Voting to remain

[Blah Blah]

Again Workingmummy, it's that 'but we are sooo special' nonsense.

[WorkingMummy]

.... And Louisa I've just checked on "Full Facts" website.

The UK does not have a significantly better bargaining position re EU trade than Switzerland.

The EU exports 16% of its goods to the UK. It exports 6% to Switzerland.

Although the UK is the EU's largest single customer, it is by no means dependent on us as an export market. And our importance to it as an export market is by no means out of kilter with Switzerland's.

On the other hand a massive 44% of our exports go to the EU. (This is directly comparable to Switzerland, which exports 45% of its goods to the EU.)

The balance of power would be with the EU in negotiating new terms were we to leave. (That's if it even wanted to. The incentive to make an example of us as treaty delinquents would be pretty strong.)

We need the EU's business more than it needs ours.

[LondonMix]

Working Mummy- did you mean 16% to Switzerland and 6% to the UK?

[Louisa]

If the UK were to leave the EU we would account for 16% overall in terms of the export market, which would put us in either first or second place as the largest trading partner. Based on those figures on that website Blah, I have come to the conclusion that Germany would by far be the biggest loser inside the remainder of the EU. We are their third largest trading partner on a nation by nation basis, and they would lose 4.4% of exports. Not a poultry sum in the grand scheme of things, and considering they are the biggest net contributor to the EU they would not want to take such a big hit to their economy for the sake of not being flexible on free movement of people. Interestingly, our biggest trading partner on a nation by nation basis is the United States (as it is for Ireland too), no other EU countries are so reliant on American exports as we are.

Louisa.

[WorkingMummy]

LondonMix Wrote:

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> Working Mummy- did you mean 16% to Switzerland and

> 6% to the UK?

No - my second sentence was wrong. Have changed it.

[LondonMix]

Louisa-- you wouldn't be losing access to one EU country you'd be losing access to them all. 44% is a massive number.

If you think the EU will be in a weaker negotiating position than the UK, you are completely kidding yourself. More importantly, above and beyond the economics of it, the political need to keep the union together will necessitate that the EU takes a hard line with the UK to discourage other populist movements from gaining ground.

There is absolutely zero chance of sweat-heart deal. Whatever deal will come forth will be much worse and it will take years before its agreed.

[WorkingMummy]

Yes but Louisa we would not be negotiating with Germany. But with the single market.

Unless you want to leave the "red tape" of eu regulation in favour of the complete "pain in the arse" (I quote a Swiss lawyer) of the 100s of different micro, bilateral agreements that Switzerland has.

And if you are going to cut off the tariff free destination of 44% of our export goods, aren't you cutting off our nose to spite our face?

You also create an incentive to the EU to try to press ahead with TTIP trade deal with the US. The US (even without free trade) already buys 15% of all EU goods.

[Louisa]

LM, yes they would be our biggest trading partner by far (to begin with at least), and it would of course be in our interest to negotiate with them. But anyone who believes they have all aces in this game of poker is very much mistaken. Firstly, Germany would not want to lose us, regardless of what the rest of the trading bloc think. They are more than aware of our importance both to the EU as a contributory nation state and our value as a trading partner to them directly. Let's not kid ourselves, we all know the Germans are the most powerful nation in the EU and hold the balance of power.

The EU may not have much choice come negotiations. The union is pretty flimsy as it is, and with the loss of the second largest economy I think the whole Union will be at risk of collapse or major reform at the very least. Who knows, Germans might decide to jump ship too. Our great pals the French can then take control of the EU. See how long that lasts!

Louisa.

[????]

We are in trade defeceit with the EU and trade surplus with the ROW, so we'd have loads of leverage - the trade argument is crap

[LondonMix]

It really isn't. The loss of cheaper imports will make goods more expensive in the UK while the loss of access to trading partners will reduce the level of economic activity in the country. It is lose-lose.

[????]

Which is why we wouldn't lose it - do you see?

[????]

Ultimately the CEO of VW is far more influential than the German finance minister

[WorkingMummy]

He is not. That is like saying that the CEO of a FTsE 100 company is more powerful than our government when it comes to agreeing trade deals.

And it's not Germany its the whole EU.

And expensive imports are not the biggest point (because we can unilaterally control import taxes outsde the single market).

It's 44% of our exports going into a market now free to impose whatever taxes it wants to make our goods expensive and uncompetitive over there. And our manufacturers not being able to compete with that.

It's not like we have anything to sell that can't be sourced elsewhere.

[LondonMix]

No, not at all. The percentage of trade that the EU does with the UK is a fraction of what the UK does with the entire trading block (as is natural). Germany and the EU as a whole can much more afford to lose the UK as a preferential export market than the UK can afford to lose the entire EU as a preferential export market.

The fact that the UK is also reliant on imports will only compound the misery via price inflation at the same time the economy is contracting due to the reduction in exports.

In the end it is the total amount of trade rather than the net position that determines the significance of the loss when analysing everyone's relative position.

And the CEO of VW is not more important in getting trade deals done than the government. Trade policy is a political tool as much as anything else. If it were up to CEOs, the entire world would be entirely tariff free and it is no where close to that.

If you want to vote Leave that's fine but don't harbor any illusions about what the cost of doing so will be.

[WorkingMummy]

And anyway, ????, I am not sure trade deficit figures are an indicator of how much Europe needs our business.

The trade deficit is a comparison of how much WE export to the EU as compared to how much WE import from the EU.

So we 65 million buy more than we sell. So what.

What matters is the gap between how much WE sell to them and how much WE sell to the rest of the world, compared to the gap between how much THEY sell to us and how much THEY sell to the rest of the world.

The EU "depends" upon the UK to buy 16% of its exports. It does not depend on us to sell 86% of its exports.

We depend on the EU to buy 45% of our exports.

That is a balance of power in favour of the EU.

Which is as you would expect. We being a nation of 65 million and it being the biggest single market in the world.

[LondonMix]

Exactly WorkingMummy. The trade deficit thing is a total non sequitur.

[WorkingMummy]

Yes.

The only relevance of our trade deficit, is that it shows how fragile our domestic trade position is.

????, sorry to take it back to Switzerland, but Switzerland has a significant trade surplus with the EU. It makes no odds to your leverage as a negotiator for a trade deal. (Unless you are a massive population, which we are not.)

Switzerland is 1) similar to us, in that it is responsible for buying 6% of all the EU exported goods, but depends on the EU for about 45% of its own export market and 2) is possibly to the right even of Nigel Farage when it comes to hating immigration

And yet...

Swtizerland cannot get free trade without free movement of people. I repeat, the Swiss voted in 2014 to impose a cap on EU migration and their govenement has not been able to implement it.

You cannot unilaterally change your conditions of trade with the world's largest single market.

(As a footnote, it is amazing that the Swiss purchase 6% of all EU exports. Per capita they are WAY more important to EU epxorters than us. There is only 8 million of them!!)

[Loz]

Jules-and-Boo Wrote:

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> https://www.crowdpac.co.uk/eu-referendum-in-or-out

>

> some interesting questions that will help

Well, that was bloody annoying. I answer 25 questions and then "give us your email address or we won't give you your result". Sod that.

[Jules-and-Boo]

there's actually a button above that which says - give results now... (option you mention allows them to be emailed to you so you haev a record)

[WorkingMummy]

I really dislike that crowd pac questionnaire. It illustrates everything that is wrong with the Brexit debate.

It makes a series of assertions and then asks you for your opinion. As if your opinion makes the assertion true or false.

Some of the assertions are questions of fact which should be answered by careful research and fact checking, not a wild guess in a multiple choice box. Others are so abstract as to be almost meaningless. "My values are not the values on which the EU was founded." What does that even mean? Others are just too obvious for words. "Co-operation with other European countries on terrorism makes Britain safer."

Most irritatingly of all, it does not even begin to address the all important question, HOW exactly, will leaving the EU affect any of these issues. So I dare say leaving the EU will do little to our ability to cooperate with other countries to fight terrorism. It could, however, completely screw the competitiveness of our goods in the market to which we send 44% of our exports. A point not, apparently, significant enough to be covered by the questionnaire.

All this test does is diagnose YOUR pre-existing bias. Which I dare say you already know!!

[Blah Blah]

I repeat that EU exports to the UK are JUST 3% of EU GDP.

We can NOT do a unilateral deal with Germany outside of the EU because Germany is a member of a trading block - i.e. the EU. Germany has to follow EU rules on trade. What part of that don't you understand Louisa and ?????

[natty01295]

VOTE LEAVE !!!!!!

[Earl Aelfheah]

A significant section of the press have, over many years, run a deliberate campaign of misinformation on Europe and immigration. Politicians have chosen not to take this on (often taking advantage of some of the myths that have been created) and now we may well pay the price:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-british-public-wrong-about-nearly-everything-survey-shows-a7074311.html [EU referendum: British public wrong about nearly everything, survey shows]

[WorkingMummy]

That article is full of gems. The amount of misinformation that the Leave campaign dishes out, and people just swallow. My personal favourite, "14 per cent of people now think that 30 per cent of the UK?s Child Benefit budget is sent to children living overseas. 23 per cent of people think that 13 per cent of it does. The correct figure is 0.3 per cent. It means that almost 49 per cent of the population overestimate the figure by more than 40 times."

Milliband is bang on in his assertion this morning on Radio 4: immigration is an alibi for the consequences of underinvestment and austerity.

[WorkingMummy]

....both of which, BTW, are 100% domestic measures, over which the oh so wicked EU has no "control" and for which it cannot therefore be blamed.