[Politics] Brexit

[FatSuperman]

Fair enough - that's how I see it too. To me, though, it was and is a price worth paying. Short term that is. Business being what it is, business people will find ways to improve trade, and make things work. So, long term, looking forward to the future - will be even more relaxed about it once we've activated clause 50, and the Westminster politicians (80% of them remainers, I believe?) will have less chance of overturning democracy.

I am an optimist and, a firm believer in this country and it's people so I chose to believe that we will end up in a decent position. However we need a dose of realism here, because business people aren't in direct control of this, and we are talking in timescales measured in decades to get all of this agreed. Saying it's a price worth paying is only valid if you know what that price is and what the reward is. We don't, we only have our optimism and trust in our country to make it better.

Things will work one way or another, absolutely, because it's in the interests of all parties to make that happen. However the biggest market we trade with, the EU, will not have it in their interests to make things easy for us.

I know you personally are not saying so, but the underlying belief that it's just companies and business that will suffer, or just importers, or just exporters, is farcical. It is the economy. Everything is connected. The components in the juicing machine in the local cafe's orange juicer are not made in the UK. The British farm, using British staff, British-made tractors, and British fertiliser, with their own power generation still uses thousands of components and raw materials that are manufactured and sourced outside this country. Nobody and nothing is British only if you look close enough. Sooner or later, everything is impacted. In the short term the currency issues will impact everything. In the medium term the global trade issues will impact everything.

In the longer term I hope we get the pay off, or at least get back to parity.

 

[FatSuperman]

WTO rules will apply.

Absolutely no disrespect to you, but that is one of the worst options we have. Tariff-wise I'm sure it's fine, although we haven't got a lot of bargaining power on the tariffs as the average EU tariff is about 1% anyway, so we can't offer much lower than that. It's the other barriers that the WTO option is going to scupper us on. And those costs will be significant.

We need bilateral trade agreements in the long term, and whilst we may be able to negotiate better trade agreements outside of the EU, I'm sceptical. The EU is the second largest importer (US is top) and the second largest exporter (China is top), so their negotiating power is going to significant.

I will make a prediction, based on my opinion only. We will end this, in the long term, with a poorer economic position than today, but obviously with much more sovereignty to make our own decisions on many matters. How that improves life for the average (but poorer) Joe, time will tell.

 

[El Presidente]

Absolutely no disrespect to you, but that is one of the worst options we have. Tariff-wise I'm sure it's fine, although we haven't got a lot of bargaining power on the tariffs as the average EU tariff is about 1% anyway, so we can't offer much lower than that. It's the other barriers that the WTO option is going to scupper us on. And those costs will be significant.

We need bilateral trade agreements in the long term, and whilst we may be able to negotiate better trade agreements outside of the EU, I'm sceptical. The EU is the second largest importer (US is top) and the second largest exporter (China is top), so their negotiating power is going to significant.

I will make a prediction, based on my opinion only. We will end this, in the long term, with a poorer economic position than today, but obviously with much more sovereignty to make our own decisions on many matters. How that improves life for the average (but poorer) Joe, time will tell.

I'm not feeling disrespected!

I'm not saying the WTO rules are a good thing or a bad thing, they are however the only option at present should negotiations be ongoing when 31 March 2019 (assuming that is Brexit Day) takes place. The tariffs could be a relatively minor pain in the arse (cars are currently 10%, although it appears as if the government has underwritten such issues for Nissan), it's the form filling, inspections and bureacracy that are more of a challenge.

 

[yxee]

Oh hell - five years without any imports. I doubt we'll all survive. If only project fear had played this card before the referendum I wouldn't have dared to vote Brexit!

I like how you managed to get "no imports" and "project fear" into the same sentence without any sense of irony

 

[vegster]

The thing that's worrying me most, is what do we do in the period between leaving the EU, and having trade agreements in place?

I'm not really concerned about the legislation for fire extinguishers (all EU countries have red extinguishers - we might go back to different colours for different types), or the legislation for the minimum cage size for battery hens - those we just keep as is until we get around to bothering with them, if at all. But I am very worried about what we 'fall back on' when we no longer have a trade agreement with every nation on the planet.

Every product or service that is imported into the UK has a customs duty associated with it (and sometimes excise duty also). The rates are set by Revenue based on the trade agreements with the relevant country you are importing from. ALL of the agreements we use are EU ones, which will cease to be relevant when we exit.

A typical trade agreement takes between 5 and 7 years to negotiate.
The EU has 400 trade negotiators that work on these
The UK has 12, maybe 20 people

Once we leave the EU, Revenue will have to set a default position on everything, whilst we work out the trade agreements. Our customs official says we have no idea what this will be, but it's prudent to expect that food tariffs will go up by 20% and other goods by 12%. I am hoping that the EU will allow us to use the current agreements and we roll off them over time, a bit like countries do when they begin the joining process.

Time will tell, but suffice to say the Devil is really in the detail once you start investigating this stuff properly.

Don't worry, all will be well. Things are in place to cope with increases in food prices and other goods, there has been a huge expansion of Food Banks around the country plus the High Street has an abundance of cheap clothes and goods for sale in the form of Charity Shops.. Many of these Charities will support people who are less well off due to their misfortune to be disabled or suffering from long term debilitating illnesses.. remember most employer's supply you with a uniform anyway and lots are smart enough to wear out in the evening ! Another benefit from our minimum wage culture !

 

[BigGully]

Don't worry, all will be well. Things are in place to cope with increases in food prices and other goods, there has been a huge expansion of Food Banks around the country plus the High Street has an abundance of cheap clothes and goods for sale in the form of Charity Shops.. Many of these Charities will support people who are less well off due to their misfortune to be disabled or suffering from long term debilitating illnesses.. remember most employer's supply you with a uniform anyway and lots are smart enough to wear out in the evening ! Another benefit from our minimum wage culture !

How do food banks and charity shops work into your psyche of Brexit, surely logic, if you really cared would tell you that all these phenomenon were in place whilst we were in the EU without much chance of us ever leaving it .................

 

[Soulman]

How do food banks and charity shops work into your psyche of Brexit, surely logic, if you really cared would tell you that all these phenomenon were in place whilst we were in the EU without much chance of us ever leaving it .................

Exactly. Maybe the post was for that Blame it on Brexit thread that was about a couple of weeks ago.

 

[Wrong-Direction]

Has everything gone Pete tong yet? I don't like the sound of all my food going up ffs

Sent from my SM-A310F using Tapatalk

 

[Mellor 3 Ward 4]

I'm with you. It's astonishing how many people blithely just imagine it will 'all just work out'.

Cost of imports is a massive deal.

My company imports everything we sell, some from the States, but mostly from Switzerland.

The CHF rate in January was 1.48/£. For November it is 1.21.

I had a customer call me today to ask whether the price I quoted him in March, for some equipment, was still valid.

In March, it was £10,800.00 His new price is £13,223.00. The physical cost of shipping the goods has also increased 20%. Its a HUGE increase. It WILL slow down business without question, and it will cost people their jobs.

Still. We got our country back, innit.

Conversely, everything I sell is for export. Needless to say we're extremely busy.

It's working both ways.

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

I'm with you. It's astonishing how many people blithely just imagine it will 'all just work out'.

Cost of imports is a massive deal.

My company imports everything we sell, some from the States, but mostly from Switzerland.

The CHF rate in January was 1.48/£. For November it is 1.21.

I had a customer call me today to ask whether the price I quoted him in March, for some equipment, was still valid.

In March, it was £10,800.00 His new price is £13,223.00. The physical cost of shipping the goods has also increased 20%. Its a HUGE increase. It WILL slow down business without question, and it will cost people their jobs.

Still. We got our country back, innit.

How about the pound/Swiss franc move in the years prior to Brexit ? How did this affect your business ? I'm guessing it affected it in exactly the same way.Take a look at the historical GBP/SFR chart. The Swiss franc is a safe haven for investors to escape weaker currencies (like the Euro !). What I don't understand is why the recent currency moves after Brexit are used as a justification to criticize the decision and yet previous currency moves have attracted virtually zero comment.

 

[yxee]

I'm with you. It's astonishing how many people blithely just imagine it will 'all just work out'.

Cost of imports is a massive deal.

My company imports everything we sell, some from the States, but mostly from Switzerland.

The CHF rate in January was 1.48/£. For November it is 1.21.

I had a customer call me today to ask whether the price I quoted him in March, for some equipment, was still valid.

In March, it was £10,800.00 His new price is £13,223.00. The physical cost of shipping the goods has also increased 20%. Its a HUGE increase. It WILL slow down business without question, and it will cost people their jobs.

Still. We got our country back, innit.

That is unfortunate and I understand your frustration, but what's were people supposed to do? Vote to remain in a political union in order to keep the exchange rate high? It's an untenable argument. What other political and economic sacrifices are deemed necessary to benefit specific parties with a large FX exposure? Maybe you could have taken payment before the referendum, or hedged your exposure?

"Getting out country back" is actually more important, to some people, than the exchange rate / bottom line of your company.

 

[BigGully]

I'm with you. It's astonishing how many people blithely just imagine it will 'all just work out'.

Cost of imports is a massive deal.

My company imports everything we sell, some from the States, but mostly from Switzerland.

The CHF rate in January was 1.48/£. For November it is 1.21.

I had a customer call me today to ask whether the price I quoted him in March, for some equipment, was still valid.

In March, it was £10,800.00 His new price is £13,223.00. The physical cost of shipping the goods has also increased 20%. Its a HUGE increase. It WILL slow down business without question, and it will cost people their jobs.

Still. We got our country back, innit.

Yours is just a moan on the currency fluctuation of sterling, by all accounts (I do not know) sterling was overvalued and would weaken irrespective of the result of the referendum so a reduction was always likely, almost inevitable..

Your company it seems has prospered from an overly priced sterling, some might say it was given an undeserved advantage over your EU competitors, just the other way round, its hardly EU centric is it ?

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Yours is just a moan on the currency fluctuation of sterling, by all accounts (I do not know) sterling was overvalued and would weaken irrespective of the result of the referendum so a reduction was always likely, almost inevitable..

Your company it seems has prospered from an overly priced sterling, some might say it was given an undeserved advantage over your EU competitors, just the other way round, its hardly EU centric is it ?

I presume we were manufacturing way too much in the past as well? And the national debt was way too low?

Interesting argument...and seemingly the only argument you have.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Conversely, everything I sell is for export. Needless to say we're extremely busy.

It's working both ways.

Yes, because we're a big net exporter aren't we

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Yours is just a moan on the currency fluctuation of sterling, by all accounts (I do not know) sterling was overvalued and would weaken irrespective of the result of the referendum so a reduction was always likely, almost inevitable..

Your company it seems has prospered from an overly priced sterling, some might say it was given an undeserved advantage over your EU competitors, just the other way round, its hardly EU centric is it ?

'Fluctuations' suggests movement in two directions. Clutching at straws. Sterling has dropped through the floor.

 

[Jim D]

Precisely, he seems to be tripping over his own logic, it is the Remainers that suggest that the UK's global position and influence will be adversely effected and weakened on leaving, whilst he proclaims staying inside the EU will allow us to effectively posture and influence against others.

By default his preferred position is one of perceived power and influence, which in essence is exactly the 'them and us' scenario he now somehow condemns.

'Fluctuations' suggests movement in two directions. Clutching at straws. Sterling has dropped through the floor.

Harold Wilson used to say that a week is a long time in politics. Nowadays it's 3 months, so I can only imagine what it will look like in 2 and a half years. One thing that I can see happening is Italy having major problems. Already their banks are in trouble and it wouldn't be beyond imagination to suggest that there will be a financial crisis in that country. If that happens it will make the problems in Greece seem like a problem with a kids piggy bank. Germany certainty wouldn't be able to bail them out and the Euro may well collapse. If that happens then you can forget fluctuations and trade agreements - and if it happens with President Trump sitting in the White House we could find ourselves and the Swiss with the strongest currency in the area. Of course this is all conjecture - but so is all the stuff written above.

 

[Soulman]

Harold Wilson used to say that a week is a long time in politics. Nowadays it's 3 months, so I can only imagine what it will look like in 2 and a half years. One thing that I can see happening is Italy having major problems. Already their banks are in trouble and it wouldn't be beyond imagination to suggest that there will be a financial crisis in that country. If that happens it will make the problems in Greece seem like a problem with a kids piggy bank. Germany certainty wouldn't be able to bail them out and the Euro may well collapse. If that happens then you can forget fluctuations and trade agreements - and if it happens with President Trump sitting in the White House we could find ourselves and the Swiss with the strongest currency in the area. Of course this is all conjecture - but so is all the stuff written above.

I mentioned Italy and financial trouble ages ago. Spain and Portugal are in no great shape either..... in fact how many of the 27 countries are in really good shape and will they stump up money if Italy gets into big trouble.

 

[GT49er]

Things are in place to cope with increases in food prices and other goods, there has been a huge expansion of Food Banks around the country plus the High Street has an abundance of cheap clothes and goods for sale in the form of Charity Shops.. Many of these Charities will support people who are less well off due to their misfortune to be disabled or suffering from long term debilitating illnesses.. remember most employer's supply you with a uniform anyway and lots are smart enough to wear out in the evening ! Another benefit from our minimum wage culture !

All these 'benefits' are happening whilst we are in the EU. If that's the best EU membership can provide, I for one can't wait to leave.

 

[vegster]

All these 'benefits' are happening whilst we are in the EU. If that's the best EU membership can provide, I for one can't wait to leave.

Indeed,it's the EU that has forced us to cut benefits, wages,workers rights,it was the EU that kept the Pound artificially high against the Euro and the Dollar..YES ! inflation and stagnation here we come !

 

[JC Footy Genius]

Indeed,it's the EU that has forced us to cut benefits, wages,workers rights,it was the EU that kept the Pound artificially high against the Euro and the Dollar..YES ! inflation and stagnation here we come !

Assuming you really care about people on benefits, low paid workers, etc etc ... you realise our EU membership fee for the last Parliament would have virtually covered all the Austerity cuts. Money well spent