If we vote for Brexit what happens

BobQ

A_Medium_Size_Jock wrote: »

I cannot see mention here so ...... it seems that Lord Chancellor Liz Truss is saying that Article 50 is "irrevocable".

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/liz-truss-brexit-irrevocable-article-50-european-union-andrew-marr-show-justice-secretary-a7588106.html

The EU cannot prevent us leaving after two years with or without an agreed deal. But the Treaty is silent on other scenarios. By implication, it seems evident that he UK cannot revoke A50 even if it wants to do so.

But if the UK and the EU27 both agreed that the deal was that the UK's membership continued then I cannot see anything that stops that happening.

leveller2911

Shakethedisease wrote: »

The above article. Won't that put UK farmers and food producers on the scrapheap ? They'll all go bust.

New Zealand scrapped farming subsidies back in the 1980's and they are going from strength to strength. Its worth mentioning that during the years since they stopped subsidising the farming industry they have had to compete on a world market with countries who have heavily subsidised the industry and NZ have been very competitive.

"Immediately after dismantling its subsidy regime, farmers were afraid and furious, marching on the capitol in protest. However, despite predictions that 10 percent of its farms would go bankrupt, New Zealand retained 99 percent of its farms".

http://epi.yale.edu/case-study/removal-agricultural-subsidies-new-zealand


According to the FW polls nowhere in the UK did the remain vote receive more than 50% of the farming vote . Doesn't look like the farmers were that impressed with the CAP because 58% of them voted to leave the EU.

http://www.fwi.co.uk/news/exclusive-survey-reveals-farmers-back-eu-exit.htm


Purely anecdotal but down here I didn't see a single billboard on farmland urging people to vote remain, plenty of them around for "Vote Leave".

Just read the Last usernames post along the same lines but I'll leave mine up just as a back-up..:)

Shakethedisease

leveller2911 wrote: »

New Zealand scrapped farming subsidies back in the 1980's and they are going from strength to strength. Its worth mentioning that during the years since they stopped subsidising the farming industry they have had to compete on a world market with countries who have heavily subsidised the industry and NZ have been very competitive.

"Immediately after dismantling its subsidy regime, farmers were afraid and furious, marching on the capitol in protest. However, despite predictions that 10 percent of its farms would go bankrupt, New Zealand retained 99 percent of its farms".

http://epi.yale.edu/case-study/removal-agricultural-subsidies-new-zealand


According to the FW polls nowhere in the UK did the remain vote receive more than 50% of the farming vote . Doesn't look like the farmers were that impressed with the CAP because 58% of them voted to leave the EU.

http://www.fwi.co.uk/news/exclusive-survey-reveals-farmers-back-eu-exit.htm


Purely anecdotal but down here I didn't see a single billboard on farmland urging people to vote remain, plenty of them around for "Vote Leave".

Just read the Last usernames post along the same lines but I'll leave mine up just as a back-up..:)

I know what you're saying about the Farmers/Leave. But I seriously doubt they expected the UK to drop all import tariffs and open the floodgates. New Zealand has had nearly four decades to adjust. It's politically very risky indeed ? Manfacturing too.

Leave the single market and customs union with no free trade deal – but unilaterally scrap all import tariffs. This would permit a flood of cheap food, cheap goods and cheap commodity imports into the UK. This would also push down prices in the shops. But it would have a catastrophic impact on our farmers and manufacturers and all those who work in those sectors.

It would be politically explosive since, by Government choice, the exports of our industries would be subject to tariffs abroad, but imports from foreign competitors would not be. Also, under this Brexit, the UK would not even seek to strike free trade deals, meaning there would be zero help for our services firms, which are the dominant part of our economy, in breaking into foreign markets and bypassing their non-tariff barriers.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-eu-referendum-article-50-theresa-may-brexiteers-trade-deals-freedom-movement-choices-take-a7367896.html

leveller2911

Shakethedisease wrote: »

I know what you're saying about the Farmers/Leave. But I seriously doubt they expected the UK to drop all import tariffs and open the floodgates. New Zealand has had nearly four decades to adjust. It's politically very risky indeed ? Manfacturing too.

I'm sure the road wasn't without its rocks but 99% of New Zealand farms remained as family run farms so there was no large scale consolidation of the industry forming fewer but larger farms.

Is it not also a risk to carry on blindly stuck in a project thats going nowhere and taking an age to get there. It took decades to reform the CAP and it still accounts for 40% of the entire EU budget. The industry is like a drug addict in that it feels it needs the CAP when in fact the UK farming community has more confidence than the French or Germans. The French have used the CAP not to reform its farming methods and that cannot be a good thing.

Someone has to be the first to change and New Zealand have shown the way imo.The country successfully competes on a world market that includes countries that subsidise Farming and NZ succeeds so that must tell us something.

Every argument I see where a poster says if we leave this or that it will be a disaster but many fail to consider what will happen to the EU if we stay given its failure to reform. Staying can also be a failure. Maybe we are between a rock and a hard place but at least we will be the ones who decide which path we follow.

Shakethedisease

Posting this here from Twitter ( apologies antrobus ) but is also referenced today in the Guardian as well.

German MEP @ElmarBrok_MEP has warned the Tories that if they try to divide the EU27 in Brexit talks: "We can make a big fuss over Scotland."

As for farmers and manufacturing, I don't think it would fly politically. The UK Govt imo should look after it's own industries especially food producers and opening the floodgates would cause untold short/mid term damage. I hope it's a non-starter.

Moby

orwen wrote: »

The one question I have never seen definitively addressed - and backed up with clear examples, is this:- Is it in Britain's economic interest to leave the EU?

If the answer is yes, then there should be chapter & verse explaining exactly how & why.

If the answer is no, then we need to get on with our membership.

This is the point Blair made, (amongst others). It's interesting that the Brexiteers are happy to deploy the economic argument re. an independent Scotland but are far more reticent when it comes to Brexit. As Blair said....... as the reality sinks in over the next few years the mood may shift and the 37% who voted for Brexit will start to shrink. That is my hope but I acknowledge the reality is though that the ideologues driving Brexit are basically free market loons who seem only too happy to pull us all down with them on their point of principle. They are religious in their fervour and will not be denied. This country's future prospects seems to have been handed to such types by the ignorant and ill informed who were mesmerised by the issue of immigration and will probably be too stubborn to correct their error. Therefore welcome to the world of Redwood, Davis, Fox Johnston, Duncan Smith etc. Workers of Britain your winge that Labour 'did nothing for me' is going to sound pretty hollow in the coming years. Labour did ignore you but this lot are really going to really shaft you.

gfplux

The_Last_Username wrote: »

It didn't put New Zealand farmers "on the scrapheap" in the early 70's after the UK joined the EU and stopped the half of their total exports that came to us.
So why should the UK be any different?
Besides the link below, I read somewhere recently that 99% of their farms survived the loss of our trade.
Oh, and how have the EU so negatively affected our farmers so far with for one example only dairy farmers etc. unable to draw even, never mind make a profit?
Why does anyone think that a majority of UK farmers want to leave the EU?
https://www.ft.com/content/117f5f10-ed57-11e6-ba01-119a44939bb6

The CAP is certainly a very complex "thing" and Britains membership over forty years has done little to bring in major reform.

However Coming to Dairy Farming and the production of milk.
Please help me correct my wrong impression, if it is wrong.
Or is this an example of "Alternative Truth"

Milk producers were complaining, or so I thought, that the Supermarkets were using milk as a loss leader and were not paying the farmers an economic price.
If I am wrong tell me please.
If my impression was correct leaving the EU will solve this problem, will it?. When will the Supermarkets start paying a higher price for milk. Will that be the day after we leave the EU. Does the Government have to include something in the negotiations to cover this.

I don't want to be argumentative but we all must push back when we think we see an example of the Alertative Facts!

Fella

orwen wrote: »

The one question I have never seen definitively addressed - and backed up with clear examples, is this:- Is it in Britain's economic interest to leave the EU?

If the answer is yes, then there should be chapter & verse explaining exactly how & why.

That's a flawed argument. It's perfectly reasonable to hold the position that the EU is a hugely bloated bureaucracy that both imposes countless regulations upon the UK & UK businesses and restricts our ability to trade with countries outside the EU. And that therefore leaving the EU is in our financial interests.

Nobody on here has the remotest idea what a future inside the EU might actually look like over say the next 10 years. There are plenty of people who believe it might not even exist, or if it does it'll be unrecognizable. So no reason whatsoever that Brexiteers should be expected to somehow detail a future outside it.

A_Medium_Size_Jock

gfplux wrote: »

The CAP is certainly a very complex "thing" and Britains membership over forty years has done little to bring in major reform.

However Coming to Dairy Farming and the production of milk.
Please help me correct my wrong impression, if it is wrong.
Or is this an example of "Alternative Truth"

Milk producers were complaining, or so I thought, that the Supermarkets were using milk as a loss leader and were not paying the farmers an economic price.
If I am wrong tell me please.
If my impression was correct leaving the EU will solve this problem, will it?. When will the Supermarkets start paying a higher price for milk. Will that be the day after we leave the EU. Does the Government have to include something in the negotiations to cover this.

I don't want to be argumentative but we all must push back when we think we see an example of the Alertative Facts!

It appears that the "alternative facts" as usual are yours.
A simple web search will show how you ignore the EU's effect on dairy farming although I grant that you are at least partially correct in your surmise.
Once out of the EU would UK companies still wish to or indeed be able to buy EU milk?

Any way, on to the EU's involvement:

The EU has ended milk quotas without any clear plan on how the dairy market is to regulate supply management. Domestic producers are increasing production without a confirmed market for their produce.

http://www.stuartagnewmep.co.uk/images_server/stuart_agnew/documents/39_The%20EU%20impact%20on%20dariy%20farming.pdf

Then, in April this year, EU milk quotas were abolished. These had been preventing European dairy farmers from overproducing.

http://sustainablefoodtrust.org/articles/explaining-britains-dairy-crisis/

So you may gather that the REASON farmers are not being paid an economic price for their milk is because of competition following the EU ending milk quotas.
More-heavily-subsidised German milk even after import is cheaper than our own home-produced milk for example - and keeps wholesale prices down.

The dairy industry is divided about how to tackle the crisis, especially because there appears to be no quick reprieve from the weaker demand that has led to milk oversupply and depressed prices around the world.

Last month, MPs noted in a report on farmgate prices: “The British dairy market is somewhat unusual in that approximately 65 per cent of production is sold as liquid milk.” In the rest of Europe, this proportion is 30 per cent, making British farmers more vulnerable to changes in milk prices.

https://www.ft.com/content/f7ac7cac-eed4-11e5-9f20-c3a047354386

Just to add:
Can the UK introduce any protective measures for UK dairy farmers like tariffs on imported milk (or pretty much anything else, for that matter) especially from within the EU whilst members of the EU club?
Or do you think that might be against EU rules?

Malthusian

German MEP @ElmarBrok_MEP has warned the Tories that if they try to divide the EU27 in Brexit talks: "We can make a big fuss over Scotland."

Yes please.

They just aren't very good at the whole "threat" thing, bless them.