world move in this direction.
Unified Single market: A single market includes all the benefits of a free trade area and adds various other things. I won´t list all of them, just the most relevant ones.
1) common external tariff
2) => common trade policy
3) If a good is approved in one country it is automatically approved in all countries.
4) => Freedom of goods, services, capital and labour
Creating a single market is very difficult, because different countries have to accept the harmonization of regulation and standards (or #3 is impossible). Furthermore they have to agree on a common trade policy with other countries (or #1 is impossible) Other attempts to establish common markets (ASEAN, Mercosur, CDME, SICA) are highly imperfect and really nothing like the European single market.
A practical example to illustrate the issue: If you produce a baby toy in the USA, you have to comply with all restrictions and regulations of the USA (e.g. packaging, information, health standards, labour standards) to access their domestic market. If you want to access the European market as well, you have to do the same thing again just with slightly different regulations and standards, that are set by the EU/the national countries. Depending on your good/service, this process can create a lot of additional costs (e.g. medicine).
It is absolutely amazing and extraordinary, that the EU was able to create that single market. I am not big fan of the EU, but this aspect is fantastic.
The free trade policy of the EU:
Many pro-Brexit advocates seem to argue that a common European trade policy is a problem for England. It is true, that the UK can´t negotiate their own FTAs with foreign countries, but I don´t really see the problem.
The EU is actually pretty good at reducing tariff barriers with other countries. It is not perfect, but there are only few countries in the world that are actually better than the EU in this regard. The EU is sometimes seen as fortress towards the rest of the world, but that has little to do with “classic” protectionism. That is almost exclusively down to the very high level of standards and regulation. Now I am a fairly extreme liberal, so I´d agree that the EU is regulating too much stuff. Still, even I acknowledge that any developed country has to set standards and while the EU might overdo it in many ways, it is more of a structural problem and has less to do with the EU. Other developed countries have more or less the same problem.
So if you argue, that leaving the EU allows England to negotiate substantially better trade deals (or substantially different trade deals), you have to hold fairly radical views. Either you are in favor of strong protectionism or you have to fancy the radical reduction of regulation and standards; abolishing most labour standards; abolishing environmental standards; reducing health and risk regulations et.al. Some Tory politicians might fancy such a course (and I personally like at least some of these ideas), but I doubt that most pro-brexit voters would actually support such policy. Just changing tariff barriers will make little to no difference, because they are simply not the biggest barriers anymore (with few exceptions) for imports into the EU.
Furthermore many developing countries close their markets to developed countries. That is actually a big problem, but leaving the EU won´t solve that. To the contrary it will put England in a much weaker position. In comparison: The EU is better in securing access to foreign markets than the USA.
So I´d really like to understand the benefit of leaving the EU in this context. Can anyone explain in detail, what they don´t like about European free trade deals and how that would improve by leaving the EU? You might find a few issues here and there, but they´ll never compensate for all the disadvantages.
Bargaining position between the EU and GB:
It is quite simply. The EU is in a much stronger position and their relative share of trade with the UK is smaller than the other way around). Talking about absolute numbers makes no sense in this context.
Still size isn´t not the only issue. Trading goods between equally developed economies is not a big problem even without specific agreements. It is not a big problem for BMW to sell cars in countries outside the single market, because their standards (due to the high regulations in the EU) will conform to foreign standards anyway. The additional costs will be fairly small compared to the price of their product. That´s why the prospect of trading goods on the basis of WTO rules is not a particularly scary prospect for most industries: Sure they would like to save as much money as possible, but it will only damage very few sectors substantially. One of the few exceptions would be the pharma-industry, but to my knowledge is the UK huge net-exporter in this sector…..
All of that is different when it comes to services. Regulation is more complicated and the WTO rules are far less helpful. That affects especially highly regulated sectors like banking/finance. At the moment the UK is trying to limit the (misguided) regulations of the finance sector in the EU at least to some extend and the benefit is, that it stays globally competitive, while having access to its most important market. Dropping out of the EU will result in stronger regulations in the EU and UK-finance/banking sector will only be able to access this market, if they comply with huge parts of these regulations. That is a pretty scary prospect for the UK and gives the EU much bigger bargaining power.
What is going to happen in trade negotiations, when the UK drops out?
No side will have any interest in introducing high tariffs, because it would be a lose-lose situation. So agreeing on a fairly comprehensive FTA, that abolishes most trade barriers should be fairly easy and the EU will be happy with such an agreement. That said, the EU has absolutely no incentive to agree to give GB access to the single market without the GB accepting its rules – including free movement of people.
In the end the UK has to decide what their priorities are: access to the single market (to help their industry), but with the concession of agreeing to most of the regulations and free movement or dropping out of the single market and sticking to a FTA.
I´d take any bet that the EU won´t make any substantial compromises when it comes to access to the single market.
A few additional thoughts:
Brexit is not the end of the world, but fairly pointless without a vision/plan of what is going to come next. The whole campaign was really a low-point when it comes to democracy. Politicians acted moronic and big parts of the population just confirmed that they are clueless. Brexit voters will have a rude awakening when they realize that their decision won´t cause the political change that they wanted.
The aftermath of the whole referendum is even more embarrassing. Delaying to trigger §50 is incredibly irresponsible. Uncertainty is what hurts any economy. The referendum happened and now British politicians have to “rip of the Band-Aid”. Dragging out the current situation for years will massively hurt the British economy (and to a slightly lesser extend the European one). There are already news all over the place, that companies delay their investment. That should worry people.
On the other side, looking at currency exchange rates or stock markets is fairly pointless. Those things are not good indicators of economic development anymore and can drop/soar regardless of fundamentals.
First of all it is important to understand the differences between a FTA/PTA (free trade agreement/preferential trade agreement) and the European single market.
FTA: FTAs reduce or abolish trade barriers. The most common trade barriers are tariffs and export subsidies (“tariff barriers”) or quotas, subsidies, special taxes, special regulation, VERs et al. (non-tariff barriers). Most FTAs don’t abolish all trade barriers and are not perfect. Still reducing tariff barriers is fairly easy nowadays and most countries in the world move in this direction.
Unified Single market: A single market includes all the benefits of a free trade area and adds various other things. I won´t list all of them, just the most relevant ones.
1) common external tariff
2) => common trade policy
3) If a good is approved in one country it is automatically approved in all countries.
4) => Freedom of goods, services, capital and labour
Creating a single market is very difficult, because different countries have to accept the harmonization of regulation and standards (or #3 is impossible). Furthermore they have to agree on a common trade policy with other countries (or #1 is impossible) Other attempts to establish common markets (ASEAN, Mercosur, CDME, SICA) are highly imperfect and really nothing like the European single market.
A practical example to illustrate the issue: If you produce a baby toy in the USA, you have to comply with all restrictions and regulations of the USA (e.g. packaging, information, health standards, labour standards) to access their domestic market. If you want to access the European market as well, you have to do the same thing again just with slightly different regulations and standards, that are set by the EU/the national countries. Depending on your good/service, this process can create a lot of additional costs (e.g. medicine).
It is absolutely amazing and extraordinary, that the EU was able to create that single market. I am not big fan of the EU, but this aspect is fantastic.
The free trade policy of the EU:
Many pro-Brexit advocates seem to argue that a common European trade policy is a problem for England. It is true, that the UK can´t negotiate their own FTAs with foreign countries, but I don´t really see the problem.
The EU is actually pretty good at reducing tariff barriers with other countries. It is not perfect, but there are only few countries in the world that are actually better than the EU in this regard. The EU is sometimes seen as fortress towards the rest of the world, but that has little to do with “classic” protectionism. That is almost exclusively down to the very high level of standards and regulation. Now I am a fairly extreme liberal, so I´d agree that the EU is regulating too much stuff. Still, even I acknowledge that any developed country has to set standards and while the EU might overdo it in many ways, it is more of a structural problem and has less to do with the EU. Other developed countries have more or less the same problem.
So if you argue, that leaving the EU allows England to negotiate substantially better trade deals (or substantially different trade deals), you have to hold fairly radical views. Either you are in favor of strong protectionism or you have to fancy the radical reduction of regulation and standards; abolishing most labour standards; abolishing environmental standards; reducing health and risk regulations et.al. Some Tory politicians might fancy such a course (and I personally like at least some of these ideas), but I doubt that most pro-brexit voters would actually support such policy. Just changing tariff barriers will make little to no difference, because they are simply not the biggest barriers anymore (with few exceptions) for imports into the EU.
Furthermore many developing countries close their markets to developed countries. That is actually a big problem, but leaving the EU won´t solve that. To the contrary it will put England in a much weaker position. In comparison: The EU is better in securing access to foreign markets than the USA.
So I´d really like to understand the benefit of leaving the EU in this context. Can anyone explain in detail, what they don´t like about European free trade deals and how that would improve by leaving the EU? You might find a few issues here and there, but they´ll never compensate for all the disadvantages.
Bargaining position between the EU and GB:
It is quite simply. The EU is in a much stronger position and their relative share of trade with the UK is smaller than the other way around). Talking about absolute numbers makes no sense in this context.
Still size isn´t not the only issue. Trading goods between equally developed economies is not a big problem even without specific agreements. It is not a big problem for BMW to sell cars in countries outside the single market, because their standards (due to the high regulations in the EU) will conform to foreign standards anyway. The additional costs will be fairly small compared to the price of their product. That´s why the prospect of trading goods on the basis of WTO rules is not a particularly scary prospect for most industries: Sure they would like to save as much money as possible, but it will only damage very few sectors substantially. One of the few exceptions would be the pharma-industry, but to my knowledge is the UK huge net-exporter in this sector…..
All of that is different when it comes to services. Regulation is more complicated and the WTO rules are far less helpful. That affects especially highly regulated sectors like banking/finance. At the moment the UK is trying to limit the (misguided) regulations of the finance sector in the EU at least to some extend and the benefit is, that it stays globally competitive, while having access to its most important market. Dropping out of the EU will result in stronger regulations in the EU and UK-finance/banking sector will only be able to access this market, if they comply with huge parts of these regulations. That is a pretty scary prospect for the UK and gives the EU much bigger bargaining power.
What is going to happen in trade negotiations, when the UK drops out?
No side will have any interest in introducing high tariffs, because it would be a lose-lose situation. So agreeing on a fairly comprehensive FTA, that abolishes most trade barriers should be fairly easy and the EU will be happy with such an agreement. That said, the EU has absolutely no incentive to agree to give GB access to the single market without the GB accepting its rules – including free movement of people.
In the end the UK has to decide what their priorities are: access to the single market (to help their industry), but with the concession of agreeing to most of the regulations and free movement or dropping out of the single market and sticking to a FTA.
I´d take any bet that the EU won´t make any substantial compromises when it comes to access to the single market.
A few additional thoughts:
Brexit is not the end of the world, but fairly pointless without a vision/plan of what is going to come next. The whole campaign was really a low-point when it comes to democracy. Politicians acted moronic and big parts of the population just confirmed that they are clueless. Brexit voters will have a rude awakening when they realize that their decision won´t cause the political change that they wanted.
The aftermath of the whole referendum is even more embarrassing. Delaying to trigger §50 is incredibly irresponsible. Uncertainty is what hurts any economy. The referendum happened and now British politicians have to “rip of the Band-Aid”. Dragging out the current situation for years will massively hurt the British economy (and to a slightly lesser extend the European one). There are already news all over the place, that companies delay their investment. That should worry people.
On the other side, looking at currency exchange rates or stock markets is fairly pointless. Those things are not good indicators of economic development anymore and can drop/soar regardless of fundamentals.
#UnBanPedro
You worry too much. First of all the US will appoint a much more likeable president. Boris tends to avoid Trump, he's not that keen with the part Kenyan guy and would probably hate working with that sadistic nurse so the US will just have to give in and appoint someone that the British can deal with. Afterwards, the US will bend over backwards just like the EU will to Davis. Surely they cant even consider an existence without a trade deal with the UK can't they?
What will probably happen is that the UK will give in to a ridiculous heavily one way deal with the US which will make the UK look desperate. That will convince the likes of China, the EU and India to raise their stakes because they will be sure that the UK is lead by incompetents.
Agree with most of your assessment except this part. The uncertainty won't magically go away when Article 50 is triggered - we'll all still be clueless as to what the post-Brexit trade and political situation will be.
It's much more important to have a good Brexit than a quick Brexit, in my opinion. No one in Whitehall even has a clue what we actually are aiming for as a best-case scenario in the negotiations yet, let alone the worst-case.
Last edited:
After I heard today that its actually against EU law for us to negotiate trade deals until the 2 year leave period following Article 50 being invoked, I realized how very, very fecked we are.
Yeah but we're definitely going to. At the end of the day EU rules get broken. We're going to start negotiating trade deals, the lawyers will figure out a way of framing it in a way that allows the EU to fudge the issue. It's the kind of thing that risks ensuring the divorce is acrimonious, the EU could easily respond by offering us a worse deal than it might otherwise have done, for example. But there is no way we won't start lining up trade deals, it's the basis of the entire case for Brexit.
That's definitely my biggest fear. I wouldn't trust the Tories to organise free trade agreements with sufficient protections even if they had all the time in the world. In a rush, my fear is it'll be carnage.
The other problem is that the public is unaware of this kind of stuff until it's already too late.
Some will hear we've signed a trade deal and say "see, what was all the doom and gloom about?" without knowing the details and how they affect us.
Signing proper and well balanced trade deals in two years, is literally impossible.
Also, Mark Urban says EU insisting on and off the record that there will be no talks whatsoever even informal, until Article 50 is invoked.
Regarding countries lining up to arrange trade deals with the UK. There seem to be another way how to see that.
https://next.ft.com/content/3c76e90a-270e-11e6-8ba3-cdd781d02d89
If the UK leaves the EU, the government will need to renegotiate these agreements for itself. Non-EU countries have given UK companies access to their markets in exchange for their companies having access to the 500m customers in the EU. Since the UK market on offer after a Brexit will be only 67m consumers, it is only natural that those nations will want to renegotiate; Brexit would represent a breach of contract.
You are not wrong, but I still disagree. I think you underestimate how toxic the current situation is. If this drags out not just 2-3 years but 4-5 years, GB will miss out on investment worth billions. At some point business will not just delay their investment but go somewhere else. The economic consequences of that could be brutal. Far worth than getting over with the whole thing.
Your country needs leadership, that is able to make very difficult decisions rather fast. Everything else is crazy.
Other countries will be fairly reluctant to negotiate with the UK until they know if you are in/out of the single market. If you stay in the market, little will change. A tweak here and there and everything will be okay, because you´ll just continue to trade on the basis of the current rules. You´ll develop a couple of new agreements over time, but again - there is nothing wrong with the current agreements negotiated by the EU.
Leaving the single market would have massive impact on your national laws and regulations. Before negotiating any far-reaching FTAs, your government needs to make all these changes and only after that negotiations really make sense. How could you negotiate if you don´t even know your own laws?
@TTIP: It is not perfect, but there is a lot of scaremongering, that focuses on very few issues. There are legitimate reasons to be for or against it, but only few commentators are looking at the big picture. Everyone is focusing on his hobby-horse/pet theory and ignores everything else. Overall it has little to do with the Brexit. That said I don´t see TTIP passing in the EU any time soon (without being watered-down to a fairly normal PTA). Too many elections in countries where the population is highly critical and new governments might not really fancy it.
The EU and the UK have agreed the details of TTIP as far as a European common approach, what would be wrong with accepting that as the basis for a Brexit deal between the UK and the EU.
We will do what we want to do I expect.
Because the UK is not an equal power to the EU, it would be a bad deal for them
Wow I am very impressed by the quality of some of the comments here, it's hard to believe it's a football club forum.
I'm on the phone so can't type a novel but my first take would be that the financial regulations part will be critical, in term of regulatory disclosures (UK banks were kind of behind in term of understanding their assets and the COREP and FINREP disclosures were a big shock to them), and the whole question of the financial passport. That was key to the vote of London to stay.
Also in term of EU protectionism, as it was rightly said, the key point is the standard, and by extension, consumer protection. I cannot believe that any UK consumer in his mind would accept to lower his standard to accept dangerous or unproven items. The EU was quite good at that.
UK industries could copy the EU standards to ease the export (but then where is the benefit of the brexit?). If that's done they might as well think about joining the single market, and the remaining question would be to accept or not the free movement of EU citizens.
Even if the Uk accepts it, it's not necessarily vain because what the UK could gain from the brexit is more on the ability to bypass all the industry restrictions the EU imposes to its members, i.e. all those quotas for fishing or the fact that the UK is not allowed to do some specific industries. Maybe now they can try to compete in this space.
Is that enough of a benefit? We won't know. There needs to be a better cost benefit analysis and so far, I have not seen anything close to convincing.
I'm on the phone so can't type a novel but my first take would be that the financial regulations part will be critical, in term of regulatory disclosures (UK banks were kind of behind in term of understanding their assets and the COREP and FINREP disclosures were a big shock to them), and the whole question of the financial passport. That was key to the vote of London to stay.
Also in term of EU protectionism, as it was rightly said, the key point is the standard, and by extension, consumer protection. I cannot believe that any UK consumer in his mind would accept to lower his standard to accept dangerous or unproven items. The EU was quite good at that.
UK industries could copy the EU standards to ease the export (but then where is the benefit of the brexit?). If that's done they might as well think about joining the single market, and the remaining question would be to accept or not the free movement of EU citizens.
Even if the Uk accepts it, it's not necessarily vain because what the UK could gain from the brexit is more on the ability to bypass all the industry restrictions the EU imposes to its members, i.e. all those quotas for fishing or the fact that the UK is not allowed to do some specific industries. Maybe now they can try to compete in this space.
Is that enough of a benefit? We won't know. There needs to be a better cost benefit analysis and so far, I have not seen anything close to convincing.
I was planning a move to the UK in April, now I'm having second thoughts as a lot of companies will be hesitant to hire an EU citizen due to the uncertainty that Brexit brings, any advice? Should I do it and see what happens? A part of me feels that Swedish citizens won't really be affected.
That deal would be as good as it gets for the EU as it gets everything it is asking for from the US and probably won't get. Its already agreed between all govt's in the EU and the UK govt. It would save a huge amount of time and be mutually beneficial to the EU and the UK. If the key is to minimise disruption and job losses in the EU then I would be a good place to start.
Are you talking EU - UK or EU - US?
At the moment its the proposal from EU to the US as agreed by all the EU countries.
It was just a thought when I heard they had an agreed position to save time. It would be odd if the UK had to be given less access to the single market than countries who had never been in the single market, odd and self defeating given the reverse would be true and the UK is one of the EU's biggest markets.
It was just a thought when I heard they had an agreed position to save time. It would be odd if the UK had to be given less access to the single market than countries who had never been in the single market, odd and self defeating given the reverse would be true and the UK is one of the EU's biggest markets.
These kind of agreements are too specific to just copy them. That said an agreement in the spirit of CETA/TTIP would certainly also be an option for the future EU-GB relationship. Still these are “just” fairly comprehensive FTAs, which is not the same as being part of the single market (even so these agreements narrow the gap in some areas by starting a process of cooperation, harmonization and recognition when it comes to standards/regulation.).
It is almost impossible to predict how long it takes to conclude such a process. A framework could be in place fairly quickly, while many details (and those matter a lot) could be added later. Still such a strategy would exclude GB and its industry from the single market. Especially negotiations about the access of financial institutions might take time.
The US is of comparable size to the EU, they negotiate as equals. The UK is not, they should be getting more from us than us from them, otherwise the EU is not doing it's job
I dont think any EU citizens will be affected. If you have a Job offer then go for it. I fully expect hiring to pick up towards the end of the year and pound to stablilize around its long term average of 1.23 to 1.27 to €.
When was there any doubt on this?
That's a bit rich coming from a nation whose politicians can't stop playing games of thrones
GoT is a best seller.
I wouldn´t focus too much on the size of the economies. Yes, the EU is bigger, but the UK is a very strong economy. Size alone also doesn´t determine bargaining power. Both sides understand the benefits of free trade, market access and cooperation. When one side tries to outdo the other, both will lose. Trade negotiations are not a zero-sum game. Better cooperation means more gains for both parties. In contrast, there are various smaller EMEs that are more skeptical of free trade and they deny developed economies like the USA/EU free access to their markets. In the end the USA/EU can do little about that, despite having considerably stronger economies.
The issue that matters is the structure of the economy and the influence of different actors on politics in each country. The EU have an advantage, but it doesn´t really come from its size alone, but from the interests of the major industries in each country.
The issue that matters is the structure of the economy and the influence of different actors on politics in each country. The EU have an advantage, but it doesn´t really come from its size alone, but from the interests of the major industries in each country.