Re: Post-Brexit Thread
 

Cool. We as a nation just need to not import anything, ever, and we'll be all good.

---------- Post added at 13:58 ---------- Previous post was at 13:55 ----------

Our national debt was pretty low when Brown was Chancellor, fixing the roof was rather unnecessary when there was nothing to fix. His crime was PFI if anything, not what he invested funding schools and hospitals after years of underinvestment. Economy is now apparently growing and healthy while debt to GDP ratio continues to rise.

Appreciate you've no idea what you're talking about and will take any chance to have a pop at Labour though. Fully imagine we'll be in the 2020s and you'll be saying Brexit is awesome and any deficit is Labour's fault regardless of the situation. Can always find a scapegoat somewhere.

Re: Post-Brexit Thread
 

Except we don't need to strive for that - we just need to strive for a reasonable balance, and it seems to me that there is likely to be nothing wrong, in the long term, with an exchange rate that makes domestic manufacturing more cost effective.

Re: Post-Brexit Thread
 

Minor issue that we import most raw materials and the energy to process them as we have an inadequate supply at home. These tend to be hedged in advance, but the hedging eventually runs out.

Be interesting to see how we strive for that balance and cost effectiveness alongside Liam Fox's assertion that we'll be a bastion of free trade.

Re: Post-Brexit Thread
 

Interesting that the new chancellor stance so far is different from Osborne's inflexible economic policies.

Re: Post-Brexit Thread
 

Hasn't got much choice. Depending on how the inflexible Brexit stance goes down we'll need a combination of fiscal and monetary flexibility to compensate.

He has some respect from me as one of the few that's approaching the future with any kind of pragmatism, in that he's openly admitting we won't overnight become super wealthy and a shining example to the rest of the world of how to do everything ever.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37536943

For all their rhetoric about how wonderfully the economy is doing real wages aren't reflecting this, and I look forward to their next list of scapegoats when we've taken back control of immigration.

Re: Post-Brexit Thread
 

I think the bigger issue with loss of single-market membership is pan-European business. Not everything is a product entirely made here, or Europe, and then shipped back or forth for an exchange of cash. A lot of it will be income generated by a business working across borders as if it were one nation, i.e a single market, which may suddenly become more prohibitive. Say a French lawyer working in Germany on behalf of a British firm. Situations such as that are way people say free movement of people is part of the single market because you can't have people applying for work permits for that to work. Instead companies can set up in Europe knowing they're able to address the European market as if it were a single entity with everything from their employees to the regulations they need to abide by.

Re: Post-Brexit Thread
 

Indeed. A simple example is that if people look at things as mundane as some supermarket own brand products they'll see that they came from Belgium, the Netherlands or similar. On WTO rules those carry pretty sizeable tariffs.

A more complex example is our car industry. We assemble the vehicles here using parts imported from Europe. Without the single market there are potentially tariffs to pay on those parts. Even if there are no tariffs there are issues with point of origin, non-tariff barriers are a big problem.

It's an unenviable list of challenges wanting to disentangle the UK completely from the EU in one fell swoop. Let's hope our politicians are up to it, there's certainly little indication thusfar that they are.

Re: Post-Brexit Thread
 

Teresa May has said this:

https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/783195009550024704

What the hell is going on? Why shouldn't they be able to stay if they want? They're bloody Doctors. If they're already here legally are we revoking that? This has to be either a misquote or a badly worded sentence.

Re: Post-Brexit Thread
 

Can't see that anywhere else in the media,especially the BBC where it is supposed to have been said.

However, this is.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-37546360


There's nothing in the BBC's rolling coverage of the Conference.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-37539156

Re: Post-Brexit Thread
 

A bit of an aside but I've just seen a well known actor (whose name escapes me) being interviewed on TV (The Wright Stuff) who was going on about how strange it is that people might not be happy with the EU when, in his words, there are signs everywhere saying funded by the EU or words to that effect.

I get it, maybe if we had signs on every publicly funded building, infrastructure project or whatever, saying 'Not funded by the EU' that'd put things into better perspective and redress the balance. The fact is that the EU simply gives us back some of the money it takes from us and one of the main arguments in support of Brexit is/was to take back the power to spend all of the money saved how we, via our elected leaders, choose to rather than having Brussels bureaucrats dictate it then erect signs telling us how generous they've been...

Re: Post-Brexit Thread
 

It's a weak argument certainly.

I can see a case to be made that the EU has focused spending in areas traditionally neglected by Westminster, Wales being an example, and these areas voted Leave. These areas are not having the subsequent shortfall in EU money safeguarded from Westminster either despite suggestions they would during the campaign (from the magical £350 million).

I didn't like this argument as a defense of the EU though because at best it's an argument that Westminster government is so poor that we need the EU to override it which isn't a great place from which to start.

The arguments I believed in and continue to believe in is that the economic benefit of the single market outweighs the downside and certainly wipes out the £350 million a week. Although I don't see the point of starting that debate again. ;)

Re: Post-Brexit Thread
 

If these matters are handled properly there's no reason why the economic benefit of enhanced trade with the rest of the world won't in turn dwarf anything lost directly (if indeed that winds up happening) as a result of a different relationship with the EU. As the EU carries on into decline and chaos, membership of that club is looking less appealing and we need to remember that when we negotiate because if the situations were reversed they'd be letting us know in no uncertain terms that they need us less than we need them.

Re: Post-Brexit Thread
 

There are a bunch of reasons why, at least in the short and medium terms, there is no way that's going to be the case.

Not least because there's every indication matters aren't being handled properly and economic policy is taking a back seat to immigration.

We currently have trade agreements with the EU 27 + 53 other nations. March 2019 we'll have trade agreements with zero.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual...tion_agreement need establishing even where there's no free trade in progress.

We need to get our schedules with the WTO sorted, which includes our shares of quotas, requiring agreement from the EU 27 and every other WTO member. That or become a 'bastion of free trade' with no restrictions to trade at all and watch as bits of our economy are wiped out by those who can produce comparable products for a fraction of the cost - even with tariffs.

The idea that we're going to roll smoothly out of the EU and into a panacea of prosperity is beyond comedy and the government aren't helping with a string of anti-business policies.

Hopefully of course the current rhetoric is just that and a decent solution that protects British businesses can be found. The Conservative Party Conference has sounded more like a UKIP conference.

Can't accuse them of being corporatist though, just yet anyway. That comes with a bonfire of workers' rights later.

Re: Post-Brexit Thread
 

The worry for me is why the EU is so keen to get the UK to invoke Article 50.

I'm wondering if the recent referendum in Hungary knocking back quotas and the recent German elections showing gains by the anti-EU parties is causing concern in the EU ranks.

Is it a case of a desire for damage limitation or is the EU looking forward to pounding the UK so that it can proceed with those policies opposed by the UK?

Must be confusing for the EU particularly as some UK MPs are wanting a quick Brexit and others not and some want a hard Brexit and others a softer version, plus the varying comments by Fox, Johnson and May. Are these designed to catch the EU off balance or are they a general indication of the government confusion over Brexit?

There's also the variations in British industries' requirements with some wanting the single market and others happy to work outside it.

It'll be interesting to hear what other news we hear in the run-up to Brexit because Theresa May strikes me as a careful planner, who, unlike Cameron, will definitely have a plan B and probably a plan C, plan D, plan E etc.

Re: Post-Brexit Thread
 

The language is getting really worrying IMO

They are acting like it was a clear majority, 48% did vote for no change they may want think about that.