Hard Brexit or Hard Brexit

[Rum]

If someone wanted to write an over the top parody of a right wing bigot spouting their prejudice, bigotry and unfounded ‘truths’ they could do no better than read MMs posts. I can hear the ghost of Alf Garnett in almost every word.

It would be nice to think MM is a clever and elaborate troll playing a character out of the 50s with a ‘no darkies’ sign pined to his front door. Sadly he is for real.

[Brian Peacock]

You'll also notice from MM's authentic Brexit screed that the rhetoric refashions itself from the same cloth to suit the ideology. First off potentially dire economic consequences are dismissed out of hand as "crap", and then when an argument is brought to bear against that claim we're told that actually we'll benefit from some 'real austerity' because it will 'put us back in touch with the real world'.

As we've learned from our discussions with other fundamentalist types you can point out and argue against that kind of intellectual inconsistency but you can't change the mind of those with self-authorising, true faith.

[Rum]

Personally I feel unable to take a well informed guess at the economics involved given the propaganda that has been flying around. My gut feeling is that is a terrible mistake but my overriding view is based on the notion of progressive development which I think Europe tries very hard to stand for rather than the economics. In that respect I’m similar to MM if diametrically opposed to his opinions.

What bothers me about the likes of MM is that their view is based on prejudice, bigotry and misplaced patriotism and that reason, logic and a longer view about improving our lot is simply dismissed. I may be idealistic about the EU in some ways but just think about what Europe was like in the 18th 19th and god help us the 20th centuries. The millions that died.

[Brian Peacock]

Personally I feel unable to take a well informed guess at the economics involved given the propaganda that has been flying around.

It's almost impossible to make an informed decision if one relies on the media alone, but here's the parliament.gov.uk page with links to the Lords' EU committee reports. Un-sexy reports and submissions, but qualified opinions and evidenced conclusions nonetheless.

https://www.parliament.uk/business/comm ... lications/

TheCityUK, which is the industry-led body representing UK-based financial and related professional services, has also produced a report discussing the consequences of Brexit on the financial sector: A Practitioner's Guide to Brexit: Exploring its consequences and alternatives to EU membership.

The CBI produced a report entitled Smooth Operations, "based on thousands of conversations with UK businesses, as well as dozens of leading trade associations."

[Scot Dutchy]

You can also look at the output of the EU itself. Plenty of data but of course for people like MM it is all fake news. What is really annoying with people like MM is the lack of understanding reality. This idea that the UK is on a level par with the EU is just so ludicrous. The way May and her cohorts think they have a negotiation position when in fact it is based on hot air.
Take the Irish Border. They are willing to break an international peace treaty in order to achieve their goal; welcome to the Hague.
They are unable to comprehend the consequences of their actions.

[Brian Peacock]

Nah. People are still buying scratchcards and going to the bookies, so everything is just fine and dandy.

[Brian Peacock]

Nigel Farage has been forced to deny reports that he bet against the pound on the night of the referendum. According to Bloomberg, Farage was privy to private polling data that showed that the Leave campaign had won but said on Sky News that he believed the Remain camp had edged it. The “concession” by Farage, himself a City trader, was big news and pushed the pound to the $1.50 mark. When the true outcome emerged, sterling plummeted in value. Traders who bet correctly on the fall are thought to have made millions. 

[Scot Dutchy]

The Brexiteers just dont get it.

I work in Brussels alongside the EU Brexit negotiators and I find it incredible how little the UK government understands

Are we really being serious when we ask the EU to give the UK, as a third country, the same level of access as a member to sensitive information like satellite development and criminal databases?

[Brian Peacock]

The government understand it perfectly, but they're only interest in, and focused on, the domestic politics. This is about the Conservative and Unionist Party, not about Britain - or even the EU.

[Brian Peacock]

British and European trade unions and business organisations have joined forces to demand that “pace and urgency” be injected into the Brexit talks as complaints about the lack of progress made in negotiations intensified ahead of this week’s EU summit.

The TUC and the CBI released a rare joint statement with their continental counterparts calling for “measurable progress”, a day after the car industry called for a Brexit deal that delivers “single market benefits” and cabinet tensions over the issue flared into the open.

The workers’ and business organisations said: “We are calling on the UK government and the EU to inject pace and urgency in the negotiations, bringing about measurable progress, in particular a backstop arrangement to avoid a hard border in Ireland.

“Decisions will be needed in June and October to finalise the withdrawal agreement and the transitional arrangement, and put economic interests and people’s jobs, rights and livelihoods first.” It added: “The cost of disagreement between the UK and the EU would be dire for firms, workers and the communities where they live.”

Earlier on Tuesday, car manufacturers said there would be no “Brexit dividend” for the industry, with investment in the sector and thousands of jobs being put at risk unless the government rethinks its red lines in negotiations...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... _clipboard

[Brian Peacock]

British businesses should set up a base in Malta so they can easily trade with the EU and deal with the “period of uncertainty” caused by Brexit, according to billionaire Conservative donor and Leave supporter Lord Ashcroft.

A “special report” written by the peer details the merits of Malta as a base ahead of Paris, Frankfurt and other large European cities, while making only a brief reference to the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia as “reputational damage” for the island nation.

Writing for the website Conservative Home, Ashcroft says: “I believe that Malta represents the best destination for ambitious UK firms that must have a post-Brexit presence in the European Union.”...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... _clipboard

Infamous non-Dom Lord Ashcroft being the kind of wanker we all expect him to be.

[mistermack]

Nah. People are still buying scratchcards and going to the bookies, so everything is just fine and dandy.

The consequences of no deal are certainly hugely overstated.

The service sector in the UK accounts for 80% of GDP. Leaving the EU with no deal will have virtually no effect on that.

You can keep bleating about growth etc, but you really are talking about tiny margins, not the whole cake.
Life will be virtually unchanged for most people.

The price of freedom really is miniscule in this case. And the prize is enormous.
We are getting something that's priceless, for peanuts.

[Scot Dutchy]

MM you really amaze me. Sometimes you come with very lucid logical arguments and then you come with something like this.

What services does the UK earn from? A hint; banking and currency clearing.

[Brian Peacock]

Nah. People are still buying scratchcards and going to the bookies, so everything is just fine and dandy.

The consequences of no deal are certainly hugely overstated.

The service sector in the UK accounts for 80% of GDP. Leaving the EU with no deal will have virtually no effect on that.

You can keep bleating about growth etc, but you really are talking about tiny margins, not the whole cake.
Life will be virtually unchanged for most people.

The price of freedom really is miniscule in this case. And the prize is enormous.
We are getting something that's priceless, for peanuts.

What we have to remember is that Brexiteers bring nothing to the table in support of these kinds of reassuring platitudes other than the platitudes themselves. I mean, it's good to be optimistic and hopeful about the future, I'm all for that, but not to maintain unsupported and false hopes, and to call them certainties, simply because they are so reassuring.

I'm optimistic too. I think that, in the end, everything will be all right and it'll all work out fine. It's just that my optimism is tempered in the knowledge that by the time that happens i will have been dead a long time and it will be our children and grandchildren's generation who will be left to sort out the needless mess we left them with.

[Rum]

"We are the second-largest market in Europe so of course people are not going stop selling here... We have a £100 billion trade deficit with Europe."
Johan Eliasch, 28 June 2018

It is true that ‘they need us more than we need them’ but if the UK has to pay for the privilege of selling into the EU the balance (also see chart) is going to skew even more and we make a lot less as an exporter than we do now. The EU is by far the biggest trading group we deal with. If it doesn't work out in both our favours both will lose out.

From: https://fullfact.org/bbcqt/2018/Jun/28

EU countries altogether sold about £67 billion more in goods and services to the UK than we sold to them in 2017, according to UK data.

Our exports to the EU were worth about £274 billion in 2017, while the UK imported £341 billion’s worth.

In 2016 the UK bought more than it sold to Asia by around £20 billion (so another trade deficit there). In 2017, China sold more to us than we sold to them by about £23 billion.

It’s the opposite case for trade with the US. In 2017 we sold over £40 billion more to the US than we bought from them.

We sold more to countries in Africa than we bought by £3 billion in 2016.

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