[Politics] Brexit

[Green Cross Code Man]

I came across the comment below (from an FT.com reader, responding to an article about Donald Tusk's recent speech). It chimed with me:

"I would love to believe there will come a point where some of the adults in the room pause, look at what is happening and say enough. Brexit fantasists promised:

£18bn in revenue a year on exit - turns out that the costs of exiting and rebuilding the network of trading agreements, the promises to continue spending the large share of that £18bn that was spent in the UK anyway mean that leaving will cost the UK more than it gains.
They promised a deal with the EU that gave the UK immigration control and access to the single market - that will not happen
They promised trade deals around the world - trade deals take up to 10 years to negotiate if they ever happen, and the world is turning more protectionist, the US is not interested in a UK deal, India is not, China may but only on terms that favour them (they are not idiots). So no deals for a decade if any.
They promised no economic consequences - the currency is down more than 23%! Prices are already starting to rise and more will come, we are all poorer right now and there is only downside from here. Businesses are already reducing or postponing investment in the UK and we are already seeing financial services businesses leave (you may not like them but they pay the bills and give people jobs).

So in summary - none of the benefits are materialising and the costs are already worse than expected. And yet the Conservatives mutter 'brexit is brexit' and abdicate their responsibility to the well being and prosperity of the country. Shame on them all."

So you stumble across a comment that suits your view, wax lyrical about it as it gives you that warm, cosy feeling that even if things are going tits up, you were right all along.

Very scientific.

 

[pb21]

So you stumble across a comment that suits your view, wax lyrical about it as it gives you that warm, cosy feeling that even if things are going tits up, you were right all along.

Very scientific.

How is saying 'it chimed with me' equivalent to 'waxing lyrical'?!

you cant get much less of a positive endorsement for something than 'It chimed with me'!

Not a very scientific use of words IMO.

 

[beorhthelm]

I came across the comment below (from an FT.com reader, responding to an article about Donald Tusk's recent speech). It chimed with me:

did it chime because it was the same regurigated claims and staw men they made for 3 months before the vote?

the argument wasnt that there would be no economic consequences, only that they would more likly be at the lower end of estimates, and over the long term is not that much (and i've always argue even the upper end arent that much over 15years, within the normal errors). the key point of cost, its simply not true. building up network of trade agreements isnt a £billion industry, though there is of course some cost, its in the millions to staff Foriegn Office and Dept of Trade people (mostly it will be individual business owners, sales and marketeers). the total amount paid out to the EU can be tediously argued, simple fact is there was a substantial net outflow. we can cover the costs of all regional development, agricultre subsidies, science grants etc and still have money left over. no, not £300m a week for the NHS, but lets say theres £2bn a year more, and a couple for social care, and again for education.

this is the problem with the debate then as now, not looking at the possibilities rationally, but from extreme positions on both sides.

 

[Pavilionaire]

How about looking at a real situation? I have a client with a 65% English customer base that is selling a product in Euros. A year ago a Euro10,000 order was costing his English customers £7,400; that same Euro 10,000 order is now costing £9,000.

Unsurprisingly, he's finding his customers are not willing to pay £9,000 for the same product - an increase of 22% - so his margins are being squeezed as he is forced to lower his prices. This has all sorts of knock-on effects re investment, buying stock for future resale, recruitment of staff etc.

And this scenario is going on now for any business that imports goods/services for resale as the £ tanks.

 

[Gwylan]

How about looking at a real situation? I have a client with a 65% English customer base that is selling a product in Euros. A year ago a Euro10,000 order was costing his English customers £7,400; that same Euro 10,000 order is now costing £9,000. Unsurprisingly, he's finding his customers are not willing to pay £9,000 for the same product

So, where are his customers buying the product from? Presumably, they will now go to a British supplier - so, that creates work for the UK firm, bringing more money into the economy and employing more local workers

 

[Pavilionaire]

So, where are his customers buying the product from? Presumably, they will now go to a British supplier - so, that creates work for the UK firm, bringing more money into the economy and employing more local workers

He IS a British supplier, supplying accommodation and hospitality for a European sporting event.

 

[Berty23]

He IS a British supplier, supplying accommodation and hospitality for a European sporting event.

The event will pay to be moved to Britain because Britain is great. That sounds as sensible as many of the Brexit arguments.

 

[East Preston Gull]

We were never voting to remain in the EU we were voting to rubber-stamp future ever closer union. EU "defence force", tax harmonisation and spreading corporate wealth among the 28 member states. The French were already trying to woo the banking sector across the channel and the EU bankrolled various corporate grants to relocate to other areas of Europe. Britain would have been shafted anyway if we voted to remain.

Look how the EU mafia has gone way beyond its original mandate over the last 40 odd years.

You remoaners will be thanking us in a few years when the true EU project spreads its iron grip across the English channel.

In 10 years I guarantee the media will be celebrating the fall of the new iron curtain and the hasslehof of the 2026 charts will be performing to thousands as the channel wall comes crashing down and independent European nations celebrate their own freedom.

The EU is dead, long live Europe.
.

Sent from my E6653 using Tapatalk

 

[Berty23]

We were never voting to remain in the EU we were voting to rubber-stamp future ever closer union. EU "defence force", tax harmonisation and spreading corporate wealth among the 28 member states. The French were already trying to woo the banking sector across the channel and the EU bankrolled various corporate grants to relocate to other areas of Europe. Britain would have been shafted anyway if we voted to remain.

Look how the EU mafia has gone way beyond its original mandate over the last 40 odd years.

You remoaners will be thanking us in a few years when the true EU project spreads its iron grip across the English channel.

In 10 years I guarantee the media will be celebrating the fall of the new iron curtain and the hasslehof of the 2026 charts will be performing to thousands as the channel wall comes crashing down and independent European nations celebrate their own freedom.

The EU is dead, long live Europe.
.

Sent from my E6653 using Tapatalk

Is this a guarantee in the way 350 million was a guarantee?

 

[Gwylan]

He IS a British supplier, supplying accommodation and hospitality for a European sporting event.

Ah OK. There's no way round that one

 

[Titanic]

He IS a British supplier, supplying accommodation and hospitality for a European sporting event.

and the reverse is true for events being held in the UK and sold abroad... so there will be, as always, swings and roundabouts.

Perhaps he could look at promoting UK-based events to customers in Europe?

 

[BigGully]

How about looking at a real situation? I have a client with a 65% English customer base that is selling a product in Euros. A year ago a Euro10,000 order was costing his English customers £7,400; that same Euro 10,000 order is now costing £9,000.

Unsurprisingly, he's finding his customers are not willing to pay £9,000 for the same product - an increase of 22% - so his margins are being squeezed as he is forced to lower his prices. This has all sorts of knock-on effects re investment, buying stock for future resale, recruitment of staff etc.

And this scenario is going on now for any business that imports goods/services for resale as the £ tanks.

It seems that both sides experts prior to the referendum agreed that there was always going to be a necessary weakening of sterling, supposedly in the best interest of the UK economy and businesses just like your mates but the other way round.

So its fair to say that the £7400 sale price was always going to come under some pressure, either with Brexit or Remain.

Ultimately you cannot know whether sterling will rally or not, I suspect it will and your colleague will need to manage this situation, for him he might be frustrated but if his business soley hinged on the exchange rate then he was obviously vulnerable for a million other reasons beyond Brexit, otherwise he becomes just another currency trader in a different suit.

 

[East Preston Gull]

Is this a guarantee in the way 350 million was a guarantee?

Yes☺

When I went to the various debates over the referendum. I never once heard the leavers say we would be getting 350 million pounds per week. back in our pockets.

I never really believed all the rhetoric from Farage and Johnson. We will no longer be paying around 10-12 billion pounds to the EU protection racket and that is money Britain will save. In fact that figure was likely to increase significantly in the next EU budget talks.

Any fool who listened to Farage and Leave EU was a fool and I don't doubt there were many who did. I went to debates and the real grafters of the vote Leave campaign were a credit to politics.

We have billions of pounds back in the UK coffers to spend as we wish. The debate on how that money is spent after we have it is a fair one but we will no longer have to pay the European equivalent of the Krays twins and the ludicrous protection racket.

Sent from my E6653 using Tapatalk

 

[scamander]

When I went to the various debates over the referendum. I never once heard the leavers say we would be getting 350 million pounds per week. back in our pockets.

It's a good point, something I find odd is the vitriol heaped by both sides prior and after the vote. Generally speaking the Brexit voters are classed as idiotic racists who were expecting wheelbarrows of money to be flowing into their local hospital. Not the ones I spoke to. I'd like to think that the good many who voted on both sides were decent people.

For a good number who voted against it was about the EU, what it stands for now (versus what it originally stood for) and the fears therein. I think the debate simplified a very complex question and the campaign played to the lowest common denominator, but those that I knew were by no means fans of Farage or Boris.

 

[Berty23]

No one needed to say 350 million because it was on a sodding bus!

 

[Berty23]

My dad voted leave to get back sovereignty as he did not like EU laws. He couldn't say one he didn't like but believed that the principle was more important. Oh and immigrants*


*his dad was polish and mum Slovakian but they were given a life in England and he was born in 1945. Didn't change his mind re immigrants because he is fine.

 

[Jim in the West]

So you stumble across a comment that suits your view, wax lyrical about it as it gives you that warm, cosy feeling that even if things are going tits up, you were right all along.

Very scientific.

To be honest, my view has hardened considerably post the Tory Party conference. Before then, I was hoping for a relatively short period of pain, and hoping (against hope) that the process of extricating ourselves from the EU would be much speedier than my instincts told me. However, having listened to the xenophobic rhetoric of May and her crew, and been branded as "a citizen of nowhere", I have realised that this country is being run by a rightwing elite who have no time for the moderate, tolerant middle ground - who, in fact, comprise the majority of the population. Our new leaders have no plan to take us through Brexit ("Brexit means Brexit" is their only mantra). They have complete disdain for parliamentary democracy. They are gradually alienating all but the hard-nosed Mail and Express readers who lap up the constant stream of racist headlines (which are now presented as being "patriotic" or other such nonsense).

My view now is that I want things to get really bad....it is the only way that we can stop the huge train-crash that's facing us, as we seek to turn our back on liberal democracy and the rest of the world. I feel sorry for those struggling to make ends meet - it will get really tough. But we WERE warned. The "experts" told us what to expect, but were roundly ridiculed by the likes of Gove and Farage.

Sorry if this offends some - it's not meant personally.

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

My view now is that I want things to get really bad....it is the only way that we can stop the huge train-crash that's facing us, as we seek to turn our back on liberal democracy and the rest of the world. I feel sorry for those struggling to make ends meet - it will get really tough. But we WERE warned. The "experts" told us what to expect, but were roundly ridiculed by the likes of Gove and Farage.

Sorry if this offends some - it's not meant personally.

It was always going to take years and years. You are one of the many people on here clamouring for speed etc and the fact that you had hope that things may be wrapped up and all in time for Christmas or something ridiculous is beyond belief.

As for your last paragraph. You want things to get really bad? Are you mad? No I retract that, the question doesn't need answering.

I strongly believe leaving is the right option, but I respect people who choose to stay who had equally strong beliefs. You are just a nasty person who just because you don't like what you see, want unhappiness vested upon society as a vote didn't go your way. Perhaps you were never told 'no' as a child?

 

[pastafarian]

No one needed to say 350 million because it was on a sodding bus!

I didnt believe we would be giving 350m a week to The NHS, have never heard a leaver say they did believe it.
The only people ive heard who believed it are remainers who are furious that its not happening.

My dad voted leave to get back sovereignty as he did not like EU laws. He couldn't say one he didn't like but believed that the principle was more important. Oh and immigrants*


*his dad was polish and mum Slovakian but they were given a life in England and he was born in 1945. Didn't change his mind re immigrants because he is fine.

so your dad voted to return more law making decisions to westminster and take back full management of our borders.
seems legit.

give him a pat on the back from me.

 

[pastafarian]

My view now is that I want things to get really bad....it is the only way that we can stop the huge train-crash that's facing us,

what about all the less well off you keep saying are suffering because of brexit? wont it get really really bad for them as well in your hope things deteriorate.
quite obvious you dont give a toss about them at all