If we vote for Brexit what happens

Conrad

Perhaps we should go for the Norweigen model for now;


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/06/01/leave-camp-must-accept-that-norway-model-is-the-only-safe-way-to/




The Adam Smith Institute starts from the premise that the EU is "sclerotic, anti-democratic, immune to reform, and a political relic of a post-war order that no longer exists." It says the EEA option lets the public judge "what 'out' looks like" and keeps disruption to a minimum.


"The economic risks of leaving would thus be neutralised – it would be solely a disengagement from political integration. All the business scare stories about being cut off from the single market would fade away," it said.


The report argues that everybody could live with an EEA compromise, whether the Civil Service, or the US, or the EU itself. Britain would then be a sovereign actor, taking its own seat on the global bodies that increasingly regulate everything from car standards, to food safety, and banking rules.
"As Britain is already a contracting party to the EEA Agreement there would be no serious legal obstacle," it says.


David Cameron disparages the Norwegian model as a non-starter. “While they pay, they don’t have a say,” he says.


Actually they do. As our forensic report on Norway by Szu Ping Chan makes clear, they have a de facto veto over EU laws under Article 102 of the EEA agreement. Their net payments were £106 a head in 2014, a trivial sum.
They are exempt from the EU agricultural, fisheries, foreign, defence, and justice policies, yet they still have "passporting" rights for financial services. Their citizens can live in their Perigord moulins or on the Costa Del Sol just as contentedly as we can.


They do not have to implement all EU law as often claimed. Norway's latest report shows it has adopted just 1,349 of the 7,720 EU regulations in force, and 1,369 out of 1,965 EU directives.


The elegance of the EEA option is that Britain would retain access to the EU customs union while being able to forge free trade deals with any other country over time.


There would be no need for a desperate rush to both reach a modus vivendi with the EU and to renew all the EU's 80 bilateral deals with other countries and regional blocs before the two-year guillotine fell under Article 50, the EU secession clause.


Miriam Gonzalez Durantez, a former EU trade official (and Nick Clegg's wife), argues that Britain is so short of trade expertise that it would struggle to assemble 25 experts even after repatriating staff from the EU.
In this she is right. Where she is on shakier ground is to claim that we would need 500 officials "working intensely for a decade" to renew our third party trade deals.


Really? There is a simple administrative mechanism for the switch-over. All it requires is a filing at the United Nations under the "presumption of continuity" and trade goes on as before, a procedure used time and again over the post-war era.


This is what occurred after the break-up of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. It was the formula used for decolonisation in the 1960s. It would take a willful decision to override this mechanism of international law, and it is hard to see why a close allies such as US, Canada, or Japan would act in such a fashion.


The G20 and the G7 profess to stand for free trade and keep telling us a lurch towards protectionism would shatter the world's fragile economic order.

Filo25

tommysaver wrote: »

Haha, agreed! I must admit, from everything I'm reading, everyone I'm speaking to, all the comments on the BBC, Telegraph, Dailymail, Facebook, at work, it's a resounding OUT. I'm genuinely feeling to lump some on at current odds of 3.75 to 1.

Cheers, Tom

I think Brexiters are more vocal than remainers on public forums (and you aren't likely to find many Remain voters on the Mail website anyway!), Facebook just depends on who you know, mine is full or pro-Remain comments.

Likewise with your friends and work colleagues, where you live, their age, political views, education levels and socioeconomic classes all have big impacts on which way people tend to vote.

That's how you can have so many people on here saying nearly everyone they know is voting Brexit but the polls are tied, nearly everyone I know is voting Remain but I'm not deluding myself that its a very representative sample!

Conrad

Filo25 wrote: »

I think Brexiters are more vocal than remainers on public forums (and you aren't likely to find many, Facebook just depends on who you know, mine is full or pro-Remain comments.

Likewise with your friends and work colleagues, where you live, their age, political views, education levels and socioeconomic classes all have big impacts on which way people tend to vote.

That's how you can have so many people on here saying nearly everyone they know is voting Brexit but the polls are tied, nearly everyone I know is voting Remain but I'm not deluding myself that its a very representative sample!

I agree.


On FB I see everyone appears to be Remain but I have to say their justifications really are truly indicative of the most puerile form of ignorance with comments such as 'no more cheap flights' - oh really, so cheap flights only exist in the EU do they, and enterprising operators are just gonna lay down and accept higher prices and do nothing to ensure their low cost status continues, they will just let German Wings or whoever steal all their customers dohhh

TrickyTree83

Generali wrote: »

I got through 3 pages of it before dismissing it as twaddle. For example, why would an equity holder in an entity have any liability? This is hardly produced by a disinterested party.

And if as an equity holder in the ECB the BoE did have a liability, why would that dissolve on quitting the EU? My UK pension investments in Mercedes and Carrefour aren't just going to disappear because the UK leaves the EU, why would the BoE's share holdings?

It doesn't strike me as the BoE being an equity holder in either the ECB or the EIB but those institutions having a charge on monies held in the UK economy. Subscribed capital and assumed ownership of bullion and currency reserves in national central banks. It doesn't come across to me as comparable to your pension investments where the fund owns the stock that will continue whether we were in the EU, outside the EU, or on the moon.

Filo25

Conrad wrote: »

Perhaps we should go for the Norweigen model for now;


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/06/01/leave-camp-must-accept-that-norway-model-is-the-only-safe-way-to/




The Adam Smith Institute starts from the premise that the EU is "sclerotic, anti-democratic, immune to reform, and a political relic of a post-war order that no longer exists." It says the EEA option lets the public judge "what 'out' looks like" and keeps disruption to a minimum.


"The economic risks of leaving would thus be neutralised – it would be solely a disengagement from political integration. All the business scare stories about being cut off from the single market would fade away," it said.


The report argues that everybody could live with an EEA compromise, whether the Civil Service, or the US, or the EU itself. Britain would then be a sovereign actor, taking its own seat on the global bodies that increasingly regulate everything from car standards, to food safety, and banking rules.
"As Britain is already a contracting party to the EEA Agreement there would be no serious legal obstacle," it says.


David Cameron disparages the Norwegian model as a non-starter. “While they pay, they don’t have a say,” he says.


Actually they do. As our forensic report on Norway by Szu Ping Chan makes clear, they have a de facto veto over EU laws under Article 102 of the EEA agreement. Their net payments were £106 a head in 2014, a trivial sum.
They are exempt from the EU agricultural, fisheries, foreign, defence, and justice policies, yet they still have "passporting" rights for financial services. Their citizens can live in their Perigord moulins or on the Costa Del Sol just as contentedly as we can.


They do not have to implement all EU law as often claimed. Norway's latest report shows it has adopted just 1,349 of the 7,720 EU regulations in force, and 1,369 out of 1,965 EU directives.

Agree that the economic impacts of EEA membership are considerably lower.

The elephant in the room though is free movement of labour, that would be a tough sell for the Brexit campaign, especially after their declaration on immigration yesterday.

Generali

TrickyTree83 wrote: »

It doesn't strike me as the BoE being an equity holder in either the ECB or the EIB but those institutions having a charge on monies held in the UK economy. Subscribed capital and assumed ownership of bullion and currency reserves in national central banks. It doesn't come across to me as comparable to your pension investments where the fund owns the stock that will continue whether we were in the EU, outside the EU, or on the moon.

The bit you miss is that the UK remains sovereign. If the ECB 'tells' the UK to hand over a bunch of money the UK Government can simply tell them to Foxtrot Oscar.

TrickyTree83

Generali wrote: »

The bit you miss is that the UK remains sovereign. If the ECB 'tells' the UK to hand over a bunch of money the UK Government can simply tell them to Foxtrot Oscar.

Are we? Can we?

Maybe where the ECB is concerned since we're not in currency union but we are a member of the EU and the EIB is an EU institution, not a Eurozone institution.

mwpt

tommysaver wrote: »

Thanks TrickyTree.

After having watched Brexit the movie, and Jeremy Paxman in Brussels, I hear you loud and clear!

From a democratic point of view, I'm 100% voting out. I'm just trying to clear up a few of the other areas.

Cheers - Tom

I'm glad that posting on here has helped you make up your mind so quickly and that democracy has been key to this.

Perhaps you can sway me, what specifically will look different for you and I in two years time with our new found democracy? I'm less interested in principles, more in specifics.

Generali

TrickyTree83 wrote: »

Are we? Can we?

Yes and yes.

By what mechanism do you see the ECB forcing the British Government to pony up (assuming it has the right to at all which I doubt TBH)? Is the EU going to send the tanks in?

TrickyTree83 wrote: »

Maybe where the ECB is concerned since we're not in currency union but we are a member of the EU and the EIB is an EU institution, not a Eurozone institution.

The British Government has signed up to the EIB one way or another and I'm not sure why quitting the EU would cause guarantees made to the EIB to be cleared. The fact remains that the UK is Sovereign so the only ways to force her to pay money are to confiscate funds held abroad, something that could be retaliated on a tit-for-tat basis, or to send the tanks in.

As the UK has huge financial markets, her ability to take money from other countries is unrivaled and without wishing to sound like a little Englander, European countries don't have a brilliant record at fighting the British army.

TrickyTree83

Generali wrote: »

Yes and yes.

By what mechanism do you see the ECB forcing the British Government to pony up (assuming it has the right to at all which I doubt TBH)? Is the EU going to send the tanks in?



The British Government has signed up to the EIB one way or another and I'm not sure why quitting the EU would cause guarantees made to the EIB to be cleared. The fact remains that the UK is Sovereign so the only ways to force her to pay money are to confiscate funds held abroad, something that could be retaliated on a tit-for-tat basis, or to send the tanks in.

As the UK has huge financial markets, her ability to take money from other countries is unrivaled and without wishing to sound like a little Englander, European countries don't have a brilliant record at fighting the British army.

What you are suggesting is breaking treaties and using economic and possibly military force to ensure our supremacy. Is that going to be acceptable to the rest of the world? Generally it's safer to leave a treaty than to break it. By leaving we would no longer be on the hook for reserves held by the BoE from the EIB and possibly although slightly more opaquely the ECB. By abiding by the treaties we have signed we would not be in a position to say no to a request for money from the EIB in particular unless as you suggest we do it by force.