BREXIT: UK members might want to consider GAS before the June 23 referendum

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I think the elephant in the room is this: a decision either way is a compromised one. I do believe that the EU has provided some very real benefits for the UK, but I also believe it has cause quite a few problems. If we vote to leave, we face very real economic risks (risk meaning risk and not certainty). If we remain, we can be fairly sure there will be no further major accommodations of UK requests for reform/exemptions and we embrace the status quo. This is perhaps the only guaranteed truth in all the lies being told (and scaremongering from both sides). Of course the UK would be OK if it left. Of course we would be OK if we remain. The issue is about degrees of prosperity and life quality, not extremes.

I do not think there is a strong economic argument to leave, at least not in the short to medium terms. That has been shown to be bunk, as UK contributions are a tiny fraction of the annual budget. The leave campaign arguments are more qualitative and arguably abstract than those of remain, but herein lies the danger: this vote is a vehicle. It is a vehicle for a larger change in UK politics and I fear there are some hateful groups riding the leave bandwagon.

In summary, it is impossible to cherry pick the aspect of leave that I like without the bad bits and without the bad people who will be emboldened by such a vote. As much as I think the EU is in dire need of reform, I'm not sure that being outside of it will prove much better. After all, its not as if we don't have a long list of domestic political cock ups in our recent history. Leaving isn't suddenly doing to turn the UK into the economic and political Jedi of our fantasies. I don't recall Britain setting the world ablaze before we joined with all the economic woes that preceded the Thatcher administration.

It is a crappy vote. We are voting blind really using intuition and instinct. The facts will only come later, but there is one seemingly immovable point I cannot yet see a solution to for the leave camp:

Free trade and exemptions to tariffs for non-EU states comes at the cost of allowing free movement. Free movement is at the core of the leave camp's concerns. Deny free movement and there will be tariffs, which will cripple our exports, surely. There is no precedent for a state which has denied free movement and which enjoys free trade without tariffs. This seems to be the boulder in the road....
 
sevo said:
The snag is that the world at large won't have many scruples luxury taxing them all. The other thing Britain (or rather, London) has been exporting all over Europe for the past thirty years is its role as a tax haven and safe harbour for the more reckless kind of financial products. Which is less than popular elsewhere in the EU, and a privilege they are unlikely to keep if they vote exit.



Marks&Spencer did, for a while, when they expanded to the continent. Unfortunately the continentals did not share the British taste in solid, but boring clothing, and maintaining a fresh food basement made up entirely of products distributed from the UK (even the Italian apples they sold in Munich were packaged in the UK) may not have been that profitable either, so they were forced to un-expand again within a few years.
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Para 1. Lamentably true. Here's a Ha-Joon Chang article you may find interesting if you haven't read it already: https://www.theguardian.com/comment...gs-matter-britain-forgot-manufacturing-brexit

Para 2. Then again, C+A un-expanded in the UK too. Did M+S have clotted cream? The manufacturers say they can't export to France because of French (?EU) law on some dairy products. I find this hard, but not impossible, to believe.

Cheers,

R.
 
Turtle said:
. .. but there is one seemingly immovable point I cannot yet see a solution to for the leave camp:

Free trade and exemptions to tariffs for non-EU states comes at the cost of allowing free movement. Free movement is at the core of the leave camp's concerns. Deny free movement and there will be tariffs, which will cripple our exports, surely. There is no precedent for a state which has denied free movement and which enjoys free trade without tariffs. This seems to be the boulder in the road....
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Solution! We don't need no steenkin' solution! Denial has work SO well so far, so we just go on denying it louder and louder.

Cheers,

R.
 
There's much amiss with the EU but the overall good always exceeded the bad. I follow this referendum with a sense of trepidation -the second momentous referendum within a year for me- because I see, throughout Europe, powers long thought dormant rearing their ugly heads. If you see the birthplace of modern democracy struggling with populism and ultranationalism, you know there's a big, long fight for all of us ahead.

As someone who doesn't have a vote on the matter but has lived long enough in the UK to love the country and its people, I hope the UK stays in. IMO an EU without the UK will have lost politically, philosophically, existentially. In the weird way these things work out, so will the UK.

.
 
Peter Wijninga said:
If Brexit happens, would EU buyers have to pay customs taxes and VAT on goods originating from the UK?
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Compare Great Britain with Norway. Norway is not a member of EU, but it is a member of EEA (European Economic Area). That means that goods can freely move within in EEA without custom. But you have to pay Norweigon sales tax (25%) when importing from EU. But the sale is free from VAT in EU, so it will not make any major difference.

So for the British citizens the sales tax (20%) will be applied instead of, for instance German sales tax (19%). I do not expect the British to leave also the EEA, in that case they will be like an isolated European country such as Albania which is not a member of EEA....

But if the British also leave the EEA, you also have to pay custom duties. Importing a camera has 4.2% custom duties plus sales tax 20%. I guess it will be more expensive.....😡
 
Borge H said:
Compare Great Britain with Norway. Norway is not a member of EU, but it is a member of EEA (European Economic Area). That means that goods can freely move within in EEA without custom. But you have to pay Norweigon sales tax (25%) when importing from EU. But the sale is free from VAT in EU, so it will not make any major difference.

So for the British citizens the sales tax (20%) will be applied instead of, for instance German sales tax (19%). I do not expect the British to leave also the EEA, in that case they will be like an isolated European country such as Albania which is not a member of EEA....

But if the British also leave the EEA, you also have to pay custom duties. Importing a camera has 4.2% custom duties plus sales tax 20%. I guess it will be more expensive.....😡
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Norway has never been a member of the EU, they decided to get in the EEA with the resulting privileges and duties (in terms of mobility), I don't see why the EU should allow the UK to leave just in order to negotiate a fantomatic deal that will allow them to have all the privileges of being IN with the advantages of being OUT.

That would be unfair for the countries who remain in as well as those who are denied the entry in the EU and also petitioned for years.
 
Borge H said:
Compare Great Britain with Norway. Norway is not a member of EU, but it is a member of EEA (European Economic Area). That means that goods can freely move within in EEA without custom. . . .
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The trouble is that an awful lot of Brexiteers (and a lot of awful Brexiteers) seem to want out on the basis of "uncontrolled immigration", and are unable to understand that Norway also has to permit the free movement of people...

Cheers,

R.
 
I think that whatever happens on Thursday, The EU is already taking the lesson. While I'm convinced staying in on current conditions is enormously beneficial to the UK, and the Brits would be delusional to think otherwise, I am also convinced that continental Europe needs the UK less than the other way round. What saddens me, is lack of willingness to bridge the gaps and seek common future among us, the Europeans, as if it was possible to imagine a world without further integration. Certainly, a nice option for the UK would be to get integrated into India or Bangladesh, thus expiating for the crimes of colonialism.
 
Roger Hicks said:
The trouble is that an awful lot of Brexiteers (and a lot of awful Brexiteers) seem to want out on the basis of "uncontrolled immigration", and are unable to understand that Norway also has to permit the free movement of people...

Cheers,

R.
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As a citizen of a small country (Sweden) with a lot of trade with Great Britain (wood products (timber, pulp), iron ore, vehicles etc.) I know that your decision will surely have a major impact on us in Sweden. A British exit will reduce the trade, as the custom duty will make other non EU-countries more competitive for Britain to trade with. This will influence the economic climate in Sweden, such as the decline in Finnish(EU)-Russian trade has made in Finland.

I guess the British trans-Atlantic trade will replace the EU trade. You will buy photographic film from Freestyle instead of Maco-Direct!

I think that the free movements of people and asylum process in EU must be better regulated. Last year we in Sweden received over 160 000 asylum seekers. We and Germany take the major part of asylum seekers per capita. A normal year about 100 000 Swedish people are born. This extra influx creates a heavy strain on our society and overloads the welfare systems. As a consequence compulsory identity checks have been initiated at the borders which have reduced the influx. Today you also will only get a temporary visa and you have to support your family, if you want to bring them here.

Our society has changed fast after the acceptance of eastern countries in EU, ten years ago there was no beggars in Sweden. Today you will see EU-migrants from Romania or Bulgaria outside all major shops, even in small villages shouting "Hej, hej - krona please!" and intimidating older people...😡
 
johannielscom said:
... along with paying for the EEA and not having a vote in the EU policies!


"Vote Leave and save money while gaining self-rule!" Yeah right!😀


Let the Brits have their way if they must. The Scots, the Irish and Welshmen are welcome without them anyway. I'd have a good laugh seeing Her Majesty hand over her passport at the border before visiting Balmoral Castle😛
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Well, yes. My own suspicion is that the EU would probably facilitate the entry of Scotland (despite Spanish misgivings) just to teach other regions not to leave the EU, and that Wales and possibly Cornwall would follow as soon as possible.

Cheers,

R.
 
It's interesting to get a number of views on this from outside the UK, and that they mainly say we'd be wrong to leave, with which I have to agree. You undoubtedly get less coverage of all this, but there are experts in every field lining up to say we should stay, and on the other side we have very loud voices saying we should fear immigration and get out, and that all statistic are made up (eh?). That's pretty much the size of it. What you do also get as outsiders is a level of insulation from the rampant xenophobia that has flooded mainstream and social media, even to the extent of Farage's ridiculous poster, which as one Twitterer pointed out, is a very good copy of Nazi propaganda even down to the composition. The sooner this is all behind us, the better, as it has brought out the worst in a lot of people.
 
Borge H said:
Our society has changed fast after the acceptance of eastern countries in EU, ten years ago there was no beggars in Sweden. Today you will see EU-migrants from Romania or Bulgaria outside all major shops, even in small villages shouting "Hej, hej - krona please!" and intimidating older people...😡
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Yes, I guess EU needs a major overhaul. It probably developed too fast, driven by purely political agenda/ambition, without taking into account all factors. But then again, I don't believe all expansion was purely out of generosity. I know for a fact that Scandinavian banks benefited enormously from very liberal corporate tax loss relieve rules in Baltics (basically being able to avoid paying any corporate tax for several years while having hundreds of millions in profits). Old member states also got much easier access not only to growing Eastern European markets, but also to cheap and qualified labor in Eastern Europe. Think of IKEA - they used to outsource a lot of manufacturing to China and Asia, but now 59% of their manufacturing is in Europe. Guess where? So in order to have something your have to give away something. The question is where this healthy balance when everybody is happy?
 
mfogiel said:
I think that whatever happens on Thursday, The EU is already taking the lesson. While I'm convinced staying in on current conditions is enormously beneficial to the UK, and the Brits would be delusional to think otherwise, I am also convinced that continental Europe needs the UK less than the other way round. What saddens me, is lack of willingness to bridge the gaps and seek common future among us, the Europeans, as if it was possible to imagine a world without further integration. Certainly, a nice option for the UK would be to get integrated into India or Bangladesh, thus expiating for the crimes of colonialism.
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The great grandchildren and great, great grandchildren are to beat their chests are they - mea culpa, mea maxima culpa? To use your word, we have and are expiating everyday in schools all over the UK and have done so for decades.
 
Just a point...

Just a point...

OK, whatever way the vote goes it won't mean a thing until Parliament has voted on it. Somehow I can't see them agreeing with the poor, stupid voters... Well, they don't usually.

Regards, David
 
Roger Hicks said:
But the decline in the value of the pound might mean that it was still cheaper.
If the knuckle-draggers win the day, I'm considering French citizenship.
Cheers,
R.
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Well, this 'knuckle-dragger' went to primary school in Brussels, and was consequently able to converse with collaborators at the likes of Matra (as it then was) in their own language, as well has having good personal and professional engineering relations with others in the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and elsewhere.
This, by the way, was in projects of the type that were in place both before, and after, the UK joined the EEC, and could continue after the UK leaves the EU. For many international things, membership, or not, of the EU, is immaterial.

'Europe', with its many admirable cultures, is not to be conflated with the 'European Union', although there are dishonest attempts to imply that they are the same thing.

I wish to be governed by a Parliament that I and my fellow citizens can elect and dismiss.
The EU leadership has demonstrated that it will not voluntarily reform, and will not listen to the citizens. 'Alle Menschen werden Brüder' is not possible inside the EU now, and things are getting worse. There is no point in the UK staying in to 'help'; we are regularly out-voted on material issues. We can first save ourselves outside.

The leaving process will be gradual, and the economics will adjust themselves; the economy is not a 'linear' system.

John.
 
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