It's things like this that give campaigns bad names. Following on from TS earlier post, it just shows how infantile things have become. It's not an argument, and it is absolutely untrue.
It is precisely because it is damaging to our international (non-EU) ambitions and our engagement with the wider world that we need to leave the EU. The EU's customs union and regulationism frustrates trade with markets external to the EU and the glacial pace of its sclerotic bureaucracy in negotiating anything (other than more perks for themselves) makes us miss opportunity.
In regards to immigration, which is what I think is behind this type of thing, the UK has an excellent record of taking in and integrating all sorts of people from all sorts of places.
It reveals more about the mindset of its creator than anything.
10 comments:
"The EU's customs union and regulationism frustrates trade with markets external to the EU" L
I don't think this stacks up at all if we just stick to what we know rather than what we think we know.
Our exports to China and India for example are way behind those of Germany. Germany is by all accounts a much more heavily regulated economy than the UK's [which is regarded and measured as one of the least regulated of developed world economies].
So what gives?
PC, things like the EU or the Eurozone benefit larger stronger countries and hurt smaller weaker ones. The geographical centre benefits and the periphery (including east Germany) but also Greece, Ireland etc suffers. So you can't use Germany as a positive example, their gain is largely somebody else's loss. In the same way, the eu probably benefits London but craps on the rest of the U.K.
P. If you think of the Euro as an undervalued Deutschmark (which it de facto is) then that's what you'd expect and that reinforces MW's point. Hence why a lot of European citizens who are not Germans are pretty pissed off.
MW. I'd be interested to know by what mechanism that works. Sure through the iniquities of the Eurozone the periphery countries have suffered due to a basic asymmetry between fiscal and monetary policy. Greece,Spain etc were undercut by Germans etc on trade/wages whilst still able to borrow at low rates of interest to fund consumption, but unlike the US there were no compensating fiscal transfers to compensate. Nothing actually due to geography though is it? More like a tyranny of north European banks with the ECB under German influence acting as German's/Sweden's/French bank's etc, enforcer.
That's the Eurozone. But the EU? Net transfers go from strong to weak states. Whilst labour from poorer states gets a chance to benefit from higher wages in wealthier states. Most of the troubles relating to the periphery states are for reasons noted above [Eurozone related] but Germany's regulatory 'burden' predates the Euro. Yet even with the DM Germany outperformed the rest.
Also worth noting that despite the UK's 'relatively' low regulatory 'burden' one or two of the countries that are actually rated as even less regulated than us are in the EU! Netherlands and Denmark.
So if we want [few claim that we do want this] we can reduce regulations further like the Netherlands without EU interference or adopt Germany's highly regulated economy and presumably achieve what they have done.
[That said I understand your preference for exit based on grounds unconnected to economics.]
L, anyway agreed with the post. Slagging off Brexiteers as isolationist NIMBY little Englanders is old hat.
PC,Empires or nation states or currency zones always benefit the centre (geographic or economic) more than the periphery, and if large enough, they actually harm the periphery. Work it out for yourself, it's just observably true, the reasons are of secondary importance.
"I understand your preference for exit based on grounds unconnected to economics"
Ah, you have graduated from the DBC Reed Internet Mind Reading School, pray what wicked motives do I have then, apart from the eight thousand articles about economics, the EU, VAT and corporatism?
MW. "pray what wicked motives do I have then".
Now you've lost me entirely. I seem to remember you claiming on here that your reasons were mostly of a political nature re democratic control rather than whether we would benefit or not for trading or economic reasons. I specifically remember in a response to myself, you dismissing concerns related to inward investment after Brexit as no big deal. Sorry if I got that wrong.
MW. Regards whether we are 'peripheral' in the EU and thus exposed to the more harmful effects of such a polity it seems to me arguable that the UK is anything other than central to the EU as a project. And as you say the City does indeed seem to regard our presence in the EU as a matter of priority.
As for our manufacturing industry it's more of a mixed bag. But why have we excelled as a financial goliath even whilst sections of our manufacturing have withered on the vine? Arguably that's in large part because of the primacy of the City in our economy. There's plenty of academic evidence to support the idea that when finance accounts for a large part of an economy it's to the detriment of all else in that economy. So more of the UK's problems stem from London than Brussels in my view.
And if it's 'observably so' that the weaker/ more geographically remote economies suffer in such a polity/empire as the EU, why did Poland, Baltics et al clamour to join and why does Turkey do so?
MW. Indeed. That sort of thing is just trite rubbish posted by clowns who have run out of arguments. They post this sort of stuff, or lie.
PC, "I specifically remember in a response to myself, you dismissing concerns related to inward investment after Brexit as no big deal."
Firstly, I am only one of several people who posts here - check the header - and this whole 'democracy' thing is not my main concern.
Secondly, as to the Project Fear nonsense about inward investment ceasing overnight, I probably dismissed that on the basis that it won't cease anyway, full stop.
And thirdly that is assuming that foreign corporations taking over everything is a good idea in the first place…
"So more of the UK's problems stem from London than Brussels in my view."
Yes of course, have you missed the thousands of posts here railing against Home-Owner-Ism?
But we have not been offered a referendum on leaving "Home-Owner-Ism", so that is a separate topic.
Either way, the UK is a mini-empire with a single currency, and as you can see, it benefits 'the centre' at the expense of the periphery. However much is redistributed to 'the regions' it is pennies compared to what its hoovered up by London/the banks/land owners.
I'm not sure why I want to contribute more anyway. I mean, I'm happy to trade more - sell more stuff around the world and make money.
I'd also like to add to that that almost everyone I've spoken to that trades internationally is pro-Brexit, and many of the people throwing around "Little Englander" accusations are generally people who never work with people abroad or with foreigners.
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