Vote Tomorrow Called Off

[1959_60]

What makes you think that Army?

In what way will we be any better off?

I can give you lots of reasons why it is awful for trade.

[sinkov]

She wanted to ensure a "backs to the wall" vote where Parliamentarians have to stop posing and put their bets where their mouths are.

Isn't that the very thing we were going to have on Tuesday ? Cabinet ministers were telling the media all weekend and, on well into Monday morning, that the vote was 100% certain to go ahead, and then it was pulled at the last minute, with the vast majority of the Cabinet completely unaware of WTF was going on. That's not brinkmanship, it's chaos, an embarrassing shambles. As Skinner said in the Commons, 'she's F-R-I-T'.

[sinkov]

In what way will we be any better off?

Well for a start 59, if we politely decline the Withdrawal Agreement, leave the EU on time, and opt to trade on WTO terms, we will be 39 billion euros better off immediately. We will then cease to pay them the 9/10 billion euros a year we currently have to pay them. So there's an instant short term financial benefit of around 50 billion euros there. That's an awful lot of money in the first year alone, and then it's ten billion a year every year afterwards that we save, and that figure is an underestimate, the EU has a financial crisis, that 10 billion would be increased year on year, no knowing by how much, but increase it would, and no doubt substantially.

[Supersub6]

I wonder just where all that money will go. Watch this space!!

[sinkov]

"I can give you lots of reasons why it is awful for trade."

I bow to your greater knowledge on the ease, or otherwise, of trading inside the single market and customs union 59. It's self evident that there will be difficulties initially, but only around 10% of UK businesses export to the EU, whereas 100% of them have to abide by EU laws, regulations and red tape.

This is the view of financial journalist Matthew Lynn on our prospects after Brexit.

"Even with the fevered level of the debate, it is still only the EU, and it matters far less to the economy than the ideologically driven warriors on either side of the debate seem to imagine. There are plenty of comparisons being made to 1940 or other moments of national uncertainty. OK, it is true that it is equally impossible to guess what happens next. And yet, in reality the decision itself is not nearly as important as it is made out to be. Hardcore Remainers and Leavers both act as if remaining inside the European Union, or leaving it, were crucial for the economy.

Actually, it is fairly marginal and it doesn’t make a huge amount of difference whether we are in or out. Less and less of our trade is with the rest of Europe with every year that passes, and under World Trade Organisation rules tariffs are very modest anyway.

In the medium term, growth is determined by factors such as demographics, productivity, tax competitiveness, rates of innovation and entrepreneurship, and so on. Membership of a not particularly successful trade bloc matters a bit, but would struggle to make any reasonable list of the top 10 factors determining our future prosperity.

The British economy is slowing down a little, but then so is the rest of Europe, and we are still doing better than Germany. Despite Brexit, it looks as if we will probably be the fastest growing major European economy next year. Employment is at record levels, investment is still pouring into the country, output it still expanding and entrepreneurship is hitting record levels. It isn’t fantastic, but then very few developed economies are growing very quickly. There may be a few more months of political turmoil. But the economy will sail through it. Eventually the FTSE and sterling will recover – even if it doesn’t look very likely through most of this week."

[sinkov]

I wonder just where all that money will go. Watch this space!!

NHS Sub, NHS, the Boris Bus said so.

[1959_60]

Sinkov, we would have to pay 20 billion euros as a leaving settlement even if we leave with no deal.

These are payments that we have already signed up to - and surely you are not one to renege on your responsibilities?

I retired last May and today I called in to see my old colleagues today.

No deal will be a disaster for them. 75% of trade is done inside the EU. The 45 people who work there come from 11 different countries - mainly EU. Their wages are good - they are experts in their field (IT).

Doing business with a EU country is brilliant - exactly the same as dealing with an English company, frictionless trade, no customs checks, full regulatory alignment. Delivery usually one or two days. And these customers/suppliers have been built up over many years. Trust takes time.

And that is why I get annoyed when I hear politicians spouting bollox. "It's a big world out there. We can replace our trade from Commonwealth/Asian/South american companies"

Let me tell you how much more difficult it is to deal with these countries.
Firstly, the paperwork and bureaucracy. We have to obtain up to 12 documents per shipment. And every country has different requirements. Certificates of Origin, Quality standards etc etc.
Kenya for instance. We have to fill in ten documents, and have the goods independently inspected before they can be shipped.
The Kenyan government then decreed that the wooden pallets on which the goods were shipped had to be treated to avoid beetles entering their country. Ballache.
But we still dealt with them, and have done so for over 10 years.

Then there is the distances involved. If we place an order with an Australian, Asian, Canadian, US company, inevitably, because of the size of the order, it will have to be shipped via sea freight. So we have to pay our money up front and wait up to 10 weeks before receiving our goods.
You can imagine the potential trouble trying to sort out faulty goods. And we are vulnerable during the shipping time to exchange rate fluctuations (which can work in our favour as well).
But we still trade with countries outside the EU - why wouldn't we?

It is not either trading with the EU or trading with the wider world, it is both. We spent years researching all the worldwide markets..but the EU is infinitely preferable for so many reasons.

Since the Brexit vote many many business partners of ours have told that, because of the loss of frictionless trade, customs checks, bureaucracy, regulatory alignment etc. that they are actively looking for an alternative to British suppliers. And i can't blame them one bit - we would be doing the same.

Can you remember what a mess our economy was in the 70's? contrast this to our economy before the financial crah in 2008 (nothing to do with the EU) We were booming and it looked like we were unstoppable. And much of this was because of our brilliant, free trade with the EU.

Believe me,trading wise, our country benefits much, much more from being in the EU than the 9/10 billion Euros per year.

Let's see where we are in a year, eh?

[Altobelli]

Don't forget the percentage that the EU take from our deals with non EU Countries while we are still in the EU Sinkov.

[Supersub6]

NHS Sub, NHS, the Boris Bus said so.

I'm sure that we all believe that too!! Politicians eh!!

[Supersub6]

1959_60 --although I dealt all over the world on a much smaller scale, I have to agree with what you say about trade with some countries being much more difficult. I am pleased that I am now retired and have been for 10 years this Christmas. This whole thing is a total shambles.