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.

And in yet more good Brexit news, we can look forward to carcinagenic milk!

Yeah, TTIP, GM Foods, everything else the 'nay sayers' make up is definitely going to happen after Brexit in 2-5 years time - what crystal balls they have.

CardinalSin

In a direct response to one of your near daily inaccurate sweeping statements e.g. ”It is not their problem that we have virtually no trumps in our negotiating hand, and absolutely no ability to conduct any useful negotiation.” - I gave a list of several key cards in the UK’s negotiating hand, and your reply was;

” Thea, I really CBA to pick apart all your spurious "points", because they are not actually points, but twisted attempts to equate things that are not equal (hence apples and oranges - think about it). And that's when they are actually related to the subject, which most of them aren't - they are carefully pared down "statistics", claiming that because our economy was better than some of the other EU economies, that we, through some mystical force, have bargaining power on what they allow us to do now that we have told them we don't want anything to do with them.”

Is that YOUR perfect example of what you often critically refer to, as other posters “soup”?

I gave you UK negotiating non waffled factual points that our negotiators have when negotiating with the EU negotiators, and that was your answer above mentioning our “mystical force”???

P.S. You could have more of your ‘soup’ on your recent lame coloured posters, as for what I can see, they could be your ingredients on shopping lists.

Mathsanxiety
I don’t know how many times that I have to answer your following criticism of me, but I will devote a whole post to the subject so that when in the future you are trying to disparage my input (or covering your waffle) by saying the same thing (yawn), I can either refer you here, or cut and paste it.

”Still confusing the Eurozone with the EU, I see.”

”No you have not explained why you constantly refer to that entity (which the UK is not leaving) in the context of a discussion on leaving the EU.”

I am fully aware of the difference between the -28- 27 EU member states and the Eurozone 19 member states under one currency, one interest rate, and ‘overseen’ by the European Central Bank.

The Eurozone members includes all the mature Western European economies, including the 6 Founder Members of the then Common Market (whatever), so not only are some of those within directly comparable in economic size and structure to the UK, but due to the ECB collating all their data, it is much easier to reference.

The EU members outside the Eurozone will always include smaller economies than the largest ones currently in the Eurozone, recent accession state members, and of course the UK – so comparing the UK with 28 country data that would INCLUDE the UK as one of its stronger memebers, is kinda dumb to me, unless I was a desperate Europhile.

But if every time in comparisons to the entity called the EU I mention the Eurozone (as that data is reliably collated and available), and provide the DATA for the Eurozone, feel free to find and provide any collated EU data for use in a debate.

This explanation is a little more detailed than what I provided for you before (when you were too busy criticising my English and grammar), so do you understand why I use Eurozone data now?

"I gave you UK negotiating non waffled factual points that our negotiators have when negotiating with the EU negotiators"

No, you went on about the supposed "strength" of our economy. That is in no way any kind of bargaining chip. Except in the delusions of the Brexiteers, obviously

Ha ha ha! Brexit caused by low levels of education...

Why not use data from New Zealand, if reliability of data is one of your reasons for using the Eurozone? It is good, solid data... Do I hear you gasp, 'But that would be absurd!'

There is data for individual countries, like the UK. You could compare it with data for similar economies. The Eurozone is not actually a good comparison because, as you keep on insisting, Greece/Spain/Portugal have issues that Germany/Netherlands/Luxembourg, do not. In fact, you use issues related to certain Eurozone countries as evidence that 'the EU' is a failed entity.

Mathsanxiety

This thread is about Brexit and mostly the Remainers inability to accept the evidence that the EU is increasingly a political concept, rather than an economic one, so when Remainers ignorantly try to diss the UK’s economic performance – why on earth would I compare the UK to a Commonwealth country we are about to get closer to, rather than the economic lemon we are leaving?

After all, it was the inability of similar sized economies in the EU to GROW their economies, especially those with tight labour laws, that caused (and would continue to do so) much larger citizen flows here to work, so in a western world now with low annual pay rises – how could a UK in the EU with a huge EU worker pool within another 450 million citizens, ever see (especially in the low and some medium skilled jobs) UK wages tighten.

And looking at some of these turn of the year EU unemployment rates, compared to the UK 4.8% (probably experiencing one of the larger annual inward EU worker flows) and on the understanding that all counties unemployment rates are probably lower now due the Euro trillions still being pumped in, there was a highly unimpressive;

Germany 3.9%,

France 9.6%,

Italy 12%,

Spain 18.4%

Luxembourg 6.3%
Belgium 7.6%
Demark 6.2%
Netherlands 5.4%
Sweden 6.9%

Maths; So as per your specific request and looking at similar sized EU economies to the UK (with our jobless rate the lowest since the 1970’s), unlike similar sized France and Italy, how do you explain their CURRENT much high overall unemployment rates, and much higher their youth unemployment rates since the last European recession?

P.S. On a recent answer I have yet to address, you put the UK near doubling of youth unemployment from 2004 to 2010 down to the UK education system and lack of European language skills – and as our youth unemployment rate has significantly fallen back to pre crash levels – the French youth unemployment rate is now around 21.6 and the Italian youth unemployment rate is around 37% - is that because of their education system, and lack of European language skills as well?

The fact was the EU was not 'working' for the UK, as the key largest EU countries restrictive labour laws discouraging private sector investment, protected the employed, over the interests of the increasing Eurozone unemployment - and we could no longer be an EU 'release valve for a policy few there want to change.'

Mistigri

Re your Full Fact myth challenge to my statement that the UK was outvoted more than anyone else in Europe with;

“Official EU voting records show that the British government has voted ‘No’ to laws passed at EU level on 56 occasions, abstained 70 times, and voted ‘Yes’ 2,466 times since 1999, according to UK in a Changing Europe Fellows Sara Hagemann and Simon Hix.”

”In other words, UK ministers were on the “winning side” 95% of the time, abstained 3% of the time, and were on the losing side 2%.”

I find it really curious that Europhiles constantly make, or twist stuff up, to fit their case, or maybe you forgot to read the basic SUMMARY within that research mentioned below within an ITV fact check link;

“According to fact-checking organisation Full Fact, Britain is outvoted more than any other EU country, but it still doesn’t happen very often.”

What is more telling on the current direction of the EU than the 2% losing voting record mentioned from 1999, is our losing record from

”But in recent years the UK has been more often on the losing side of these votes.”

”Between 2009 and 2015 the UK voted against the majority 12.3% of the time, compared to 2.6% of the time between 2004 and 2009.”

”That made it the country most likely to be on the losing side during the later period—the closest competitors were Germany and Austria, which were on the losing side 5.4% of the time.”

The fact is that an EU looking for ‘closer integration’ and more regulation, especially within the Eurozone, on several levels, from the military, finance, tax harmonisation, more ministers etc, is getting ever further away from the Common market the UK joined 40-odd years ago – and so would see the UK vote ‘against-the-wind’ on ever more EU policies, so for ALL concerned, especially the UK, we are best off OUT of it.

“European Union details its deeper integration, wants common finance minister and bundled euro zone debt”

Picking out short-term trends (2009-2015 is essentially the duration of a single UK parliament) is a technique known as cherry picking, used by the intellectually dishonest.

You could equally use that data to conclude that Labour-led governments have greater influence in Europe than Tory-led ones - but that would also be stretching the data too far.

the French youth unemployment rate is now around 21.6

Have to challenge this piece of economic and statistical illiteracy.

It is true that "youth unemployment" in France looks rather high if you simply measure the proportion of young people of working age who are not in employment. But this figure is inflated by the large number of young people in France still in full-time education (French students study longer and specialise later than in the UK).

Unemployment among young people in France who are seeking and available for work is estimated at around 9% (the comparable figure for the UK is somewhere between 7.5 and 8%, so lower than in France but not dramatically so).

You have an opinion about the EU being a political concept rather than an economic one that is not borne out by the facts. It can be both of course.

The UK will do a hard Brexit so that the libertarian agenda of the financiers of the Leave campaigns can be carried out. By the time they are finished with their capitalism run amok experiment, you are going to be on your knees praying for regulation, tight labour laws, and a properly enforced tax system.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/07/trump-out-in-year-usa-problems-just-beginning-paul-mason
As we watch it unfold from Britain, one parallel with our own situation becomes obvious. In both countries, an elite group has forced a proactive break with globalisation: “America first” and Brexit are both attempts to save national free-market projects at the expense of ditching multilateral systems and rules.

But once the external constraint is ditched, the modern right has this unresolved dilemma: the levels of economic freedom it wants always produce levels of discontent that require political freedom to be curtailed. The Brexit-boosting types here and the Steve Bannon types in the US share a fantasy about the kind of market-driven society they want to live in, but can see no way to achieve it other than through a period of chaos.

It is not 'ignorant' to 'diss' the UK's economic performance. It is silly to feel that a statement of fact requires the response of patriotic umbrage. You must not be keeping up with the latest reports showing the way inflation is beginning to bite growth. I am, and therefore I am well-informed.

&you put the UK near doubling of youth unemployment from 2004 to 2010 down to the UK education system and lack of European language skills
No, hun, I did not.
I asked why you felt that the EU offered nothing to the youth of Britain.

Here is our exchange of views:
Thea
In early 2004 the UK had 580,000 unemployed 16-24 year olds, which trended higher to 711,000 before the crash, and passing on to the Conservative coalition a still trending higher over 920,000, as the UK hired 2-3 million EU citizens, so where was the EU benefit to our young back then?

Math
What a pity the UK public by and large failed to understand that FOM works both ways.
It is a huge pity that successive UK governments have presided over grossly inequitable education systems that complacently watch as generation after generation a generous one third of school leavers are functionally illiterate even in English, and needless to say, they have no proficiency in modern foreign languages such as German.

Why were UK youth not equipped to travel for work in Germany, where business and industry can't fill apprenticeship places?

Mathsanxiety

Again with the complete and utter theoretical clap trap in an attempt to cover up the very real problems for UK citizens and their everyday lives from public services, housing and jobs from the 2000s, with the EU’s ‘Freedom of Movement’ that resulted in Brexit by Referendum – that would be made far worse if the UK unemployment rate instead of being around its current 4.5%, was closer to the average of Italy and France – the ‘price’ apparently of being fully signed up members to the EU Shanri-La-La land of politics/regulations first, prosperity for ALL second.

Any country attempting to Leave the EU will only ever BE Hard as we were told last year by senior EU big knobs that there is NO Soft option – and wanting to continually trade with Europe on THEIR (mutually advantageous) terms, while trading with the rest of the world without EU protectionist permission/restrictions – is neither ‘capitalism run amok’ nor ‘a proactive break with globalisation’.

‘Market driven societies’, over big state driven societies offering ‘the people’ birth to grave ideologically promises, yet can only keep dividing up a similar-to-shrinking sized pie, will always goes boobs up, with arguably the ‘balance’ of modern day China being the exceptions to that rule, but even that comes at a personal freedom price – and yet may have a government inspired debt crisis.

The UK youth unemployment growth from 2004 to 2010 as the UK government found work for 2-3 million citizens born outside the UK (especially in the then huge expansion of the UK Public Sector workforce), I will agree with you had a lot to do with our left wing teaching establishment enabled by a (anti-capitalist and anti-globalisation) Labour government dumbing down UK education – as did increasing benefits and so for low skilled workers, it often paid better NOT to work.

And clearly the ‘alternative’ harder left Labour government in waiting, will make those same mistakes as the last one, multiplied over.

But I don’t get your point on Germany, who since the 2nd World War chose to bring in a large number of workers from Turkey to fill their vacancies, and IF a huge amount of German vacancies existed from 2004 to 2010, why didn’t the other EU youths, including say those of Italy or France, fill them then as now???

In Conclusion; I constantly read on here ‘the problems’ with the UK after Brexit, including a fall in ‘real’ UK earnings, with no comparisons to the EU’s employment, unemployment, or real earnings data, which is clearly EU or Remainer propaganda – as the EU is in far worse shape on employment, and similar in the fall in real earnings, even with their employee ‘protections’ in place.

"In Conclusion"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

How mature.

Maybe I should have said 'In Fact', or 'Evidenced in this thread'.

You could write what you want, it doesn't defer from the nonsense you wrote above it...

Yes dear.

Thea
I take it you had some difficulty following what I C&Pd.

...if the UK unemployment rate instead of being around its current 4.5%, was closer to the average of Italy and France – the ‘price’ apparently of being fully signed up members to the EU Shanri-La-La land of politics/regulations first, prosperity for ALL second.

Please explain the following unemployment rates in fully signed-up EU member states:
Germany, 3.9%
Czechia (formerly Czech Republic), 3.2%

I live in a low reg society. Low reg most definitely does not result in 'prosperity for all'. There are no 'birth to grave "ideological" promises'. This is not to say the current state of affairs is not ideologically driven, however. If you think that ideology is only to be found on the left, you couldn't be more mistaken.

Child poverty is a major issue. One fifth of children live in poverty. A recent 'healthcare' bill that was defeated would have left approximately 23 million people without any option for medical care. Coming soon to a country and to people you claim to care about.

By contrast:
The ‘working poor’ account for only 3% of the working population in the Czech Republic, making it the country with the lowest occurrence of this phenomenon among the EU countries. Legislation on minimum wages, along with a solid social network, form the basis of a policy preventing the occurrence of this problem. Thus, the issue of the working poor does not attract much attention among politicians or the social partners. Similarly, there is no policy developed explicitly targeting this particular group of workers.

UK
The incidence of in-work poverty has increased in the UK over the past decade. Rates are similar to the EU average. A range of policies exists to combat in-work poverty, including the national minimum wage and a system of tax credits. The social partners are divided on appropriate policies to tackle the problem of in-work poverty, with trade unions seeking an increase in wages and fiscal transfers, while employers argue that this will lead to higher levels of unemployment.

Q Please comment on the figures for the working poor for your country shown in the attached tables and what they indicate about the scale and nature of this. Please refer to any additional data available from national sources or any studies which have been undertaken if these provide additional information in this regard and help to give an insight into the issue.

A Various trends are manifest with regard to the extent and prevalence of in-work poverty in the United Kingdom (UK). Firstly, the prevalence of in-work poverty is about average when compared to rates in other European countries. Of the employed population aged 18 years and over in the UK, 8% are at risk of in-work poverty (see Table A1 in Annex 1 of comparative analytical report). This compares to average rates of 8% for the 15 EU Member States before the enlargement of the EU in 2004 (EU15) and also the 25 EU Member States before the accession of Bulgaria and Romania in 2005 (EU25). No difference arises between rates of in-work poverty according to gender in the UK, with the rates being 8% for both men and women. In the EU15 and EU25, average rates were 7% for women and 8%–9% for men.

Tables A3 and A4 of Annex 1 of the comparative analytical report show that groups that tend to be at greater risk of in-work poverty in the UK are those with low levels of education (16%), single parents with dependent children (21%), workers who have been in their current job for less than a year (26%) and self-employed workers (17%). These proportions are mostly similar to the European averages, although the rate for workers who have been in their current job for less than a year is 11 percentage points higher than the rates for both the EU25 and EU15. This is likely to be attributable to the prevalence of forms of short-term ‘atypical employment’ in the UK labour market, which are often associated with low pay and high job insecurity. One anomalous trend in the UK is that, among employed individuals at risk of in-work poverty, younger men (11%) are more likely to be at risk than men aged 25–54 years (8%) and older men (7%), while older women (10%) are more likely to be at risk than women aged 25–54 years (7%) and younger women (9%). This trend is not apparent in other European countries.

A 2008 study conducted by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) offered a series of statistics relating to in-work poverty in the UK. The study found that families with children were twice as likely to face in-work poverty as those without children, and that lone parents were twice as likely to face in-work poverty as families with a couple heading the family. The report also found that 35% of working households headed by someone aged 18–21 years were poor, that a quarter of all working poor households have at least one disabled adult and that ethnic minority headed households face about twice the risk of working poverty as households headed by a white person.

www.eurofound.europa.eu/observatories/eurwork/comparative-information/national-contributions/united-kingdom/working-poor-in-europe-uk

Thea Any country attempting to Leave the EU will only ever BE Hard as we were told last year by senior EU big knobs that there is NO Soft option – and wanting to continually trade with Europe on THEIR (mutually advantageous) terms, while trading with the rest of the world without EU protectionist permission/restrictions – is neither ‘capitalism run amok’ nor ‘a proactive break with globalisation’.
Any trade with the 'rest of the world' will be done in accord with trading agreements. Agreements have yet to be signed with any individual countries or trading blocs. The EU as an entity unto itself is a member of the WTO. Any agreement with the WTO will have to be by consensus (known to you as consensual 'gloop') of all members, including the EU therefore.

www.ictsd.org/opinion/nothing-simple-about-uk-regaining-wto-status-post-brexit
I hope this is all very sobering for you.
The only way [the UK] could [become an independent WTO member simply and quickly] would be if a post-Brexit UK became — as some propose — much more of a free trader, with low import duties across the board, and minimal subsidies for farmers. This would be simple to establish in the WTO, but domestic opposition would have to be overcome first.

Here is the context:
To be an independent WTO member, the UK would be creating its own rights and obligations out of the EU’s. That’s not as simple as it sounds. One reason is because other countries with different interests would want to ensure the balance is also right for them.

One particular issue:
Take just one hard-fought issue: low-duty import quotas for high-quality beef, just two of almost 100 EU quotas. The EU opened these beef quotas after lengthy negotiations with Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, Paraguay, Uruguay, and the US.

Extracting UK beef quotas out of the EU’s would require negotiations with all of them, plus possibly other suppliers such as Botswana, India, and Namibia, and definitely the EU itself — Ireland, Germany and France have particularly strong beef lobbies.

While the exporting countries are pressing for the UK’s quota gates to be opened wider, and jostling with each other for paths through the opening, UK farmers would be pushing in the opposite direction. Remember, to reach agreement, the WTO’s consensus rule would apply

Free trade, low import duties, minimal subsidies = a neo-liberal, low regulation or no regulation, workers-and-consumers-be-damned economic model. There are ideologically-driven right wing circles in the UK who can't wait to get their snouts to the trough. The harder Brexit is, the better, in their view.

Up to now, the UK has been shielded from capitalism run amok by membership of the EU.

Mathsanxiety

So when in criticising the UK on a coming out of the EU context, you refuse to look at UK comparisons with the Eurozone unemployment/employment/Temp/youth problem as a whole.

You clearly do not even want to compare the UK to the similar sized economies of France and Italy and the best argument you have in a UK comparison with a 450 mil citizen EU - is a mature German economic powerhouse that had none of the UK economic and industrial problems/decline in the 1970’s that we never recovered from (and therefore is running a huge trade surplus with the rest of the EU) - or the 'emerging' 10.5 million Czech Republic, with a very narrow economy e.g. automobiles?

As to your mention of low regulation societies not ‘providing prosperity for all’, well obviously not if at the same time an economy, (by that I mean the Private Sector), is taxed out of continually investing in increased capacity and new jobs – as in theory that should stop the increase of the same investment/jobs in the 100% dependent on taxes to pay the bills Public Sector.

So what are needed are concise/effective regulations that don’t change every year, non-wasteful governance as big as it needs to be, and taxes as high as they need to be so not to deter private sector growth/investment, and citizens remain incentivised by keeping as much of their own wages as possible - that would also provide a bit of an economic buffer against recessions and falls in real wages, as now.

The West has built such huge expectations for its citizens ‘cradle to grave’, but IMO there is no to deliver what they have promised without many reforms, especially in Europe on the likes of pensions where in countries like France and Italy the retirement age is far too low based on current life expectancies. When Greece technically speaking, went tits up, there was the ridiculous situation of German taxpayers with much higher retirement ages, bailed out a Greece whose public sector was to large, its retirement age too low, its Private Sector growth stifled by over regulation, and tax collection was a Eurozone joke.

Continued

Mathsanxiety

Next you appear to want to look at the UK poor over the last decade, and I’m not sure where you are going with this.

As generally speaking, UK unemployment was increasing before the worst financial and economic recession here in over 80-years – and clearly if it wasn’t for around 90% of all the jobs the last government ‘created’ went to those born overseas (as 2-3 million new citizens arrived) – more citizens would have been on salaries, rather than benefits, reducing UK ‘poverty’ in the UK, that on one measurement, means earning around £23k.

So lets have a quick look at the 2000s first, where UK government budgets increased by over 50% from 2001 to 2008, additional Private Finance initiative borrowing went into our services, with increased annual Budget Deficit spending and UK taxes AND the tax proceeds from an unsustainable financial bubble – funding this spending splurge.

• UK Welfare/benefits grew faster than any other country in Europe.

• UK inequality increased.

• UK social housing, the charity Shelter told us by 2009 there were 1.7 million families (around 5 million citizens) in a queue for social housing, with many of the poor (obviously including children) living in substandard accommodation.

So arguably over the BEST global low interest rate, and best UK domestic economy any government had inherited for possibly a century, with over 13-years unbroken years in power (to mould the UK society exactly how they wanted) and the government £trillions spent by a socialist government always sitting on some moral high horse, promising how THEY would lift the poor out of poverty – whether looking at the few measurements above, or your ‘measurements’, it does all appears a bit of a social and economic UK disaster.

Since 2010 with a then projected £167 bil annual UK government budget deficit (far larger than any other EU government in cash terms), ‘stuff’ has been turned around including an overly taxed/regulated and unbalanced UK economy, with too much emphasis on an enlarged State sucking in around 54% of GDP, over the Private Sector that supports it – that the current Labour government-in-waiting wants to reverse.

Continued

Mathsanxiety

So looking at your figures and the policies our previous government took to ‘reduce’ poverty, the moral of that story must be that governments throwing cash at services and benefits, while losing Private Sector jobs through over regulation and high taxes, is neither sustainable, nor ‘works’ as a country economic model - never mind will drive down various Western measurements of poverty.

A government has to understand the State should be as large and expensive as it needs to be, so keeping down taxes so so businesses grow/hire and citizens keep more of their own ‘in work’ salaries - plus dramatically improve UK educational standards and apprenticeship places to REDUCE the need for immigration that currently fills our skills gaps and (with such a large EU candidate pool) puts downward pressure on UK salaries – as this administration has been trying to do for several years.

The EU is just layers of bureaucracy and jobsworths (on top of individual members civil servants) trying to justify their huge salary and pension by 'doing something', when often leaving trade alone would be the better option.

In the EU Germany gets angry that member states don’t try to be more like them, and who could say that Italy, with its high 12% unemployment (37% youth) rates and around 25% of its population in some measurement of poverty, shouldn’t try to ‘reform’ a lot harder?

How is the Eurozone ‘one currency and interest rate fits all’ dream working for Italy over the last decade in ‘poverty’ measurements you are examining the UK?

July 2017 “Italy's Poor Almost Triple in a Decade Amid Economic Slumps”

“Italians living below the level of absolute poverty almost tripled over the last decade as the country went through a double-dip, record-long recession.”

“The absolute poor, or those unable to purchase a basket of necessary goods and services, reached 4.7 million last year, up from almost 1.7 million in 2006, national statistics agency Istat said Thursday. That is 7.9 percent of the population, with many of them concentrated in the nation’s southern regions.”

How are their Food Banks doing, or don’t the Eurozone members lower themselves to encourage them in this post 'great recession' real world, where damaged economies (and incomes) are still struggling?

Gosh, lots of conflation and poor logic from the sore arse here.

Love your attempt to prove that the UK was over ruled a lot using at the full fact thing.

You realise the rate at which the UK was voting against proposals at the EU went UP under Cameron because he had to be seen to oppose things from the EU? He knew he'd lose but it was politically expedient to be seen to be doing something, it isn't that the UK was being forced to do things.

If you look at the number of tmes the UK has voted against things over time its very small.

Laughable, as with all brexiteer attempts to prove anything

Poorly educated, deluded dim wits.

As you were.

"The EU is just layers of bureaucracy and jobsworths (on top of individual members civil servants) trying to justify their huge salary and pension by 'doing something', when often leaving trade alone would be the better option. "

Yes that layer of bureaucracy that is so high the EU employs fewer people the Derbyshire County Council, and the cost of it is so high that it spends 6% of its anual budget on staff, about 9 billion in the next year which is 37% of what the UK spends on the Civil Service.

bathildabagashit2s

A tad feisty for someone offering no factual substance on the EU themselves other than 'smoke and mirrors' on the huge near tax free salaries, expenses, pensions no doubt you think are comparable to those useful folk working for Derbyshire's Council; and as you clearly know, please list the EU dictates Cameron object against so we can judge for ourselves.

BTW I did not bring up the Full Facts EU votes malarkey, another poster did, selectively, and I challenged it with another summary.

So no attempt to argue with the Eurozone's unemployment rates, the disproportionate youth unemployment (and Temp contracts within), you know, the important stuff - that no one mentioned before the EU Referendum - while telling our youth, the EU was their future?