At the first meeting of our local People’s Vote group I suggested that our regional centre should provide a faq list. My concern was that we should be prepared for the kind of questions we’ll be asked and that we should be clear and consistent about the message. This is what was provided:
“Brexit FAQs
Is a People’s Vote not just a rerun of the 2016 EU Referendum?
No, it’s not. The People’s Vote accepts the result of the 2016 referendum despite it’s obvious shortcomings and in accuracies on both sides but, primarily, the Leave side. However, that is history now and both time and events have moved on and the reality of what Brexit will mean both now and in the future becomes clearer with every passing day.
The decision on Brexit is by far the single largest decision facing the UK since World War 2 and will have a major effect on the economy, jobs, public services including the NHS, security, agriculture and virtually every aspect of our lives. As that evidence emerges the People’s Vote believes that the people should be able to consider that evidence and come to a reasoned decision as to whether the Brexit deal is in their and the country’s best interests.
There is both quantified and anecdotal evidence suggesting that public opinion is moving away from Brexit as people see the reality of what it will mean. To claim that to recognise this and allow the people to express their view on it is undemocratic could not be further from the truth. Those who oppose a People’s Vote are the anti democrats for as David Davis, former Secretary for Exiting the EU said, “In a democracy you can change your mind. If you can’t you don’t have a democracy”.
Is it not undemocratic when the “will of the people” has already been established?
The 2016 referendum determined that Britain should set about negotiating the country’s departure from the EU and the People’s Vote campaign respects that decision.
However, the terms on which we leave, and Britain’s future relationship with the EU, were never formulated or put to the public in 2016 and much more information and new facts have come to light about Brexit since then that could never have been known at the time.
We now know that promises made about Brexit, like more £350m a week extra for our NHS and getting a deal with the ‘exact same benefits’, won’t be kept. In fact, if we leave we will have to pay a £40 billion divorce bill in return for a much worse relationship.
The Brexit process is a mess and the negotiations are going badly, which makes it more likely that we will get a bad deal. Given all this, it doesn’t seem right to tell people, as the Government is doing, that the public should just accept without question whatever version of Brexit they come back with. That is what is undemocratic.
How do the Leave campaign’s claims at the time of the referendum stand up to critical examination?
The Leave campaign was based on two main claims. Firstly that we send £350 million to the EU every week to the EU and, secondly, that there were over 8 million Turks waiting to come in to the UK.
The £350 million to the NHS, which is still cited by Boris Johnson, is misleading to say the least, perhaps deliberately so. In fact, the independent UK Statistics Authority wrote to him calling it a “clear misuse of official statistics”. It is misleading because it doesn’t take into account the money we get back from the EU in the form of our UK rebate, or the huge amount we receive in investment in the UK through EU funds.
In 2016 our contribution to the EU budget was £18.9bn. However, we got £5bn of this back in the UK rebate and we also received an additional £5.6bn of EU funds in the form of both public and private investment. The actual net amount we sent to the EU in 2016 was £8.1bn, which worked out at £156m a week. And the reality is that as an EU member state the UK controls more than 98% of its public expenditure.
Not only that our contribution to the EU should be weighed against the wider financial benefits it results in. The Confederation of British Industry estimates that EU membership is worth £3,000 a year to every British family — a return of nearly £10 for each £1 we pay in.
As far as the claim that 8 million Turks were about to come to the UK this was quickly dropped immediately after the referendum and is now totally discredited. Given the current political situation in Turkey, no EU member state wants it to join, meaning it simply cannot happen.
Notwithstanding that there is enlargement fatigue across the EU, and no significant appetite for other countries to join the club. In any case, all existing countries, including the UK, have a veto over whether any other countries should join.
Can Article 50 whereby we have given notice to leave the EU be rescinded or is it a done deal?
Not being able to rescind Article 50 is a myth peddled by the Government to give the impression that we could not change our minds and is completey untrue. The architect of Article 50, the British peer Lord Kerr, is clear that revoking the notification to leave the EU is entirely up to us.
And key European leaders have said that we can change our minds:
• Emmanuel Macron, President of France, said in January: “I do respect this vote, I do regret this vote, and I would love to welcome you again.”
• Donald Tusk, European Council president, said in January that Europeans’ “hearts are still open” to “our British friends” to remain in the EU.
• Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, told MEPs in January: “If the British people, the British parliament, the British government, wish for another way than Brexit, we would be prepared to discuss it. We are not throwing out the British, we want them to stay.”
• Antonio Tajani, President of the European Parliament says: “If the UK wanted to stay, everybody would be in favour. I would be very happy.”
• Leo Varadkar, Irish Taoiseach says: “The door remains open for the UK to stay in the European Union.”
Is there enough time to hold a People’s Vote before we leave the EU?
It depends when Parliament passes the legislation. It would of course make sense to do this sooner rather than later, and that is what we are campaigning for.
But if necessary, Article 50 could be extended to allow for more time to ensure a People’s Vote could take place. This is perfectly possible. A request would need to be made by the Government and agreed by the EU27. All the indications from Europe are that an extension of Article 50 to allow us more time to go through our domestic democratic processes and legislate for and hold a People’s Vote would be looked upon favourably.
To what extent can we control immigration if we stay in the EU?
Yes we can. And there are many more things we could have done and can continue to do under EU law.
First, we could apply the existing rules that the Government currently chooses not to. For example, EU nationals who have been unable to find a job after six months could be expelled, as they are in Belgium and several other EU countries. We could also require EU nationals coming here to register. Both of these elements which are permissible under EU law the Government, including Theresa May when she was Home Secretary, has chosen not to do!
There is nothing in EU law giving recent migrants without a job the right to things like housing benefit or income support. The UK could move more benefits into this category. The UK could also reintroduce the Migration Impacts Fund, which was scrapped in 2010, to channel more resources to parts of the country which have experienced high levels of immigration.
Recent reform of the Posted Workers Directive, to prevent workers posted to other EU countries from undercutting local wages, show there is a big appetite for reform. We could be working with like-minded countries to push for further reform from inside the EU.
What effect has EU migration had on UK wages and public services?
Wages have been stagnating – but that is because of Brexit, and the legacy of the 2008 global financial crisis. There is very little evidence to support the argument immigration dramatically affects the wages and job prospects of UK-born workers.
EU immigrants pay more in taxes than they take out in welfare and the use of public services, and their consumption of goods and services increases demand and thereby helps to create more employment opportunities.1
Brexiters often cite a 2015 study by the Bank of England as proof that EU migration exerts downward pressure on wages. But the author of the report has recently clarified that the negative impact is “infinitesimally small” and that his findings have been widely misrepresented.
As a study from the well-respected London School of Economics has shown, immigrants come here and buy our products and our services – good for our economy and good for our growth. .
What is the impact of EU immigration on the UK’s economy?
EU migrants pay more in taxes than they take out in welfare and use of public services to the tune of £1.34 paid in for every £1.00 taken out compared to 98p paid in by non EU immigrants for every £1.00 taken out. Non EU immigration is already increasing whilst that from the EU is decreasing meaning that the financial pressures on the exchequer are increasing not declining.
What influence does the UK have as a member of the EU with regards to new countries joining?
Any ‘European’ country who fulfils the EU criteria of membership can apply to join the EU. Membership criteria are known as the Copenhagen criteria. These include ‘a free-market economy, a stable democracy and the rule of law, and the acceptance of all EU legislation.
A country wishing to join the EU submits a membership application to the European Council, which asks the European Commission to assess whether the applicant can meet the Copenhagen criteria. If the Commission thinks so, the European Council agrees on a framework for negotiations with the candidate country. Membership negotiations cannot start until all EU governments agree. Therefore the UK has the absolute right to oppose the joining of a new country if it so wishes.
Does being in the EU restrict our ability to enter into trade deals with the rest of the world?
If we quit the EU and don’t negotiate any special deal with our former partners, we would have to rely on our WTO membership to secure access to the single market. Advocates of this approach often argue that the EU is growing much less rapidly than other parts of the world – such as the “Brics” (Brazil, Russia, India and China). They also say that being in the EU makes it harder for us to trade with these markets because we have shut off their imports behind the EU’s tariff barriers. That artificially diverts our trade into the EU and away from other countries. A variation on the theme is that, if we quit the EU, we would regain a glorious period of trade with Commonwealth nations, many of which are now growing rapidly.
There is much that is wrong or muddled in these arguments. For a start, EU membership hasn’t artificially diverted much trade away from other countries: the Treasury has estimated it diverted only 4% of our trade with non-EU countries. What’s more, the EU’s trade-weighted tariff barrier is 1%. It could and should be lower. But, in most industries, tariffs are no longer the main obstacle to trade.
EU membership does not prevent us trading with other countries. It certainly doesn’t stop Germany. Its exports to China are three times as large as ours. And even though some Brics are growing faster than the EU, that’s hardly a good reason to jettison a market that is responsible for 44% of our exports and more than half of our imports. UK sales to the Brics were only 7.2% of our total exports in 2014. Even if we tripled those, that would make up for the loss of less than a third of our EU exports. What’s more, two of the Brics (Brazil and Russia) are struggling economically while all of them are hard to make money in because of corruption. The sensible strategy is not an either/or one but to trade with both the EU and the rest of the world.
It’s not even clear that a Britain outside the EU would be more open to trade with the rest of the world than it is today. True, some eurosceptic free-marketeers would want us to throw open our markets to all-comers. But many companies would argue that they would then be facing unfair competition and that we should only open our markets if others opened theirs. They might even press for barriers to be raised. Meanwhile, those dreaming that we could somehow reconstruct the trading patterns of the British Empire via the Commonwealth are being romantic. Of course, we should boost trade with Australia, Nigeria, New Zealand, Pakistan, Canada, Bangladesh and so forth. But they do not form a single trading bloc. They all have their own strategies based on maximising trade, often in their back yard. They wouldn’t just open their arms and give us priority because we have quit the EU especially as our colonial heritage may be of mixed benefit in some of the former Empire countries.” continued