If you look at the trade figures, then you would see that of the 68 billion trade surplus with the UK, Germany and the Netherlands account for most of it. They have the self interest in trading with the UK and they are the ones who lose out if large tariffs are introduced. If this was the case for Greece or Spain I could see the EU perhaps going through with it, not with it being Germany. That is the point you keep making isn't it, self interest. So your argument for punitive tariffs is based on Germany ignoring its self interest on principle. Like with the recent deal with Turkey over migrants where principle won a major victory.
Germany won't want to lose their exports to the UK, but I very much doubt they're worried that they would even if the UK is punished with tariffs for rejecting free movement. Have a look at what they export to the UK and 30% of it is cars, mostly at the high end of the market where we already pay over the odds anyaway. I don't see the Merc, BMW, Audi and Porsche drivers buying British in protest not least because we barely produce anything any more and switching to Chevrolet or Tata just isn't going to cut it. It's not even like the Beetle drivers switching to Minis would have any effect as the Mini is now part of BMW. After that it's heavy machinery, pharmaceuticals, plastics etc and again, we've not got the production of much of the stuff we import and it's exactly the same story for the Netherlands but without the cars.
The irony is that much of the machinery, pharmaceuticals, plastics and even foodstuffs we import from Holland and Germany comes from companies who at one time were seen as being part of the UK industrial landscape but who successive UK governments have regulated, taxed and bullied to the point where their UK manufacturing operations were moved to Europe. We carry on buying much of it believing it is still a Great British product without even realising it is manufactured in Germany or the Netherlands. Dulux paint with the Old English Sheep Dog although still owned by a technically British company in Akzo Nobel is all manufactured in the Netherlands these days, I work for a separate UK owned firm that is a spin off from Akzo and we're exactly the same with all our plastic goods with zero UK manufacture left despite the company forming in Dundee. Hell even Werther's Originals, marketed as a quintessentially British sweet are and always have been made in Westphalia.
Tariffs would do very little to the size of the German or Dutch trade with the UK but even if it did we're talking about 8 and 10% of their respective exports versus 48% of ours that go into the EU.
I would have no problem with imigration if the country had the infrastructure to deal with it, but thier simply is no way long term where ever gonna be able to provide enough jobs for the amount off people who are wanting to come and live here.
Do you know what stops our infrastructure from being updated, properly maintained and running smoothly? Our own democratically elected governments who for the last 30+ years have abandoned it to rot.
From Beeching cutting swathes out of the rail network to the Tories finally selling it off to the profit of their wealthy mates and then legislating the companies who stupidly bought it into bankruptcy whilst the lines and rolling stock continue to decay to our underfunded roads that are allowed to crumble into a state of disrepair, projects that are put out to tender yearly at the expense of the Engineering industry who quote them only to see them axed year after year on trumped up environmental, logistical or budgetary grounds;
I finished my whole schooling and qualified as an Engineer who did the design work on part of the M60 that was first announced as running through our family home in Stockport at the cost of over half our property value in 1973. After tendering the same section of the A21 in Tunbridge Wells 6 times in 7 years as well as umpteen other shelved projects and seeing our business struggle through receivership I quit the UK for Asian shores for the last 14 years to see how countries that are serious about infrastructure work.
I'm back now and lo and behold only 22 years after I first tendered it the A21 widening is finally approaching completion but the rest of the infrastructure network is as bad, if not worse than it was when I left yet we still pay more in rail fares, car tax, fuel duty, duty on new vehicles and insurance tax than anywhere else in Europe where the infrastructure is invariably far better. If they spent that tax they take every year on the projects it was intended for we would create the jobs you bemoan the lack of, hell with a reinvigorated Civil Engineering industry we could even tackle the housing problems people seem to believe the 1 migrant every 10 square miles are causing us.
It's not the EU stopping us spending on infrastructure though, hell the Welsh, Scottish and Irish apply for the grants we are all eligible for to improve their infrastructure and attract business. It's purely British elected bureaucracy at it's worst that strangles our country and keeps us stuck in the same rutted and potholed slow lane. I live in the vain hope that our country might one day realise how far down the league table we have fallen and force the politicians to loosen the purse strings to reinvigorate our country and our economy but if we do vote leave then I'll seriously be considering rejoining the brain drain out of this place yet again.
