Growth in advanced countries since the great crash and banking disasters of 2008-9 has been poor. Despite ultra low interest rates and available credit, growth stayed down. In the last three years the work of the Bank of England, Fed and European Central Bank gave us a big inflation, to be followed by an abrupt change of policy to give us a downturn.
The IMF figures for the period 2010-22 shows the US with 24% growth over 12 years, below 2% a year, with Italy at 1% growth for whole period or zero annual rate. The UK was third at 21% after the US and Canada. The UK was better than Germany (17%), France (14%) and Japan (7%) as well as Italy. The UK grew the fastest of all 7 between 2020 and 2022 inclusive. So all those who say the UK is the worst performer or who say Brexit has done us special damage need to recognise that relatively the UK has done well beating the Europeans and Japanese.
The main reason the US has been more successful is the US fostered and allowed the growth of several trillion dollar companies that pioneered the digital revolution. Europe and the UK did not produce a Google, Apple, Amazon or Microsoft. The US university and enterprise culture proved much better able to foster and grow major innovatory corporations that captured the public mood and need, winning business away from traditional companies on this side of the Atlantic. The weight of EU regulation, UK penalties on self employment, a low tax threshold for VAT and other incumbrances on business hindered UK growth.
We need a policy that promotes more growth in the UK. This needs to be growth in per capita income, not just growth in overall GDP. It is not a good idea to keep adding to the low paid workforce by inviting in more and more economic migrants. The labour shortages should send a signal to employers to spend more on technology and to employ better paid more highly skilled people. So called cheap labour turns out to be very dear for taxpayers, with inflated needs for social housing, extra school places, more medical capacity and expanded utility provision. To foster and allow more growth we need urgent tax changes for the self employed, small business and large companies. It was Ireland that scooped the pool of digital investment this side of the Atlantic, by the simple expedient of having the ultra low business tax rate of 12.5%. That is exactly what the Uk should do, to join the digital revolution more wholeheartedly and to share more of the US digital led success.
April 26, 2023
Brexit means introducing large barriers to trade with our neighbours, both physical barriers (mostly but not only at Dover) and non-tariff barriers. If UK growth has not been dented by Brexit, then several hundred years of trade economics, beginning with Adam Smith, have been shown to be false. Alternatively, Brexit has dented UK growth, as every reputable economist agrees, and it is time you faced up to reality
Reply The UK signed a free trade agreement with the EU!
April 26, 2023
Free trade, in the sense of no tariffs, does not solve the main impediment, which is compatibility of regulation and John of course knows this.
So to sell to the world’s most sophisticated market of half a billion people which surrounds us, UK manufacturers and producers must continue to abide by European Union law, but more especially, their products will be subject to delaying and expensive checks – quite reasonably – to make sure that they do. Those trying to export fresh seafood have been forced to give up mainly, though thanks to Southern Water et al demand for some of their produce is not what it was anyway.
April 26, 2023
âUK growth was not dented by Brexitâ
Well no, but it was caused by the abject failure to take full advantage of a real Brexit, by the net zero expensive intermittent energy religion, the gross over taxation, Sunak and the BOEâs currency debasement, the extended pointless lockdowns, the corruption, test and trace, pointless masks, very sig. net harm vaccines, the still increasing red tape, the wars on motorists, landlords, small businesses, the road blockingâŠ
I read that the Bank of England’s top economist (on circa ÂŁ200k plus pension etc.) has said people in the UK need to accept that they are poorer otherwise prices will continue to rise. Huw Pill told a podcast in the US that there was a “reluctance to accept that, yes, we’re all worse off”. Well not quite all. Junior doctors start on ÂŁ29k less tax, NI and circa 10k of student debt interest! So they are very worse off indeed due mainly to BoE & Sunakâs incompetence & currency debasing actions.
Well the people who caused this should be the ones to lose out. Start with BoE staff, civil servants, most politicians, Sunak, pushers of absurdly high taxes, bonkers red tape, coercers of duff vaccines, masks, test and trace, net zero, lockdowns, crony capitalists, furlough payments, corrupt covid loansâŠ
April 26, 2023
A free trade agreement which (unlike EU membership) does not do away with physical barriers to trade nor non-tariff barriers. Your reply suggest you don’t know what a free trade agreement is, Mr Redwood, and in particular you don’t understand the EU-UK free trade agreement. I find that worrying (though not surprising, I don’t think any Brexiter knows what free trade is, or else they wouldn’t have voted to leave the EU, the world’s biggest and best free trade area)
Reply You do not understand the EU. It is a highly regulated customs union
April 26, 2023
Brexit wasn’t about trade, it was about ridding ourselves of a super national unelected body of people, who had supreme control over our laws.
Local and national government, that’s all I want.
April 26, 2023
Well said Dave, I also have that opinion.
April 26, 2023
+1 D Andrews.
April 26, 2023
Dave
This is what you say after the disastrous event
April 26, 2023
We didn’t introduce trade barriers, the EU did. They reserve free trade as a reward for those who participate in their political project.
April 26, 2023
It’s always been a cover to create a superstate, ruled by unelected bureaucrats. The Westminster bubblers were all aware and connived to hide, lie, deceive the British public from day one onwards. FCO hidden document 1048? from 1972 proves it. It’s just our sovereignty which we haven’t regained until we have removed the legacies who haven’t changed, witnessed by what they do, not what they say. Mass legal and illegal immigration, net stupid, HS2, highest taxes ever, lack of control over who receives health provision and dentistry at English tax payers expense. A one for one exchange with disabled people in Rwanda isn’t stopping the boats. How many illegal immigrants deported today Sir John? 1000? 500? Nil? Yes its NIL. Why not? Last I looked there wasn’t a war in India or Albania, the largest numbers of boat people. Why aren’t they fast tracked for removal in 24 hours? Far cheaper for us tax payers to pay a few more incompetent Home Office lefties. Experts on GB News say with existing law they can, but it’s the lack of will, after 13 years in office, by the Government/Home Office/EU our real masters still to impose this. We see open resistance from your own lefty MP’s. Just go. We need patriots in charge not pretend Consocialists.
April 27, 2023
Beresford
We were offered single market and we said no remember
April 26, 2023
“Brexit has dented UK growth, as every reputable economist agrees”
And yet there are these two economists at the Max Planck Institute who find that they cannot say with certainty whether the advent of the EU Single Market had any significant overall impact on the UK economy.
http://www.maxpo.eu/pub/maxpo_dp/maxpodp21-3.pdf
“Gauging the Gravity of the Situation”
“The Use and Abuse of Expertise in Estimating the Economic Costs of Brexit”
“… a detailed theoretical and empirical critique of the Treasuryâs methodology … highlighting methodological issues, unrealistic assumptions, and misrepresentations of established facts.”
But we have been over this before, and more than once, for example:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/03/06/34587/#comment-1376229
“… a graph of UK annual growth rate back to 1956 … there is as yet no evidence that leaving the EU has wreaked terrible damage on the economy as some people would like the rest of us to believe.”
April 26, 2023
Lemming, I often wonder about the Dover Harbour Board; when they accept more bookings than they can handle on peak days, don’t they have any responsibility for that? I wonder how many people travelled through the port that weekend of problems and how it compared to the same weekend in 2015 or 2016. How many staff were on duty throughout the day in comparison? Surely they shouldn’t sell more slots than they can handle. How many people do they normally handle on most other weekends? Why weren’t they tooled up if they knew how many to expect?
It is rather like train companies who don’t put on enough carriages when Northern teams are forced to play finals in Wembley need the transport, but they’re not catered for, ending up delayed or standing up the entire journey home.
April 26, 2023
Sir JR
The trade agreement with the EU is not free as we are not part of the single market
April 26, 2023
If the UK has a free trade agreement with the EU, whatâs the N Ireland issue about?
April 26, 2023
It’s about promoting the unification of Ireland.
Today one of the unionist party leaders has this article:
https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/opinion/columnists/belfast-agreement-25-nationalists-saw-1998-as-a-process-towards-irish-unity-and-they-were-right-to-do-so-jim-allister-4119070
in which he argues:
“The reason why supporters of the Belfast Agreement find common cause with the protocol is simple: both have the same trajectory and long-term goal, namely, Irish unification.”
But that analysis is not entirely new; here from a year ago is a letter saying the same thing about the protocol:
https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/opinion/letters/real-aim-of-protocol-is-to-fuse-northern-ireland-with-the-roi-3622223
“Real aim of protocol is to fuse Northern Ireland with the RoI”
“If it was just a question of protecting the EU Single Market from non-compliant goods being carried across the land border, then it would be sufficient to apply EU checks and controls only on those exported goods, not on all the imported goods and all the locally produced goods.”
April 26, 2023
@Lemming: You really haven’t understood anything. It wasn’t “Brexit” that caused trade barriers between the UK and the EU. It wasn’t Britain. IT WAS THE EU. It was the EU’s RESPONSE to Brexit. They could have given us a special trading arrangement, with no barriers of any kind. This would have recognised our unique shared history and demonstrated their desire for a special relationship with us. Instead they chose to demomstrate their HATRED for us by imposing restrictions, not only on British goods but British travellers too. In effect this actually proves that Brexit was the RIGHT thing to do. After all, what self-respecting man would want to belong to an organisation filled with such anti-British racists? They hate us. So let’s have as little to do with them as possible!
April 27, 2023
It is so long ago that it may be forgotten that after the referendum the EU was adamant that the “four freedoms” of its Single Market were “inseparable” or “indivisible”, and there could be no “cherry picking”.
So if the UK wanted free movement of goods it would also have to accept free movement of persons.
Recently Professor Catherine Barnard spoke about how we could rejoin the EU, and from this point:
https://youtu.be/s12xqw4jYU0?t=424
mooted that maybe some flexibility could be found for the rapid accession of Ukraine, which could join in part or in stages, and the EU allowing – dare she say it? – “cherry picking”.
April 26, 2023
Good morning.
As I keep saying – This ship has sailed. We are locked into a high tax and high spend economy with anything from COVID to BREXIT being blamed for the folly that has happened.
There will be no deviation from the narrative.
April 26, 2023
Yes, of course the destruction of Pompeii was caused by the pre-Romans being so silly as to found a city near a volcano too.
April 26, 2023
Well, it was a daft place to put a town.
April 26, 2023
We are reaping what has been sown over the last few decades.
Thousand of students going to universities to get a degree that has no real value in the real commercial industrial world.
We employ teachers that have no business skills at all as they have been in the education system all their lives.
Very much like the so called new breed of politicians we have foisted upon us by a totally out of date selection process.
Our children from primary through to senior school should have been taught within a curriculum where basic business skills that are essential to running a prosperous company are entwined coupled with hands on skill based teaching. Not all children can make the university journey so at least get them to a level of education where they can still identify and bring value to their employer.
When one contacts the educational departments they give long list what is supposedly being done or wished for but do not recognise that for teaching basic business skills the deliverer has to have the basic skills in the first place.
Hundreds of words on what should or is available to be taught but nobody checking within the department what is actually being taught.
April 26, 2023
To me it seems that this impressive growth in the UK was before brexit.
Reply No, this is after Brexit!
April 26, 2023
Yes, of course the shrinkage was entirely down to covid19 etc., but the bounceback – such as it was – was entirely down to the “wonders” of brexit…
April 26, 2023
Well we do not have a real and clean Brexit yet do we? Looks like we never really will have one, with Sunak and/or Starmer and the Windsor framework con trick disaster. The fake Tories under Cameron, May, even Boris and certainly Sunak plus civil servants have resisted a real Brexit and botched it appallingly in what were surely acts of treachery.
There was not even an advance plan to deal with a pro Brexit referendum result. An act of gross (surely criminal) negligence by abandon ship Cameron and top civil servants. Generals have been shot for less in wars and this was effectively a war.
April 26, 2023
But then Cameron never ran a business either. You’d cover both sides in a referendum – which HE chose to have, having made a hash of a negotiation which HE was never going to win. Cameron types are used to walking away from situations unscathed, because their experience in “do or die” small businesses is zero. Usually though, somebody competent buys such a business in jeopardy and makes a go of it. Instead, we got May.
April 26, 2023
@Lifelogic
“A real and clean Brexit” đ
Nobody voted for “Brexit”
“Brexit” was not on the ballot paper
The choice was “Remain” or “Leave”.
April 26, 2023
“UK growth was not dented by Brexit”
It would seem that the undemocratic subversion of the leave vote, by the political and the Whitehall establishment, has led to numerous of problems.
April 26, 2023
Brexit – Britain exit the EU or, as we in the trade say âLeave the EUâ. Do you have a point?
April 26, 2023
Lifelogic
Agreed, then we had total capitulation by May, who did not have either a plan or a clue, and who then double crossed David Davis the only person on our own side who perhaps did !
April 26, 2023
The folly of government and the industry of the nation’s people are far more significant factors for prosperity or otherwise, than the minor detail of whether the country belongs to the EU trading block.
April 26, 2023
Dave Andrew’s
+1 Correct
April 26, 2023
Hi Peter, just compare the education system here to the Netherlands as a first point. Second Dutch interest in Engineering compared to the UK. In fact Scotland is a great example in the decline in Education and Engineering.
I could add the NHS for comparison.
None of the above had/ has anything to do with Brexit. You just have to accept that the British do not like being ruled by foreign powers which the current EU has become. The UK signed up to the common market which was more or less fine and sensible at the time. But Brussels wanted political power so true to tradition the British opposed a power trying to dominate the whole of Europe.đ
April 26, 2023
It always seems to you that Brexit is bad. The rest of us say good, now free us from the EU’s tentacle’s so we can trail blaze ourselves to growth free of useless EU regulations on ………everything.
April 26, 2023
The USA also didn’t hobble its economy with the ludicrous Net Zero policy which deliberately ramped up the cost of energy.
April 26, 2023
I see that a highly paid senior Bank of England figure has suggested we should just simply accept that we should all be poorer, but he fails to mention the actions and policies pursued by Government and the Bank of England which have caused much of the problem.
Not for him or his family the use of food banks, prepaid meters and all the other financial stresses of trying to survive.
Guarantee he has not had to put his house on the line to keep his business going.
Perhaps great for those on six figure salaries, private health insurance, gold plated pension schemes and expense accounts, but please have some common-sense about making such comments, because it just shows how far out of touch these people are who have such great influence over ordinary peoples lives with their actions.
April 26, 2023
I remeber being told Brexit would mean big reductions in the price of consumer goods, booming trade, a golden age etc. Now even its biggest cheerleader can only say growth has not been âdentedâ! What a fiasco Brexit is
April 26, 2023
We actually officially left on 31 January 2020, Minnie. The transition period during which nothing changed ended on 31 December 2020. In March 2020, covid struck we were still suffering lockdowns in December 2020. We could not start negotiating with other countries until after that date. It has taken a while, but we are starting to make progress.
The new trade deal agreed on 24 December 2020 “While the UK was in the EU, companies could buy and sell goods across EU borders without paying taxes, and there were no limits on the amount of things which could be traded. Under the terms of the deal, that won’t change on 1 January…Now that it’s no longer in the EU, the UK is free to set its own trade policy and can negotiate deals with other countries. Talks are being held with the US, Australia and New Zealand – countries that currently don’t have free trade deals with the EU.” Source BBC. UK export Trade is improving to lots of other Countries now.
Free trade: Trade between two countries, where neither side charges taxes or duties on goods crossing borders.
April 26, 2023
You have a selective memory if you can’t remember the COVID-19 pandemic and its mismanagement by our stupid government.
April 26, 2023
It is a ‘fiasco’ because those that did not want to Leave made damned well sure it was going to be one.
Scorched earth.
April 26, 2023
“Brexit means Brexit, and watch as she Wrexit”
April 26, 2023
Artificial Intelligence is likely to be the source of highest growth. Growth is need-driven and AI accomplishes vast volumes of services instantly. Itâs already as powerful as the Industrial Revolution on steroids, yet is still in its infancy. AI service providers are currently offering service on a free-to-use basis. Billions of users worldwide will soon realise how much they need it to deliver their own solutions. Then, those who control the business owning the most popular AI facility will have a world of demand willingly paying highly to use it.
In early days of computing, the public were protected: business was required to register with Govt just for holding it own record of its own customers on a computer! Now people accept being on CCTV routinely, receiving personally-targeted ads based on internet search preferences, and much more. However, AI service providers receive and store immense personal details of millions of usersâ intricate behaviour, within THEIR control. So few individuals having the means of controlling how billions of people will react creates great risk of conflict for Govt, including even war.
April 26, 2023
A HoC document shows that Britain is the only G7 country with its 2022 GDP still below the 2019 level. The IMF and the OECD both forecast us having the worst performance in the G7 for 2023. The issue about the impact of Brexit is clouded by the fact that when Brexit actually formally took place, the government had crashed the economy with lockdowns. I think it’s less useful to talk about what the Brexit effect may or may not have been, than to talk about how the country improves on its currently dire economic performance now. A more enterprising tax system and a reformed education system seem essential. When are we going to see Sunak’s government tackle these obstacles?
April 26, 2023
https://www.briefingsforbritain.co.uk/what-the-ft-didnt-tell-you-about-uk-exports-and-the-g7/
“One thing that the G7 was not then, and is still not now, is a group of countries with similar economies. The US economy dwarfs all of the other G7 countriesâ economies, while the two biggest G7 economies â the US and Japan â make up over two thirds of the total G7 GDP. The G7 doesnât even represent the worldâs seven largest economies â they would have to include China and India and knock out Italy and Canada, to do that.
So, there is really no reason to compare G7 economies. Yet true to form, last week the Financial Times (FT), published an article entitled: UKâs goods exports lowest in G7 following Brexit, study finds.”
“The FT proclaims this as if UK goods exports being the lowest in the G7 is unusual. But if you look at the chart below of G7 countriesâ goods exports over the past 20 years, you will see that UK exports have always been near the âbottom of the packâ. This has nothing to do with Brexit.”
April 26, 2023
Clough, forecasts are just that forecasts. We are still paying the exit bill to the EU for our outstanding liabilities; these are now reducing. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/51110096
They also put this bill up due to ‘the most recent valuation of the UKs obligation for EU pensions’ so what would that have been if we’d stayed in with lots more members? This bill would have been bigger still a lot more. The EU fined us for their portion of tax on undeclared Chinese trade we should look more into that, were the importers charged fully for all UK taxes too, how did the EU identify them, or was it another guesstimate? At least the EU can no longer fine us for taxes on stuff we don’t tax like prostitution and drugs billions per year.
April 26, 2023
‘This needs to be growth in per capita income …’ Spot-on – and the other key metric is the government’s fiscal deficit/surplus. Both of these measures are more important than ‘GDP’.
I have new, foreign neighbours. She: a student. He: working on low-paid shift-work. Two chlldren, both at state schools. They’ve added to the housing crisis. Their impact on the public purse is negative. They’re not ‘economic migrants’. They’re uneconomic migrants.
,
April 26, 2023
Yes, all over the news this morning about UK businesses relocating to the US to take advantage of lower taxes and government subsidies.
Response from the Chancellor: ‘We will wait to see what the EU does’
Pathetic…
April 26, 2023
G
You just about sum it all up.
Situation Normal.
April 26, 2023
You’ve put Hunts response in quotes without telling us the source, could you please I’d like to read the article.
April 26, 2023
Level playing field – ie no competitive advantage
April 26, 2023
UK growth has been dented by net zero and a lack of productivity driven by cheap labour and workers’ rights.
April 26, 2023
@Narrow Shoulders net zero a costly political sound-bite by the uneducated that can never be delivered on â it is there to punish, to deflect from realities and the refusal of government to âmanageâ. While the rest of the real World marches on grows wealthier and stronger.
April 26, 2023
NS
The driver you omit are our unproductive civil service. Add them to grotesque levels of taxation and none existant government leadership and as you say insane nett zero.
April 26, 2023
@agricola +1 Our Conservative Government in its refusal to manage the State, is condoning the lack of commitment from those in reciept of taxpayer money
April 26, 2023
Agricola – I included them under “workers’ rights”
April 26, 2023
A false narrative- growth since 2020 almost exactly equals the decline in 2020 all down to the pandemic. Growth is an issue for developed economies – I think the law of diminishing returns plays a part. Climate issues, migration and free movement of capital are major issues that can best be addressed by working with like minded countries I.e . Europe. Can we also get away from the idea that Irelandâ tax regime is a solution: Major companies put their HQ there for tax purposes but do not do much for the mass of the population in terms of investment or employment. You could make a similar case for the City.
April 26, 2023
There is no such country as ‘Europe’, that is the aim of the EU political project. It was the EU that triggered mass migration into Europe via Angela Merkel’s invitation, and it is the EU that opposes all efforts by constituent countries to block immigration.
April 26, 2023
Agree & this anti-british rhetoric conjoined with the growing politics of envy. Will damage the economy even more.
April 26, 2023
Narrow Shoulders
Dented?
All but destroyed
April 26, 2023
It seems reasonable on reflection, but UK growth is stymied buy the political interference of the unelected unaccountable shower we collectively call the âBlobâ. They didnât want âBrexitâ, it plays against their aspirations of World Government and them becoming its natural leadership.
The UK would have done even better without this pseudo Conservative Government, they meddle in things they can never deliver on, while failing to manage the things they are empowered and paid to do.
If the Conservative Party had been allowed a Conservative Government, if we had left the EU as promised, if we had a Politicised Civil Service and all the many ifâs that get inferred and implied in manifestos then discarded in office by the refusal of the elected government to do their duty. There is no such thing as political expediency, there is just the giving up because, a sound bite, a speech etc. are easier than doing the job paid for. Tomorrow, just maybe someone will be bothered.
April 26, 2023
Hear hear.
April 26, 2023
Three cheers to you SJR, problem is, who amongst our survival government is listening. As I have suggested your talents are wasted where you are. A hour on GBNews, talking to the nation would get your message across much more effectively than written questions to ministers, that only test scribes in their ability to say nothing in one hundred words. However thank you for trying.
April 26, 2023
It is very sad that the UK has gone down hill in technology and particularly the manufacture thereof.
Great names in technology and research from the not so distance past show up the present. Bletchley Park the birthplace of the Computer and GCHQ.
We have always needed North America to provide money and the environment for British Brains to exploit new technologies.
At least then we had the environment to produce the brains and engineering skills at all levels in the first place.
The only technologies we have been a world leader in at the start is telecommunications and computing, and we have to thank the Military for that. Marconi had to come to the UK to get Wireless communications off the ground so to speak.
You can’t do this on cheap labour, which is another word for lack of training and a good education in science, maths and computing. And hands on engineering training in the work place. This was the norm up until just over 40years ago. Even a day off a week to go to the Technical College.
April 26, 2023
âWe need a policy that promotes more growth in the UK.â
This is not going to be the policy. The Net Zero Strategy/Mission Zero is designed to curb growth through expensive and intermittent energy supplies causing de-industrialisation, the forced use of inferior devices for heating and travel, and the rationing of energy, food, travel and goods.
The RR SMRs outperform wind energy on all metrics, building and electricity costs, reliability and security. Even using 1/1000th of the building materials required per watt of power compared to the low energy density wind.
The fact that nuclear is not selected as our preferred choice of low carbon power generation is proof that the reason for Net Zero is not to curb emissions of anthropogenic CO2, but destroy our wealth and curb our freedoms.
April 26, 2023
There has to be stimulation to spark the economy back . The Government cannot and must not allow the present situation to worsen further . Free now from the bureaucracy of the EU there is nothing to stop us steering our own course . Dealing with inflation is one priority but tackling recovery in the manufacturing and service enterprises is another . There are stringent issues around the world and they do have consequences but we can point ourselves around these obstacles with creative leadership and discipline . Sunak and Hunt must pull their fingers out .
April 26, 2023
@Bert+Young – , you forget whom this Conservative Government along with their aspirational world leadership âBlobâ friends work for. It is not the UK Citizen that pays their wages. If the UK gets on and creates its own economy, it would mean less imports, more self reliance and resilience, more wealth creation, that would go counter to their ambitions for a poorer and subservient Country.
Grant Shapps Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero hit the Media yesterday with his aspiration of more energy growth, from more imports, in the UK by being more beholden to Nations elsewhere for ever more imports ahead of any indigenous commitments.
April 26, 2023
But we are NOT out of the EU, we are still shackled to it.
April 26, 2023
Sir JR
We have grown less since 2022, FDI is down significantly since 2016 , so is the LSE compared to the competition.
Exports are not growing as fast as they did in the past and our car industry is in a mess.
Confidence is very low, so saying UK growth has not been dented by Brexit, is just another defence of a botched implementation.
April 26, 2023
It wasn’t all about trade Bill Brown.
It was about the UK regaining control of its nation.
The EU will be better and happier without the UK
If they wish they can speed on with their great United States of Europe project.
I wish them well.
April 27, 2023
EU fan
At what cost?
April 28, 2023
Why are you concerned Bill Brown?
The EU may do even better without the UK.
April 26, 2023
Brexit hit the UK, sea level establishment like a tsunami. Our exit was negotiated by the traiterous May/Robins duo of remainers whose only achievement was to let the EU think they were in with a chance of retaining us. A thought that has been continued in all subsequent negotiations. Guess what, the EU still have us, and specifically NI by the Windsor Framework. A stream of humiliations because we failed to make the right decision at the outset. That was to make a clean break and trade under WTO rules. In any trade dispute both the ECJ and our Supreme Court would have been supplicants to the judgement of the WTO. As it is we are supplicants to the ECJ in NI. And here is the trick that all those too clever for themselves negotiators missed, on duty charges alone we would have been ÂŁ7 billion pa., in pocket due to the trade balance being in the EU’s favour. As it is, we still suffer the consequences of this screwfest seven years after the event. We still have a civil service bemoaning the war and power they lost plus a government too timid to take control. What better time was there to reset the rules of engagement and produce a CS that advised but carried out government policy.
As a distraction, government under Boris, even managed to launch a new religion, laying down the credo like a descended Moses. They called it nett zero. It contains all the ingredients for the dilution of UK Ltd., and it is working well. For a country camped above its own sources of power, with the solution to green power within our own design and industrial capacity, Rolls Royce, it takes a uniquely British set of politicians to screw it up. Daily we watch them doing it with destruction in their wake. Just to add poisonous icing to the cake, our remainer Chancellor lumbers us with just about the heaviest tax burden in the western world. So ensuring that any embers of enterprise are dampened out of existence and investment goes elsewhere. Ths man must be living in a sample jar not to see the example of 12.5% corporation tax in southern Ireland.
Time for reforming, radical, change.
April 26, 2023
Sir John,
You and we are being taken for fools.
There is to be a massive development of wind farms in the North Sea.
Someone here must have agreed to this.
Presumeably? they had an economic basis for this decision – but no one can put a finger on the numbers, despite your questions to Ministers.
Why, and to whose benefit, are the economic facts being concealed?
April 26, 2023
Off topic, we are often told that the European Court of Human Rights, ECHR, has nothing to do with the EU, yet:
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-rishi-sunak-against-push-bypass-echr-human-rights-english-channel-migration-bill/
“EU warns Rishi Sunak against plan to bypass human rights courts”
April 26, 2023
‘Despite ultra low interest rates and available credit, growth stayed down.’
Isn’t that a major cause?âThe incentives for innovation and productivity increases are lessened by the price of money being artificially too low.âThe cheap money allows water to be trod.âInstead of the market setting the price of money, the Government intervenes through the Bank of England.âThis manipulation ordinarily causes the boom and bust business cycle as the market signal is corrupted.âWith the greater intervention of ‘free’ money, productivity gains slump as easier alternatives are available.âAnd yet the money must be kept artificially cheap as private and public debt cannot stomach a rise towards normality.âThe Government won’t default on its debt for as long as printing is an alternative.âThus the eventual demise of another fiat currency.
April 26, 2023
The hub of business was the high st . It was an area of towns and cities where people dressed in their modern clothes , went to the car park and felt proud to be getting into their modern cars . They went to restaurants which weren’t Nandos , pizza hut . Kentucky fried chicken, Macdonalds etc . There was more style and culture around. These lifestyle aspirations had spin offs in technology and most other circles . Business took off. The towns now are full of people wearing tights displaying their dimpled enormous butts and men wearing shorts and trainers in winter. The more holes in their apparel shows of the tattoos in the strangest of places .Buildings which have been demolished are left to heavily weeded concrete abominations , where the council can’t understand that turf and a few trees with a bench would uplift the whole area. Litter louting is improving although some still leave the remains of their kebabs on the street on the pavement where they finished the meal. By contrast looking at ‘U’ tube I viewed films of Milan and Paris streets where style was very much incorporated into living, They know how to do it. It’s not all about money BUT it makes money.
April 26, 2023
Again I see too many ‘shoulds’ – as an aside we want off the rails with brexit – it was an ideological choice rather than an economic hard nosed one – so how do we correct this to get us back on track. Well all talk about copying the US approzch is poppycock because we don’t compare in any way and that boat has alrwady sailed. So we will have to devise a system that works for us and in todays world it comes back to ‘regionalism’ – there is little point in dreaming about trade deals with countries on the other side of the world as difficulties over climate change and energy costs into the future is completely against it – but the EU is on our doorstep it cannot be ignored and realistically our future growth lies there – so time to get honest with ourselves.
April 27, 2023
What? We’ve always traded with Countries all around the world most of our clothes come from the other side of the world. China? Whichever boats come in or aircraft have to go back, so why not fill them with trade from the UK?
I think one of the biggest problems in the uK is our lack of ambition and our looking down our noses at the sales profession in this country. Marketing is more than a website and our teens should be offered decent training.
We are not ignoring the EU we have a trade deal with them? It cost a lot of money, we could have walked away and traded on WTO terms, any countries being disruptive to this agreement should get the exact same treatment dished out to their imports and perhaps they’ll smarten their ideas up then, first we have to get other lines of supply ready.
April 27, 2023
The EU is not being ignored.
In 2022 we exported 15% of our GDP to the EU, despite all the nonsense about Northern Ireland being the only part of the UK that has access to the EU Single Market, compared to 21% of GDP exported to the rest of the world and 64% of GDP sold at home. And there is nothing there to say that the 64% should follow the same regulations as the 15%, or indeed the same regulations as any part of the 21%, for example the US.
https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN02815/SN02815.pdf
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/timeseries/abmi/qna
And realistically our future growth lies far more with the home market than with the EU market, by a factor of more than 4 – 64% divided by 15% = 4.3 – and with natural growth which has averaged 2.3% a year since 1948.
April 27, 2023
As long as I can remember it has always been the case that technical innovators have fared poorly in the UK and as a result tend to transfer to the USA where there is a much higher chance of turning new technolgy into successful products. UK just is not very good at it. Invent in UK, commercialise in the US, is the rule of thumb.
April 27, 2023
UK Growth has been dented by several things:
With two extra bank holidays and one extra this year, a whole day’s lost turnover unable to recover. Plus a two week downturn mourning our Queen Elizabeth II.
Repeated strikes. Does your government remove a days subsidy for every day the service isn’t operated?
Our railway workers are at it again, promising strikes on the FA Cup day. Well, perhaps the FA need to take the wind out of that by having the FA Cup up North; Liverpool or Villa Park, wherever they want to host it, that is big enough and only a short coach/car journey away. People are getting sick of having to rely on a bunch of well paid people holding us to ransom.