Reply With QuoteThat's a fair shout, to be fair.Originally Posted by fatshaft
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I don't think anyone should be voting in the referendum based on what the economy might be. I accept I might be in the minority there as well.
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That's a fair shout, to be fair.
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I'm afraid that's just blethers. Ireland wanting to rejoin the Uk ? Wtf ! As far as Scotland is concerned, The tory party has been making inroads into Scottish votes once more because of the utter ineptitude of the Labour Party in Westminster. The SNP has taken the central/left ground in Scotland from Scottish Labour and the tory party has helped itself to some of the New Labour vote who actually voted Tory before Blair came along.
If Scotland becomes independent there will either be a complete redrawing of the political spectrum or more likely the SNP , a Scottish Labour Party and some form of central to right party who may call themselves conservatives who knows with the Lib/dem on the periphery.
A Scottish labour party divorced from the toxic legacy of Blair and the scepticism a lot of people hold re Corbyn will gain ground, particularly if the growing view prevails that the SNP aren't doing that great a job with the Economy , Health service , schools etc. It will no longer be a unionist UK party, it will be a Scottish party by definition. I can't envisage a scenario where they throw their hats in with the "conservatives" to try and rejoin the UK
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You completely missed the point about Ireland. It was in response to whether the UK would accept Scotland back. It is not about Ireland wanting to rejoin the UK (as I said, this is unlikely) but if did would the UK accept them. The answer is probably yes. Same goes with Scotland.
As for the rest of the post, you say there will be a complete redrawing of the political spectrum but then go on to describe what we have just now!
If you believe that the Labour party, their members and voters will just see the light and become born again nationalists then good luck with that. It is as likely as you becoming a supporter of the union.
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There are two ways to look at it for me. On the one hand you could argue that something like independence is much bigger than how it affects your wallet. It's about identity, your country, the principle of self-rule and so on. That all sounds noble and principled, but the other side to that argument is that abstract debates about how a country should be governed are less important than what it actually means for people's lives: can you earn a living, do your kids get a decent education, do hospitals provide proper care, and so on. I was firmly in the latter camp in the last referendum and voted No. People's lives matter more than abstract political debates about sovereignty.
This time round though I would probably lean towards Yes as I'm completely alienated by Brexit (or more specifically the way May is using Brexit to try and redraw the way the country works). The points Getintaethem raises about the economy are more or less true. Our public finances are a mess at the moment and we'd have to slash spending across the board or raise taxes just to stay where we are at present if we were independent. But British politics is now fundamentally broken in a way that wasn't the case in 2014 and I'd be inclined to jump ship while we can.
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Out of interest, why do you use the name, Sancho Panza? I presumed it was because you lived in Spain.
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No I think it is you who have missed my point. Ireland would need to ask to rejoin and my point was that even as a hypothetical scenario given the background behind them leaving it was not worthy of consideration.
Clearly I have not said there would be a redrawing of the political spectrum I said "either or.. ". Personally, I think with the exception of the Conservative and Unionist party the other main parties would retain the same name with Labour and the Lib/dems prefixing their party name with Scottish although I could see some merger of lib/dems and Scottish labour possibly being on the cards. I honestly believe a lot of traditionally Labour voters have already become Nationalists which is reflected in the last referendum result. Its just basic arithmetic. I class myself among the reluctant Nationalist camp.
If and its a big if Scotland becomes Independent then in my opinion it will require as a catalyst Westminster dragging us to hell in a hand cart in pursuit of their hard brexit or no deal at all agenda for this to happen. If Scotland becomes Independent then yes I can see no reason for a Scottish Labour party to pursue any form of return to the Union agenda. In Scotland they would have a realistic hope of forming a Government. By that time we will be lucky if a Labour Party in Westminster exists and certainly not one with any prospect of forming a government
Last edited by kigoretrout; 09-03-2017 at 02:59 PM.
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It is worthy because the rest of the UK would most likely take Ireland back into the Union. It illustrates that the rest of the UK would also take back Scotland. It is not so hard to understand.
So basically exactly the same as we have now except that the lib dems and labour could merge. I do not understand why independence would make the lib dems and labour merge any more than out with independence. Incidentally, they call themselves Scottish Labour, Scottish Lib Dems and Scottish Conservatives now.Clearly I have not said there would be a redrawing of the political spectrum I said "either or.. ". Personally, I think with the exception of the Conservative and Unionist party the other main parties would retain the same name with Labour and the Lib/dems prefixing their party name with Scottish although I could see some merger of lib/dems and Scottish labour possibly being on the cards. I honestly believe a lot of traditionally Labour voters have already become Nationalists which is reflected in the last referendum result. Its just basic arithmetic. I class myself among the reluctant Nationalist camp.
One reason is because they believe that Scotland is stronger as part of the United Kingdom. i.e. perhaps they have principles that they will stick with. Running a deficit of £14bn per year would be suicide for an independent Scotland. We would need to put up taxes, reduce services and/or borrow more. £14bn is so far outside anything that the EU would allow from a borrowing perspective, therefore we would need to put up taxes and reduce services - unless there is some magic wand. £14bn represents over £5K for every worker in Scotland. It does not take a genius to work out that this would be a disaster for any SNP Government and popularity for independence will fall dramatically post independence. The price of oil is unlikely to recover for several years. If oil prices rise, it gives a green light to the US shale production and oil prices will fall again.If and its a big if Scotland becomes Independent then in my opinion it will require as a catalyst Westminster dragging us to hell in a hand cart in pursuit of their hard brexit or no deal at all agenda for this to happen. If Scotland becomes Independent then yes I can see no reason for a Scottish Labour party to pursue any form of return to the Union agenda. In Scotland they would have a realistic hope of forming a Government. By that time we will be lucky if a Labour Party in Westminster exists and certainly not one with any prospect of forming a government
There are a lot of political soundbites but no real details around why a hard Brexit will be such a disaster economically.
I do not understand economically what the issue is post hard Brexit (there may be political/social reasons for not wanting to leave). Even with using WTO trade rules (rules set up to promote trade) tariffs would be set at around 3%. Normal exchange rate fluctuations are far more than 3% per year and we do not notice any major disruptions in trade and WTO rules are used by China and the US to export into the EU. In fact, our trade outside the EU using WTO rules has been going up - not down.
To put this into perspective, the UK exports around £225bn into the EU. 3% of that is around £7bn. Therefore, the UK Government could just recompense every company that exports to the EU the 3% tariff, if it so wished, from the amount the UK now pays into the EU as our membership fee - or as the UK could also set tariffs on imports - from this money. However, what is far more likely, if it came down to it, is the UK would just say that they will use WTO rules for trade with EU countries and set tariffs to zero and will only add tariffs if the EU adds tariffs on our goods and services.
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There are countless issues with it. Businesses have no obligation to stay in the UK. We're effectively making the conditions for business in the UK worse than they are in every other state in our immediate neighbourhood (including Norway, Switzerland and Iceland). In essence those businesses wishing to export from the UK will be obliged to pay a fee for the privilege of basing their operations here. That will encourage those businesses already here to leave, will discourage new businesses from basing their operations here, and will undermine FDI. If we add on top of that the kind of restrictive immigration rules currently being discussed, which will add a new layer of costly bureaucracy for businesses wanting to hire the staff they need, it just amplifies the effect even further.
Then there's the effect of non-tariff barriers. The point in the single market is that countries agree to shared rules so that when a company chooses to export it doesn't have to spend huge amounts of resources and time in trying to make its product comply with the rules of every individual market. The rules applied in their home market are essentially the same as in every other country in the single market. So either we decide to simply translate all EU regulations into our own rules in the UK (making Brexit completely pointless) or non-tariff barriers will add further costs for businesses based in the UK. Those costs are likely to be far higher than those from explicit tariffs. For instance, one study on this (Ottaviano, 2014) calculated that tariffs would only account for around 4.5% of the trade-related costs associated with a WTO rules Brexit, the other 95.5% of the cost comes from an increase in non-tariff barriers.
The solution you've proposed here is essentially to compensate for damaging conditions for business by paying subsidies to keep companies here. That's probably exactly what the government will do, as well as slashing corporation tax. In essence the cost of a hard Brexit is we have to permanently pay businesses fees or give them large tax breaks to make up for the damage done to business conditions - and that bill is going to run far higher than the £7 billion a year you've mentioned when you factor in all of the other costs above. This strategy also gives carte blanche to businesses to lobby for better treatment and puts the government in an even weaker position than it already is.
Furthermore, we're neglecting that every other country we're competing with has the capacity to provide these kind of incentives as well, yet they have none of the negative baggage we'll have if we decide to expose our businesses to new tariffs, increase non-tariff barriers to trade, and create all manner of costly new restrictions on workers from the EU (who businesses need and who we know are a net benefit to the economy). And all of these immediate costs have a long-tail effect as well (e.g. losing FDI or skilled workers today undermines future growth, not to mention we're now opting out of the current EU proposals to reduce non-tariff barriers to trade in services where we would have stood to gain a great deal in the coming years).
I find it difficult to believe that any fair-minded person would compare these two situations (the status quo and life under a hard Brexit) and conclude the latter is actually better for the economy just because we no longer have to pay a relatively small fee into the EU budget every year - incidentally, that wasn't simply lost money (as subsidies to businesses are) as it gave us a very large say over how the money was spent, what the rules of the single market are, the future direction of the EU, the trade agenda at the WTO (where we're now bit part players sitting on the sidelines while larger actors like the US and the EU make all of the decisions) and so on.
PS - I would much rather live in Spain, but it's just a Don Quixote reference.
Last edited by sancho_panza; 10-03-2017 at 01:56 AM.
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Firstly - great post.
Secondly, I wont post all your reply here as I fear the length will break the site
There are different agreements that could be reached. It is clear the UK want to have a free trade agreement with the EU as they believe that economically it makes sense for the UK and more importantly the EU (who export more to the UK that we export to the EU). As we already have all the EU regulations embedded within our laws, this should be simple to achieve (if there is political will to do so in the EU). If this happened then the negatives around trade you mention would not be an issue.
With regards to immigration, it is agreed by everyone that immigration will continue. However, everyone would agree that the ability for a country to take in immigrants is inelastic (both politically but more importantly from a resources perspective - schools, housing and other resources as it takes time to put these in place). At the moment, we do not get to control the type of immigrants coming to the country from the EU. In the future, we will be in a position to allow immigration that better represents the skills the country actually requires - including Scotland. For example, we allow people from, for example, India to study engineering in the UK. At the moment, when these engineers graduate there is huge restrictions on who is allowed to stay in this country. Employers like Dyson are crying out for these skilled workers but are unable to hire them.
As the countries ability to take immigrants is inelastic, being able to better plan the sort of skills that are required in the country vs the current situation is far better from an economic perspective (politics aside).
If, however, we had to trade with the EU under WTO rules, the EU would not be allowed to "punish" the UK for leaving the EU. Also under WTO rules, there is both a commitment and responsibility on the EU (and all other members of the WTO) to reduce non-tariff barriers between the EU and other countries. This is a major point because as we are already members of the EU we do not have these non-tariff barriers (as a point of fact, there are non-tariff barriers to trade within the EU right now that affect the UK - such as the rules around calling sparkling wine Champagne only if it comes from a specific region in France or that cornish pasties can only be made in cornwall). The point is that the EU (and member countries) would not be allowed under WTO rules to put in place new non-tariff barriers.
Using WTO rules for trade has not stopped us doing more trade outside the EU than with the EU.
The London School of Economics study you mention was published when project fear was hitting its stride. As part of the article it states the reductions in GDP that were often stated before Brexit which have largely been discredited by events. It also completely fails to recognise that under WTO rules the EU (and its member states) would not be allowed to impose non-tariff barriers on the UK.
Personally, even though I propose it, I doubt that the Government will compensate for higher tariffs. I just used it as an example. Higher tariffs, running at a few percentage points, is completely wiped out by normal currency exchange rates going up and down. You are right, non-tariff barriers are far more important now. However, as I already state, it is not possible for the EU to impose new non-tariff barriers to trade against the UK under WTO rules. Their are far bigger problems with this outside of the EU in countries where we want free trade agreements such as in India and Africa, however, these problems exist whether we are in our out of the EU.
You also need to factor in the reduction in costs to businesses that do not trade with the EU. In the single market, all businesses need to meet all the EU regulations whether they trade with the EU or not. Moving forward, they will only need to do that if they trade with the EU, cutting their costs. Furthermore, businesses that trade out with the EU need to meet all the regulations of the countries they trade with anyway. We do more trade with non-EU countries than with EU countries - this expense does not stop trade from happening.
This is an important point. It is not widely recognised that we do not have a single market in the EU around services. This is because it is far, far more difficult to draw up trade agreements with respect to services. So hard, in fact, that the EU has failed to do so since its inception. It is much talked about, but in reality nothing has happened to create this "single market" around services. I do not therefore believe that in the short term this will impact on this specific discussion, however, it will also depend on the type of agreement we strike with the EU., not to mention we're now opting out of the current EU proposals to reduce non-tariff barriers to trade in services where we would have stood to gain a great deal in the coming years).
What I am comparing is whether trade with the EU will be affected so much for Scotland that it becomes a matter of leaving the UK. The total exports from Scotland to the EU is £12bn per year. This is the total figure - this is not the profit and this is not the tax that Scotland would earn from these exports. Even if we reduce trade with the EU by 20% as part of Brexit (something that I do not believe would happen) we would need to look at the impacts on the entire economy and tax income as a result (assuming that we do not make up this short fall in trade with the rest of the World from new free trade agreements) and compare this to what our deficit would be as an independent country. Even now, our current deficit as a country is nearly £15bn. The current deficit is a far greater issue for the economy post independence than any potential impacts of trade with the EU post Brexit. As an independent country we would need to substantially increase taxes and/or reduce services. There are also the added costs of separation to factor in and risks to the economy of the potential of losing companies such as financial services to other hubs.I find it difficult to believe that any fair-minded person would compare these two situations (the status quo and life under a hard Brexit) and conclude the latter is actually better for the economy just because we no longer have to pay a relatively small fee into the EU budget every year - incidentally, that wasn't simply lost money (as subsidies to businesses are) as it gave us a very large say over how the money was spent, what the rules of the single market are, the future direction of the EU, the trade agenda at the WTO (where we're now bit part players sitting on the sidelines while larger actors like the US and the EU make all of the decisions) and so on.
There are risks with leaving the EU. All the guesstimates around the immediate impacts of leaving the EU have been wrong. There are also risks with leaving the UK - which is a far bigger market for Scotland's products than the EU. I concede that these risks are are up for debate because we have not left either the EU or the UK. However, what is not up for debate is the £15bn deficit that we currently have and would need to deal with post independence.
cool username for a football forum!PS - I would much rather live in Spain, but it's just a Don Quixote reference.
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