Brexit

Some seem to be under the impression that we have tariff free trade with the EU when in fact that is not true, The Tariffs instead of been paid by companies on individual goods was under the EU wrapped up in to a contribution to the EU with a proportion of VAT and all tariffs due from external trade been paid to the EU instead of the countries that traded it, The EU transferred tariffs from the exporter and consumer to the taxpayer, That is what most of the billions in contributions are for, This strange view that we have tariff free trade with the EU is wrong, We pay plenty for it

 

Fair comments on the Eu stuff. My only gripe is that industry has been allowed to die, it would have died regardless of what was done as the rest of the world caught us up and in a lot of cases overtook us. Setting up industry in up and coming countries is a no brainer as the labour costs are so much cheaper. Its what makes me laugh about Trumps defiant call of bringing industrial jobs back to the US, yeah cos Americans are gonna be so happy making iphones for a dollar an hour lol.

 

This myth that we suffer from lack of investment is just fake news, The UK is the number one country that foreign investors look to when looking where to invest,
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-holds-more-foreign-investment-than-germany-and-france-combined

 

I agree. But other EU countries have backed their own industries far more than we have. The ultra free-marketeers have been happy to see our industries go to the wall and then blame it on the EU.
I just find this Brexiteer economic optimism laughable. It'll take decades for us to recover (if we ever can) especially if we crash out with No Deal. In the meantime jobs will be lost, wages and working conditions will be suppressed, in the name of competitiveness, and prices will rise. Millions will suffer as a result, including many who voted for their own demise.

 

Yes, but you completely missed the point. We are massively over-reliant on foreign investment. Wealth owners from the UK have been on investment strike for decades. Ever since Thatcher removed exchange controls they've preferred to put their money overseas.
One of the main reasons we are so attractive to overseas investors is because of our access to the biggest free trade area on the planet. If we leave the EU without a favourable trade deal most of that foreign investment will dry up. There's no way the likes of Nissan will stay here if they have the additional costs and time involved in customs checks and import tariffs. Plenty of companies are already planning to move their operations to mainland Europe if that happens.
There's a very good reason why almost all of our businesses are anti-Brexit and that's because it's an economic disaster waiting to happen.

 

Blue passports though.

 

Nissan will stay, After 20% tariffs on EU made cars make them more expensive than home built nissans who import parts from the far east and will have a big price advantage, If there is no deal I suspect it will be cheaper for Ford,BMW, Etc to build plants here than pay the 20% increase making their cars more expensive, Already Merkel has warned her own industry that no deal will cost Germany 100,000 jobs

We are still the largest recipient of investment year on year even after brexit has been announced in 2016

 

Sorry, that’s absolute bollocks. This is how all VAT works. It goes to a centralised pot and then gets redistributed. Your VAT will pay for things in Cornwall and Inverness. In any case, EU contributions are calculated in a huge number of ways and have little resemblance to a trade balance. We pay a quarter of a percent of GDP to the EU as a kind of federal tax and get a proportion of that back.

What you’ve said is, in bad faith, bending the truth beyond breaking point.

 

It is you talking absolute bollocks and bending the truth, you seem an expert at it,
Here is the FACTS from an independent website highly regarded for explaining facts,
They take a share of VAT and they take all import tariffs from us as they do from all member states, That is why when our economy increases we collect more VAT and the share and contribution to the EU increases in proportion
https://fullfact.org/europe/does-uk-pay-fifth-vat-going-eu-budget/

 

I really cant tell if you mean that or you are just being satirical because its rife with contradictions that would make for a great made up comment on private eye or something. unfortunately you obviously do believe it and so therein lies the entire problem.

 

Like it or not they are the real options open to us in the future, The fact you do not like it is not a problem for me at all, We all have opinions on the future and some even respect that others have ones that differ and treat with respect, There again there are some that just insult anything or anyone they disagree with or do not understand.

 

That’s not what you said! Of course a single market takes all import tariffs from outside of the single market, this is how a customs union works.

You said we don’t have tariff free trade with the EU - we do! That’s how a single market works.

The link you provided is totally accurate. But it has nothing to do with trade between EU countries. We pay VAT on things made in this country too. How on earth can you assign a trade tariff to goods that move without friction across borders?

 

You need to read my post more carefully, The contribution to the EU is in exchange for having tariff free trade, Nothing is for nothing, Before the EU trade tariffs were paid by exporters and consumers much like the WTO system, The EU exchanged this system as a contribution from the taxpayer instead in the form of our EU contribution, We cannot have tariff free trade with the EU without paying the contribution

 

MY HEAD JUST EXPLODED!!!!

That is FDI foreign direct investment. I have explained this to you before.

Companies and individuals wanting to invest into the EU choose the UK as the destination. Due to not being in the eurozone, speaking english and being a stable right leaning country. When we leave the EU we will not retain that investment because all of a sudden we have gone from a market of 500million to a market of 60million.

Its simple maths and simple logic and you can go ahead now and twist it anyway you want. But the fact stays true, that investment is because we are in the EU.

 

Utter nonsense.
The choice is between:
1. Remain in the EU and continue to benefit from tariff-free trade and exceptionally favourable trade deals with the rest of the world negotiated via the EU's massive market share and economic muscle.
Or
2. Leave the EU.
Lose tariff-free trade with the world's biggest market.
Go onto WTO terms, which no one else uses except as an expensive stopgap measure.
Spend the next decade negotiating hundreds of trade deals with distant countries, from a position of obvious weakness, because we so clearly need the deals.
Lose overseas investment because our seamless trade/customs link with Europe has gone.
Jobs disappear, prices go up, economy tanks, people suffer.

The one saving grace is that when this happens there will be absolutely no one but the Tories to blame and they will pay a heavy electoral price. Unfortunately, it will be several years down the line before the full lasting horror of Brexit becomes apparent. In the meantime they'll probably get voted back in for 'getting Brexit done' and have several more years to make things worse by destroying employment rights etc, and making the stinking rich even richer by cutting higher end taxes.

 

No shit Sherlock. We pay a tiny fraction of our GDP in subs and gain all the benefits of tariff free trade. Not to mention all the favourable trade deals with the rest of the world that the EU negotiates on our behalf.
It's such a stupidly good deal it's beyond belief that anyone would want to give it up.

 

This.

 

You said, and I quote “Some seem to be under the impression that we have tariff free trade with the EU when in fact that is not true”.

It is true! We pay a de facto membership fee (that is not calculated on trade balance) to be a member of a single market - one of the benefits being, well, part of a single market. This contribution is categorically not a trade tariff. You can debate all you like as to whether that is a price worth paying - but the central fact is that this is tariff free trade. This isn’t opinion.

Further to which - you somewhat lose the right to determine the EU a fledgling federal mega-entity if you’re referring to its membership fee as a trade tariff.

 

Call it what you like but free trade with the EU is dependant on payment to the EU, It is based on the economy including goods in and out of the EU, To measure this easily rather than calculate the balances they charge for all tariffs from goods from outside the EU and also measure the economy ( Including goods traded ) by the amount of VAT collected which they then take a share of that in effect covers for free trade, You can call it a membership fee to disguise it if you like, But the test will be that if we leave and then negotiate a trade deal with the EU they will like they do with other countries demand we pay a fee for free trade with them, Much like now

 

Nobody is contesting that there is an outgoing financial component to EU membership. There’s no evidence whatsoever to say this is to ‘cover free trade’, it’s a form of internal taxation, and one that by your own link accounts for between 10-15% of net EU receipts.

Tariff based trading schemes go up and down based on the volume traded. If it doesn’t then it’s not a tariff. If we were outside the EU and made a financial contribution for access to the single market then this would also be tariff free trading.

You conflated two things to make a point that doesn’t exist.