Is Britain about to leave the EU?

[Arakhor]

But Britain has to pay £8-£9 billion into the EU budget, the equivalent of a tariff of about 7 per cent on our goods. Our free access is not free access at all. Arguing for the single market on the grounds that you can avoid a 3 per cent tariff by actually paying 7 per cent fee is mis-selling on a scale that dwarfs the PPI scandal.

So it's only 8 or 9 billion for the EU now? Given that £188 million a week is £10bn, if we are to take Lord Lamont at his word, then Vote Leave is definitely peddling lies. Maybe we should simply ignore any economic prediction whatsoever and save everyone the trouble.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Norman Lamont was the Chancellor of the Exchequer back in the nineties, and according to him we would be much better off trade wise if we left the EU.

This report surely puts to bed any worries about how trade will be sorted out post Brexit.
If we simply pay the full EU tariffs of 3-4% we will be better off than we are now.

Here are a few snippets:

Noman Lamont:
Not only can Britain leave the EU and have access to the single market, we'd actually get a better deal.
The impression given is that the EU single market is a walled garden and that we and the other members have some special silver key that gives us privileged access to its delights that others cannot access.
But this is wrong. Every developed country has access to the single market. The EU has a relatively low external tariff with the exception of certain goods such as agriculture. The inconvenient truth is that non-members of the EU have often exploited the single market far more successfully than we have.
….
The US exports more to the EU than we do and its exports have increased at a much faster rate than ours recently. Switzerland exports per capita five times more to the EU than we do. Even more surprisingly, the non-EU members that have no particular trade agreements with the EU such as Australia, Japan and the US, have benefited from the single market more than those like Switzerland, Norway and Iceland, who have negotiated special trade agreements.
Why might this be? One reason is that the single market is open to all advanced economies, in exchange for paying a relatively modest tariff of 3 to 4 per cent, something that evidently does not stop non-EU countries from selling within it.
Many of the non-EU members who exploit the EU single market successfully do have one distinct advantage over us. Those who do not have any special trade arrangement with the EU, like the United States or Australia, do not pay any contribution to the EU budget. Non-EU countries do, of course, have to pay the external tariff to the EU. But Britain has to pay £8-£9 billion into the EU budget, the equivalent of a tariff of about 7 per cent on our goods. Our free access is not free access at all. Arguing for the single market on the grounds that you can avoid a 3 per cent tariff by actually paying 7 per cent fee is mis-selling on a scale that dwarfs the PPI scandal.

The CBI claims that giving responsibility for negotiating trade agreements to the EU has benefited UK exports. This, too, is doubtful. In January 2014, the EU had trade agreements in force with 55 countries whose aggregate GDP was $7.7 trillion. By way of comparison, the aggregate GDP of all the countries with which Switzerland had agreements in force was $39.8 trillion; Singapore had agreements of $38.7 trillion, Chile agreements of $58.3 trillion and Korea $40.8 trillion. Of course, these agreements included the EU, which has a GDP of $16.7 trillion but, even so, the scale of trade agreements negotiated by these countries vastly exceeds those of the EU. There is a very simple reason for this. The EU is a cumbersome, slow negotiator because it has to take into account the interests of 28 different countries.
The EU has opened services markets of nearly $5 trillion to UK exporters, whereas the Swiss have opened services markets worth $35 trillion.
There may be arguments for remaining in the EU but they do not revolve around the single market. On trade we have nothing to fear but fear itself. Which is exactly what the Remain campaign has been attempting to stir up.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...-can-leave-the-eu-and-have-access-to-the-sin/

And as the UK is a net importer, rather than an exporter, of food,
the higher EU tariffs on imported food will hardly effect us if we left.

 

[EnglishEdward]

So it's only 8 or 9 billion for the EU now? Given that £188 million a week is £10bn, if we are to take Lord Lamont at his word, then Vote Leave is definitely peddling lies.

The fact that people undertaking slightly different calculations produce slightly different
results is to be expected. What would make me suspicious would be same result.

Maybe we should simply ignore any economic prediction whatsoever and save everyone the trouble.

Remainers were all in favour of economic predictions about doom and gloom.
But when they indicate the viability of independence, it is head in sand peacock.

 

[Arakhor]

Remainers were all in favour of economic predictions about doom and gloom. But when they indicate the viability of independence, it is head in sand peacock.

Don't be ridiculous. Not only have I've been saying economic predictions are inherently unreliable for quite a while now, the head-in-sand stuff has been Vote Leave's MO for most of this campaign. Forgive me for saying so, but you seem to be projecting an awful lot in this thread.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Don't be ridiculous. Not only have I've been saying economic predictions are inherently unreliable for quite a while now, the head-in-sand stuff has been Vote Leave's MO for most of this campaign. Forgive me for saying so, but you seem to be projecting an awful lot in this thread.

I'm not just responding to you.

The Remainers have been very head in the sand about a number of thing,
such as that trade has been growing faster in and with Africa and Asia than
in the EU, and that is not about predictions, but about recent history.

 

[Arakhor]

The fact that people undertaking slightly different calculations produce slightly different results is to be expected. What would make me suspicious would be same result.

£188 million is absolutely not "slightly different" to the much-publicised £350 million claim. I can understand overlap between £8/9bn and £10bn, because they're already stupidly large numbers and would fit what you're saying there, but not the much larger "scare sum", so to speak.

 

[Mega Tsunami]

£188 million is absolutely not "slightly different" to the much-publicised £350 million claim. I can understand overlap between £8/9bn and £10bn, because they're already stupidly large numbers and would fit what you're saying there, but not the much larger "scare sum", so to speak.

So you complain if Boris uses an obvious tongue in cheek fib/exaggeration.
And then you complain if Lamont uses a figure closer to the more accepted one.
If there is any head-in-sand attitude that describes it.

Nobody actually believed Boris’s figure (I certainly didn't) but he did it for two reasons:
Firstly so that it would be repeated over and over again by various people thereby recruiting more Brexiteers.
Secondly, he was talking about what the potential could be if a) some future Europhile PM decides to give back our rebate and b) the EU decides to cancel certain EU-funded British projects in the future.
No one knows how the EU will react if we vote Remain, but they might very well decide to punish us for having the temerity to have a vote at all (and knowing there won’t be another one for decades).
Our rebate is worth £5bn a year (call it £5.2) and that makes £100m per week. (Hope I have the decimal point in the right place )
Suddenly, with our rebate gone, the £188m becomes £288m. Then EU projects get cancelled and the £288 becomes £300+.
Like I said, the £350mpw is the potential we could pay.

And let’s not forget Blair gave up a big chunk of our rebate (?£2bn pa) some years ago in order to try and buy his way into becoming the EU Head Honcho. (Fortunately for all of us it failed. But it still cost us).

Yes, he was wrong to use the £350m figure. I am just surprised so many Remainers made so much of it

 

[Arakhor]

So you complain if Boris uses an obvious tongue in cheek fib/exaggeration. And then you complain if Lamont uses a figure closer to the more accepted one.

Where did you get the idea that I was complaining about Lord Lamont's figures? Is this just a silly excuse to get in another jab at Remainers?

Besides, are you going into politics? All that wriggling in your post to seemingly justify Boris' use of blatantly incorrect figures would embarrass a Jedi and their "truth from a certain point of view".

 

[14thwarrior]

Who are you talking about? No one on the Brexit side is talking about going back to the gold standard??

It was an attempt to invoke some ironic humour that clearly you did not get. It kind of required you to watch the link too, which I know is not something that is going to happen in my life time.

Sorry it was just a silly interjection at the time. I was in a silly mood.

Carry on.

 

[EnglishEdward]

£188 million is absolutely not "slightly different" to the much-publicised £350 million claim.

You know very well that there are different total amounts
according to precisely what is being discussed.

For instance at the most simplistic level, there are:

(a) UK government payments to EU
(b) UK government payments to EU less rebate to UK government
(c) UK government payments to EU less rebate to UK government
and less payments made to UK companies.

Now I am not an accountant, nor I understand is Boris Johnson, so if anything I tend to
trust Norman Lamont more because as an ex Chancellor he has a better grip on figures.

 

[Takhisis]

But the other countries also contribute to the EU funds and taxes, it isn't as if they were all collectively leeching on the UK's supposedly brilliant economic performances.

And, incidentally, given that ‘financial services’ seems to be the main source of income in London if not the entire UK, then obviously the UK is leeching off whomever else is bringing in that money from their countries.

 

[EnglishEdward]

I don't think the UK's economic performance is at all brilliant, and I would
certainly not use the emotive term leeching regarding the EU budget.

Fact is UK government makes a net contribution. I do not regard that
as particular significant. It is not my reason for being a Leaver.

The issue to me is of Remainers smearing Leaving advocates as liars.

 

[Arakhor]

Well, when even MegaTsunami admits that it's an obvious lie designed to gain more Brexit votes and Boris was definitely wrong to do so, yet somehow that's fine because Boris was talking about the potential costs, I think I'm fairly safe to say that the £350m claim is a big fat lie (and I'm not the only one).

Multiple competing claims being thrown around by both sides are de rigeur it seems for this sort of thing and should probably be expected. I don't know about you though, but I'm definitely not okay with straight-up lying to try to steal a particular result in the referendum.

 

[Takhisis]

I don't think the UK's economic performance is at all brilliant, and I would
certainly not use the emotive term leeching regarding the EU budget.

Fact is UK government makes a net contribution. I do not regard that
as particular significant. It is not my reason for being a Leaver.

The issue to me is of Remainers smearing Leaving advocates as liars.

Well, I must repeat that you are not the average ‘Leaver’. I personally am neither a ‘Leaver’ nor a ‘Remainer’ as I am not voting in this.

Now, however, it has more or less been proven that Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is a backstabbing arse who is lying his way to a supposed victory. So accusing him and his immediate circle of being liars is not incorrect.
Nigel Farage (pronounce it rhyming with ‘garbage’, 'cos he don't want nothin' to do with them Frogs) is also a hypocrite, who spent his time making money as an EU official while claiming to be against them.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Well, I must repeat that you are not the average ‘Leaver’. I personally am neither a ‘Leaver’ nor a ‘Remainer’ as I am not voting in this.

Now, however, it has more or less been proven that Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is a backstabbing arse who is lying his way to a supposed victory. So accusing him and his immediate circle of being liars is not incorrect.
Nigel Farage (pronounce it rhyming with ‘garbage’, 'cos he don't want nothin' to do with them Frogs) is also a hypocrite, who spent his time making money as an EU official while claiming to be against them.

Politicians have the advantage over most of us that they can change their position without concerning themselves about being inconsistent. This is not necessarily lying.
For example only a few months back David Cameron was saying we could manage outside the EU and now he argues that leaving would be a complete disaster.

By the way I do not regard Nigel Farage being an MEP when he stood on UKIP party list as an MEP to campaign against the EU as hypocritical.
That position is honourable and analogous to Irish Republicans standing for election to the UK House of Commons.

 

[14thwarrior]

politicians are the masters of both double speak and cognative dissonance, both of which they can undertake at the same time. "White man" he speak with forked tongue, is something everyone can agree on if you take my meaning.

it has to be said Farage though as an EU politician (MEP) was perhaps a sinecure, and place holder, he certainly never really did anything at all of note except take up a seat. Let's be honest.

That said that is democracy for you he won a seat fair and square. I do though think it was little more than a tactic to place himself in a political position which he did little with, other than to manouver politically in the UK. Disappointing but fair.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Rather than debate the various figures for the net UK payment to the EU; I refer to

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35943216


This specifies for 2014:

Gross Contribution = £18.777 billion

Subtract the rebate gives = £14.361 billion

Subtract public sector receipts gives = £9.785 billion

Subtract private sector receipts gives = £8.385 billion

Billion here is the America billion of one thousand million.

I believe that other quoted figures have been for 2015,
but the BBC advises there that 2015 figures are estimates.

 

[Arakhor]

Those work out roughly to weekly sums of £361m, £276m, £188m and £161m. On a different note. the BBC recently posted an article on immigration, which I thought made for interesting reading,

 

[14thwarrior]

Well, I must repeat that you are not the average ‘Leaver’. I personally am neither a ‘Leaver’ nor a ‘Remainer’ as I am not voting in this.

Now, however, it has more or less been proven that Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is a backstabbing arse who is lying his way to a supposed victory. So accusing him and his immediate circle of being liars is not incorrect.
Nigel Farage (pronounce it rhyming with ‘garbage’, 'cos he don't want nothin' to do with them Frogs) is also a hypocrite, who spent his time making money as an EU official while claiming to be against them.

Of course the Americans would say you are evil. j/k

But a more balanced perspective is that, that is a perfectly legitimate way of exercising democracy. Voter turn out can say as much about an issue - well sort of - than the actual vote, if you catch my drift.

 

[Old Hippy]

But a more balanced perspective is that, that is a perfectly legitimate way of exercising democracy. Voter turn out can say as much about an issue - well sort of - than the actual vote, if you catch my drift.

it can also say much about the weather on election day