AIBU to ask if Lord Owen is right about TTIP?

[SpringingIntoAction]

Is former Labour Minister and SDP politician, Lord David Owen right to think that TTIP will be detrimental to the NHS?

www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/06/brexit-is-necessary-to-protect-nhs-from-ttip-says-david-owen

Well done buttered.

Just one addendum, the cars companies you listed are all owned by overseas firms. BMW own rolls Royce, Aston is owned by a consortium, Bentley by vw, and jlr by Tata. Production in this country would be undermined by brexit.

Ah, I just can't keep up with all the wife-swapping that car manufacturers do. Are there any genuinely British car manufacturers left?

I feel I should address one more thing though, in the interests of balance:

PausingFlatly

"It's that the TTIP will make the contractual process more vulnerable to the sort of legal jockeying we already see on mega government contracts, like Virgin taking the Department of Transport to court over the West Coast mainline contracts."

The West Coast mainline fiasco was to do with EU law. Under EU law, government departments have to award public contracts in accordance with a transparent procurement process. Essentially, they have to advertise the fact that they are going to award a contract, explain what they want to buy, explain what bidders need to include in their tender, and explain exactly what criteria they are going to apply when deciding who to award the contract to. And then they have to do exactly what they said they would do. This is designed to prevent governments from just awarding contracts to whoever they like.

On that occasion, the Department for Transport effed up their procurement process and Virgin challenged the decision and won.

On the plus side, it could make our exports cheaper and therefore more competitive. However, we import more than we export, so the net effect would be negative. The benefits of a weaker pound would be felt by UK exporters. The disadvantages would be felt by anyone wanting to buy anything which is not produced in the UK, i.e. the rest of us.

<a class="break-all" href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160105160709/www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/international-transactions/outward-foreign-affiliates-statistics/how-important-is-the-european-union-to-uk-trade-and-investment-/sty-eu.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160105160709/www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/international-transactions/outward-foreign-affiliates-statistics/how-important-is-the-european-union-to-uk-trade-and-investment-/sty-eu.html

Maybe I have read this wrong but it appears to me that although we import more from the EU than we export (can someone explain why this is good? ) and the net deficit is growing, we export more to non EU countries and this net value is growing.

What is the single market?

The single market is the foundation on which the EU is built. The idea is that there should be no barriers to trade between member states. If I want to sell goods or services to customers in Italy, I can do so under the same trading conditions as my Italian competitors. If I want to buy something, I can buy it just as easily from a German company as I can from a British company, giving me much greater choice. This opens up the entire market to much greater competition, resulting in better products and services and lower prices.

Until each company reduces quality, choice and price with a one size fits all approach until it becomes unsustainable and the rivals go out of business leaving one company with a monopoly. Prices then rise while quality and choice remain poor.

Well, since we would no longer have to comply with any EU law, in theory the government could repeal all of our laws which are based on EU law and re-write the rule book. They might choose to maintain or even improve upon the employment rights we currently enjoy. They might not. They might choose to maintain or improve upon existing standards of environmental protection and health and safety. They might not. No one knows.

In a lot of examples (employment and human rights are a couple) the UK is over and above EU requirements. They are a seperate issue to the EU.

littledrummergirl

Yes, much of our employment law comes from the EU but we have some of our own on top of that.

And you're right, human rights is separate from the EU. But our human rights laws are still governed by international law. We are a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, which includes many countries which are not in the EU.

If we wanted to repeal the Human Rights Act and make any significant changes to our human rights law in the UK, we would probably have to withdraw from the ECHR. Whether we can do that or not is subject to some debate. Currently, any country wishing to join the EU has to be a signatory to the ECHR as a condition of eligibility. It is not clear what the position is if an existing EU member wants to withdraw from the ECHR.

One of the Tories' policies after the 2015 election was to review and potentially abolish the Human Rights Act. This was the subject of some fairly intense discussion at the time, although everything has gone very quiet on that front. Maybe the idea has been quietly shelved. Maybe everyone's just focusing on the referendum and the issue will rear its ugly head again at some point.

There is also the Charter on human rights, which is incorporated into EU law by the Lisbon Treaty.

In November 2015, £1 was worth just under €1.43, making one euro worth just under 70p. Yesterday, £1 was worth just under €1.24, making one euro worth just over 80p. This means the pound has fallen more than 13% against the euro in that period. Most of that fall took place in the days following the announcement of the referendum date.

If the announcement of a referendum everybody already knew was happening caused the pound to fall so sharply in such a short space of time, what do you think the impact of an actual Brexit vote would be?

So what happens if the pound falls even more?

Everything we import will be more expensive, regardless of where it comes from or whether there are any tariffs, and the effects of this would be felt very quickly. (Long before we actually left the EU.)

fxtop.com/en/historical-exchange-rates.php?C1=GBP&C2=EUR&A=1&DD1=01&MM1=01&YYYY1=1990&DD2=08&MM2=04&YYYY2=2016&MA=1&YA=1&LANG=en&CJ=0

It's not exactly been doing that great as part of the EU, how will this stay if we remain?

I'm not sure what your question is, sorry.

That chart is pretty confusing as well. It appears to start tracking the pound against the euro from 1990. The euro didn't come in until 2002, and in 2008 we had a global economic crisis. I'm not sure historic exchange rates are particularly useful for predicting what will happen in the future, but based on what has happened in the last few months, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume the pound is likely to fall further if we vote to leave.

littledrummergirl

Yes, much of our employment law comes from the EU but we have some of our own on top of that.

And you're right, human rights is separate from the EU. But our human rights laws are still governed by international law. We are a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, which includes many countries which are not in the EU.

If we wanted to repeal the Human Rights Act and make any significant changes to our human rights law in the UK, we would probably have to withdraw from the ECHR.

Nobody has said anything about withdrawing from ECHR if we exit the EU. Those implying we are are not helping the debate other than reducing their argument to scaremongering. We need to keep to the facts.
As someone who is trying to consider the options before making a reasoned decision based on facts I find this increasingly frustration.

You were the one who mentioned human rights. I never mentioned it in my long post.

The euro didn't come in until 2002, and in 2008 we had a global economic crisis. I'm not sure historic exchange rates are particularly useful for predicting what will happen in the future, but based on what has happened in the last few months, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume the pound is likely to fall further if we vote to leave.

The chart shows the decline of the pound against the euro since it's introduction. My point would be that historically, from an economic point of view the evidence that I have found shows that being part of the EU has been to the detriment of British interest.

If not using historical data as an indicator of future possibilities what data would you suggest is used as an alternative?

Oh agreed, buttered.

Sorry, W Coast Mainline was a bad example, because taking the DoT to court was (IMO) in the public interest, never mind Virgin's.

That case was just in my mind because of an outsourcing instance shortly after, where a department was driven by fear of their suppliers taking legal action NOT really in the public interest (long story, not going into here, probably commercially confidential anyway).

Philip Morris's attempt to prevent Australia introducing plain tobacco packaging is a much better example of legal jockeying by a company in an attempt to override the public interest - and national sovereignty, come to that. It's an example of an Investor-to-State Dispute Settlement mentioned above. The ISDS planned for TTIP is on hold, as I understand it; and of course there are plenty of ISDSs not relating to TTIP.

Maybe we're not looking at the same chart, because the one I can see shows both peaks and troughs. But you can't judge the economic value of EU membership to the UK just on the basis of currency exchange rates. There are many contributing factors, of which currency is just one.

Look, I'm not saying that everything about the EU is positive or beneficial to us. Not by a long shot. There are some things I find very problematic, and the euro is one of them.

But over the last 40 years, we have benefited massively from being in the EU. My view is that the economic advantages of being in the EU still by far outweigh the disadvantages. I also think there are other social and political reasons why we are better off in, but people were asking about the economic issues.

Anyway, I am falling asleep at the keyboard...

Pausing - yes, that is a better example. And the tobacco industry is famous for this because it's very "in vogue" for governments to take action on tobacco for public health reasons and the tobacco industry has plenty of money to fund litigation. A lot of the most interesting EU cases are about tobacco.

Anyway... I'm off to bed. Good night all!

only if you think that it's unreasonable to add a specific campaigning thread, from a specific viewpoint, to AIBU.

Haha. It gets more attention in AIBU than it does in the EU referendum topic though!

Morning all!

Once more into the breach dear friends!

Astonishing! :D

Morning Inkata

How are you on this lovely morning in our European utopia?

Speechless

Don't worry, I'm sure someone will have words enough for all of us.

buttered your long post was fantastic. Would you mind if I copied a bit and put it on Facebook? It really highlights to me the lack of a credible alternative from the Brexit campaign. I am very much in the remain campaign but find it is often scaremongering rather than clear thinking and concise.
In all conversations I have had with Brexit campaign I still haven't heard a valid argument about the benefits of leaving other than emotive terms like 'freedom to do what we want'. Like what? What would we do differently?

positivity

Feel free to share anything you like. It's only my view of the situation based on the knowledge that I have, and time might prove me completely wrong.

But if nothing else, hopefully it's useful for at least pointing out some of the things we should be thinking about.

"
In all conversations I have had with Brexit campaign I still haven't heard a valid argument about the benefits of leaving other than emotive terms like 'freedom to do what we want'. Like what? What would we do differently?"

Conversely I have seen very little from the remain campaign when asked what the EU will look like in 10-15 years time.

Pan

I think they know what it is likely to look like but would rather not acknowledge it.

Buttered Your massively long post was great and summed up a lot of the issues.