Will Brexit happen?

eidand

Arklight said:

Herzlos said:

Enterprise_1701C said:

The eu seem to have forgotten that the UK has left the club.  If you are no longer a member of a club then you should no longer have to follow it's rules.  It seems to me that the eu want to make us stick to their rules whilst allowing them to continue to fish the waters dry and letting them tell us what to do through the ECJ.

We should remind them that they will lose the lot if there is no trade deal, and that includes the services of our security services which are heavily depended upon by the eu and which are among the best in the world.

Everyone else follows the EU rules to trade with them to whatever level of trade freedom they have, why should we be special?
If we want to be in the single market, we follow single market rules. If we don't want to follow those rules then we need to step back a level until we get to a point we're happy. That's going to involve customs checks.

It's amazing watching the penny slowly drop with Brexiteers, isn't it?

"But, but... they're treating us like we're - just another foreign country!!" 

It sounds like the penny hasn't dropped for you yet. We do want to be treated like a foreign country, that was the whole point of Brexit. This means no interference in our law, life or whatever else. Sure, have a trade deal, but do not affect the sovereign rights.
At this point it feels better if there is no immediate "deal". What EU offers is not a deal, it's simply an attempt to to take advantage of everything we have to offer while staying submitted to Big Brother. That can't work. There will be other deals in the future anyway, no need to rush now. I am not sure why everyone is so fixed on short term. Get out, live with a bit of disruption and make a convenient deal in the future.

cognoscente

eidand said:

Arklight said:

Herzlos said:

Enterprise_1701C said:

The eu seem to have forgotten that the UK has left the club.  If you are no longer a member of a club then you should no longer have to follow it's rules.  It seems to me that the eu want to make us stick to their rules whilst allowing them to continue to fish the waters dry and letting them tell us what to do through the ECJ.

We should remind them that they will lose the lot if there is no trade deal, and that includes the services of our security services which are heavily depended upon by the eu and which are among the best in the world.

Everyone else follows the EU rules to trade with them to whatever level of trade freedom they have, why should we be special?
If we want to be in the single market, we follow single market rules. If we don't want to follow those rules then we need to step back a level until we get to a point we're happy. That's going to involve customs checks.

It's amazing watching the penny slowly drop with Brexiteers, isn't it?

"But, but... they're treating us like we're - just another foreign country!!" 

It sounds like the penny hasn't dropped for you yet. We do want to be treated like a foreign country, that was the whole point of Brexit. This means no interference in our law, life or whatever else. Sure, have a trade deal, but do not affect the sovereign rights.
At this point it feels better if there is no immediate "deal". What EU offers is not a deal, it's simply an attempt to to take advantage of everything we have to offer while staying submitted to Big Brother. That can't work. There will be other deals in the future anyway, no need to rush now. I am not sure why everyone is so fixed on short term. Get out, live with a bit of disruption and make a convenient deal in the future.

Well said.

Of course, it's not that these trying to rubbish anything other than EU trade as an absolute necessity for the UK are at all scared of the very high possibility that of our country will soon join the 11-country CPTPP with its 13.5% share of global trade.
No, of course it isn't.
That compares pretty well with the EU's 15%-odd global share and - unlike the EU - the CPTPP share is from areas of the world where trade is expanding and the signatory countries are not in close proximity to each other either, in fact they are pretty well spread globally.
They think the UK would be a good fit.

As a byword, when figures predicting the supposed loss to the UK economy are shown which are quite obviously absolute rubbish (and given the historical inaccuracy post-referendum do not be surprised at such a description) there is no wonder that the civil servants responsible for arriving at such ludicrous guesstimates face being replaced.

I really am beginning to form the impression that the EU (and their vocal supporters in places like this) are at last beginning to understand that they (the EU) very seriously risk a great deal of self-harm if they persist in frankly ridiculous clauses which would be unacceptable in any trade deal between countries.
Already the evidence is emerging that the UK will indeed be better off without the EU and remember: a guesstimate of a 0.18% "boost" in a deal with just one (albeit large) country is already far, far better then the negative guesstimates of no deal.
Roll on other deals - but (as eidand says) at our own pace.
There's no need to rush now.

Malthusian

As a byword, when figures predicting the supposed loss to the UK economy are shown which are quite obviously absolute rubbish (and given the historical inaccuracy post-referendum do not be surprised at such a description) there is no wonder that the civil servants responsible for arriving at such ludicrous guesstimates face being replaced.

Sir Humphrey: "But Minister, you can't sack civil servants for incompetence, it would be the thin end of the wedge."

Hacker: "**** you you absolute **** get out of my ****ing office you useless ****ing ****."

We really do need a Yes Minister for the 2020s, it's been far too long since The Thick of It. The Thick of It already looks a lot more dated than Yes Minister does, despite being 20+ years more recent.

Sailtheworld

cognoscente said:

eidand said:

Arklight said:

Herzlos said:

Enterprise_1701C said:

The eu seem to have forgotten that the UK has left the club.  If you are no longer a member of a club then you should no longer have to follow it's rules.  It seems to me that the eu want to make us stick to their rules whilst allowing them to continue to fish the waters dry and letting them tell us what to do through the ECJ.

We should remind them that they will lose the lot if there is no trade deal, and that includes the services of our security services which are heavily depended upon by the eu and which are among the best in the world.

Everyone else follows the EU rules to trade with them to whatever level of trade freedom they have, why should we be special?
If we want to be in the single market, we follow single market rules. If we don't want to follow those rules then we need to step back a level until we get to a point we're happy. That's going to involve customs checks.

It's amazing watching the penny slowly drop with Brexiteers, isn't it?

"But, but... they're treating us like we're - just another foreign country!!" 

It sounds like the penny hasn't dropped for you yet. We do want to be treated like a foreign country, that was the whole point of Brexit. This means no interference in our law, life or whatever else. Sure, have a trade deal, but do not affect the sovereign rights.
At this point it feels better if there is no immediate "deal". What EU offers is not a deal, it's simply an attempt to to take advantage of everything we have to offer while staying submitted to Big Brother. That can't work. There will be other deals in the future anyway, no need to rush now. I am not sure why everyone is so fixed on short term. Get out, live with a bit of disruption and make a convenient deal in the future.

Already the evidence is emerging that the UK will indeed be better off without the EU and remember: a guesstimate of a 0.18% "boost" in a deal with just one (albeit large) country is already far, far better then the negative guesstimates of no deal.

This is complete fantasy island delusion. The government in 2018 estimated moving from the current deal with the EU to a Canada style deal would cost 3.4% to 6.4% of GDP and no-deal (which is being rebranded as an Australian type deal by simpletons would cost 6.3% to 9% of GDP.

Even taking the least worst case of 3.4% we'd need around 20 of these wondrous US trade deals to make up for it. That's not going to happen is it?

The improvement to GDP from a US deal is so inconsequential and over such a long time period that even with reasonable confidence limits there's every chance it could be negative. Brexiteers would usually ignore such inconvenient truths and start a rant about patriotism or Gibraltar - the fact that they seem to be lauding the potential for a US deal shows it's not really sinking in.

Moe_The_Bartender

The government in 2018. Now which government would that be? May's remainer government which wanted BRINO. Same government, different Prime Minister, as the one that predicted a 500,000 increase in unemployment, an emergency budget, a recession merely by voting to leave.

Those predictions are really to be trusted.

cognoscente

Moe_The_Bartender said:

The government in 2018. Now which government would that be? May's remainer government which wanted BRINO. Same government, different Prime Minister, as the one that predicted a 500,000 increase in unemployment, an emergency budget, a recession merely by voting to leave.

Those predictions are really to be trusted.

Spot-on, thank you.

It's almost laughable, this talk of GDP lost because of Brexit and not only because as Moe points out the warnings were proven to be lies.
The statistics from Q4 2019 show that the EU's 3 largest member countries performed as follows: Italy saw -0.3% growth. France saw -0.1% growth. Germany saw zero. 
None of those are leaving the EU and yet none performed better than the UK which was also flat.
If you want to look at the year overall the picture for the UK looks even better, being ahead in growth of all three countries.
Again, none of those EU countries are leaving the EU.
None of those countries were warned of dire consequences as the UK was.
And none of those countries is predicted by the EU themselves to grow as quickly as the UK in the next few years; look yourselves at the link below.
No doubt some will say "there's not much in it".
That may be true.
But none apart from us were warned that they would see a decline.
The only logical explanation is that we were lied to; the numbers were made-up by those who do not and did not want us to leave the Union.


https://ec.europa.eu/info/business-economy-euro/economic-performance-and-forecasts/economic-forecasts/autumn-2019-economic-forecast-challenging-road-ahead_en

_mayonnaise_

It's almost laughable, this talk of GDP lost because of Brexit and not only because as Moe points out the warnings were proven to be lies.

The laughable bit is where you barge in claiming they were proven to be lies while none of the scenarios (Canada/No deal/whatever deal) has happened yet.

Moe_The_Bartender

_mayonnaise_ said:

It's almost laughable, this talk of GDP lost because of Brexit and not only because as Moe points out the warnings were proven to be lies.

The laughable bit is where you barge in claiming they were proven to be lies while none of the scenarios (Canada/No deal/whatever deal) has happened yet.

Actually they are proven lies. The ones that Osborne told that a leave vote would result in an immediate emergency budget, a 500,000 increase in unemployment and a recession. None of these happened. There was also something else about a cost of £4300 to every household.

Sailtheworld

Moe_The_Bartender said:

The government in 2018. Now which government would that be? May's remainer government which wanted BRINO. Same government, different Prime Minister, as the one that predicted a 500,000 increase in unemployment, an emergency budget, a recession merely by voting to leave.

Those predictions are really to be trusted.

This government with a new PM isn't even bothering to model the various different options. That's not because it's difficult (it is) but because the World hasn't changed that much since 2018 and the models are still valid. Johnson came to power on a platform of getting brexit done and not one of brexit being better. People voted to pour scalding tea into their laps - Johnson is putting the kettle on. Democracy in action.

There still aren't any reasonable scenarios where brexit is going to lead to more growth in the economy. The negligible benefits of the US/ UK trade deal should really have woken people up with a jolt. I bet Johnson wishes HMG hadn't bothered modelling that either.

There's not really a debate to be had. if you don't trust economic forecasts then you can hardly point to a 'better' forecast.

The only reason there's any debate about the economy is because, although brexiteers don't care, they see it as unpatriotic to be downbeat on the supposed economic benefits of leaving. Any improvement in the economy would be a happy accident and secondary to their motivations for leaving.

Moe_The_Bartender

You just don’t get it do you. People did not vote leave for economic benefits.