[jfdm]

I thought St t was in charge of the Home office?

What are you referring to when you write 'St t'

St Theresa - the patron st of Brexit 
She was in charge of the home office, I'm using the term loosely here.
Before becoming a PM with no mandate.

[Oldmanmatt]

Despite falling totally on the remain side and preferring that we were staying, i actually think leaving the EU lock stock and barrel including the single market is the right thing to do. Get out completely and then re negotiate our position.

Asking to stay in any part of it will only lead to a messy hotchpotch of half deals and compromises that will neither be good for us or the EU. It will hurt us in short term but i am pretty sure the business and trade side of the whole affair will sort its self out in the end. We want to buy and sell stuff to them as do the German, French etc. to us. I think leaving completely then renegotiating will actually turn this around quicker.

There appears to be as much posturing from the MEPs in europe as there was here prior to this happening but i suggest its a lot of hot air, and probably some more sensible, practical discussions are happening between business leaders as we speak, i know they are in my industry.

I am now more interested in the direction we take relating to leaving the ECHR, what kind of immigration policy we are going to have and whether Scotland departs the UK as i think these points will have a much more lasting effect on the country.

That "short term" will extend well into your retirement and half way through your children's working lives (if you're over 35 now).
Plus, don't we already know we'll continue paying into the EU for many years post departure, regardless of how hard or soft we leave?


All posts either sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek or mildly mocking-in-a-friendly-way unless otherwise stated. I always forget to put those smiley things...

[mrjonathanr]

French journalist's perspective on May's speech. It's brutal, but may represent a common view:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/18/europe-loser-brexit-britain

[gme]

That "short term" will extend well into your retirement and half way through your children's working lives (if you're over 35 now).
Plus, don't we already know we'll continue paying into the EU for many years post departure, regardless of how hard or soft we leave?


All posts either sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek or mildly mocking-in-a-friendly-way unless otherwise stated. I always forget to put those smiley things...
[/quote]

I dont believe that at all although at 48 i hope to be retired in 5 or 6 years.

Trade will have sorted its self out back to where we are now in 3-5 years. All the other stuff will take a lot longer but will be sorted eventually but the trade stuff will be quicker. Politicians think they can control trade but its the other way around.

I am ardent supporter of the EU,have businesses in Holland, Belgium and Germany, suppliers from across the EU and the likes of Norway and am pretty sure the ability to trade as we do now will not change at all in the longer term. This thought is shared by most if not all of my business friends and colleagues both here and over there. Probably a bit more paperwork but thats not a problem.

[Oldmanmatt]

A lot more. Don't you remember what it was like before open boarders? I do.
And it won't be businesses making the trade tariffs and levies.
Then there's the 2 years before we can start negotiations for new deals and the estimated 6-10years to negotiate a deal. All with people who are either upset with us or see us as soft target.
Trade deals may not be everything, but they exist for a reason...
If there is any break or delay in a supply chain, into which we export; the importer will just source elsewhere (we may make the best Jam, but not the only Jam and is it really that much better than French Jam etc (you get my point)).
Rosey talk does not guarantee future business and business is the land of the fair-weather friend.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[jwi]

Of course trade between EU and UK will be tariff-free, no? All trade between mature nations is tariff free, or close to tariff free. I haven't heard a single voice suggesting introducing tariffs, neither in France nor in Sweden. However, Theresa May made it clear from day one that she opposes barrier-free trade — and I don't think EU has much leverage on this point.

[tomtom]

To paraphrase several EU govt ministers/pm's etc... why would anyone put making a deal with a country with a market of 60 million ahead of a group with a market of 500 million.

Mays rhetoric is establising a hard initial bargaining point as slackers stated - but really do we have many cards to play in this 'game'....

[GraemeA]

Despite falling totally on the remain side and preferring that we were staying, i actually think leaving the EU lock stock and barrel including the single market is the right thing to do. Get out completely and then re negotiate our position.

Asking to stay in any part of it will only lead to a messy hotchpotch of half deals and compromises that will neither be good for us or the EU. It will hurt us in short term but i am pretty sure the business and trade side of the whole affair will sort its self out in the end. We want to buy and sell stuff to them as do the German, French etc. to us. I think leaving completely then renegotiating will actually turn this around quicker.

There appears to be as much posturing from the MEPs in europe as there was here prior to this happening but i suggest its a lot of hot air, and probably some more sensible, practical discussions are happening between business leaders as we speak, i know they are in my industry.

I am now more interested in the direction we take relating to leaving the ECHR, what kind of immigration policy we are going to have and whether Scotland departs the UK as i think these points will have a much more lasting effect on the country.

Historically you would be fooked without your French contingent so maybe Brexit will work. We tend to recruit from outside of the EU ;-)

[petejh]

To paraphrase several EU govt ministers/pm's etc... why would anyone put making a deal with a country with a market of 60 million ahead of a group with a market of 500 million.

As usual it isn't as simple as that apparent truism makes out - it depends entirely on what their purchasing power is and what they're buying.

100 million poverty-stricken consumers versus 10 million affluent consumers? No contest, if you're a manufacturer of much other than cheap basic necessities.

Take this interesting stat that highlights our importance to the German car industry:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/267252/key-automobile-markets-of-bmw-group/

Breakdown of BMW Group's worldwide automobile sales in FY 2015, by region
US 20.6%
China 18.1%
Germany 12.7%
UK 10.3%
France 3.5%
Italy 3.2%
Japan 3.1%
Other 28%

That's one example, plucked at random off the top of my head.


 

[jfdm]

I knew it German cars, we hold all the aces.
Still trying to fathom out brexit.
This sums it up, when challenged, there Is little substance.

[jfdm]

Whoops posted twice for some reason

[tomtom]

Fair enough for the BMW trade deal. I id a good look for a similar breakdown for Unilever - less of a luxury brand. And it's hard to find similar data - except the U.K. (As well as Germany, France and Italy) are in their top 10 markets.

But manufacturers rarely get individual deals anyway - so I think my point is still important...

[Oldmanmatt]

To quote the Economist:

"Such a sectoral approach is anyway unlikely to work, for two reasons. One is that the EU will not offer favoured access to its market only for certain industries. The second is that the World Trade Organisation does not allow it. The WTO accepts free-trade deals and customs unions, but only if they embrace “substantially all the trade”. Were the EU to single out cars, say, for barrier-free trade with Britain, the EU would be obliged by the WTO’s non-discrimination rules to offer the same deal to all WTO members, including China and India."

http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21714960-theresa-may-opts-clean-break-europe-negotiations-will-still-be-tricky-doing-brexit?fsrc=scn/fb/te/bl/ed/




All posts either sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek or mildly mocking-in-a-friendly-way unless otherwise stated. I always forget to put those smiley things...

[petejh]

So Pete, and the other brexiteers on here, are you happy with the direction this is going? Is any brexit better than no brexit?

Hi JB. Yes, I'm still happy with the way things are going.

No, 'any brexit' isn't better than 'no brexit'.
Because the word 'any' covers an awful lot of different outcomes from benign to catastrophic.
If you could come back to me with detailed examples of, say, 10 different versions of brexit with details of the different outcomes for each of the following: trade deals with EU, trade deals with non-EU countries, movement of people, movement of capital, movement of goods, customs deals, specific tariffs, defense arrangements, research collaboration and funding, sovereignty, make-up of the UK, make-up of the EU, law courts, climate-change obligations, agricultural policy, security collaboration, energy security, worker's rights, currency movement, interest rates, GDP, productivity, inequality, access to good quality education, access to welfare, access to healthcare, v-grade/font grade.

Then I can get back to you. Shouldn't take long, couple of lifetimes?

[slackline]

Is it not fairly safe to predict that any trade deal the UK has with the EU upon exiting will be worse than we currently have now whilst part of the EU?

The remaining 27 members would be ludicrous to agree to better trade conditions to a member who leaves than to its remaining members as there would then be a huge incentive to leave, precipitating the disintegration of that which they are standing together for.

[petejh]

No, I don't agree it's as simple as that.

For some reasons why, I recommend this as reading material.
Before anyone says, I'm not betting the farm on everything they suggest coming true. But neither am I taking what you just said at face value as inevitable.


For e.g., who was aware of this fact about who actually pays for German exports to EU countries? (i.e. Germany does!). And therefore why there's much more leverage than at first glance resulting from the UK leaving the EU and becoming a non-EU customer to Germany.

(for those who can't be bothered)
With subdued domestic demand, Germany and the EU depend on trade-induced moderate growth including close trading relations with Britain. Nine EU countries send at least 5% of their total exports to the UK. In Germany whose economy is highly export-dependent, that percentage is about 7.5% of total exports. In 2015 Germany’s trade surplus with the UK alone was a staggering €51bn, about one fifth of Germany’s entire trade surplus.

If anything, these figures understate Germany’s economic dependency on Britain. In 2015 around 36% of Germany’s total exports went to the Eurozone. However, under the so-called TARGET2 payments systems operated by the European Central Bank, Germany’s balance of payments surplus with the eurozone is financed not by the transfer of foreign currency reserves, gold or other near-liquid assets to Germany but by an open-ended overdraft facility granted by the Bundesbank.

Under this peculiar system, the exporter is paid but not by the importing country but Germany’s central bank, i.e. the German public at large, which never receives payment from the importing country but a mere credit note from the importing country’s central bank. As of July 2016 the Bundesbank’s TARGET2 balance stood at over €660bn. That sum is the total debt owed by other eurozone central banks to the Bundesbank, which is unlikely ever to be repaid. The Bundesbank, in other words, has become another ‘bad bank’ financing the current account deficits of other eurozone members. Germany’s trade surplus with the eurozone therefore is little more than a massive ‘accounting trick.’ If German eurozone exports were paid for in the same way as her other exports, Germany would be a much richer country. That Germany is moderately prosperous at all, is owed in large measure to her ‘real’ non-eurozone trade surplus. Germany and, by analogy, other export-driven eurozone economies depend on trade with the UK as a key trade partner outside the dysfunctional eurozone much more than is commonly realised.

[gme]

I think it will end up being the same. Its as much interest to the EU to trade with us as with us to them. There is more risk to us as exports to the EU are a bigger percentage of our total exports than the EUs to us (44% v 16%) but the value to them is great (220 ish v 290ish). So whilst i am sure the politicians want to punish us hard it will not make sense to do so.

Only 3 of the 27 import more from us than export to us. Will they want that to stop by making there goods more expensive for us to buy? Pretty sure what ever deal is made will be a two way thing.

Also you make the assumption that the open access trade deal is the most important thing for all 27 countries when i dont think this is the case.

[slackline]

For some reasons why, I recommend this as reading material.

Thanks for the link.

Aren't the authors conclusion that free movement of goods and services should continue predicated by the EUs principles that this is married to the free movement of people?

May seemed pretty clear in her speech on Tuesday that the UK governments opening position to forthcoming negotiations are that this requisite won't be met.

[petejh]

That was May's opening position. And the EU's opening position is known.

As to what actually happens, we'll see where we end up at the end of negotiations

[chris j]

So Pete, and the other brexiteers on here, are you happy with the direction this is going? Is any brexit better than no brexit?

I'm sanguine about how it's going. Once the posturing and grandstanding stops on both sides and the work of the negotiations starts then I believe a reasonable deal for each side will be achieved. A spanner will then be thrown in the works during the EU ratification of the deal by a region refusing to agree to it (as with the Canada trade deal). This will then be dealt with by the usual EU fudge (ie they will keep pushing the question at the offending region until they give the right answer...)

[tregiffian]

+1

[gme]

+2

Its the willy waving politicians on both sides that will make it a slow process.

[Yossarian]

That's a neat summing up.

I also think the debate has suffered as a result of the competitive political commenting which some people are literally making careers out of. You can spend hours "engaging" with it via Twitter - oooh, did you read that amazing Stephen Bush article in the New Statesman, maybe you should read Isabel Hardman in the Spectator, oooh it's AC Grayling, actually why has no-one asked Stephen Hawking and Phil Collins what they think too, etc.

The only thing I've engaged with today is my hostility towards Boris. I am looking forward to his eventual sacrifice which I hope will be both decisive and bloodthirsty...

[Iesu]

+1 Re: Boris Sacrifice

[slackline]

actually why has no-one asked Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking on EU Referendum (albeit prior to the referendum itself, he touches on the consequences in this December 2016 Opinion piece)