Brexit consequences

[Spinflight]

Can't find the old one, despite a search. Hence a year on...

I started it to compare the doom and gloom predictions from people who should know better, especially the treasury, to actual observable facts.

Thus far the treasury predicted our borrowing costs would soar by over 130 points. In fact they're down about 100.

No trade deals possible before (I forget the date they said, was far in the future though) compared to actual negotiations beginning with the USA later this month with the president firmly behind them. Canada, New Zealand, Australia, India, South Korea and several others I've forgotten have shown a great desire for a deal quickly.

Ftse 100 and 250 are well up, just shy of 7500.

Best of all from a macro economic perspective is inflation touching 3%. When you are £1800 billion in debt rating that away with inflation is far preferable to actually paying it off.

Growth has dropped a bit, though nowhere near the instant recession that was predicted. Bit early to say though this is likely due to the referendum.

External investment is actually nicely up, with several major companies announcing various large commitments.

Things could be rosier, though it would be a struggle to describe them generally as bad, quite contrary to 'informed' opinions. Even the oecd recently ate their pre referendum words.

Squishy
You say

“Low tax? It will take more than just low tax to make British manufacturing on a big scale competitive again. China's costs may be rising, but that is more likely to drive manufacturing to even cheaper countries, not more developed ones. Automation is being increasingly used, but this is world wide. In my opinion, the countries most likely to grow their economy are the ones investing in science, technology and infrastructure, not the ones paying lip service to reviving past glories of manufacturing. Almost everyone involved in British science and technology have expressed very grave concerns over Brexit.”

1. What is known as ‘re-shoring’ where business comes back home, has been going on for years here under a Conservative low tax government – after a Labour government clearly not ideologically able to help businesses, even when struggling under a strong Pound, kept piling ever more taxes and regulation upon them – putting UP their cost of doing business, RESULTING in either closures, or companies/invest/jobs moving overseas.

1. On science, technology and infrastructure, shall we COMPARE the investment in those sectors under a high spending and new debt Labour government of 13-years choices of investment, to a Conservative governments that inherited a busted economy, busted banks still not able to lend enough, and a busted government deficit, yet still attracted large private investors – please name the big road, rail, power station, or anything else infrastructure projects related under the last Labour government?

1. The UK is leaving the EU, and this government has already said (below) that they will look to cover the financial costs of EU spending in the UK (using our own money), with help from the £10-13 billion a year NET contribution we make to the UK – whereas Labour aspires to using new ‘investment’ money from borrowing and taxation, to nationalise rail, mail, electricity and gas – so WHICH party is trying to relive past “glories” and which government has the vision that looks forward?

“Britain will cover cost of billions in EU subsidies for farming, science and deprived areas after Brexit, Chancellor announces”

Current Labour thinks a UK with £trillions of national debt, can borrow more for Old Labour kind of growth, and completely ignores the much bigger pockets of the Private Sector, who he despises - beterr known as the Road to Greece.

abilockart

Re the continual misinformation mantra the left hope if they often enough, everyone will believe it;
“Similarly, the price of a trade deal with the US will be the opening health services in the UK to US companies, i.e. privatisation of the NHS.”

Forget why any UK government could sell a state health service (as that is the only way it could happen), why do you think the U.S. government or a U.S. company (or companies) WANT at a massive cost the UK State health services with 1.5 million workers, is there already huge demand for the small NHS contracts a much tighter on terms Conservative government offers out for tender – or is this an old TTIP scare story (on negotiated terms never released), that I thought was cancelled by America?

Or maybe you are clearly getting the ‘privatisation’ RECORD of the political parties mixed up?

• It was Labour with the 2000 NHS Act that opened up the NHS to the competition of private sector health care (and NHS staff better options), that DID take the easier treatments, often with huge tent or mobile treatment centres on hospital premises - and left the NHS with the more complex ones.

• It Labour that signed all those highly profitable Private Finance Initiative contracts with the Private Sector, worth up to £222 billion, many with huge profit margins.

So as long as a Conservative government is in place, those pesky American won’t get our NHS.

As stated already in this thread - The Tory government has already started privatising our NHS. Your insistence in the face of the facts that they won't simply shows your desperation to lie in order to further your non argument.

You keep trying to make this into a left vs right, a Labour vs Conservative thing Thea. Plenty of Conservatives were remainers, and plenty of Conservatives think that a hard Brexit (never mind a no deal) would be very damaging to business. The ideological pursuit of a hard Brexit at all costs is a very anti-business stance to take.

CardinalSin

Are you joshing supplying a 2011 link on what plans to put out to tender a few small area of the NHS that can be done cheaper externally - so re an NHS spending what, around £100 bil a year, how many billions do you show were 'privatised' each year by the Conservatives until now - as its called a record, not a mantra - and Labour's record over 13-years, sucks a big one.

Squishy

Repeat after me, there IS NO SOFT Brexit if we eave the Single Market, as EU rules say we have to if controlling borders.

So making up names for the extent of what is 'A' Brexit for political reasons, helps no one in the UK, only Brussels.

No one wants 'no deal', but it is a negotiating tactic that many who have never negotiated their way out of a paper bag, especially opposition MPs, want to deny the government - again helping Brussels - making the possibility of no deal versus a very bad deal, self fulfilling.

P.S. Was that Brexit 'no deal' a deflection rather than answer my three points above, showing your early post was seven days to Sunday rollocks - or are you going to come up with a reply?

I shouldn't have used the term "hard Brexit" because the terms "hard" and "soft" are stupid ones and imply a much more binary choice than there is in reality. There are choices to be made about what both sides will prioritise in a deal, as neither side will get everything they want.

"No one wants 'no deal', but it is a negotiating tactic..." Right, so we pretend we will be willing to walk when in actual fact we know as much as they do that this would be disastruous. And because this is a highly complex international trade deal, rather than a haggle at a market stall, both sides will know this. So this sort of stance only works if the EU believes we are stupid enough (ie incredibly, astoundingly stupid) to walk with no deal. So the UK Brexit team would have to convince them that they really are that stupid for this cunning ruse to work....
......Hang on.....
^^
That's what they've been doing???!!?

PS: The three points you made above have nothing to do with Brexit, they are to do with the differences between Labour and Tory governments; except for point 3, which I would bloody well hope they will do no matter what deal we get, but which I will believe when I see it. And the benefits that the EU has brought to the science and technology industry are about much, much more than just investment.

No, Thea, I posted a link to show where the Tories have allowed for NHS facilities to be used for up to 49% Private patients. A precursor to winding them down, as they have been doing, in order to tell us how inefficient they are and therefore how much better they would be in private hands. Saint Nigel of Farage has repeatedly stated that he thinks we should have an insurance based system like the US because then he and his cronies could make a fortune out of it Man Of The People My Arse and many Tories have similar opinions. And, despite you repeatedly denying it for no reason, any idiot can see that it will almost certainly be part of any deal that we are desperate enough to make with the US, particularly if Trump is still in power.

I realise you're not from Brexit towers, but CCO instead, but your attempts to twist everything to an anti Labour stance, when their stance on Brexit is obviously deliberately evasive, is rather bizarre...

Thea you keep saying there is no chance of a soft Brexit. Of course there could be a "soft" (for want of a better word) Brexit if the government decide sensibly that it's not worth sacrificing the economy for what is likely to be a very minimal reduction in immigration. There was no mention of border control on the referendum ballot paper. TM's failure to win a majority after banging on about controlling borders after brexit means there is no mandate for her vision of Brexit.

People may well have wanted more control over borders, but that was when they believed Boris and his cake and eat it approach. Most people did not vote to reduce immigration at the expense of making themselves poorer.

You keep trying to make this into a left vs right, a Labour vs Conservative thing Thea. Plenty of Conservatives were remainers, and plenty of Conservatives think that a hard Brexit (never mind a no deal) would be very damaging to business.

This. I work for a large UK listed company. Many of my management colleagues are Tory voters. None of voted to leave. All would support a "soft" (Norway model) brexit, if we have to have brexit at all. (Personally I still think this government will prove incapable of delivering any brexit, hard or soft, pink or blue, unicorns or no unicorns - leaving the EU will be hard and this government is manifestly not up to the job).

As an aside, it is very curious, this "no such thing as a soft brexit" meme - especially as I suspect that many of the people pushing this line campaigned actively in the referendum on the basis that brexit did not mean leaving the single market and therefore wouldn't affect trade, EU citizens, Brits in the EU, etc.

Motherof4, theres no legislating for human errors. Errors occur just as much on union goods as they do on non.

Squishy, youre still not grasping the mechanism. Hauliers, drivers, import/export companies, customs staff know exactly what the procedures are. There are no changes to 'procedures' merely classifications of goods and whatever tariffs may apply.

They use existing tariffs, UNLESS, an agreement is made to create new ones for some new trading arrangement agreed post brexit between the UK and EU. Even if a new tariff is agreed, by all 27 member states (though historically Germany will get its way, something to do with holding the reins on EU member nations debt) of say one of £0, or £1 or whatever, its merely added to the existing commodity tariffs and sytems.

Let me try another example. UK meat. The vast amount of meat sold by the UK, is actually sourced from places like Argentina, etc. The vast amount of chickens sold by the EU to the UK, comes from Brazil. The originating suppliers already have EU approved certificates of production.

The meat itself, will be shipped from Argentina into Rotterdam. If its been sold to Spain, thats where it heads, doesnt come anywhere near the UK. Spanish buyer pays the UK. Just reversing re my chickens example. Poland or France, sells us chickens. Theyre sent from Brazil to Hamburg. Then delivered to the UK. We pay Poland. Said chicken doesnt go anywhere near Poland.

The majority of trade is done this way, not, British tap bloke makes a tap, sells a tap to Germany and gets in a mess over his shipping and customs cause hes never done it before.

I'll just leave this here...

"Hauliers, drivers, import/export companies, customs staff know exactly what the procedures are."

Yes, they do at the moment, because they are simpler than they have ever been.

However, come this "no deal is better than a bad deal" crash out of the EU, they will not know what the procedures are. Neither will the customs people either side of the channel. It's frankly ridiculous to assume that it will all be fine when people a) don't know how much longer it will take their goods to arrive, and b) how much more it will cost.

Cardinal, the Guardian? Really? Even staunch remainers on here know better than to spout Guardian rubbish as 'intelligent' argument. Its the Remainers Daily Mail.

The rest has just been utterly wasted on you. Crack on.

Yes, because the Telegaph and the Time are so unrelentingly neutral

I guess you didn't actually read the article...

There are many gaps in the theory that the UK will have an economy post Brexit.

Wrt the NHS, I can foresee a fire sale, because the promised billions that the government talks about, that are to be pumped back in to 'the economy' instead of to Brussels, are going to have to come from somewhere.

The privatised NHS services are apparently hugely profitable.
The UK will be a low tax and low regulation haven.
The UK will be broke and desperate.

Hauliers, drivers, import/export companies, customs staff know exactly what the procedures are.

Indeed they do. This is why haulage companies have been among the most vocal regarding staying in the single marker. It's why my large exporter employer is quietly building a new factory in eastern Europe, inside the EU.

Once brexiters start going on about tariffs you know that they have missed the point. It's non tariff barriers that will screw us. Veterinary checks. Phytosanitary checks. Rules of origin. Regulatory issues. Inadequate infrastructure at ports (on both sides of the channel) for holding and checking consignments.

I started to think last budget day that brexit was never intended to happen, because there was no provision for the large infrastructure spending that will be needed. Now I think it'll either not happen at all or it'll be a catastrophic "crash out" brexit. This govt is incapable of delivering brexit and Labour are no better.

Here you go, a Financial Times article for you. You can't accuse them of a lefty, anti-business bias surely?
www.ft.com/content/2ec71ab4-688a-11e7-8526-7b38dcaef614?mhq5j=e3#comments

How ‘no deal’ could bring Britain to a halt

Food and drink, air travel and orchestras among those hit by worst-case Brexit scenario

Failure to agree a post Brexit transitional agreement between the EU and UK could see cross Channel trade grind to a halt.
Imagine the scenario. It has just turned midnight on 29 March 2019, and the Spirit of Britain ferry carrying a fleet of freight vehicles docks at the port of Calais. But instead of driving straight on to the motorway with no checks, the first lorry is stopped at a French customs post. For the driver and those behind him, it is not a happy experience.

The driver is now required to pay VAT on the goods in his truck, as well as import duties. Worse, the truck is carrying a consignment of lamb, and “food of animal origin” can only be imported into France from a non-EU country via a registered border inspection post. Calais is not one of these so after lengthy negotiations he is told to return home.

Back home, the skies are also quieter. As Britain has that day fallen out of the European open skies agreement and has not agreed access as a so-called third country, only domestic and non-EU flights can depart and land from British airports.

This is a scenario which would apply if the UK crashes out of the EU without a deal and on antagonistic terms with Brussels. It represents the worst case outcome in which the EU applies its standard rules to non-EU countries and does not agree to transitional arrangements to minimise disruption.

David Davis, the UK’s Brexit secretary, has expressed confidence that Britain will strike a deal with the EU which would provide a smooth path to new arrangements with Brussels rather than a disruptive change.

However, a no deal scenario would be disruptive because of the laws governing Britain’s relationship with the EU would cease immediately. “Calling it a legal vacuum would be underplaying where we would be,” says Malcolm Barr, economist at JPMorgan. “I think there would be a significant contraction in GDP.”

How a ‘no deal’ will hit industry

food and drink
Problem Supply chains are extremely efficient, enabling almost a third of food in UK supermarkets to be imported from the EU and on to the shelves within two days. Any import delays would lead to food shortages.

Industry comment “There would be short-term disruption to food supply and it would be significant. Nobody is saying the country goes hungry, but there would be massive disruption”
Ian Wright, director-general, Food and Drink Federation

Road hauliers
Problem Existing ports have insufficient facilities and staff to cope with the imposition of new customs inspections, duties, VAT collection and assessment of conformity of goods with EU regulations

Industry comment “We expect that movements will rapidly grind to a halt as vehicles back up waiting to be processed by customs authorities”
Road Haulage Association spokesman

Ports and airports
Problem A lack of facilities, staff and physical infrastructure to deal with onerous new customs checks causes delays and rapidly leads to queues and backlogs.

Industry comment “Don’t let it happen. A cliff-edge scenario is entirely avoidable. It would be a colossal failure of leadership on all parties to the negotiation”
John Holland Kaye, Heathrow airport chief executive

Aviation
Problem Air traffic requires agreements from the EU to land in their territories and Britain will have fallen out of the European Open Skies regime. It will also cease to be a member of the European Aviation Safety Agency controlling authorisation of third country operations. Flights to the EU cease.

Industry comment “There is not a legal mechanism in which the airlines can operate in a hard Brexit no deal outcome”
Michael O’Leary, Ryanair chief executive

Chemicals
Problem Exports and imports under the EU’s so-called Reach regulations, which cover most chemicals, would cease by law. These range from heavy industrial chemicals to the products that are ingredients in toothpaste and shampoo.

Industry comment “It’s not the tariffs that would hurt . . . Technically, we would be excluded from the marketplace and that would be pretty catastrophic”
Steve Elliott, chief executive of Chemicals Industry Association

Orchestras
Problem Orchestra tours to the EU, which are used to raise money to keep UK operations going, rely on the EU posted worker directive to ensure taxes and social security is not deducted from musicians fees abroad. This would cease immediately.

Industry comment ”If in March 2019 we leave the single market, the next day an orchestra can no longer apply to HMRC for an A1 certificate, so they would get social security deducted from the fee to the orchestra on a tour in Europe. A tour goes from breaking even to making a loss”
Mark Pemberton, director of the Association of British Orchestras

Automotive
Problem Tariffs and port delays plus the difficulties of chemicals imports undermine the just in time business models of UK automotive manufacturing.

Industry comment “Our biggest fear is that . . . we fall off a cliff edge — no deal. This would undermine our competitiveness and our ability to attract the investment that is critical to future growth”
Mike Hawes, chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders

Medicines
Problem All medicines legally marketed in the EU must be licensed in a member state of the union. Well over a thousand medicines will need to have their licences moved from the UK

I saw that FT article yesterday and thought of this thread. Good explanation of the probable issues.

Comparing the Guardian to the Mule shows a new level of hysterical desperation!

Anyway, more joy from the Independent...

Comparing the Guardian to the Mule shows a new level of hysterical desperation!

Au contraire - I think its a fairly common view outside of the Guardian bubble (and I'm not including the Guardian's own comment section in that) and some parts of MN land.

That would be typical of Brexiteers desperately trying to dismiss any opinion that counteracts theirs, however valid, or researched, or (heaven forbid) by experts...

Gosh, what a mature, open-minded response. You do know, don't you Sin that reading the Guardian doesn't make someone an intellectual, that there are plenty of intellectuals who despise the Guardian and that there are even - you might want to sit down for this one - some remainers who don't like the Guardian?

Let's keep it simple though shall we, we don't want to stretch our minds too much: All leave voters hate experts, don't read (and certainly no-one with different opinions to them), research, analyse or question and are, essentially, a bit thick