Is Britain about to leave the EU?

[FriendlyFire]

Talk about trying to put a square peg though a round hole !
Dose the UK want a protectionist economy or dose it want more Free trade economy ? Someone is going to end up holding the short straw in the Brexit and I have a feeling it will NOT be big business

Sweet Brexit: what sugar tells us about Britain’s future outside the EU

The reason lies in the EU protection afforded to Tate & Lyle’s company’s arch-rival British Sugar, which uses a very different technique to make a chemically identical product. Its brand of white crystal, Silver Spoon, is made not from imported sugar cane, but from sugar beet grown on farms in the east of England.

One might think the Brexiteers’ promise of “taking back control” of Britain’s economic destiny would favour domestic producers such as British Sugar over foreign importers, such as Tate & Lyle.

“There is a dawning concern,” says Michael Sly, whose family have been farming in the Fens for more than 300 years and who now also chairs the sugar board of the National Farmers Union. “There is a lot of work being done on a spreadsheets around here as people work out what this would mean. Some are hoping that the fall in the currency will help cushion things [for exporters], but it hasn’t dawned on everybody yet that costs go up, too.”

“I detect in much of government and the civil service an ideological bent in favour of free trade,”

Though the efficiency of the British beet industry has soared to the point where it claims yields per acre are higher than cane growers manage in the warmth of the tropics, it remains a precarious business. The heavy crop cannot be grown profitably if it is more than 50 or 60 miles away from one of British Sugar’s refineries. Even then, its farmers claim the burden of living in a high-wage economy means it is unfair to pit them against surplus cane that is dumped on the world market below the average cost of production by developing economies.

https://www.theguardian.com/busines...ar-beet-cane-tate-lyle-british-sugar#comments

 

[Agent327]

Do try looking at the right map:

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/map.html

According to which the UK has 73 MEPs while Germany has 96 MEPs.

Ah yes, I misread that as (EC) parliamentary seats. Let me rephrase: the UK has more than double the number of parliamentary seats than Germany - and yet there are people that feel bureaucracy stems from the EC...

 

[EnglishEdward]

Talk about trying to put a square peg though a round hole !
Dose the UK want a protectionist economy or dose it want more Free trade economy ? Someone is going to end up
holding the short straw in the Brexit and I have a feeling it will NOT be big business

(1) People in the UK eat too much sugar. If the farmers don't grow sugar, other crops can be grown here instead.

(2) The British Sugar corporate is regarded by many (customers and farmers) as virtually a monopoly.

(3) The UK managed quite well, balancing the maximisation of UK farm production with imports,
after Clement Attlee's post World War 2 Labour government passed the:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_Act_1947

(4) I suspect we will likely remain protectionist regarding maxing our home production, but allow the the rest
of the world to compete in exporting to us what we can not (efficiently) produce, rather than simply maintain EU
tariffs that discriminate in favour of EU countries and against Australia, Brazil, Canada, New Zealand & USA.

 

[really]

(4) I suspect we will likely remain protectionist regarding maxing our home production, but allow the the rest
of the world to compete in exporting to us what we can not (efficiently) produce, rather than simply maintain EU
tariffs that discriminate in favour of EU countries and against Australia, Brazil, Canada, New Zealand & USA.

So your solution to EU tariffs and production quotas protecting the EU sugar market from imports is to have UK tariffs and production quotas to protect the UK sugar market from imports?
Do you think the sugar producing members of the WTO would be happy negotiating Atlees balanced production of sugar now?

For what it's worth I grew up on a farm that grew sugar beet until the local sugar factory shut down. Given the weight of the beets and the cost of infrastructure there is very little practical competition - you can't easily truck your produce to another mill a hundred miles away.

EU reforms to the sugar industry have been stripping away the protections and the EU and international price of sugar are more or less in line now.

 

[EnglishEdward]

FriendlyFire

You seem misunderstand the nature of the UK's 23 June 2016 Referendum on the EU.

We had a simple choice vote Leave, vote Remain or not vote.

The majority of us chose to vote, and of those who voted the majority voted Leave. This was to Leave the European Union.

It was not a vote in favour of Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove nor against David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn.

It was not a vote to accept any pie in the sky amalgamation package of all the goodies every over enthusiastic Leave campaigners said would come our way.

And as different Leavers foresaw different outcomes from Leaving, there was in any case no coherent package (beyond leaving the EU) on offer to accept.

And by the way, bringing the election of the US President into this thread is of limited merit. While each electorate was dissatisfied with the policies of
those in power, it was for very different reasons so there is little commonality. There were different electorates, and different issues.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Do you think the sugar producing members of the WTO would be happy negotiating Atlees balanced production of sugar now?

I rather think that for many it would be little different to what we have now.

The thing is what the WTO does not like is dumping. If the UK was to subsidise its sugar production AND significantly export it, that might be assessed as dumping and would cause problems.
But if the UK merely retains price support (which is what the EU does); allowing other countries to sell us the balance, treats them equally and they make exports to us, why should they object?

 

[AdrienIer]

It was not a vote in favour of Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove nor against David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn.

It was, whether you want it or not. When you vote on something you don't pick and choose. You get the whole package. If you don't understand the consequences of your vote that's your problem. And that's what leave campaign was. Promise everything to everyone to make sure they don't think about the possible consequences (ie the strengthening of idiots like Johnson).
So when you voted leave you voted for tarnished relations with every other EU member for a generation. Whether you wanted it or not.

 

[Arakhor]

(1) People in the UK eat too much sugar. If the farmers don't grow sugar, other crops can be grown here instead.

You seem to have remarkably simply answers to remarkably difficult topics.

 

[Kyriakos]

You seem to have remarkably simply answers to remarkably difficult topics.

Why theoretically discuss if UKers eat more sugar than they should, when you can look in the horse's (so to speak ) mouth?

 

[EnglishEdward]

Why theoretically discuss if UKers eat more sugar than they should, when you can look in the horse's (so to speak ) mouth?

Yes, I am as fat as my avatar.

 

[EnglishEdward]

It was, whether you want it or not. When you vote on something you don't pick and choose. You get the whole package. If you don't understand the consequences of your vote that's your problem. And that's what leave campaign was. Promise everything to everyone to make sure they don't think about the possible consequences (ie the strengthening of idiots like Johnson). So when you voted leave you voted for tarnished relations with every other EU member for a generation. Whether you wanted it or not.

We had plenty of time to think about the possible consequences of Remaining and of Leaving.

We decided, by a majority, that we did not want the EU package on offer.

And on a matter of this importance, it is appropriate to vote on the matter itself, rather than decide on
considerations of potential indirect consequences such as the impact on ephemeral UK politicians careers.

As for picking and choosing betwen the various components of the EU package, in the UK that is
what the Remainers who lost the vote are trying to argue for as a tactic to obstruct Leaving.

 

[Arakhor]

As for picking and choosing betwen the various components of the EU package, in the UK that is what the Remainers who lost the vote are trying to argue for as a tactic to obstruct Leaving.

It may surprise you to learn that not many people actually want "Hard Brexit", as should be readily apparent from just paying attention to the news.

 

[EnglishEdward]

It may surprise you to learn that not many people actually want "Hard Brexit", as should be readily apparent from just paying attention to the news.

I am aware that the Remainers have had some success in confusing people by promulgating the undefined terms "Hard Brexit" and "Soft Brexit".

 

[Arakhor]

So, much like "leaving the EU", then?

 

[Takhisis]

I am aware that the Remainers have had some success in confusing people by promulgating the undefined terms "Hard Brexit" and "Soft Brexit".

Whereas defined terms such as, not to make too much of a hassle out of this, three hundred and fifty million certainly don't confuse people.

 

[innonimatu]

It was, whether you want it or not. When you vote on something you don't pick and choose. You get the whole package. If you don't understand the consequences of your vote that's your problem. And that's what leave campaign was. Promise everything to everyone to make sure they don't think about the possible consequences (ie the strengthening of idiots like Johnson).

What abut the idiots in the pro-EU campagn? Why do you only assume that those who voted Leave don't understand the consequences of their vote? You could as easily assume that those who voted Remain don't understand the consequences of their vote. What makes the voters for Leave "dumber" that the voters for Remain? Both sides had valid reasons, as well as bad ones. You are letting the fact that you favored Remain color your view of the voters.

So when you voted leave you voted for tarnished relations with every other EU member for a generation. Whether you wanted it or not.

Tarnish relations? How so?

 

[FriendlyFire]

FriendlyFire
You seem misunderstand the nature of the UK's 23 June 2016 Referendum on the EU.
We had a simple choice vote Leave, vote Remain or not vote.
The majority of us chose to vote, and of those who voted the majority voted Leave. This was to Leave the European Union.

It was not a vote in favour of Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove nor against David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn.
It was not a vote to accept any pie in the sky amalgamation package of all the goodies every over enthusiastic Leave campaigners said would come our way.
And as different Leavers foresaw different outcomes from Leaving, there was in any case no coherent package (beyond leaving the EU) on offer to accept.
And by the way, bringing the election of the US President into this thread is of limited merit. While each electorate was dissatisfied with the policies of
those in power, it was for very different reasons so there is little commonality. There were different electorates, and different issues.

So you voted purely for ideological reasons ?
What I think is that now after voting for Brexit, we are finding out just what it will mean and how difficult it will be just to fullfill even 1/4 of the promises being made. Iam guessing for those who didnt vote for ideological reasons but on some of the promises made are going to be a reversal of the problems directly affecting them. The Irony of course is many probably had been shaped by ideological conditioning, such as EU over regulations and free trade holding back the UK economy, or EU immigration being out of control (at least somewhat true).

While these probably not important to you, these probably important to those who it will affect.
UK is going to have to decide on if it wants to remain a protectionist market, like it currently is or moving to a Free market like many are pushing for, Including pushing for more immigration (from India) or UK wants less immigration by limits on EU Citizen movement (Poles and Roma)

You have two years to resolve this but knowing the EU, I bet you could probably drag it out for another decade because you are going to need it
To untangled and resolve everything.

 

[Takhisis]

What abut the idiots in the pro-EU campagn? Why do you only assume that those who voted Leave don't understand the consequences of their vote? (...)

A few thousand posts ago I posited that the referendum itself was the wrong move, because it was about the Conservatives (already a minority with <35% of the vote and nonexistent north of the border) quashing the UKIP insurgency rather than having a real discussion. It would lead to either the mayhem of exiting the European Union or else mistakenly reassuring its elites that they were proceeding along the right path.

Still, it bears pointing out that the EU is not yet as far gone that to destroy it is better than to reform it -also, specific industries and big capital wanted even worse relaxations of standards on their predatory practices.

Not the best of outcomes, either way.

 

[FriendlyFire]

I am aware that the Remainers have had some success in confusing people by promulgating the undefined terms "Hard Brexit" and "Soft Brexit".

Theresa May has stated that "I am clear that no deal for Britain is better than a bad deal for Britain"
Then feel free to make up your own terms to explain what a Brexit with a EU agreement or a Brexit without is then.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Now here is a true Patriot, PAX BRITANNICA !

Nigel Farage: I will emigrate if Brexit is a disaster

Nigel Farage has said he will “go and live abroad" if Brexit is a disaster.
The four-time UKIP leader made the declaration to listeners to his LBC radio show on Monday night. But he added: “It isn’t going to be a disaster. We’ve just managed to get ourselves in a lifeboat off the Titanic. The EU does not work.”

A Remain-supporting caller asked him if he would apologise and quit politics if Brexit did become the “economic disaster" that has been predicted.
Mr Farage told him: "There isn’t much of a tradition [of apologising] here" and then blamed Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell for not apologising over the Iraq war.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...migrate-if-brexit-is-a-disaster-a7653786.html