General Brexit discussion thread

[papasmurf]

I don't think the government has been quiet about this.

They have been so quiet their lips must be sewn together.

[Baff]

They agreed to keep them temporairly.
The EU does not have the infrastructure to do it themselves.

Long term expect this business to move to the EU.

On the otherhand, it's not all bad. Way more EU business has moved to the UK to stay inside UK passporting than has moved out of the UK to to stay inside EU passporting.

As you would expect.


This runs up the price of business for all those banks.
So they won't be pleased. But the lefties chasing all the tax revenues are going to love it.
At least... the UK ones are.


I don't think the government has been quiet about this.
Rather the Remain dominated press has. It's been an egg on face moment for them.
Not the sort of story that fits with their narrative.

[papasmurf]

Just some banking ?  The UK loans 1.4T to EU companies and Govt's, it accounts for 10% of EU financial imports to the UK but a massive 50% of UK financial exports to the EU. Without financial passporting to the EU this will greatly hurt the UK finance sector.

There has been a total silence from the government about passported financial transactions. It is a serious worry and not just for business.

[GerryT]

Not interesed in your Empire. Sorry.
The British Empire cost a fortune, so does the EU ome.
If that's what ypou want, don't look at me to foot the bill for you.

The empire sure did cost a fortune, for the countries the empire took from, for England's select few it was a time of opulence. The EU is like a co-op, not an empire. There are no ruling classes, its about power sharing, this is one of the reasons the UK doesn't fit.

FTA.
The bigger the market, the more conflicts it will have with your own industries.
I do not want an FTA with China, America or the EU.
They are all too big.

Those 3 account for 75% of UK imports and 66% of UK exports, it's been explained a couple of times now that non tariff barriers to trade can cost alot more than the average tariff. Going WTO with these 3 will greatly hurt the UK.
If dealing with other countries was so much better, why hasn't the UK done it in the past 50yr's then

A bigger competing economy can undercut us and wipe out domestic industry if we do not protect ourselves.

That's what trade deals do, protect certain areas, open others up and remove non tariff barriers.

A trade deficit is not a trade loss. It is a lot of trade losses.

NO NO No, read my previous posts, your understanding is totally wrong.

Under WTO tariff regimes, we are able to protect our domestic industries from EU dumping/currency undervaluation where currently we are not.
We are also able to lower our tariffs against countries which are complimentry to our domestic industries, but in competition with EU ones.
For example. We can buy tomatoes from Israel instead of Spain.

What ??  The UK currency has fallen 25% since 2015, that's UK dumping, EU products today cost 25% more because of this. Under WTO your tariffs have to be the same for all countries, you can't have a different tariff for different countries.

UK trade negotiators have been disasterous in taking us out of the EU.
But since we have left have been rather good. Not perfect. But they have for example negotiated better deals for us that the EU has been able to for itself.
But then they are playing a rather easy hand full of aces right now.

Name one trade deal the UK has negotiated that's better than what the EU has. Sine leaving the UK trade negotiators haven't changed much at all, apart from exclaim outrage that the signed sealed and delivered withdrawal agreement isn't being revisited.

Undeveloped countries have high tariffs on food.

Practically all countries have high tariffs on food and that includes the UK's new tariff schedule, which started as a photocopy of the EU WTO tariff schedule.

Trade with the EU makes up 5% of the UK financial sector.
The EU does not have a single market for services.
Things like insuarnce are not covered. Just some banking.

Just some banking ?  The UK loans 1.4T to EU companies and Govt's, it accounts for 10% of EU financial imports to the UK but a massive 50% of UK financial exports to the EU. Without financial passporting to the EU this will greatly hurt the UK finance sector.

[Sheepy]

I can like or dislike whoever I like or don't like, as for war, somebody is getting rich over the bones of the many for sure.

[Baff]

CANZUK.
In WW2, while the Germans were trying to kill us, they sent us food, men, guns and ammunition for cost or for free.
I want this trade deal. I have an honour debt to these people that EEC membership betrayed.
The EU brings much shame upon me.

If you are going to raise the spectre of WW2 and ask me to make a loyalty call between Germany, Ireland and the USA.....  that's a no brainer.

I choose the ones who haven't ever bombed me. The ones who didn't threaten to enslave my family or try to kill any of us.

[GerryT]

well apparently it is important to know we are doomed without the EU, doomed I tell ya. I guess they still haven't worked out we don't like the EU one little bit. No deal will be a pleasure.

Who do you like, the frogs, the paddies or the Germans. The USA got you to pay for their kit in WW2, that bill was eventually paid off in 2006 and under trump their waiting to pounce. SO who do you like ?

[Baff]

There is no imports without exports.
People have to be paid. Things must be exchanged.

In a deficit situation, that exchange will be made by buying up UK companies, or mansions in London or Football clubs. But it will be made eventually.
Foreigners are not sending us stufff for free.

Your understanding of imports/exports is totally flawed.

When you sell goods/service abroad you create jobs that would not otherwise exist.

I do not like creating jobs for myself.

If it does not pay, I prefer to sit on arse thank you very much.
Nor do I wish to create jobs for other people. Work harder just to create work for another.
I prefer to sit on arse.

If you have paying work for me, let me know.
Otherwise, no thanks.



The UK produces enough food.
What it doesn't do is produce enough variety of food to meet our demand for imported luxuries.

By leaving the EU, we can buy cheaper imported luxury foods frpm everywhere else.
Which is cool.

However, this will mean that our own domestic produce, half of which is currently sold abroad, will face import duties to it's EU markets. I expect our farmers to take a hit or get greater state subsidies.
I don't really expect UK people to change their shopping habits away from imported foods to entirely domestic ones. The trade barriers are unlikely to be high enough to cause that outcome in my opinion.

I do however expect a shift away from EU produce to produce from elsewhere in the world.
A reduction in our imports of EU food as their rivals food will no longer cost as much to our consumers.

[Baff]

We don't want an FTA with the EU.
FTA's typically happen between large economies and small economies.
Not two large economies as they have too many competing industries.

I want an FTA with Jamiaca.
They sell us rum and bananas, we sell them cars, machine tools, oil, TV's, ships etc.
There is no conflict of interest. No reason to tariff or protect.

Are you sure about that, The EU's largest trading partner is the USA, it's second largest partner is China. Between those 3 that's 40% of all global trade. Your goal is Jamiaca, don't mind the 614b you traded with the EU, 112b with USA, 67b with China or 27b with Japan. Jamiaca is the target and your total trade of 115m. The goal is to setup a hundred or so trade deals with minor countries, where 1 trade deal with a large country would have done.

With the EU I am happy to lower trade barriers on an equal value of trade, assuming it does not threaten any UK critical industries.  There is room to make trade deals with the EU for mutual benefit, but an FTA is not a good idea, sorry.
It's been a total F up thus far.
Got us into deficit. Made us a loss.

Saying a trade deficit is a loss is incorrect. A trade deficit is a potential problem as UK people are buying foreign produce and that could cost jobs in the UK where a local manufacturer is under priced. BUt WTO or trade delas take  this into account, using quotas on one tariff and stepping to higher tariffs for areas the UK wants to protect.
You can easily be in a deficit and it be totally profitable, buying goods/service from a country that you don't produce yourself.
I agree, the UK trading negotiators have been a total F up so far, being in the EU for decades and expecting the EU to abandon its core principals. This shows an immaturity beyond belief.  Just think the trade the UK could do with the EU on WTO, and I'm sure there is plenty will be totally hampered by all the delays, customs will turn into a fiasco and essential trade will be stuck behind all the queues.

The other extreme is to force a free trade agrement on countries that can't outproduce you.
We famously did this to the Chinese until they revolted against us.

The empire is gone Baff, the UK needs to understand it's position in the world today. USA/EU/China are the key players, the Uk is in a pack following, near the front of the pack but nowhere near the large players.

Industiralised food producers get FTA's with African countries, and the net result is famine. As the local food producers in Africa go bust in the glut years in Europe and America. And then in the sparse years on America and Europe, they no longer have the domestic farms to make up the shortfall. Mass starvation ensues.

Hence why developed countries have high tariffs on food, even in trade deals this is done. And it's why reducing tariffs to 0 is a non runner, even when many on here say it's the answer.

Critical industries must be protected.
Free trade is not an absolute goal.
There is a time and a place for it.

When you have the cheapest goods for sale you want it.
When you are being outcompeted, you do not.

Free trade deals are not the goal, a trade deal is the goal, even if you kept the tariffs but removed the other barriers to trade you would be in a far better shape than being on WTO. The EU and UK are negotiating a trade deal, not a FTA. The media use FTA loosely and don't get into the nuance of the difference

So the EU wants free trade in goods but not services.
It outcompetes us in goods, but not services.

And like the muppets they are... our economic genius' in office agreed to this.
Screwing us all for their own personal gain. A better paid EU job.
(Or perhaps some perceived ideological gain).

The EU has been an economic disaster for us.
Those who tell you different are out of power now. Good riddance. Not a moment too soon.

You have that backwards, the UK service sector, especially financial is so strong because of the EU, full unfettered access, post brexit that stops. There are very very few trade deals that include service. The EU-Canada deal has some service elements but that was specifically detailed as to what sectors and values. The people in power pre Brexit would have been fully aware that any form of brexit (outside a CU) would have seen services decimated.

Not interesed in your Empire. Sorry.
The British Empire cost a fortune, so does the EU one.
If that's what you want, don't look at me to foot the bill for you.


FTA.
The bigger the market, the more conflicts it will have with your own industries.
I do not want an FTA with China, America or the EU.
They are all too big.

They all have a multiude of conflicting interests with us.
They all have steel producers, car producers. Plane producers etc.

I only want free trade agreements with complimentry markets.
Not competing.

Many seem to think bigger is better. It is not.
A bigger competing economy can undercut us and wipe out domestic industry if we do not protect ourselves.
A smaller market is more likely to have no conflicting industries and is hence the more likely target for an FTA.
And history relfects that such deals are almost exclusively signed between large and small countries only.
The EU "experiment"...has predictably failed.
TTIP was never signed and so on.



A trade deficit is not a trade loss. It is a lot of trade losses. An ongoing situatiion in which we make a net loss.
Under WTO tariff regimes, we are able to protect our domestic industries from EU dumping/currency undervaluation where currently we are not.
We are also able to lower our tariffs against countries which are complimentry to our domestic industries, but in competition with EU ones.
For example. We can buy tomatoes from Israel instead of Spain.
The tomatoes are cheaper. Good for the British consumer.  Good for the Israeli farmer. Bad for the Spanish farmer. Except I couldn't care less about the Israeli or Spanish farmers, I just want cheaper food.
I want my goivernment to be working for my best interests and not Spanish farmers.

UK trade negotiators have been disasterous in taking us out of the EU.
But since we have left have been rather good. Not perfect. But they have for example negotiated better deals for us that the EU has been able to for itself.
But then they are playing a rather easy hand full of aces right now.

Undeveloped countries have high tariffs on food.
To protect their farmers from develped ones.
cf France. Lol. They prefer to tariff and regulate and subsidise than to develop their farms into globally competative ones.





I agree that a decent trade deal with the EU is a goal superior to WTO trade.
With the proviso that I think no such deal is on offer, and that WTO is the best available.


Trade with the EU makes up 5% of the UK financial sector.
The EU does not have a single market for services.
Things like insuarnce are not covered. Just some banking.

The problem for these countries is that finance like insurance is an economy of scale.
The more customers you have, the lower the insurance premiums you can offer. Which means small companies with less customers go bust when placed in direct competition with large ones.

London is a whale. Frankfurt is a minnow.
So countries won't allow unrestricted access to their financial markets because they know that would cause mass unemployment in their country. The almost instant destruction of their own finance companies.

We have been trying to get this access since before we joined the EU.
Cameron begged and grovelled for it once again during the EU renogotiation to convince the UK to remain.
He failed to get any concessions there at all. And so we voted to leave.

Outside the EU we still won't get any concession on services in my opinion.
But we have a lot more chance of doing so with tariffs on their goods as leverage than we do by just surrendering.

[GerryT]

Trade is an exchange of goods and services.

If I trade you more goods and services than I get back in return, I am trading at a loss.

I trade you my £5 for your £4 and I have made a £1 loss.

Each time I trade with you I will become £1 poorer and you will become £1 richer.
I will have a trade deficit with you........

Your understanding of imports/exports is totally flawed.

When you sell goods/service abroad you create jobs that would not otherwise exist. Experts differ but somewhere around 10,000 jobs are created for every additional 1b of exports. Not only do you create jobs but the money paying for them is coming from abroad, a double benefit. It's not affecting the spending power of the UK people, if anything it helps it with the new jobs/tax revenue that's created.
The danger is imports, if these compete with local suppliers then UK money is leaving the UK and so are the associated jobs. The trick is to manage the trade deal and negotiate one that best suits your own country, a difficult negotiating job. For example the UK doesn't produce enough food, without food imports millions of people would starve, so a trade deal allowing food in would be a good thing and doesn't offset the gains of exports to the trading partner.
There is no trade as you put it.

[Sheepy]

Trade is an exchange of goods and services.

Trade is the selling of goods and services. What you're exampling is a barter deal...

So what?

It does not matter jackshit if you are being paid in gold bars, coffee beans, wampum or whatever, the main point is to end up better than when you started

well apparently it is important to know we are doomed without the EU, doomed I tell ya. I guess they still haven't worked out we don't like the EU one little bit. No deal will be a pleasure.

[GerryT]

We don't want an FTA with the EU.
FTA's typically happen between large economies and small economies.
Not two large economies as they have too many competing industries.

I want an FTA with Jamiaca.
They sell us rum and bananas, we sell them cars, machine tools, oil, TV's, ships etc.
There is no conflict of interest. No reason to tariff or protect.

Are you sure about that, The EU's largest trading partner is the USA, it's second largest partner is China. Between those 3 that's 40% of all global trade. Your goal is Jamiaca, don't mind the 614b you traded with the EU, 112b with USA, 67b with China or 27b with Japan. Jamiaca is the target and your total trade of 115m. The goal is to setup a hundred or so trade deals with minor countries, where 1 trade deal with a large country would have done.

With the EU I am happy to lower trade barriers on an equal value of trade, assuming it does not threaten any UK critical industries.  There is room to make trade deals with the EU for mutual benefit, but an FTA is not a good idea, sorry.
It's been a total F up thus far.
Got us into deficit. Made us a loss.

Saying a trade deficit is a loss is incorrect. A trade deficit is a potential problem as UK people are buying foreign produce and that could cost jobs in the UK where a local manufacturer is under priced. BUt WTO or trade delas take  this into account, using quotas on one tariff and stepping to higher tariffs for areas the UK wants to protect.
You can easily be in a deficit and it be totally profitable, buying goods/service from a country that you don't produce yourself.
I agree, the UK trading negotiators have been a total F up so far, being in the EU for decades and expecting the EU to abandon its core principals. This shows an immaturity beyond belief.  Just think the trade the UK could do with the EU on WTO, and I'm sure there is plenty will be totally hampered by all the delays, customs will turn into a fiasco and essential trade will be stuck behind all the queues.

The other extreme is to force a free trade agrement on countries that can't outproduce you.
We famously did this to the Chinese until they revolted against us.

The empire is gone Baff, the UK needs to understand it's position in the world today. USA/EU/China are the key players, the Uk is in a pack following, near the front of the pack but nowhere near the large players.

Industiralised food producers get FTA's with African countries, and the net result is famine. As the local food producers in Africa go bust in the glut years in Europe and America. And then in the sparse years on America and Europe, they no longer have the domestic farms to make up the shortfall. Mass starvation ensues.

Hence why developed countries have high tariffs on food, even in trade deals this is done. And it's why reducing tariffs to 0 is a non runner, even when many on here say it's the answer.

Critical industries must be protected.
Free trade is not an absolute goal.
There is a time and a place for it.

When you have the cheapest goods for sale you want it.
When you are being outcompeted, you do not.

Free trade deals are not the goal, a trade deal is the goal, even if you kept the tariffs but removed the other barriers to trade you would be in a far better shape than being on WTO. The EU and UK are negotiating a trade deal, not a FTA. The media use FTA loosely and don't get into the nuance of the difference

So the EU wants free trade in goods but not services.
It outcompetes us in goods, but not services.

And like the muppets they are... our economic genius' in office agreed to this.
Screwing us all for their own personal gain. A better paid EU job.
(Or perhaps some perceived ideological gain).

The EU has been an economic disaster for us.
Those who tell you different are out of power now. Good riddance. Not a moment too soon.

You have that backwards, the UK service sector, especially financial is so strong because of the EU, full unfettered access, post brexit that stops. There are very very few trade deals that include service. The EU-Canada deal has some service elements but that was specifically detailed as to what sectors and values. The people in power pre Brexit would have been fully aware that any form of brexit (outside a CU) would have seen services decimated.

[Borchester]

Trade is an exchange of goods and services.

Trade is the selling of goods and services. What you're exampling is a barter deal...

So what?

It does not matter jackshit if you are being paid in gold bars, coffee beans, wampum or whatever, the main point is to end up better than when you started

[Baff]

Selling is an exchange. A trade.
So is buying.

Typically money is bartered in exchange for something.
It is a medium of exchange. A trade good in it's own right.

I may even... barter money for money. (Gasp!). For Ex trading.

A "barter deal" typically does not use the trade medium of money. But it is still a trade.
So you directly exchange a pig for a sheep, instead of exchanging a pig for money and then exchanging that money for a sheep.
Which indirectly has the same net result.

Goods and services are exchanged in a trade.


If every time i exchange my pig, I only get a chicken in return, or enough money to buy a chicken if you prefer...
I may decide not to exchange my pigs with that trade partner any more. I may consider it a loss making exchange.  A bad deal.
Or loss making "trade" if you feel that word makes a semantic difference to the outcome.

[patman post]

Trade is an exchange of goods and services.

Trade is the selling of goods and services. What you're exampling is a barter deal...