In , out, shake it all about

[uncleglen]

Zero hours contracts have been going for decades- the worst example was Ken Livingstone's ILEA where women with school-aged children were relentlessly exploited in the Adult Education sector...he was a hypocrite in the extreme- I can still hear his mealy-mouthed whiny voice....also supply teaching has always been a zero-hours arrangement....just as well because when they phoned you up at 0730 on a Monday morning and ask if you want to go to a god-forsaken snake-pit in the arse-end of somewhere in London- you can say 'No', sorry I've already got something today....

Also the fact that the EU fine us every year for breaching air-pollution levels is just another example of the ridiculous Kafka-esque set-up. When we have fleets of foreign lorries and all the extra population (at least 800,000 Poles for example) and Slough has to weigh its sewage to prove the population has increased- what kind of mentality is in Brussels- you definitely could not make it up!

[Loz]

Blah Blah Wrote:

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> If you actually read those documents, they are formed by knowledgeable economists based on

> available data.

Are you claiming The Canary is written by "knowledgeable economists"?

Anyway, TTIP article wasn't quite up to date. It claimed "Big tobacco ? Phillip Morris ? is using a trade agreement between Australia and Hong Kong to sue Australia for replacing cigarette packet branding with gruesome anti-smoking images." Even though the article was only written in January, it omitted to note that the Australian government won the case at the end of last year.

[Jeremy]

While I'm broadly on your side here BlahBlah, falling back on articles written by economists will only get you so far. Economists - like the rest of us - have wildly varying opinions, ideologies, motivations, and political persuasions. The university professor is unlikely to give you the same answers as the Goldman Sachs macroeconomic expert!

[Loz]

Blah Blah Wrote:

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> the same Tories that think zero hour contracts are acceptable.

There is nothing inherently wrong with zero hour contracts - in fact, a lot of people on them really like their flexibility. The only thing that was wrong about them was exclusivity clauses - those saying when we have no work for you, you can't work for anyone else either.

And who got rid of the exclusivity clauses? Clue: it wasn't Labour.

[Blah Blah]

I accept that Jeremy. I think my point is more one of why people believe the things they do. It's so clear to me that a lot of people believe things about Europe without having the first clue about the economic detail. Take the myth that the EU somehow stops us trading with the rest of the world - it doesn't - but lots of people believe that, because certain people like Farage keep infering that it does.

And whilst no-one can know exactly to what extent business would be affected by tariffs, we can at least look at Norway and Switzerland and make some informed stabs at it.

Again, many people believe we pay too much to be part of the EU as though it is money that goes to the wind. But the same people don't know exactly how much we do pay, that half of it comes back in grants, and that membership enables ?200bn of exports every year.

Too many people are making their decision based on a lack of knowledge of what actually is.

[KirstyH]

Louisa Wrote:

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>

> You need to realise that your 'IN' argument falls

> in line with the political and urban

> intelligentsia line, and therefore the last thing

> you should be doing in support of staying in is to

> wag your finger at the opposing camp, who are just

> lay people who see the EU as bureaucractic. You'll

> only encourage the anti establishment movement,

> just as happened in Scotland.

>

> Louisa.

I just don't get the point on Scotland here? Wasn't one of your posts above about living the dream and throwing off the shackles of Brussels (I paraphrase) was somewhat similar to the pro-Independence arguments - except that there was a positive vision for Scotland, with underlying values of what that stood for (whether you agreed with it or not). Well, let's see how the Scottish elections go.

Thing with the anti-EU debate is that it seems to be more about some contra idea of a Brussels bureaucracy (and hand-picked issues that people don't like about it - I'd have a contra list) rather than the underlying values of a positively envisaged UK. Frankly I don't think I'd want to live in your version of the UK - the summary version sounds a bit too Sarah Palin for me. The Tory 7 that are leading No and presumably fancy themselves running the country - absolutely awful.

[RoLo1]

Should the UK stay in, I hope the ridiculous situation of protest voting for anti- EU MEPs will come to an end. How can the UK influence from the inside, when its MEPs refuse to engage. ..

[????]

Because the fact that they are there reflects the population's disengagement. Do you know who your MEP is?

[Seabag]

???? Wrote:

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> Because the fact that they are there reflects the

> population's disengagement. Do you know who your

> MEP is?

Margaret Thatcher, or the one that looks like Dracula?

Erm.....no!

[Blah Blah]

I think that's right ????. We need to care more about MEP elections if we want the right calibre of MEPs there. Right now we have a bunch of UKippers who refuse to participate in any kind of meaningful reform. But there are other MEPs who do.

These are our MEPs in London.

http://www.europarl.org.uk/en/your-meps/uk_meps/london_region.html

They all have monthly newsletters you can sign up to, to see what they are doing.

'The Tory 7 that are leading No and presumably fancy themselves running the country - absolutely awful.'

Completely agree KirstyH - if they are the benchmark of what will come, then we should all be very worried.

[Blah Blah]

Interesting polling here.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-britain-is-deeply-eurosceptic-but-will-still-decide-to-stay-says-poll-a6892086.html

[steveo]

If there is Brexit, what happens to the million Poles?

And the others?

And the Welsh?

[DulwichFox]

steveo Wrote:

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> If there is Brexit, what happens to the million

> Poles?

>

> And the others?

>

> And the Welsh?

The Welsh are the true Brits.. so be carefull ;-)

Foxy

[Loz]

steveo Wrote:

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> If there is Brexit, what happens to the million

> Poles?

>

> And the others?

>

> And the Welsh?

... and the hundreds of thousands of retired British ex-builders/plumbers/white van drivers holed up in the south of Spain. I mean, do we really want them back?

[maxxi]

Blah Blah Wrote:

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> Interesting polling here.

>

> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-r

> eferendum-britain-is-deeply-eurosceptic-but-will-s

> till-decide-to-stay-says-poll-a6892086.html

So we've learned little from the General Election Polling farce.

My feeling is that people are liars. In a nice way of course. They will say what they think they should say when asked outright (like the shy Tory effect). They will spout well-learned stats about financial security in Europe, they will seem to revel in future European harmony and profess a love for their fellow European citizens. They will - if pushed - even join in the mocking of those who might dare suggest we 'leave'.

Then, in the privacy of the booth, they will vote to exit. And blame everyone else for it if it goes tits-up later.

[Loz]

maxxi Wrote:

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> Then, in the privacy of the booth, they will vote

> to exit. And blame everyone else for it if it goes tits-up later.

I feel it might be the other way - when it comes to the crunch, they will vote for the status quo.

[insert 'Living on an Island' joke here]

[Louisa]

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk

As usual it's a pretty mixed picture and very much dependent on whether its online or telephone polling data. I wouldn't trust the opinion polls in either direction, as much of the post general election soul searching, done by the pollsters, has yet to reach a firm conclusion on what needs to be done long term to remedy the issues brought up by previous polling.

Louisa.

[Blah Blah]

That a fair point. I found that poll interesting because it broke down aspects rather than just the straight in/out question. The big unknown are the undecideds and whether they will in the end stick with what they know rather voting for change (which is what tends to happen in elections). We shall see in June.

[Otta]

Blah Blah Wrote:

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> We shall see in June.

Absolutely Blah.

End of thread*, hurrah!

*Unless anything interesting actually HAPPENS in the mean time.

[sheff]

I think it's fanciful to believe that only 200k jobs would be at risk.

The vast majority of GDP is from SMEs.

SMEs historically trade at a net surplus for exports.

They are large employers.

The company I used to run imported circa 15m from Chima and Europe every year. Lots from Italy and Germany.

We then exported 70% of all our sales outside the UK. 30% back to EU.

The distribution centre we ran just outside Birmingham employed lots of people.

Leaving the EU would mean all the goods imported from the EU would attract duty at border, unless a convoluted bonded warehouse could be set up.

Youd then pay duty to export to the EU again (it was a luxury brand so we cover it for the consumer).

There is no doubt 70% of that distribution centre would be moved to a facility on the outskirts of A major French or German city. It would cut dead money out of the supply chain.

All that UK derived taxable profit flowing to the EU

[maxxi]

summer01 Wrote:

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Putin and Le Pen want us to leave,

> Obama and Merkel want us to stay. That pretty much

> says it all.

Yes. It says that anyone actually basing their decision on who's for and who's against* shouldn't be allowed a vote on Big Brother let alone anything important.

*Once I know which way Cheggers is going to vote I'll feel safer.

[Earl Aelfheah]

sheff Wrote:

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> I think it's fanciful to believe that only 200k

> jobs would be at risk.

> The vast majority of GDP is from SMEs.

> SMEs historically trade at a net surplus for

> exports.

> They are large employers.

>

> The company I used to run imported circa 15m from

> Chima and Europe every year. Lots from Italy and

> Germany.

> We then exported 70% of all our sales outside the

> UK. 30% back to EU.

>

> The distribution centre we ran just outside

> Birmingham employed lots of people.

>

> Leaving the EU would mean all the goods imported

> from the EU would attract duty at border, unless a

> convoluted bonded warehouse could be set up.

> Youd then pay duty to export to the EU again (it

> was a luxury brand so we cover it for the

> consumer).

>

> There is no doubt 70% of that distribution centre

> would be moved to a facility on the outskirts of A

> major French or German city. It would cut dead

> money out of the supply chain.

>

> All that UK derived taxable profit flowing to the

> EU

Spot on.

[TheArtfulDogger]

Sheff, out of curiosity, what amount (value wise) did you import from Europe and what did you export back to Europe?

I wonder if you imported more from the EU than you exported to the EU !

I do believe we import more from the EU than we export (value wise) which would make it preferable for European countries to still minimise red tape and costs regardless if we are in or out.

Also I fear that Merkel (and Germany) only wants us in because of the amount we pay in to the EU every year and if we leave then they (and other countries) would need to increase their input to support the countries in the EU that need to take out more than they put in.

Just my views but they do niggle me at the back of my head when considering all of this.

Besides the BBC news today talked about the possibility of the EU wise migration situation which could break Europe apart regardless so it may be academic which we vote in June

[Loz]

It's worth reading this article, summing up Norway's relationship with the EU, which may (or may not) be similar to what a post-Brexit UK may experience.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/27/norway-eu-reality-uk-voters-seduced-by-norwegian-model

[sheff]

Circa 4.5m imported from the EU... Mainly from Italy, Portugal, Bulgaria.

All road shipments from UK logistics companies to the UK.

Exports would have been ?15m back to the EU.

I'm not there anymore but i'd assume the following.

If we left the EU and assuming a 12.5% duty rate thats ?0.5m on import duties and ?1.8m on export duties from subsidising the EU customer. So ?2.4m of cost from nowhere. That 1.8m goes to the EU country of delivery.

Given that you can eradicate the cost instantly by moving distribution to France etc you'd have a decent argument to move out of the UK.

It would then add burden onto the company. You'd have to waste cash on more product to make sure that you never had stock outage in any warehouse.

The knock on effects

- you'd use a French or Portuguese logistics company so a hit to the UK there.

- the UK would lose VAT on some of those sales to HMRC - lets call that ?3m quid. Its not that simple because of distance selling but roughly.

- You'd lose jobs at the distribution center in the UK

- You'd move some of the customer service function to the EU to be near product returns.

- You'd have to make profits in EU for tax reasons so you'd pay that there.

- you'd also ship 70% of product from China to the EU warehouse so UK HMRC would lose that money as well. More millions.

So all those costs add up and impact on the company and the UK from tax, employment etc.