Brexit to be triggered tomorrow - what if the severance deal is a bad one for the UK?

Clarky

Seriously, I personally think this is a sad day 

Fretwired

Clarky said:

Seriously, I personally think this is a sad day 

We haven't left yet .... ;-)

I past 2020 and hope Clegg and his alliance of Remainers can beat May. The Lib Dems need to ditch Tim Nice but dim and reinstate Clegg.

VimFuego

I'm pretty sure you have to explicitly refer to him as tim nice but dim, leader of the lib dems, else no one will know who he is.

Bidley

Fretwired said:

Clarky said:

Seriously, I personally think this is a sad day 

We haven't left yet .... ;-)

I past 2020 and hope Clegg and his alliance of Remainers can beat May. The Lib Dems need to ditch Tim Nice but dim and reinstate Clegg.

Here here.

http://www.newstatesman.com/sites/default/files/images/Clegg-referendum-page-001-353x500.jpg

Fretwired

Bidley said:

Fretwired said:

Clarky said:

Seriously, I personally think this is a sad day 

We haven't left yet .... ;-)

I past 2020 and hope Clegg and his alliance of Remainers can beat May. The Lib Dems need to ditch Tim Nice but dim and reinstate Clegg.

Here here.

http://www.newstatesman.com/sites/default/files/images/Clegg-referendum-page-001-353x500.jpg

I posted that a while back and got seriously trashed .... people have short memories.

quarky

I honestly think that economically, the difference isn't going to be huge regardless of whether we stay or go. Leaving isn't going to be a rocket engine of economic growth, nor will it be a ball and chain. Which is kind of why I wasn't too upset with the status quo. When put on the spot though, less EU was *always* going to be my choice over more EU.

So onwards and upwards. I suspect our economic growth will have been higher than EU28 before, and will be higher than EU27 after. The EU will face some very difficult decisions over the Euro, so glad to be out of *that* mess.

Evilmags

The Euro
Trump wanting 2% GDP budgets for Nato coverage
Loss of 9bn net funding
Hideous unemployment.

digitalscream

ICBM said:

We can't have be 4th for quite some time, since the ones above us are the USA, China, Japan and Germany. I would think that the one of those which was below us most recently would actually be China, in the 80s at the latest.

I think we were above Germany, until the exchange rate crashed on Referendum Day. Certainly, there was lots of bleating about us being "...the 4th largest economy in the world" from the Leave campaign (and on this forum), so it must be true.

Clarky

digitalscream said:

ICBM said:

We can't have be 4th for quite some time, since the ones above us are the USA, China, Japan and Germany. I would think that the one of those which was below us most recently would actually be China, in the 80s at the latest.

I think we were above Germany, until the exchange rate crashed on Referendum Day. Certainly, there was lots of bleating about us being "...the 4th largest economy in the world" from the Leave campaign (and on this forum), so it must be true.

4th or 5th… it don't matter… we also won the world cup once.. lol..
we'll be a banana republic within 10 years
but one without the climate to grow bananas… lmao

ICBM

digitalscream said:

I think we were above Germany, until the exchange rate crashed on Referendum Day. Certainly, there was lots of bleating about us being "...the 4th largest economy in the world" from the Leave campaign (and on this forum), so it must be true.

I'd find that highly surprising given that they have a higher population and productivity than we do (GDP being measured as absolute, not per capita), and that the gap is now about a third of our total.

Are you sure that it's not that we were 5th, and we're about to be - or have already been - 6th, overtaken by India?

quarky

digitalscream said:

ICBM said:

We can't have be 4th for quite some time, since the ones above us are the USA, China, Japan and Germany. I would think that the one of those which was below us most recently would actually be China, in the 80s at the latest.

I think we were above Germany, until the exchange rate crashed on Referendum Day. Certainly, there was lots of bleating about us being "...the 4th largest economy in the world" from the Leave campaign (and on this forum), so it must be true.

Definitely not. We are very close in size to France though, so France could have overtaken us temporarily due to the exchange rate, so 5th/6th, rather than 4th/5th.

Fretwired

digitalscream said:

ICBM said:

We can't have be 4th for quite some time, since the ones above us are the USA, China, Japan and Germany. I would think that the one of those which was below us most recently would actually be China, in the 80s at the latest.

I think we were above Germany, until the exchange rate crashed on Referendum Day. Certainly, there was lots of bleating about us being "...the 4th largest economy in the world" from the Leave campaign (and on this forum), so it must be true.

No way. Germany have been well above us for years even when they were just West Germany. It also depends how you measure it as at the moment Germany is the fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP in the world, and fifth by GDP (PPP).

According to the IMF the top economies are:

1. USA
2. China
3 Japan
4. Germany
5. UK
6. France
7. India
8. Italy
9. Brazil
10. Canada

India will soon leapfrog into fourth place probably early next year.

Fretwired

:-)

Snap

4th 5ht, whatever, it isn't the point. The point is, that the EU is losing its second biggest economy. in the EU, after Germany, UK and France, the gap in terms of financial contribution and support to the EU, to the other EU members size and input, widens considerably. If this doesn't go right, the EU loses a LOT of contribution.

The single market is good, of course it is, 500 million people. But.....outside of the EU we then have the ability to individually negotiate with some huge and growing economies: USA 300 million +, China - 1.4Bn, India 1.3Bn, Brazil 211 million, etc etc.

Currently in the EU we are constrained by the EU trade agreement, and remove that and we have the ability to negotiate 1:1 with any one we please. S East Asia is possibly the fastest growing economic area on the planet, with some huge populations. There is a lot of argument to be made to say that the real future lies in these countries not in the stagnating and retracting economies of the EU. The EU has a lot pf challenges to face.

The phrase the world is our oyster is actually very apt.

We have the opportunity to get deals done with all that AND the EU. Not a bad position to be in really.

Rocker

Fretwired saidl

:-)

Classic tactic by Government. Get you used to a figure (50 Billion in this case), then when the real figure (>60 Billion) is announced, it is not a lot higher than expected. So it is presented as being not too bad! But remember it is you that has to pay the bill even if it is 'only' 50 Billion. We in ROI paid a lot less to bail out the Banks. The Health Service and general services suffered in that time as did pensions, roads etc.

digitalscream

Snap said:

The single market is good, of course it is, 500 million people. But.....outside of the EU we then have the ability to individually negotiate with some huge and growing economies: USA 300 million +, China - 1.4Bn, India 1.3Bn, Brazil 211 million, etc etc.

The problem with this is that we're a net importer by a bigger margin from the EU (£19.5bn imports vs £12.8bn exports) than we are from the rest of the world (£18.6bn imports vs £15.5bn exports). To my understanding, that means - without access to the single market - everything's likely to get even more expensive for us than it already is.

Despite the size of those other markets relative to the EU, we still rely on products and services from the EU more than from the rest of the world. It might be chicken-and-egg, but once we're out our options are only a) more expensive, or b) more disruptive (given our physical distance from the rest of the world relative to our distance from the EU).

* Those figures are from January 2017

Snap

Yep, get all that, but, my point is there is a lot of opportunity to be had. The disruption could be sorted. Its not all the doom and gloom that is being made out at all. Whilst half of our trade is with the EU, this also means that half is elsewhere. As the economies in the EU only look to be going in one direction, with no prospect of an end to bail outs being needed, I don't think the opportunity to trade elsewhere, more freely, is a bad thing at all.

If it were a business, you wouldn't want half of your turnover to be with a place that is economically stagnant, and contains divisions that are near bankrupt and leaking cash. That's the EU.

Given a choice, I would stay in the EU, but I think the exit has a lot of upsides to it, if we do it right, and I don't think the hysterical hard brexit cliff is a reality at all.This bullshit sells media though, and it will continue.

Fretwired

From Today's Times newspaper (behind a paywall)


Divorce bill could be only €25bn, says think tank

The extent of Britain’s liabilities on leaving the EU could be as little as €25.4 billion, a respected European think tank has concluded.

In the first comprehensive analysis of what the UK can expect to pay and get back after Brexit, researchers found that the EU’s public demand for a €60 billion (£52 billion) divorce settlement was at the highest end of plausible scenarios.

David Davis, the Brexit secretary, said that the government was not expecting a bill of “anything like” €60 billion. “The era of huge sums being paid to the European Union is coming to an end, so once we’re out that’s it,” he said.

The Bruegel study found that Britain’s obligations were significantly less when its rebate was taken into consideration along with its share of existing EU assets. While €25 billion was at the low end of its estimates it suggested that the fairest and most likely figure for Britain’s net liabilities was €35.7 billion.
The ledger

    €86.9bn UK’s gross exposure to EU debts and liabilities
    €17.7bn UK’s share of EU assets
    €28.9bn EU money to be spent in the UK over the period
    €4.6bn Rebate on the UK’s EU contributions

Bruegel is highly regarded in the European Commission and its research is likely to form a starting point for negotiations. It also represents the most thorough analysis of the EU’s assets, liabilities and commitments yet undertaken.

The authors found that the EU had financial commitments amounting to €723.9 billion by the end of 2018. This is made up of money set aside for the seven-year budgetary period that ends in 2020, which Britain agreed to as a member. Assuming that its share of that commitment is 12 per cent (the UK’s rebate-adjusted gross contribution), this would amount to a gross liability of €86.9 billion.

At the same time the researchers found that the EU had assets and money owing to it over the period of €192.6 billion, of which the UK’s share is likely to be about €17.7 billion. That would leave a net bill of €69 billion.

Those sums do not include money due to be paid to British institutions over the period. This comes to €28.9 billion, plus a rebate of €4.6 billion, leading to a total bill of €35.7 billion.

Tellingly, of the 12 scenarios modelled by the think tank only one was higher than the €60 billion that the European Commission’s president, Jean-Claude Juncker, has suggested that Britain should pay.

Zsolt Darvas, one of the authors of the report, said that the only way to come to a figure close to that would be to remove the UK’s rebate on EU contributions from the calculation.

However, he said that it might be possible to come to a lower figure than €25.4 billion if Britain could argue that it was not responsible for any EU spending signed off on after it has left the union.

bwets

I am not happy that an unelected leader is negotiating something so important. She has no track record as PM. No one has voted for any kind of manifesto with regards to a new deal with the EU. I would have liked a general election before Article 50 was triggered.

VimFuego

bwets said:

I am not happy that an unelected leader is negotiating something so important. She has no track record as PM. No one has voted for any kind of manifesto with regards to a new deal with the EU. I would have liked a general election before Article 50 was triggered.

that is a fair point, however the person who was "elected" decided to fuck off as soon as things got tricky. And he laughed at us as he went, and sung a smug little tune as well.