Why can’t we go back to how it was before we joined the EU?

[EleanorLavish]

I will readily admit that what I know about politics/EU/Imports&Exports/trade in general is pretty non existent.
However, when they are talking about trying to sort these new trade deals, why can’t we go back to a similar system that was in place before we were in the EU? I mean, we were alone for a long time doing our own thing, why can’t we do that again?
I do realise that a trade deal is complex and takes considerable time to iron out etc, but the template from before wouldn’t that still be workable?
Sorry if this is a totally stupid question! I need a ‘Brexit for dummies’ thread.

www.dummies.com/education/politics-government/what-is-brexit/

We can and it looks like we will. But there are consequences of this.

The major problem is the world has changed a lot since the 70s. A good example is much of our manufacturing is based on a Just In Time model, where the parts used in assembly arrive just when they are needed. A car factory might only have a few hours worth of parts. We hard border checks, then arriving lorries will spend hours or days waiting in customs.

In the short term we have huge issues because we have lost competence in a number of areas, you can read my post about aerospace. www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/3311553-Brexit-and-the-British-Aerospace-industry

But a major major issue for the UK is that we have got very good at supplying services. We have a huge trade surplus in services such as law, consultancy, banking, data, education etc. In the 70s this was far smaller.

Now even under the most optimistic scenario services will be excluded from any agreement so we will export far less of these services.

There was no social media then, no gaming. Shops didn't open on a Sunday, some closed on a Wednesday. High streets were vibrant but sold crap. Air travel was expensive. Three day weeks, strikes, power shortages. Three channels and you were posh if you had a colour TV. The threat of nuclear was was omnipresent. Need I go on?

Jolly good times indeed!

The developed world trades largely in blocs and they didn't prior to our joining the EU. For the UK to go back to the way it was, whilst everyone else (bar the WTO types like Venezuela etc) is like entering the world cup with a 1 person football team.

In practice it's worse than that as the UK's need to operate in a trading block is higher than it was, given the UK has a much lower self sustainability quotient than it used to (internally consumable goods creation v requirements). It's now very heavily dependent on services...which we can't eat () and which we depend on trading agreements to sell.

That's a very simplified starter. Manufacturing systems are also a very big deal. And you're not a dummy at all...if more people had asked sensible questions like this prior to the referendum then we wouldn't be awaiting our instructions from the government regarding stockpiling

Here's a good quite accessible report from the government which helps understand the enormity of the food issue:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/food-statistics-pocketbook-2017/food-statistics-in-your-pocket-2017-global-and-uk-supply#origins-of-food-consumed-in-the-uk-2016

The world has changed beyond recognition since the 70s. Whether that's good or bad is beside the point. Systems that worked then wouldn't work now, world population has massively increased, international relations are increasingly more complex and countries are more than ever interdependent. Sovereignty as it existed then no longer does and we are faced with a myriad GLOBAL problems that can't be effectively addressed by single nations.

Brexit is ill-designed for today's world unless the whole world turns back the clock and all major powers turn their back on global or multi-nation organisations. There would be the rise of nationalism everywhere and in the context of environmental and energy crises it would be an extremely volatile and dangerous world. I believe that's actually what the alt-right is trying to push for.

Because ...
EU citizens & UK citizens developed reciprocal pension rights
Norn had some 'troubles' with a controlled border
Supply chains are super complicated, now.

Some geezer was on Radio this morning (R4 or 5) saying "Only 8% of our businesses export to EU!" This is SUPER disingenous. What happens is
Businesses A-F don't export but require imported raw materials partly from EU to make products bought up by businesses G-H.

G-H DO export heavily to EU.
G-H are probably >8% of value of local economy (since big enough to export).
Businesses I-P don't import or export, but they also make products used by businesses G-H.

Businesses Q-T (eg., lunchtime baguette makers, tattoo artists) minimally import and don't export but the workers of businesses A-P buy lunch and other consumables & services from Q-T.

Businesses U-Z don't have direct trade with G-H, either, and may import only some parts from outside EU & not export, but they sell services and products to rest of community, where folk are employed by businesses A-T.

G-H are only 8% of enterprises, but If businesses G-H suffer, everyone will feel ripple effects.

Well we probably will... People don't want to though. It would be better of we could arrange a trade deal but they are very difficult to negotiate as a non eu country and there isn't any precedent for a brexit scenario. Then there are other factors to consider. If the EU grants Britain a good enough trade deal to accept then this will encourage other countries to leave. The EU was always a pracarious enterprise, after recent scandals it would be potential worse for the EU to five Britain an easy brexit than to loose out economically because they refused to do a deal that Britain would accept. You have to understand that political institutions and political actions are rarely undertaken entirely for the benefit of the people it claims to serve. The data of politicians who see themselves purely as public sercabrs is sadly over.

Ah, ok. Thank you, that all makes sense. Enjoyed the links too.

Why can’t we go back to how things were before we joined the EU when its original members were enjoying strong economic growth whilst ours was lagging behind and our beaches were covered in actual shit ?

We probably can.

Except:

1. The EU is now even bigger and more important than it was before we joined.

1. We need to start doing all kinds of things we haven’t needed to do for the last 40 years, such as reintroducing customs checks for European imports and exports and negotiating all our own trade deals, and as things stand we are set to leave the EU without any of that in place. Hell, at the moment we are set to leave the EU with no agreement in place that will let our planes take off and land.

1. World trade is massively more complex than it was before, so no, we don’t have “template” trade deals covering things like e-commerce or financial services passporting. Huge parts of our economy are based on things which didn’t even exist before we joined the EU, such as the internet.

1. Why would we want to? Things were not better before. This is just rose-tinted baby boomer nostalgia for a golden past that never really existed.

We could only rewind to the 1970s if all the rest of the international trading treaties between all the other countries in the world also got cancelled. The whole world has moved on massively and we are about to find out how little our island is.

I think it’s a really good question and one I hope lots of people ask and find the answers you’ve had on this thread.

The saddest thing is that over the years the UK had produced some great innovators and been part of achieving great things. Brexit will pull the carpet from under these by making inward investment more difficult and research grants more difficult to come by. Other countries will not invest serious cash in a country that has demonstrated such utter stupidity.

Also, my MIL was here at the weekend and talked about how hard it was when she was bringing up here children. Scrimping, saving, not able to get things. I went to see my granny as well who lived through rationing and described the deprivation. One of the things that made them both the saddest was that they believed we would always move forwards. That their children and grandchildren and great grandchildren would have better lives and greater prosperity. My MIL is so worried for our children’s future. She is so angry at the people who want to move backwards instead of making progress. It was really interesting to hear both of them talking, no rose tinted spectacles but the reality of what life was like and why they don’t want it to be that way again.

We joined the EEC as the "sick man of Europe", having wasted the Marshall Aid (of which the UK was the largest recipient) on trying to hold on to its empire rather than build for the future.

We had to go to the IMF for a loan and devalue the £ in the mid 70s.

We then made the most of our membership of the EEC/Common Market/EU and the revenue from North Sea oil to become the 5th biggest economy in the world (and build up the South East at the expense of the rest of the UK).

We've already slipped down to 6th and are now growing at the lowest rate in the EU (iirc, equal bottom with Italy) - and we haven't even left yet

So yes, I suppose we could indeed go back to before we joined the EEC . Sky high unemployment, low growth, high interest rates.....

And that's before you even factor in that the world has changed since the 70s. A globalised world economy, e-commerce, a UK service economy, JIT manufacture, climate change concerns.....

Dwindling stocks of good quality coal and difficult to mine iron ore without serious investment in better machinery saw off the industries that we had been good at. If more had been invested there, and enhanced those areas, the North and the South West perhaps for copper and tin rather than shiny offices for the South East would have put the UK in a better place.

We didn't join the EU, we joined the common market, which was an entirely different animal at the time. Both my late parents voted yes - I wonder which way they would have voted in the 1970's had they known how it would all pan out.
They didn't know the implications of what they were voting for; their main reason for joining was that they thought it was a good way of keeping an eye on the Germans - just in case. WW2 was still fresh in their minds.

Also remember that in the 70s the UK was known as the 'sick man of Europe'. There's a reason why we have become vastly richer since joining the world's biggest trading bloc...

The UK traded with their minions - commonwealth countries - back in the day. Many of those countries were left high and dry when the UK joined the EU, and rushed to form other trading partnerships.

And now those 'new' partnerships make a lot more geographic sense.

The linear nature of time.

Although my timeline is foggy, in the '70s British car manufacturing produced the likes of the 'Marina'. The Japanese started exporting Datsuns to the UK. Both were pretty crap. The Japanese recognised the problems and went away to solve them investing heavily in new machinery and design. The British did not invest but had industrial unrest and 'backwards thinking'. That attitude is, or at least was present throughout British industry.

The best answer goes to @SquishySquirmy

Very good question Eleanor. The answers will be interesting.

Talking of Datsuns and the Japanese - I recall my brother wanting to buy a motorbike back in the late 60s/early 70s. The Japanese were already moving into the small model end of the market but we still made higher quality larger machines. Where is the British Motor Bike industry now?

(BTW I don't remember what he bought - but I think it might have been Japanese.)