UK Politics: Deal, or No Deal. To May and Beyond.

[The Marquis de Leech]

8 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Yes, the problem remains however, that NZ still had economies like Japan in its proximity. While the closest market for the UK is the EU. The US on the other side of the Atlantic are atm also not particularly liberal with regards to their trading policy. America First. And the UK is exporting primarily services, where trade talks are particularly tricky. Wait till that sector starts to scream during the next phase of the EU talks. This isn't going to be pretty.

The UK is closer to the US and India than New Zealand is to Japan. New Zealand's closest neighbour, Australia, is further away (defined by a direct flight from Auckland to Sydney) than London is to Helsinki.

One thing that gets overlooked here is how isolated we are here.

[williamjm]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

IT services is promising and we're better than most countries in Europe on that score (this is useful as this is my current day job sector).

I work for a software company and they already sometimes find it hard to recruit suitably qualified candidates, Brexit isn't going to make it any easier for the UK offices since they may then only be able to recruit from inside the UK rather than having the entire EU to recruit from. In future, if they were looking to hire new people it might make more sense for them to do that in one of their many EU offices rather than in the UK.

[Heartofice]

3 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Let's start with the protectionist bit. Certainly true, however Britain benefits from that protectionist policy. Just ask the agri-food producers are thrilled they are about the prospect of competing with cheaper food producers (likesay the US) on a more level playing field. Same goes manufacturers.

Well farmers are currently subsidised based on the amount of land they cultivate, and tends to favour larger farms. There is definitely room to improve the CAP, and you could say that all it tends to do is prop up inefficiency and doesn't benefit the UK much

 

. Maybe you could say the same for the Manufacturing industry. Its worth remembering that 79% of the UKs GDP is the service sector, and there really isn't much of a single market for services in the EU, much of the EUs service sector is not even cross border.

So while 'some' parts of the UK benefit from that protection, that doesn't mean that its a good fit for Britain , nor that protectionism is something we should be aiming for. I seem to remember everyone being up in arms at Trump for his protectionist suggestions.
 

3 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

As for the fantastic new trade deals. The EU has maanged to reach trade deals with most major economies or is in talks check here. Size matters. The EU can pretty much get their way in those talks, because of their economic power. The UK lacks the same weight; plain and simple. So new trade deals will hardly be as favourable as the ones set by the EU. Britain will be post Brexit hard pressed to replicate existing EU treaties with existing trade partners. Then negotiating trade deals takes time. The first one the UK will strike (after the EU) will probably be with Canada or somebody with an equally open trade policy. 7-9 years for that one is among the more optimistic estimations with regards to the time frame for those talks.

Has it though? I keep seeing this line repeated over and over. Yet the Canadian deal took forever (Canada hardly a superpower) and almost fell apart due to some Flemish farmers demonstrating.  It has struggled to almost every trade deal through. The enormous numbers of trade deals it has managed appear to be with some of the smallest economies in the world, mostly through the benefit of some post colonial relations. The simple truth is that the EU is a group of countries with wildly different priorities and economic needs all trying to speak as one, so when you try to get trade agreements you have to agree with large numbers of factions. In fact the EU  is still negotiating treaties with most of the leading economies and that might not ever reach a conclusion. 

The major issue around any UK trade talks is that we have been pushed into a dangerous corner and rushed the whole process in such an incompetent way that we will really struggle to do things properly.
 

[Heartofice]

3 minutes ago, williamjm said:

I work for a software company and they already sometimes find it hard to recruit suitably qualified candidates, Brexit isn't going to make it any easier for the UK offices since they may then only be able to recruit from inside the UK rather than having the entire EU to recruit from. In future, if they were looking to hire new people it might make more sense for them to do that in one of their many EU offices rather than in the UK.

Why would Brexit affect your ability to hire quality IT workers? Most of the talk seems to be around reducing low paid EU workers and implementing more of a Australia style system. Plus there is the rest of the world to hire from. I think the worries about this are hugely overblown.

[mormont]

27 minutes ago, williamjm said:

I work for a software company and they already sometimes find it hard to recruit suitably qualified candidates, Brexit isn't going to make it any easier for the UK offices since they may then only be able to recruit from inside the UK rather than having the entire EU to recruit from. In future, if they were looking to hire new people it might make more sense for them to do that in one of their many EU offices rather than in the UK.

For the government, this appears to be a feature, not a bug.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/12/14/eu-migrants-will-have-earn-30000-coming-britain-crackdown/

[williamjm]

8 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Why would Brexit affect your ability to hire quality IT workers? Most of the talk seems to be around reducing low paid EU workers and implementing more of a Australia style system. Plus there is the rest of the world to hire from. I think the worries about this are hugely overblown.

In the long term maybe it won't have such a big effect but in the short term the huge uncertainties surrounding Brexit could dissuade some people from other EU countries from wanting to commit their future to living in the UK. I've already had two colleagues originally from France and Germany relocating to offices in other countries in the last year, this wasn't entirely due to Brexit but it was one factor in their decisions. This hasn't really hurt the company I work for - if they're still doing the same job it doesn't really matter too much where they are - but it's not exactly helping the British economy.

It's true it could potentially make it easier to hire from the rest of the world, although from the company's viewpoint when they want to hire Chinese or Indian software developers it's always going to be easier to hire them to work in the Chinese or Indian offices rather than in the British offices.

2 minutes ago, mormont said:

For the government, this appears to be a feature, not a bug.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/12/14/eu-migrants-will-have-earn-30000-coming-britain-crackdown/

That would certainly be a problem for entry-level software engineering posts. 

[Heartofice]

33 minutes ago, williamjm said:

In the long term maybe it won't have such a big effect but in the short term the huge uncertainties surrounding Brexit could dissuade some people from other EU countries from wanting to commit their future to living in the UK. I've already had two colleagues originally from France and Germany relocating to offices in other countries in the last year, this wasn't entirely due to Brexit but it was one factor in their decisions. This hasn't really hurt the company I work for - if they're still doing the same job it doesn't really matter too much where they are - but it's not exactly helping the British economy.

 

Yes I know a few colleagues who have made noises about moving back to EU countries. However it really seems that much of that is to do with the press and optics around Brexit than anything solid as to the future, as we simply don't know what will happen. Much of the scare stories about EU citizens being forced from their homes aren't really based on anything, but do give the impression that these things might happen. 
 

46 minutes ago, mormont said:

For the government, this appears to be a feature, not a bug.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/12/14/eu-migrants-will-have-earn-30000-coming-britain-crackdown/

Isn't this simply equalising the threshold that is currently applied to countries outside the EU? I'd say the threshold is a little high at £30k but the move is more about removing the preferential treatment given to EU citizens.

[Chaircat Meow]

3 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Well farmers are currently subsidised based on the amount of land they cultivate, and tends to favour larger farms. There is definitely room to improve the CAP, and you could say that all it tends to do is prop up inefficiency and doesn't benefit the UK much

 

. Maybe you could say the same for the Manufacturing industry. Its worth remembering that 79% of the UKs GDP is the service sector, and there really isn't much of a single market for services in the UK, much of the EUs service sector is not even cross border.

So while 'some' parts of the UK benefit from that protection, that doesn't mean that its a good fit for Britain , nor that protectionism is something we should be aiming for. I seem to remember everyone being up in arms at Trump for his protectionist suggestions.
 

 

The argument would be protectionism is bad for consumers. It is obviously good for the producers being protected. If we were trading on WTO terms we could have a lot of cheap food from the global south, so, all things being equal (which they might not be, i.e. value of the pound) food would be cheaper. Some farmers would be fucked though, others would adapt and become more efficient. The % of the UK economy devoted to agriculture is very small and has been for a long time. 

The UK manufacturing sector is a similar size as a % of the economy as the US and France, about 12-13%. It looks like the complexity of cross-border supply chains means the aerospace industry and automobile industry will be hit badly.

In terms of services the EU does not have a fully integrated single market in services but has gone some way to reducing barriers to trade in services. So it is a good thing for UK firms to have access to and is not really protectionist as such, Leavers such as Boris, Hannan and so on were all in favour of staying in the single market immediately prior to the referendum campaign.

Tbh, the sensible arguments for Brexit were all about opting out of further EU integration, and preserving the UK against absorption into an EU superstate. It also addressed concerns over runaway mass immigration, although I suspect immigration from outside the EU was actually more unpopular and the concerns got conflated. The global Britain case was, in my view, always weak. 

[polishgenius]

3 hours ago, Heartofice said:

The major issue around any UK trade talks is that we have been pushed into a dangerous corner

We haven't been pushed into a corner, we've dived into the corner then beckoned everyone else in.
 

[Chaircat Meow]

38 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

We haven't been pushed into a corner, we've dived into the corner then beckoned everyone else in.
 

Not totally true. The current corner is due in some part to a conscious decision by the EU to back Irish desires to play hardball on the border. 

This will either end very well, or very badly for Ireland. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

1 hour ago, Chaircat Meow said:

The argument would be protectionism is bad for consumers. It is obviously good for the producers being protected. If we were trading on WTO terms we could have a lot of cheap food from the global south, so, all things being equal (which they might not be, i.e. value of the pound) food would be cheaper.

That's the usual argument, however given the subsidies the food sector receives currently (so that EU's agri-food sector is effectively killing Africa's (at least for those nations with unrestricted EU food imports)) I am not sure this holds 100% true here.

However the UK goverment is at the same time not really issuing guarantees wrt to subsidies. If they go full free trade without it, then it's really good bye that sector.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Just now, Chaircat Meow said:

This will either end very well, or very badly for Ireland. 

for the time in history it's raining man Ireland has the stronger hand and leverage over the UK. So I have my money on, this is not gonna end well for the UK.

[polishgenius]

5 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

Not totally true. The current corner is due in some part to a conscious decision by the EU to back Irish desires to play hardball on the border. 

But the entire situation has been caused by needlessly triggering article 50 as soon as possible after the vote, thus allowing no free thinking time about what might actually be done.

[Seli]

8 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

Not totally true. The current corner is due in some part to a conscious decision by the EU to back Irish desires to play hardball on the border. 

This will either end very well, or very badly for Ireland. 

Last time I checked that is a situation created by British government, when they willingly entered the good friday agreement.

[Chaircat Meow]

3 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

for the time in history it's raining man Ireland has the stronger hand and leverage over the UK. So I have my money on, this is not gonna end well for the UK.

Not so. The problem for the Irish is that it ending badly for the UK also means it ends badly for Ireland. It can't end in no-deal for the UK without that being a very bad result for Ireland, far more so than it being bad for France and Germany.

The UK could simply refuse to impose regulatory or customs checks on its side of the Irish border in the event of a no-deal but Ireland can't. It's internal market is much smaller than the UK's; its prosperity depends on the EU single market; that's why all the big multinationals are there. France won't allow Brazillian beef to be imported into the UK and then find its way to France via Ireland. Ireland would be kicked out of the single market, in effect, if it didn't impose customs and regulatory checks at the NI border. 

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Just now, Chaircat Meow said:

The UK could simply refuse to impose regulatory or customs checks on its side of the Irish border in the event of a no-deal but Ireland can't. It's internal market is much smaller than the UK's; its prosperity depends on the EU single market; that's why all the big multinationals are there. France won't allow Brazillian beef to be imported into the UK and then find its way to France via Ireland. Ireland would be kicked out of the single market, in effect, if it didn't impose customs and regulatory checks at the NI border. 

It could, but then again, that would pretty much kill manufacturers and the farming sectors in the UK. As in, ofc, Ireland would in that situation be forced to adopt custom checks. And I am not sure how killing hteir lvielihood is gonna fly with farmers in NI. If you want the UK to put on a suicide vest (if anybody has a problem with that imagery, write your complaint letters to Boris) and blow up it's economy, that's entire your decision.

[Chaircat Meow]

2 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

It could, but then again, that would pretty much kill manufacturers and the farming sectors in the UK. As in, ofc, Ireland would in that situation be forced to adopt custom checks. And I am not sure how killing hteir lvielihood is gonna fly with farmers in NI. If you want the UK to put on a suicide vest (if anybody has a problem with that imagery, write your complaint letters to Boris) and blow up it's economy, that's entire your decision.

I'm lost as to the argument here. 

I am defending the proposition that insisting on the backstop either ends up as triumph for Irish diplomacy or a total shitshow that hits Ireland as hard, if not harder, than the UK. 

[Chaircat Meow]

21 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

That's the usual argument, however given the subsidies the food sector receives currently (so that EU's agri-food sector is effectively killing Africa's (at least for those nations with unrestricted EU food imports) I am not sure this holds 100% true here.

However the UK goverment is at the same time not really issuing guarantees wrt to subsidies. If they go full free trade without it, then it's really good bye that sector.

Again, I can't follow this, it is crap. There are the wrong number of brackets for a start. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

If you impose a Zero tariff regime, then prefered nation clause under WTO rules kicks in. So you would open the floodgates to products from everywhere. This would kill the farming and manufacturing (what is left of it) sectors in the UK. So if you want to blow up your entire economy to shift the blame to the ROI, then, that is ofc entirely up to you. But you should at least be aware of the drawbacks.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Just now, Chaircat Meow said:

Again, I can't follow this, it is crap. There are the wrong number of brackets for a start. 

*fixed.