Thanks, I'll take that as admittance we wouldn't get reduced EU immigration under an affordable deal.
Don't try sneaking it in again later.
That is neither my personal preference, nor what i believe to be possible in the event of Brexit.
EU Referendum | UK residents vote today.
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That is neither my personal preference, nor what i believe to be possible in the event of Brexit.
y?
Yes me. Why?
I'd like to hear your reasoning. I'm undecided myself.
Switzerland is hugely opposed to free movement yet has had to accept it, Norway too. We know from Cameron's reform attempts that the likes of Poland have made free movement a clear red line, they would veto any friendly agreement that doesn't include it, BMW or no BMW. There would no doubt eventually be some sort of deal, but it would be one of the worse cases the Treasury describes.
You can't have a good trade deal and no EU immigration. It's either one or the other.
Who are much richer than us?
As for good trade deals, of course we'll get them. No-one we are trading with at the moment wants to lose our trade any more than we want to lose theirs. For every deal we do not renew the other country has to find a new market for their goods. That won't necessarily be easy. And they won't want to have to do it. We can easily find a new supplier of lemons.....can Spain just as easily find a new market for the large volume of lemons we presently take off them. Probably not, it would be much easier for them to carry on the trade agreement they have with us.
As for workers rights and consumer protection, we'll still have those of course. Why on earth should the anti EU mob water them down. Who are the anti EU mob anyway?
Poland have made free movement a red line within the EU....not outside of the EU. Are you seriously telling us that they refuse to trade with any country in the world unless they can have free movement of people in and out of that country. It's in every country's interest to trade as much as they can and giving away trade deals to other countries is not the way that world trading works. They fight for trade deals.
But why is my point?
I have something you want to buy and you have something I want to buy but we can't trade them unless my children can come and live in your house. Its a bit strange.
Workers rights in the eu are amazing, far better then i ever had in the uk. why do brits think they are getting fantastic rights?
I'll come back to you on that but it will take a while.
If you get me going on the referendum I'll never be able to stop.
Do you genuinely think we'd just be treated like any non-European country after having voted to leave it, with the prime reasoning being to block, for instance, Poles coming into the country? I cannot get my head around people thinking we'd get as good a deal after just having left.
Editor of the FT liked Gove's ideas by the look of it:
Isn't the UK in the EU?
I'll come back to you on that but it will take a while.
If you get me going on the referendum I'll never be able to stop.
By all means, don't stop on my account.
Like I said I'm on the fence so you might just sway me
Do brits really want to live like western europeans? pay 42% tax, 52% on bonuses and redundancy pyments? do they really? Or do they just like bits that suit them?
Yes I do. Try and get your head round it and stop thinking that countries are doing us a favour by trading with us. Trading is in their interest as well as ours. Countries just cannot afford to lose lucrative trade deals. The EU right now is struggling (Eurozone) and they'll fight very hard to hang on to any trade deals with us. They simply can't afford not to.
Where does that happen?
The EU collectively
Wishful thinking. In the same way a big supermarket can dictate price so too will the EU, the US and China as the price for open access to their markets.
I said they will be eroded, not gone. The mob are the free marketeers, they are mostly Tories
I'm sure Europe likes selling stuff to us, but we form less than 8% of their market. They on the other hand form 45% of ours. It's pretty clear who will have the best hand to play in any negotiation.
Add to that what we know from history. However much the Germans like making money they were willing to take financial hardship for years to achieve reunification. They are willing to take a hit for political principle, they have already proved it.
Sorry for the repeat, but some of this hypothetical stuff won't be so hypothetical in a few weeks time. European leaders will tell us what they will do if Britain leaves, we'll know a lot more soon. Other parts of the world too, I imagine.
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We both have something to trade, but if you want your bloke to come to our countries without Visas then we want our blokes to have the same access to yours
Why do you want to remain aligned to an organisation who you believe will be hostile to an otherwise friendly country, simply for choosing to exercise its democratic rights? No bloody gumption at all among you Remainers.
And yet the FT looked upon Osborne's propaganda piece with favour, a response which can't but speak poorly for the quality of the paper's judgement. Go back a decade-and-a-half to the inception of the Euro, and i shouldn't wonder if many f the same people were forecasting doom then too.
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I believe they'll be hard negotiators, and won't grant a country that's just abandoned the union the same strength of deal as it had before. Twisting that fairly obvious point to the extent you did is odd.
That's a good point but an unrelated one. Ubik is questioning the extent of the economic damage, your answer is again trying to deflect attention away from that subject.
Today's FT made it clear the Treasury came out against Euro membership at decision time. I left my copy on the train, but I think it was page three.
Questions,
I have to vote in June and I will do so even if I'm not sure about my eventual choice because I'm working harder at deciding than most people I know, I don't want to leave it to the hoopleheads by default. I'm watching Newsnight and listening to/reading the debate to try to unravel what all these stats really mean.
So
43% of our trade is with the EU but it only generates 12% of GDP. We are Europe's biggest export market(can't remember where I read that) but we are only 3% of their GDP. ermmm what the feck is that all about?
So the 57% of our trade we do with the rest of the world makes 88% of our GDP? That can't be right can it, is there a domestic trade part of GDP and if there is, doesn't that mean that the rest of our trade /domestic thingy is far more valuable to us than trading with the EU?
Also,
What part of the 43% of our trade could the EU really stop because 10% of our trade has moved out of the EU since 2002 anyway and we are in the WTO? Plus we have our own currency which would balance off import duties if they where imposed?
Also,
Does being in the EU harm our ability to trade with the rest of the world /domestically? I know the EU farm subsidies for agriculture are a very large problem to our other trading interests could it be said that the rest of the UK trading economy is being depressed because we can't offend the French and German/EU farming interest?
Lastly,
When remain and the French/ Germans state the size of a market argument, IE that 500 million in the EU to 65 million in the UK as a massive advantage for the EU in any post Brexit situation, doesn't that miss the point that the value of the 65 million people in the Uk is greater to the EU than the 500 million EU population is to the UK. Footfall is one thing but it comes second to actual sales doesn't it?
I have to vote in June and I will do so even if I'm not sure about my eventual choice because I'm working harder at deciding than most people I know, I don't want to leave it to the hoopleheads by default. I'm watching Newsnight and listening to/reading the debate to try to unravel what all these stats really mean.
So
43% of our trade is with the EU but it only generates 12% of GDP. We are Europe's biggest export market(can't remember where I read that) but we are only 3% of their GDP. ermmm what the feck is that all about?
So the 57% of our trade we do with the rest of the world makes 88% of our GDP? That can't be right can it, is there a domestic trade part of GDP and if there is, doesn't that mean that the rest of our trade /domestic thingy is far more valuable to us than trading with the EU?
Also,
What part of the 43% of our trade could the EU really stop because 10% of our trade has moved out of the EU since 2002 anyway and we are in the WTO? Plus we have our own currency which would balance off import duties if they where imposed?
Also,
Does being in the EU harm our ability to trade with the rest of the world /domestically? I know the EU farm subsidies for agriculture are a very large problem to our other trading interests could it be said that the rest of the UK trading economy is being depressed because we can't offend the French and German/EU farming interest?
Lastly,
When remain and the French/ Germans state the size of a market argument, IE that 500 million in the EU to 65 million in the UK as a massive advantage for the EU in any post Brexit situation, doesn't that miss the point that the value of the 65 million people in the Uk is greater to the EU than the 500 million EU population is to the UK. Footfall is one thing but it comes second to actual sales doesn't it?
So if we agree you don't have to let our blokes into your country if you don't want to, we can stop your blokes coming into ours if we don't want to?
It is. So why are workers rights so much better here than i remember in the uk?
Holland
Because the EU sets rules to protect workers and our politicians ignore them as it would be bad for business yet when an EU dispatch mentions a grading system for bananas the press and the anti EU rhetoric will roll on for ever about what the evil Europeans are forcing us to do, despite the rules being misquoted, voluntary and not something anyone will ever enforce.
I've got a team of 8 design engineers reporting to me across Europe and despite the fact they were desperate to employ me and caved in to my wage demands which were 30% higher than anyone else in the UK was offering I was surprised to find that the ones in Belgium, France, Germany and Holland all earn more than me and have almost double the holiday allowance I have plus the right to carry holidays over or have the company buy them back rather than the use it or lose it rule in the UK. In the UK we were forced to sign an IT charter on personal usage, software that was banned, the company's right to snoop etc, none of the other Euro offices signed the same declaration as it would have infringed the employees' right to privacy despite the fact many in this thread seem to think the EU forced these rules on us.
As for the tax situation we're not that far off the 40% and 50% on bonuses level either Stan (mine was 31%tax + 7% NI last year whilst I saw less than half of the bonus I got last month), I know going for a top of the range company car has screwed my tax over and may be a little more parsimonious when the renewal comes around in 2 years but having moved back from a 10-13% tax regime I'm still getting over how much tax we pay here for such shoddy service.
I agree, there's no way we'd get as good a deal, I thought it was interesting when they pressed Gove to name countries that get this good deal from outside the EU and he cited Albania, Bosnia and Serbia when the reason they get a fair shake from the EU on trade is because the EU is wooing them to join. Why would they give us the same deal when we are turning our back on the EU?
The EU allowed businesses to adopt that policy at their discretion. It amounts to the same thing. The wider point being that if the EU decides to (usually because of corporate lobbying) allow a further reduction in employee rights (at individual companies discretion) then the UK voter has virtually no democratic power to do anything about it if we stay in the EU.
Actually the European Court of Human Rights (something we'd be signed up to even after a Brexit) upheld one Romanian company's case against the unfair dismissal of an employee who claimed his use of Facebook etc during work hours was no business of his employer after he had been fired for posting something damaging to the company. The degree of snooping allowed was no different to that which UK law already permitted within our own companies but when our UK company tried to make it mandatory for all employees to have to sign our agreement we were told there was no option in the UK whereas the unions in France, Belgium, Netherlands, Hungary and Slovakia all blocked it on legal grounds and ultimately our IT charter is now worthless, thankfully.
We killed our own unions decades ago and have been at the whim of overzealous employers who like us to know our place, doff our caps and accept that we are dispensable as and when they choose and have far less legal protection than anywhere else in Europe despite what our biased press would like us to think.
`
This is really my point Berry, Britain isn't really like Europe in anyway so apart from hammering out new trade deals I don't see there being much of a difference out of it plus you would lose all the crappy parts about it. Lets face it, in or out the world will keep on turning. I never understand the British mentality of "Its crap so I think I will vote for more of the same". Don't people want to try something different, be it in EU or Government?
We wouldn't.
Page 4 of the prospectus put out by Boris and Gove's lot specifically states that they would remove the UK from the ECHR.
Sadly Stan, I've resigned myself to never seeing a government I would trust in the UK in my lifetime as such I'm quite happy that for all their daft rules and Eureaucracy the EU still provide a degree of protection against our own elected government doing anything truly stupid and damaging to our nation. It probably makes me as deluded as the septics who support their right to bear arms above all else and despite the damage it causes just in case they need to overthrow their nuclear armed despotic rulers but frankly I feel I have some protection from the EU that is more than worth the price of membership and feel more at home with our EU neighbours than I do with the rabid idiots in my own country who keep voting in the same right wing pricks time after time.
They can separately tear up the Human Rights Act and Treaty of Lisbon and then go through our laws unpicking all the articles on human rights the convention, Court and charter put in place that we adopted over the years but doing so is a separate act from Brexit. The tories are already talking about dismantling the HRA on security grounds anyway. I'd far rather it were all left in place as discussed above though since I don't trust our politicians and big business not to screw us all over, outsource our jobs and pull away the safety net of welfare the moment the protection the EU offers is removed, how anyone can put their trust in Boris, Gove and Farage is beyond me.
Have you got a link...
I thought they wanted to leave the ECJ not the ECHR
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court_of_Justice_of_the_European_Union
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Court_of_Human_Rights
Good question, all the lefties I know will vote stay. Not because they don't acknowledge the problems of the EU but
a) because they don't feel comfortable being on the xenophobic side led by clowns like Farage or Boris.
b) most visions about a more progressive blabla Britain after an EU exit are just pipe dreams. It'll give the Tories a free reign for likely the next century which definitely won't improve the situation of the working class. The idea that a Brexit would lead to a better chance for non-EU immigrants is laughable, the opposite is more likely. A "new left" aside from Labour won't be created instead it'll just increase the strength and momentum of the right wing.
Great interview! Everyone in this thread who's critizing left wingers for being 'hypocrits' if they vote stay should listen to that first.
Economic threat of Brexit is being 'exaggerated', says former Bank of England chief
Former Bank of England Governor Mervyn King has said that the economic costs of Britain leaving the European Union have been "exaggerated", as he accused those on both sides of the forthcoming EU referendum debate of treating it like a "public relations campaign".
"One should be very cautious of precise, numerical estimates of what the consequences would be," Mr King warned in an interview with Bloomberg, in a reference to Government analysis published this week.
The Treasury's report estimated that the British economy would shrink by 6pc by 2030 if Britons voted to leave the EU on June 23.
Mr King's successor, Mark Carney, said on Tuesday that he believedthe economic techniques used to produce the report were to his mind an example of a "sound analytic process".
However, Mr King said that the issue of the EU's membership was a "big, big question", and one that "that cannot be reduced, simply to the simple-minded level of a cost-benefit analysis".
He continued: "I'm old enough to remember the referendum in Britain in 1975 on exactly the same issue. The one thing that both sides of the argument then were wrong about was that it would make a dramatic difference. It didn't.
"I think it's very important that people should not exaggerate the impact, either of staying in or of leaving.
"I do worry that people on both sides treating this as a public relations campaign rather than as a debate on the future of our country are inclined to exaggerate because they feel they are selling a position.
"What is more important is that we have a calm and reflective debate about the role of Britain in Europe. Our relationship with a continent which we have struggled with for several hundred years."
- Telegraph
This is mere semantics Ubik, the words used to describe what might actually occur do not alter the reality. If someone believes that the EU is there to serve us rather than vice-versa, and that our participation or lack of such ought to be facilitated as a matter of course, then an attempt to harm the future prospects of the UK can reasonably be interpreted as a hostile act.
The Brussels tail shouldn't be wagging the European dog.
If you can reference a single post of mine in which i claim there to be no economic risk whatsoever from a European quarter, please do go right ahead.
Sadly delusional i fear. There is no plausible route to the sort of reform he speaks of, even should it be desired. In the interim therefore, we see what the EU actually thinks of poorest and the most vulnerable (not very much).
a) But the human traffickers best friend, Angela Merkel, is sweetness and light. As are the TTIP factions in Brussels and the British business community who like cheap labour and even cheaper wages...
b) The left will get out what they are prepared to put in. I am not sure where to begin with your political analysis, as it soon crosses into the ridiculous. A century of Conservative rule?
You also don't seem to think that both UKIP and the Tories will e stronger, which seems rather incompatible given the political landscape. There is also the small matter of internal conflicts; with Eurosceptic Tories out for blood on the one hand, and Farage potentially having outlived his usefulness.
Former Bank of England Governor Mervyn King has said that the economic costs of Britain leaving the European Union have been "exaggerated", as he accused those on both sides of the forthcoming EU referendum debate of treating it like a "public relations campaign".
"One should be very cautious of precise, numerical estimates of what the consequences would be," Mr King warned in an interview with Bloomberg, in a reference to Government analysis published this week.
The Treasury's report estimated that the British economy would shrink by 6pc by 2030 if Britons voted to leave the EU on June 23.
Mr King's successor, Mark Carney, said on Tuesday that he believedthe economic techniques used to produce the report were to his mind an example of a "sound analytic process".
However, Mr King said that the issue of the EU's membership was a "big, big question", and one that "that cannot be reduced, simply to the simple-minded level of a cost-benefit analysis".
He continued: "I'm old enough to remember the referendum in Britain in 1975 on exactly the same issue. The one thing that both sides of the argument then were wrong about was that it would make a dramatic difference. It didn't.
"I think it's very important that people should not exaggerate the impact, either of staying in or of leaving.
"I do worry that people on both sides treating this as a public relations campaign rather than as a debate on the future of our country are inclined to exaggerate because they feel they are selling a position.
"What is more important is that we have a calm and reflective debate about the role of Britain in Europe. Our relationship with a continent which we have struggled with for several hundred years."
- Telegraph
This is mere semantics Ubik, the words used to describe what might actually occur do not alter the reality. If someone believes that the EU is there to serve us rather than vice-versa, and that our participation or lack of such ought to be facilitated as a matter of course, then an attempt to harm the future prospects of the UK can reasonably be interpreted as a hostile act.
The Brussels tail shouldn't be wagging the European dog.
If you can reference a single post of mine in which i claim there to be no economic risk whatsoever from a European quarter, please do go right ahead.
Sadly delusional i fear. There is no plausible route to the sort of reform he speaks of, even should it be desired. In the interim therefore, we see what the EU actually thinks of poorest and the most vulnerable (not very much).
a) But the human traffickers best friend, Angela Merkel, is sweetness and light. As are the TTIP factions in Brussels and the British business community who like cheap labour and even cheaper wages...
b) The left will get out what they are prepared to put in. I am not sure where to begin with your political analysis, as it soon crosses into the ridiculous. A century of Conservative rule?
You also don't seem to think that both UKIP and the Tories will e stronger, which seems rather incompatible given the political landscape. There is also the small matter of internal conflicts; with Eurosceptic Tories out for blood on the one hand, and Farage potentially having outlived his usefulness.
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Oh good.
To pick up on a particular point, how would having our own currency offset the impact of any tariffs imposed on our exports? Sterling could actually exacerbate the impact if it's weak against the euro or whatever.
Regardless of currency, tariffs obviously reduce our competitativeness.
That's very kind of her. Is there a reason she wants us to stay in or is she just very self-absorbed and thinks she'd be a positive influence for Leave?
Is there actually any evidence to support the introduction of widespread tariffing though, that the EU will choose its time of greatest crisis to engage in a trade war?
If anything we are a Eurosceptic irritant to the continent's centralising forces. The prudent course would be to reach a mutually acceptable deal, maintaining calm as well as profits, and move on with the 'project'. Creating a storm where there needn't even be one, can only push the EU closer to the edge.
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My point was more on his disregard of tariffs in general. No idea on the history of their imposition- the UK/EU issue is unique. I agree that you'd hope pragmatism would prevail.
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