The EU: IN or OUT?

moneyfoolish

JohnRo wrote: »

You can say that now because we'll never know, that doesn't make it true, just very convenient.

However there's no more truth in your statement than there is in the slogan that we will be able to spend an extra £350 million a week on the NHS, or any extra amount on anything for that matter.

The difference between the two is that we will know about the brexit campaign lies because we can measure them, we'll also learn over time whether the shrill accusations of 'project fear' just turn out to be plain old boring project fact.

We do know, however, that there won't be an emergency budget and that the stock market hasn't gone into meltdown which we were told by the Remain side. Both sides told whoppers and neither can be trusted!

Ballard

If the base rate does drop and savngs rates follow it'll be unfortunate that the age group that voted in highest numbers to leave the EU are the ones most likely to lose out in the short term.

EnglishMohican

@JohnRo
Pot and kettle me thinks.

The fact that we will never know, does not make teddysmum's statement untrue, just unprovable. The EU could have honoured its promises fully - or maybe not. A future UK government might have used the vetos or the situation might have been such that it was politically expedient to forget about them. Her judgement is as valid as yours even if it is the opposite of what you would like to believe.

You then commit the crime you accuse teddysmum of and state that we will know when the £350M pledge is not achieved. But we will not. Long before it is reasonable to expect any money from the £350M to be available to put into the NHS, the circumstances will have changed. Maybe for the worse as I am sure you believe, or maybe for the better. If the latter, then we might put an extra £400M into the NHS but I am sure that then you will wriggle around and try to attribute the increase to, for example, the fine companies that have boosted exports so much, without conceding that they were only able to do so because we were out of the EU. Or maybe £350M will be put into social services to stop bed blocking being such a problem to the NHS - but you will never admit that that meets the "promise".

So your last paragraph is no different to teddysmum's statement in that you will not know whether any extra money put into the NHS came from the £350M EU payment or some other pot, whether it was going to be £350M but some other factor changed and changed the money available and you will not know whether the future expansion or recession was correctly forseen by Osborne and co or whether whatever happens is actually due to new factors helping or hindering us.

Some are forecasting that the EU will collapse and that that will have a far more devastating effect than the UK's exit. But I am sure you will blame the EU collapse on Brexit so you will be right in your eyes whatever happens.

JohnRo

The effect brexit has on the UK economy and public spending will be recorded over time, you can make all the excuses you like. Those figures will be quantifiable.

Ballard

Do you actually believe the £350m per week quoted by Vote Leave to be accurate then, EnglishMohican? I thought that pretty much everyone had a knowldged that it was false.

EnglishMohican

When I moved my electricity supply recently, I committed to pay £90 per month. Because I pay through Santander 123, I receive a cash back, say £1 per month. I then receive electricity back in return and various other customers receive free electricity that I pay for because they short out their meters and somebody has to pay.
I know its not exactly parallel but the £90 is equivalent to the £350M, the cashback is equivalent to the rebate, the electricity is equivalent to the money spent in the UK and the electricity stolen is equivalent to the money used to fund the rest of the EU. (I am not trying to imply that the EU steal our money.)
If Santander stop giving cashback then the rebate disappears. Its unlikely but it is possible. I believe that there are circumstances in which the rebate could be given up - witness Tony Blair giving up some of it a few years ago.
I get my electricity so if I stop paying the £90, then I lose a benefit of paying my £90
But if I decide to make my own electricity (solar power??) then I can stop paying the £90 pound and give it to the wife and she can buy caviar for our tea.
So I believe that the £350M is a figure in a budget. I do not believe we pack up 350m pound notes in a suitcase and then hand it over to the EU.
The budget also contains various counterbalancing figures, the rebate and the benefits the UK recieves.
At present, the rebate is a fact - we receive it - or if you prefer, we do not send it in the first place. So at this moment, the sum available for the NHS is less than £350M by the amount of the rebate. If we had stayed in the EU and the rebate had been lost then £350M would, in a logical sense but not physically, be available for the NHS.
If I was prime minister, would I allocate £350M to the NHS. I'm afraid not, we need to continue doing something to generate the benefits (the electricity) so science funding and farmers subsidies have to continue at least for the moment. But the "stolen electricity" is available for the NHS if we decide that way.

So the £350M is as valid a figure as the £180M figure. Both represent one view of the truth and neither are complete and accurate. I see a head on my coin, you see a tail. We are both telling a truth - its just that there are several truths.

EnglishMohican

JohnRo wrote: »

The effect brexit has on the UK economy and public spending will be recorded over time, you can make all the excuses you like. Those figures will be quantifiable.

Rubbish. The records will demonstrate the effect of the sum of all events over whatever timeframe. One of those events will be Brexit. There will be many others. You will not be able to distinguish changes caused by one major event from another major event and all the minor events add further confusion to any analysis.

JohnRo

You're assuming in this convoluted analogy that the unit cost of electricity is not going up...

JohnRo

EnglishMohican wrote: »

Rubbish. The records will demonstrate the effect of the sum of all events over whatever timeframe. One of those events will be Brexit. There will be many others. You will not be able to distinguish changes caused by one major event from another major event and all the minor events add further confusion to any analysis.

OK so nothing can ever be quantified then...

EnglishMohican

JohnRo wrote: »

You're assuming in this convoluted analogy that the unit cost of electricity is not going up...

Is that some sort of serious comment? If so you need to explain it better. Or are you just being your usual sarcastic self, unwilling to contribute real information or real thought-through opinion.