Brexit discussion thread VII (Please read OP before posting)

Leroy42

Peregrinus wrote: »

if so, it's not a well-informed preference. Our exports to the EU-26 are several times greater than our exports to the UK; if we want to choose the option which does least damage to our exports, we should cut ties with the UK rather than the EU.

Maybe not well informed but if the only business you do is with the UK, then you are likely not too bothered about the rest. Culturally we are much more aligned to the UK that the rest of Europe.

We are very much similar to the British. The same TV, same holidays, same food, same drinking habits (I talk in generalities of course).


If you are a farmer in Donegal, what difference does it make to you if a pharma company based in Leixlip can sell to Greece? You want to sell your cows and sheep into NI. And you won't have seen much in the way of benefits in terms of government spending. It is concentrated in Dublin etc.

Of course one can argue about EU subsidies, but from a day to day perspective, linking with the UK seems, at the superficial level, to make perfect sense.

CelticRambler

Imreoir2 wrote: »

In the case of a crashout Brexit, trade infastructure, especially around the UK's south coast ports is expected to collaps in the initial hours and given what we have heard, this seems like a very credible prediction.

From what I've heard, the port authorities aren't worried about ND+1 because (a) they're expecting traffic to be reduced as hauliers and domestic passengers voluntarily avoid travelling during the change-over period while they wait to see what happens; and (b) there will be enough capacity to deal with these first arrivals, with limited knock-on effects. It's in the following days, and especially weeks, that the queues will form and the ports be blocked by an unmanageable backlog.

The Guardian has an article (dated yesterday, but I didn't see it till this morning) that makes the same point, and more:

With every passing week, new heights of hysteria are reached about the impact of crashing out of the bloc. Politicians and the media have embraced the aesthetic of the disaster movie, outlining all the most vivid ways in which our economy and society will fall to pieces after exit day in an imagined dystopia.

The government amplifies rather than dampens the threat in the hope that fear will bring MPs from both main parties into acquiescing to the prime minister’s Brexit deal. And the EU, keen to assist the government in getting the deal through parliament, does little to lower the temperature. But almost all of the fear-mongering is wrong.

In truth, the short-term impact of a no-deal Brexit would be not nearly as bad as predicted, but the long-term impact will be much worse than feared. Why? Because the British political class still fails to understand how the EU will respond to the crisis.

Instead, the EU’s response to a no deal will be strategic: opening up advantage, sector by sector, calmly and patiently dismantling the UK’s leading industries over the course of a decade. They will eat the elephant one bite at a time. The problem with abandoning the rules of the international order is that you no longer enjoy their protection.

A no-deal Brexit would hand the EU enormous power: it would decide how and when to introduce new frictions between the UK and the single market, giving sufficient time for firms like Airbus, Nissan or AstraZeneca to relocate production. As recent decisions have demonstrated, even seemingly fixed capital investment is more mobile than many Brexiters imagine.

spacecoyote

Very enjoyable opinion piece in the FT, around the similarities between Trump & Brexit. Obviously written with tongue firmly in cheek:

https://www.ft.com/content/a58b4414-299e-11e9-a5ab-ff8ef2b976c7

Some highlights:

Destroying the status quo might be better than the status quo. You never know until you try

The revolution will recreate the glorious past. So there’s no need to waste time planning for coming developments, such as climate change or artificial intelligence. The future of our countries is the older people who backed the revolution

Cabinet ministers do not need experience or expertise. So it’s fine if you’re on your third Brexit secretary in seven months, or if you have caretakers running the US’s defence, justice and interior departments, plus the Environmental Protection Agency. Don’t let anyone kid you that making a revolution is complicated.

Weakling neighbours that we bullied in the glorious past — Mexico and Ireland — will bow down again if shouted at hard enough.

Even while undoing existing business arrangements, the revolution’s leaders must always look after their own pocketbooks and profit from those arrangements where necessary. Hence Trump’s use of undocumented immigrant workers, his daughter Ivanka’s Chinese trademarks, the Ireland-based investment funds of Rees-Mogg’s SCM and John Redwood’s advice to investors to shun Britain.

No matter how long the leaders of the revolution run the country, how much money they have or how expensive their schooling was, they can never become the elite. Journalists, academics and opposition politicians are the elite.

The short-term health of the people is worth sacrificing in pursuit of the revolution. Left-behind Americans do not need health insurance or action on opioids. The benefits of a no-deal Brexit will outweigh any tiresome medical shortages.

The revolution knows better than business people what’s best for business, even if the revolutionaries never worked in business or went bankrupt six times when they did. If the head of Airbus says that no-deal will hurt his company, he obviously doesn’t understand the aerospace industry. Similarly, Japanese carmakers seem strangely blind to the opportunities that Brexit is opening up. And American business will eventually realise that what it really needed was a trade war with China.

There was nothing dubious about the votes that brought the revolution to power and, anyway, it all happened long ago, so anyone who bores on about it is just trying to subvert the will of the people.

Peregrinus

I presume farmers in Donegal fully understand that, if both Ireland and the UK leave the Single Market, then even if they sell their cattle into the UK they won't be getting Single Market prices for them. My impression is that Irish farmers are generally pretty clued-in about the benefits of EU membership.

I grant you that there may be other small enterprises who export to the UK and not further, and there may be very many of these, as against relatively few but much larger enterprises that export more widely. So if you simply tot up numbers of business, there may be more business that suffer from a loss of UK exports than there are business that suffer from a loss of EU-26 exports.

But if you look at the amount that is lost, the loss of EU-26 exports is far more damaging. Similarly if you look at then nmbers of workers whose livelihoods would be threatened, or the number of communities that would be economically devastated. I hope very much that we never have to choose between exporting to the UK, and exporting to the EU-26 (and the countries with which it has trade deals). But if we did have to make that choice, it wouldn't be a difficult choice.

Tell me how

spacecoyote wrote: »

Very enjoyable opinion piece in the FT, around the similarities between Trump & Brexit. Obviously written with tongue firmly in cheek:

https://www.ft.com/content/a58b4414-299e-11e9-a5ab-ff8ef2b976c7

Some highlights:

It's probably less coincidental than we know for sure at this stage that two of the most politically significant non-wartime events in......god knows how long have happened at the same time.

Cambrdige Analytica, Nigel Farage, Steve Bannon have all made cameo appearances in both with expectations that the script for both has been influenced by the work of the Russian screenwriter.

LuckyLloyd

gimli2112 wrote: »

It's funny but I'm still surprised as many as 1 in 5 think we should cut ties with the EU. I don't understand how someone can arrive at that conclusion particularly looking at the mess across the water.

That’s a misinterpretation of the polling question. The question was ‘would you cut economic ties with the UK or EU?’. To that question, an 81 / 19 split is very strong.

alloywheel

Leroy42 wrote: »

Of course one can argue about EU subsidies, but from a day to day perspective, linking with the UK seems, at the superficial level, to make perfect sense.

Its our biggest trading partner,is it not? That is as expected, given its size and proximity to us, and is our neighbouring island. Irish food and drink exports remain heavily reliant on the UK market despite attempts to diversify ahead of Brexit. Last year Bord Bia’s export performance report indicated that the UK accounted for 35 per cent of exports, worth €4.5 billion, in 2017, down from 37 per cent the previous year.

EdgeCase

You also have to look at this in perspective.

We will lose out on some exports to the UK. That's inevitable both due to potential tariffing and because of the huge risk to the UK economy itself, which could go into an unprecedentedly deep downturn caused by massive structural changes.

Meanwhile, we retain access to the EU-27, EEA and its associated trade deals which include Japan, Canada, South Korea, soon Australia and NZ and so on.

Or, we can thow that all away to allow ourselves to be bundled into the UK's car boot while it goes off on a crazy high speed drive along the cliff tops.

There's no Brexit scenario where we don't take a hit, but there's a choice between a punch that winds us or a punch that destroys us for decades. I don't see that as much of a choice.

alloywheel

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

That’s a misinterpretation of the polling question. The question was ‘would you cut economic ties with the UK or EU?’. To that question, an 81 / 19 split is very strong.

The EU will not have as much more to hand out when it loses its second biggest net contributor.

We have a fond attachment of the EU here as we were breastfed from EEC / EU for so many decades with so much aid / handouts / development funds / call it what you want. That money had to come from somewhere, a lot of it came from the UK paying in to Europe.

EdgeCase

alloywheel wrote: »

The EU will not have as much more to hand out when it loses its second biggest net contributor.

We have a fond attachment of the EU here as we were breastfed from EEC / EU for so many decades with so much aid / handouts / development funds / call it what you want. That money had to come from somewhere, a lot of it came from the UK paying in to Europe.

That's really irrelevant as Ireland's not a net recipient of of EU funding anyway. We're a net contributor at this stage. Our structural funding days were during a period when the country was seriously underdeveloped relative to peers. That is no longer the case, and it ranks extremely highly both in the EU and globally.

The value of EU membership to Ireland is about market access, economies of scale and things like relative stability due to the Euro compared with running a small currency like IEP - has meant very low and stable interest rates and so on compared to our history which was the complete opposite to that.

BACfiar

the uk will stay in the eu still. youll see. they cant figure out anything and dont have the pride to go back to the public until the last possible minute when it becomes clear theyve all had no plan and no idea what they are doing and what the people over there want. immigrants built that country and they have never faced up to the horrors of their colonial past which dictates so many of the commonly held beliefs today. its a national shaming of their system and will set them back decades no matter what happens with an entirely divided nation hereafter. they are always the ones to tell people how things should be done. well its time they had a long look in the mirror and stopped shooting themselves in the foot. far more important things in the world for the rest of us to be worrying about.

FrancieBrady

alloywheel wrote: »

The EU will not have as much more to hand out when it loses its second biggest net contributor.

We have a fond attachment of the EU here as we were breastfed from EEC / EU for so many decades with so much aid / handouts / development funds / call it what you want. That money had to come from somewhere, a lot of it came from the UK paying in to Europe.

The entire EU, including the UK benefited from being in the EU. As capital, business and talent floods out of the UK and it is fighting a rear guard action perhaps recalling the state of the UK before entry to the EC might avert a total disaster from all this.

Real people in real crisis cannot be masked by massaging statistics.

Leroy42

alloywheel wrote: »

The EU will not have as much more to hand out when it loses its second biggest net contributor.

We have a fond attachment of the EU here as we were breastfed from EEC / EU for so many decades with so much aid / handouts / development funds / call it what you want. That money had to come from somewhere, a lot of it came from the UK paying in to Europe.

You keep talking as if things would stay the same. If the UK leave then things are going to change, but that is all on the UK. It is even more reason why we need to ensure that we protect the remaining 27 market so that we can develop that rather than siding with the UK.

Our economy has been completeluy changed since joining the EU/EEC. There is simply no comparison between the Ireland of 1973 and the Ireland of today. Yes in large part that is because of EU funds, but that is exactly what EU funds were designed for, to drag poor economies up

I wonder, what level of business do the UK do with Ireland? Had that grown or diminished since we joined the EU? Look at the massive savings the Uk are making in terms of policing in NI, the operation of the SM and CU played a major role in that.

So for all the talk of the UK sending money to the EU, to make that arguement one also has to look at the very tangible benefits that the UK has received.

The easiest is the recent shutdown of the EMA, 900 jobs gone. A standing in EU in terms of medical.

EdgeCase

Whatever about the US looking back to the 1950s/60s as some kind of golden age of economic prosperity, Ireland doing that would be looking back at someone else's history.

You'd want a VR headset and a dose of LSD, not rose tinted glasses to think that Ireland was better off in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. It was an economic mess that offered very few opportunities, a low standard of living and was lagging far behind its peers.

prawnsambo

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

That’s a misinterpretation of the polling question. The question was ‘would you cut economic ties with the UK or EU?’. To that question, an 81 / 19 split is very strong.

It isn't even that split. It's 79%/7%. The remainder are don't knows presumably. And it's actually understating it a bit if anything:

There is little appetite to give ground to the UK in negotiations to help facilitate a deal - just 7% think the Irish government should compromise more, with almost half (46%) saying they should take a harder line and 41% saying they're getting the balance about right.

Chips Lovell

Mod Note

I know this is a fast moving topic. I know it's something people are passionate about. But please, please do pay attention to the rules. This is a forum for discussion. This isn't a place to abuse public figures or dump videos or links.

Thanks

View

alloywheel wrote: »

The EU will not have as much more to hand out when it loses its second biggest net contributor.

We have a fond attachment of the EU here as we were breastfed from EEC / EU for so many decades with so much aid / handouts / development funds / call it what you want. That money had to come from somewhere, a lot of it came from the UK paying in to Europe.

The U.K. net contribution to the EU according to the official European Commission budget figures - not Brexit propaganda outlets - is circa €5.5 billion per annum. Even if we exclude the tariffs that the EU countries are likely to be collecting on U.K. imports in the future, that isn’t a huge sum of money in comparison to the size of the economies of the EU-27.

To put it in context, the budget adjustment needed to cover that €5.5 billion, calculated on a per capita basis (based on the population of the remaining 27 member states), amounts to just over €12 per annum. Most people probably spend more on parking than that a year.

Leroy42

On a separate point, but it raised its head on QT again last night, it is striking the hypocrisy of the English on their stance on Scotland and the EU. The EU is portrayed as this smug, unelected, uncaring, almost enemy out of get one over the UK.

Yet these very same people think nothing of belittling Scotland, of telling Scotland how much they need the UK, how much trade goes from Scotland to England.

Even if one assumes that Brexiteers are looking at Brexit as a positive for the UK, I fail to see how deeping division within their own union is supposed to be a benefit.

prawnsambo

Leroy42 wrote: »

I wonder, what level of business do the UK do with Ireland? Had that grown or diminished since we joined the EU? Look at the massive savings the Uk are making in terms of policing in NI, the operation of the SM and CU played a major role in that.

So for all the talk of the UK sending money to the EU, to make that arguement one also has to look at the very tangible benefits that the UK has received.

The easiest is the recent shutdown of the EMA, 900 jobs gone. A standing in EU in terms of medical.

It's actually quite easy to see what the UK were paying for in their EU subventions. And that's without counting the value of trade or financial services (even though it's expected that they will lose up to £2 trillion of assets before brexit day). If you just look at the duplication cost of all the agencies and civil servants needed for trade negotiations, red tape (yep, that will double at least), customs, compliance, veterinary inspections and redrafting all laws needed to maintain things just as they are, you pretty much wipe out the £10 billion annual cost. So far over 7,000 civil servants have been drafted in and that's just the tip of the iceberg. The EU does it all with 43,000 civil servants. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that the UK will need at least half that.

breatheme

View wrote: »

To put it in context, the budget adjustment needed to cover that €5.5 billion, calculated on a per capita basis (based on the population of the remaining 27 member states), amounts to just over €12 per annum. Most people probably spend more on parking than that a year.

And that is also assuming the budget doesn't change, which it will. Last month, Swiss charities were informed they no longer qualify for EU funding for their projects. Little things like that make me assume the budget will be adjusted.

Seth Brundle

How on earth can Brexit be considered in a positive light when the former head of the civil servics says that "Many civil servants and local government workers spending significant time preparing for riots on the streets"...

https://twitter.com/BBCr4today/status/1093772293229154304

We also heard recently of plans for Martial law and yet the likes of downcow and alloywheel welcome the change.

Leroy42

Seth Brundle wrote: »

We also heard recently of plans for Martial law[/URL] and yet the likes of downcow and alloywheel welcome the change.

Yes, but it will be English police, using English laws and eating English food on English streets.

And that overrides all concerns.

Seth Brundle

Leroy42 wrote: »

Yes, but it will be English police, using English laws and eating English food on English streets.

And that overrides all concerns.

That's a tad unfair.
The Americans will be quick to offload their beef and chicken to the british.

Leroy42

Seth Brundle wrote: »

How on earth can Brexit be considered in a positive light when the former head of the civil servics says that "Many civil servants and local government workers spending significant time preparing for riots on the streets"...

https://twitter.com/BBCr4today/status/1093772293229154304

We also heard recently of plans for Martial law and yet the likes of downcow and alloywheel welcome the change.

Also the way that Humphries is so dismissive of the point he was making. "How does one even go about preparing?". He simply doesn't believe him.

Adamcp898

Leroy42 wrote: »

Also the way that Humphries is so dismissive of the point he was making. "How does one even go about preparing?". He simply doesn't believe him.

That's kind of his job though as a presenter. I wager most people listening had the same thought in their head. It's his job to try and get his guest to then elaborate on their point for the benefit of his listenership, not just to simply air his own view.

murphaph

View wrote: »

The U.K. net contribution to the EU according to the official European Commission budget figures - not Brexit propaganda outlets - is circa €5.5 billion per annum. Even if we exclude the tariffs that the EU countries are likely to be collecting on U.K. imports in the future, that isn’t a huge sum of money in comparison to the size of the economies of the EU-27.

To put it in context, the budget adjustment needed to cover that €5.5 billion, calculated on a per capita basis (based on the population of the remaining 27 member states), amounts to just over €12 per annum. Most people probably spend more on parking than that a year.

Thanks for that. So if I bring a homemade lunch to work a couple of times next week I can pay my share of the UK's budget contribution. But we need them more than they need us apparently.

Hurrache

John Bruton on Sky News talking about UK-Ireland relationships as a result of Brexit. There was discussion as to how that it's thought that many people in the UK just never thought of NI and Ireland when voting.

One of the captions below the split screen, "John Bruton, Co. Meath, Dublin". I enjoyed the irony.

Looks like he's on a 1990s standard dial up line.

Leroy42

Adamcp898 wrote: »

That's kind of his job though as a presenter. I wager most people listening had the same thought in their head. It's his job to try and get his guest to then elaborate on their point for the benefit of his listenership, not just to simply air his own view.

Not quite. He is of course expected to ask for reasons, explanations and evidence, but he pretty much laughs the whole thing off. He never deems it as a serious point, one to be taken seriously.

His laughing question "how would you ever prepare for that" is not asked to get a detailed response (the interviewee does state he could give it if required) it is done, IMO, to signal that it is a fantasy that can't be true as it insane and undoable.

I would agree that most people have the same thought, but it is not outlandish when you consider that HRG have already stated that they are planning for stockpiling medicines, they are planning for massive tailbacks at the ports, they are planning for possible food shortages. If you are planning for all of that then it is not unusual that you would plan for what would be considered a possible, if perhaps unlikely, outcome of these.

Adamcp898

Leroy42 wrote: »

Not quite. He is of course expected to ask for reasons, explanations and evidence, but he pretty much laughs the whole thing off. He never deems it as a serious point, one to be taken seriously.

His laughing question "how would you ever prepare for that" is not asked to get a detailed response (the interviewee does state he could give it if required) it is done, IMO, to signal that it is a fantasy that can't be true as it insane and undoable.

It's a morning radio show, hardly a place for the discussion of the theory of riot control.

His response had the desired result of inviting his guest to reaffirm his point or brush it off as an off-the-cuff remark, thereby clearing it up for his listeners. Hardly something to start hand-wringing over and the big bad BBC media bias.

Tell me how

Adamcp898 wrote: »

It's a morning radio show, hardly a place for the discussion of the theory of riot control.

His response had the desired result of inviting his guest to reaffirm his point or brush it off as an off-the-cuff remark, thereby clearing it up for his listeners. Hardly something to start hand-wringing over and the big bad BBC media bias.

Current affairs topics are discussed at any time irrespective of the time of day. We don't need to warm ourselves up to be able to handle them if we are the type of person who actively tunes in to a station which covers them.

If you listened to Vincent walls show on Newstalk from 06:30, he goes straight in to discussing some very heavy business topics.

Anyone tuning in to a show on the above station with Humphries presenting can reasonably expect that all topics are discussed appropriately.