The recent slow growth of the UK economy still locked into the EU mirrors the slowdown in growth on the continent, with a special UK twist. The higher taxes on property and cars imposed in the 2016 and 2017 budgets have had a further adverse impact, reinforced by the monetary tightening carried out. You expect the economy to slow when special commercial bank facilities are withdrawn and instructions are issued to lend less, as they were.
The good news is that leaving with no deal next March would allow us to speed our growth rate and improve things more rapidly than if we hang around in the EU paying their bills for longer. I have in the last couple of years been more concerned about the balance of payments deficit than the diminishing government deficit. It is the balance of payments deficit which requires us to sell assets to foreigners or to borrow from abroad. One quarter of that deficit is the UK government payments to the EU and overseas aid.
Stopping all payments to the EU early next year would immediately improve the balance of payments deficit, and give us £12bn a year to spend on domestic priorities. We could implement something like the UK post Brexit budget I have set out before, with substantial spending rises for areas like the NHS and social care, and some tax cuts. This would provide a useful 0.6% of GDP stimulus to the economy without any increase in the state deficit. Indeed, the state deficit should fall as more activity will generate more tax revenue and less spending based on need.
I am pleased to see others saying in public that we need to tell the EU we will not be paying them any more after March 2019 on the kind of deal they are currently proposing. It is most important that becomes the government’s stance. It is the only way to have any chance of getting a good deal, and it reminds us of the obvious advantages of early exit.
May 30, 2018
It is clearly not Mrs May’s stance and how could there possibly be a majority in parliament to force it? The Govt appear to be making the same negotiation error as Mr Cameron made – allowing the EU to think they will in the end cave in to anything to get a deal. I see that in Brussels Mrs May is known as ‘Madame No until she means yes’.
Of course of the Govt aren’t prepared to walk away with no Deal the EU will concede nothing. A deal would then mean actual or effective membership of the customs union and single market but with no vote. It would be better to stay in the EU!
May 30, 2018
“The good news is leaving with no deal next March . . .”. I read this as JR showing his hand. No doubt other Brexit Conservatives agree with him. Unless Mrs May is confident she has Labour’s votes in the bag she had better take note.
No Deal is the best deal. If Brexit Tories can get it, against the concerted and ruthless opposition of the entrenched forces of euro-elitism, they will have pulled off one of the great political feats of the age.
May 30, 2018
I sort of agree with you – no deal is the best deal.
The economy would crash so far, so fast that Tory wipe out in 2022 would be inevitable. Even if you are facing Corbyn.
May 30, 2018
Sorry Andy its not no deal, but a WTO deal, since I understand the EU has already signed up to WTO for trade with other Countries outside the EU, so whats the problem!
Simply cannot understand why this WTO Arrangement has not been used as a backstop.
So so much simpler and quick to arrange.
May 30, 2018
JR, stop the payments early next year? No, Barnier claimed the U.K. Has no right to make a claim for the money it spent on Galileo. Therefore it follows that the U.K. Doesn’t owe the EU one penny let alone £100 billion May has idiotically agreed to and that follows Barniers logic. Assets worth nearly £60 billion should be returned or no further payment from this point on! However, we know May has an underhand KitKat policy to hide the true cost and ties with the EU her staff were caught out on tape. She has already greed to pay welfare to EU citizens not living here or yet born while all of you talk about fleecing us for more tax for our elderly care! Never has there been a time when so many MPs are unfit for office than now.Today we read Hammond and Davison want more bureaucracy and tax increases, idiots.
May 31, 2018
Hope: “No, Barnier claimed the U.K. Has no right to make a claim for the money it spent on Galileo. ”
I still want to know if the pensions of Ex EU aparachnicks will be paid by the EU or the UK.
I’m sure Peter Mandleson, Neil Kinnock are very interested too.
The press has gone strangely silent on that topic.
May 30, 2018
Andy says “The economy would crash so far, so fast”.
That’s a bit like what seems to happens to many Eurozone countries, Greece, Italy Spain, Ireland.
Let’s remember the 10% + unemployment in France. Let’s remember how the wonderful Macron has guided France from 6th to 7th place in the world’s largest economies, tucked just behind India.
Why do so many Germans, Italian and French go to work in Non EU, Non Customs Union and Non Single Market Switzerland every day?
May 31, 2018
To be fair France slipping a place is more a function of India’s growth than France’s sluggishness.I believe figures out today are likely to confirm India as the fastest growing of the world’s major economies.
May 30, 2018
Whereas, if we stay in the EU, we could do as well as Italy and Greece?
May 30, 2018
Or as well as Luxembourg or the Netherlands or Ireland or Germany or Denmark – all in the EU and all with significantly higher GDP per capita than us. In fact 9 or 10 EU countries have higher GDP per capita than the UK – as do all of the countries which are in the EEA but not the EU.
May 31, 2018
Andy, That’s with us inside your corrupt EU. Think how much better we’d do without the EU shackles on.
May 31, 2018
If you keep on importing poor people from poor countries as the EU and our government compel us to do, the GDP per capita will fall. Despite being fifth for GDP, which rises with the population, we are 35th, below Ireland, for GDP per capita. With the exception of Germany, which has exceptional circumstances, all the countries you mention have tiny populations. That is the way to wealth and happiness. And Luxembourg is a tax haven.
May 30, 2018
Yes Andy but if Corbyn gets in, where would you be able to find a job? Which currency would you use, the US dollar?
May 30, 2018
Pathetic.
May 30, 2018
Corbyn would be 73 in 2022 and in your expressed view Andy, a non-person and not allowed State Benefits is what a PMs salary is, a financial liability to the people without any profitable outcome.
Perhaps he could sell his house to pay for his salary and living expenses? That’s the Tory way and also all parties agree with it. We look forward to the sale of MPs first and second and some cases third houses too.
May 30, 2018
It is hard to believe that the nation will fall for the Magic Money Tree lets be Venezuela con trick of Corbyn and Mc Donnall. But May is certainly batting (like Boycott) for the EU and Corbyn.
May 31, 2018
Corbyn will perform the bread and fishes act with the bountiful output of his famed allotment!
May 30, 2018
Not if sensible policies like unilateral free trade and radical tax cuts and deregulation were pursued. We would see the economy released as if on a spring. Big govt euro federalist leftists can relax however as it’s clear there is no majority in Parliament for such policies.
We were assured the economy would collapse if we didn’t join the euro. 10 years earlier if we didn’t join the ERM (in fact it collapsed when we did). The eurofederalist boy has cried Wolf too often.
May 30, 2018
Ha ha
May 30, 2018
Andy
GOTCHA
Gloating about a Tory wipeout . Two days ago on this forum you swore blind you didn’t want the Conservative Party to fail
Theres a word for people like you
May 30, 2018
I’ve been hoping that this was the aim of Ms May all along – to show that we were very willing to fully cooperate with the EU, until it came to the final hurdle.. when all hell would break free as we finally reject the deals the EU tried to impose…and walk away …
May 30, 2018
I agree, Bryan, that she might have been planning such a way. It would be a well-reasoned decision, based on the then best-known information. Her previous dawdling would become regarded as a determined effort to satisfy the EU, which in the event became beyond the tolerance of any sensible Briton.
May 30, 2018
But she had not prepared for no deal and she does not have the right character to do this. She is an EU appeaser, a lefty with a broken compass and duff economics too.
She might make a half competent, bossy but dim geography teacher perhaps – at best. She is not a leader either in character or in having a sense of direction.
May 31, 2018
Lifelogic, If Mrs May had prepared us for the WTO deal, as you say, then Adam might be right. Adams view unfortunately is the triumph of hope over reality.
May 30, 2018
I think you credit the PM with a tad too much imagination.. But we all dream and hope for success from the jaws of defeat!
May 30, 2018
Unfortunately I feel that leaving with NO Deal is not an option. I don’t see how this can possibly get through parliament. Remember they still have vote (with amendments ) on the final deal.
I’d be more than happy to be proved wrong and to hear (or read) John Redwood say otherwise but the government are caught in a trap between the EU and a lack of support in the HoC.
May 31, 2018
It would only work if Parliament didn’t get the vote….and that would only happen if the EU said, ‘negotiaions are ended/stalemated – Goodbye UK’ – that would make it a fait accompli.
Yes, Peter, One can dream… (:
May 30, 2018
“The good news is leaving with no deal next March . . .”
There is a typing error
“The BRILLIANT good news is leaving with no deal next March . . .”
May 30, 2018
Richard
You have touched on the problem few here and elsewhere understand. The EU are not the ones leaving, we are ! This fantasy of a ‘deal’ is just that, a fantasy.
I have always argued leaving the EU was not going to be easy, but nonetheless worth it in the long run.
May 30, 2018
Exactly, of course it would be better to remain in the EU!
This fantasy that elite Brexiteers have of a no deal being a good thing is tosh.
All the Brexmoaners on this site will have far more to moan about when they find themselves financially poorer if we were to be so stupid as to leave with no deal.
May 30, 2018
Been there before during the ERM, in out in out shake it all about you dance to the EUSSR tune and you turn around and find out you are back where you started from………..oh
May 30, 2018
We were the 3rd largest economy in the world in 1975, we are now the 6th … the EU hasn’t really done much to benefit our economy in the real world has it. We are far better to join the largest market in the world … the world.
May 30, 2018
B&G
Give an example with actual numbers of why anyone in UK would be poorer with a no deal exit
June 1, 2018
Libertarian,
Thank you for marginally correcting my figures on Portugal, much appreciated.
On this one the list would be too long to start as it has already started even before Brexit
June 2, 2018
hans
Dont leave out the rest of your wildly wrong figures that I corrected
Well give just one, with evidence. Come on give me an example of why someone in the UK will be poorer with a no deal Brexit
May 30, 2018
You assume the EU are just there waiting to give us this deal.
They are not.
A deal is not available.
In my opinion, it never was available.
May 30, 2018
I agree the EU do not deal they demand, intimidate, bully & dictate as has been proved many times.
May 30, 2018
To remain in the anti-democratic, sclerotic EU which is in the process or falling to pieces as we see in Italy – sounds a great plan! Governed by people who have zero interest in our welfare or prosperity. Indeed perhaps even an interest in destroying our prosperity.
May 30, 2018
And still, B&G, you’re not telling us WHY we should wish to remain with your much-admired EU. You are always gleefully telling us how dreadfully the UK will suffer after Brexit. What sorts of exciting new punishments would your EU masters dream up, I wonder, in your fevered imagination?
Perhaps you should spend a little time putting together a cogent post telling the rest of us here why the EU is to be admired, revered, stuck to, saluted, applauded, venerated, respected, etc, and why it is better to remain under the heel of this ‘organisation’ than to be a free agent.
Do tell.
May 30, 2018
Richard1:
Being in the EU is like wading through a stagnant swamp at the level of your bottom lip. We rejected Project Fear’s guidance of keeping our heads down to stay in. We shall Leave with the freedom to rinse off the stench of its incompetence.
May 30, 2018
Indeed, Under May and Hammond there seem to be be no preparations for ‘no deal’ without which how can they even hope to get a good deal? May is hopeless.
May 30, 2018
Yes, LL, I think that hope is fading that she is playing ”the long game”. How I’d LOVE to be proved wrong.
May 30, 2018
Mr R. Or maybe Dennis. Could you please explain why George Soros is allowed to interfere in UK politics? My guess is that if there was – say – a Russian financier donating large amounts of money to (for example) the EDL that it would somehow be blocked.
May 30, 2018
If someone is donating their money to a charity or NGO that is their business. However it is the government that has allowed these organisation to flourish as they act as proxy for what government really wants to do but cannot sell itself. E.g. so called ‘Experts
😉
May 30, 2018
Indeed so called charities, thinl tanks and preassure groups often funded using tax payers and EU money to indoctrinate tax payers in big government BS.
May 30, 2018
Dave,
Good point. I take the view that if this is legitimate and MPs, elected and unelected, must be required to declare if they are in receipt of any Soros money either directly or indirectly. I don’t suppose many in Parliament will agree with me as they allow MPs in receipt of funding from the EU to attempt to overturn the referendum result without declaring that conflict of interest.
May 30, 2018
DaveM..so the British never interfered in in another countries politics?
May 30, 2018
Examples please?
Even if that is the case the other countries presumably had the opportunity to prevent it.
I’m not concerned about other countries – not my problem.
May 30, 2018
Of course we do! We label it the DfID and throw money at countries to “help them”.
May 30, 2018
BartD
Yes we interfered in German politics 1939-1945 and stationed soldiers on her soil to make sure she did as she was told. Soros does not have an army so he can go whistle.
May 30, 2018
Because he’s a good guy, the best of the 1%.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/12/the-guardian-view-on-george-soros-the-best-of-the-1
“The Guardian view on George Soros: the best of the 1%”
“Many billionaires try to influence the politics of countries that aren’t their own. Most do so by stealth but George Soros is open – and usually right”
And as far as I can see it’s perfectly legal for him to give as much as he likes to a UK political campaign, rather than to a registered UK political party, apart from during the designated periods of elections or referendums.
What a bunch of sanctimonious hypocrites these people are, but then why is the government silent about his attempts to frustrate its official policy?
Perhaps you could clarify, JR: is it in fact still the official policy of Her Majesty’s Government that the United Kingdom should withdraw from the European Union, and if so why does it never attempt to defend that policy from attack?
May 30, 2018
Re: “George Soros is open – and usually right”
Let’s look at what Mr Soros think’s of the EU.
Lurching towards another major crisis. ( True )
EU had lost its way. ( True )
Requiring radical transformation. ( True )
The EU is in an existential crisis. ( True )
Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. ( True )
Time for the EU to reform itself. ( This comment alone is laughable )
Heading for a summer of political unrest. ( True )
The euro has many unresolved problems. ( Really! )
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/may/29/george-soros-drastic-action-needed-for-eurozone-to-survive
I wonder why we want to leave!
May 30, 2018
Have we now entered what Mandelson once termed the ‘post democratic age’?
A world in which the voice of the people expressed freely in a popular vote is now viewed with contempt by those in power? That those in power construct a system that weakens the ties of democratic accountability? That can only lead one way and that is to the abolition of democracy as a viable method of holding the powerful to account
The EU’s contempt for Italian democracy was on show this week. The arrogance was on display. The contempt was there for all to see. We see this hatred for democracy in the UK today. It is evident in all parties and in all areas of the administrative class especially the British civil service. It is a truly sinister development to behold
We have a PM who appears to have adopted the same approach to democracy as the one adopted by EU apparatchiks. She also thinks she can bluff her way towards a blurred world in which we are unable to determine where we stand in terms of UK sovereignty and independence. She no doubt believes we wouldn’t be able to appreciate the difference. She’s wrong, totally wrong
If the Italians choose to capitulate to EU bullying that’s their concern but the British people aren’t so easily fooled.
The enemy today is complacency. We mustn’t be fooled by May. She’s just another EU Trojan Horse as was Major. An EU demagogue not to be trusted. It is incumbent on all to make sure she’s removed to guarantee British democracy
May 30, 2018
Good morning
Deal or no deal ? To me they are both illusionary as you do not deal in sovereignty and self government.
All I want is to settle our affairs and ensure that we move to a model which returns us back to the world we left when we joined the Stupid Club.
The problems is, we have allowed ourselves to be governed by another and do not have the skills we need. There is going to be much rebuilding after we have left and many issues, now surfacing, which need to be address.
May 30, 2018
The bank lending restrictions are hugely damaging. Many sensible projects are being put on hold or are abandoned due to totally irrational banking restrictions from government red tape. Many banks are only interested in lending of over a few £million due to all the red tape and regulations involved in lending. The stress testing mean many projects that could in the past have been done with £X money from the business (plus bank lending) now need perhaps £3X. So the businesses can only do 1/3 of the projects they would have done.
The absurd increases in stamp duty to rates of up to 15% and the taxation of “profits” that are not even made has deterred investment in properties and the building of new properties.
We have a Chancellor who is totally economically illiterate and seems intent on taxing the economy to death, attacking the self employed and damaging the economy at every turn. This while pissing money down the drain all over the place. We have the highest and most complex taxes for 40 years and they are hugely damaging. He is still ratting on the £1 million each IHT promise.
Meanwhile we have absurd tax complexity from him too. Yet when people ring HMRC they cannot even be bothered to answer the phone to more than 4 million calls, wasting yet more of business people’s valuable time and money. I on four occasions have be kept on hold for ages (paying for the call too) only to have the system hang up on me later. The people who answer seem to know very little too. They also seem to have difficulty replying to letters and just file and ignore them I find.
May 30, 2018
Loads of other back and front door tax increases too:- on pension pot size and contribution limits, the 20% on insurance premium tax, the enveloped dwelling tax, CGT rules, taxes deterring off shore investment in the UK, attack on the rich and nondoms, removing child benefits and personal allowances from many, more attacks on the self employed, on NICs ……
May 30, 2018
@Lifelogic
What else would you expect from a socialist govt?
May 30, 2018
The last thing we need in the UK is and new tax as lefty Ruth Davidson suggests for the appallingly inefficient, calamitous NHS state monopoly.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/29/health-system-one-worst-world-dont-learn-best/
May 30, 2018
The last thing the Tories need is anther lefty, wrong headed remainer like Ruth Davidson as a leader.
May 30, 2018
Has Davidson not heard of the Laffer curve?
https://capx.co/why-the-laffer-curve-should-really-be-called-the-khaldun-curve/
“low taxes… stimulates business activity and thus creates wealth, which makes it possible to collect more taxes.
However, rulers tend to increase the tax to benefit themselves. High taxes hurt commerce and trade. When tax rates are raised to pay for a bloated government, it will finally cause the tax base to shrink so much that the government cannot meet its obligations. The modern theory of high taxation is simply that it will ultimately erode the tax base.”
May 31, 2018
Exactly and quite obvious really but not it seems to politicians or some economists it seems.
May 30, 2018
To get to no deal and self-determination appears to be out of reach for this PM.
May 30, 2018
Indeed. Brexiteers are in damage limitation mode. They have a huge task just stopping May from conceding more and gifting large sums to the EU. Then there is the endless transition with the end of the rainbow always in the distance.
‘No Deal’ is just not on the cards. All that can save us are unforeseen ‘events’. Something to trigger an election or change of leader is now our only hope – but it is a very slim hope.
May 30, 2018
Preparations for No deal are reportedly going very badly: https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2018/05/our-monthly-survey-do-you-have-confidence-in-the-governments-handling-of-the-brexit-negotiations.html#IDComment1062366989
The respected economist Andrew Lilico sets out the likely consequences very well: https://capx.co/mays-disastrous-handling-of-brexit-will-set-us-back-decades/
May 30, 2018
I agree with you. But does Mrs May? Will her deeds match her words? If they do not then the UK must face up to an extremely combustible political situation.
May 30, 2018
Postscript: I read that George Soros has given £700,000 to a campaign that seeks to reverse Brexit. At a conference in Paris he is reported as follows:
According to the billionaire, another referendum “would be good for Britain but would also render Europe a great service by rescinding Brexit and not creating a hard-to-fill hole in the European budget. But the British public must express its support by a convincing margin in order to be taken seriously by Europe. That’s what the Best for Britain is aiming for by engaging the electorate. It will publish its manifesto in the next few days.”
This is an extraordinarily arrogant attitude towards the British electorate. No doubt this campaign helps explain the recent crescendo of anti-Brexit propaganda we have been hearing from the BBC and others in recent weeks. Obviously he regards the UK as a milch cow to prop up the EU and with it the euro.
I hope there will be prominent counter voices who will expose this foreign interference for what it is – a disgraceful and unacceptable attempt to subvert a fundamental, constitutional decision of the UK electorate.
May 30, 2018
Back in the day the Labour party demanded changes to the law precisely to curtail foreign interference in our political processes. A quick google and lo and behold I see it being recalled in the Guardian a decade ago:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/oct/21/partyfunding-georgeosborne
“The law on overseas donations”
“Legislation introduced by Labour in 2000 was designed to outlaw political donations from foreigners, explains David Hencke”
But somehow the Guardian has now forgotten that:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/may/29/george-soros-drastic-action-needed-for-eurozone-to-survive
“Soros-backed campaign to push for new Brexit vote within a year”
“Billionaire says holding fresh referendum soon could save UK from ‘immense damage’”
And nor does anybody in the UK government, or indeed anybody notable in the Tory party, seem inclined to remind them.
May 30, 2018
@oldtimer
If George Soros is so worried about the hole in the EU budget, let him use his own money to fill it, not ours.
May 30, 2018
I agree Bob. He has so much cash to throw around he could save the Euro Zone single handed. Or if we are lucky he can launch himself into space taking Corbyn, Morgan, Soubrey, Hammond and May and disappear.
May 30, 2018
Well done George Soros…..hopefully you will also be on the march on June 23rd.
May 30, 2018
Blue and Gold
Even if a million turn out 64.4 million won’t have.
400.000 were completely ignored when the Countryside Alliance marched.
May 30, 2018
You love these rich unelected elite blue and gold.
May 30, 2018
I did not realise that the EU were offering any kind of deal. They seem more intent on knocking back any sensible proposal we make. The political entity we are trying to do a deal with is a busted flush. They have passed the point at which they could confidently create a USEU. As this is the only answer to the continued life of the Euro, it will not happen while an increasing number of member states are saying they will have none of it. I believe that in ten years time it will be the nation states who we trade with. Just to add to their demise, the democratic deficit in the EU is becoming more generally recognised.
You may know what needs to be done by the UK, but even at this late stage I doubt our negotiators have the guts to say “A pox on your house” and revert to WTO rules. As largely remainers they see this as a failure, but for the good of the UK it is a positive step in the right direction. Apart from the £12 Billion membership fee we would no longer pay after March 2019, and the 0.6% GDP stimulus you identify, there is a £7 Billion bonus in duty difference on current trading with the EU. (We pay £5 billion and they pay £12 Billion under WTO rules) Who has the will to spell it out to the EU. Given the stark reality for them, they might choose to have a free trade treaty on goods and services to best preserve their financial future.
May 30, 2018
But it’s UK consumers that pay that £12 billion duty ? We were promised cheaper food, not more expensive food !
May 30, 2018
You miss the point of being outside the Customs Union. Once out we can trade where we wish and free of the EUs protectionist duties on anything they can produce internally. Sugar is a prime example. from memory World price about £350/Tonne. Eu price with EU duty about £750/Tonne to protect their sugar beet growers. The CAP subsidizes much of their agriculture. Olive Oil can be bought in the USA as can most citrus fruit. The list is endless for cheaper sources than those in the EU. All we need to watch is the willingness of the supermarkets to pass on these savings. If you choose to buy a Merc rather than a Jaguar, then yes it will cost you more, but the decision is yours.
May 30, 2018
Agricola
We’ve just gone and ordered a Range Rover. There is no way we would buy a German car the way they are carrying on. We want to support British jobs.
May 31, 2018
I guess you need one of those “tup norf” 🙂
But are they not filled with German parts? 🙁
May 30, 2018
Oh, come on, KZB! It’s not all about your pocket – it is something to do with FREEDOM!
May 30, 2018
Sound thinking – and what a pity Mrs. Weak and Vacillating and her less than brilliant chancellor can be expected to do none of the things you recommend.
May 30, 2018
Yes, yes, yes. We voted to LEAVE. It would have been nice to have left with a sensible deal that in no way compromised what we voted for, but it fairly quickly became obvious that it was not going to happen. May had the opportunity to be as well regarded as Churchill or Thatcher, but never has someone given up so much for so little. She has packed the Cabinet with those who voted remain & remain Civil Serpents are ‘negotiating’ our leaving? No deal is the only ‘deal’ that I can accept now as it is closest to what we voted for.
If she & the tory party (for they are no longer conservatives) really think that people will vote for them just to stop Corbyn whilst forcing marxist policies through, it’s time to start a new party as she has destroyed it. The failure of many to stand up for country first has all but sealed its fate.
By the way, just why has the EC been given £800k for elections in a political construct that we will have ‘left’? What I want to hear is how much the EU is paying to facilitate their elections in our country. Are they arranging voting via their embassies? I do hope that they’re not expecting our schools to close. Or will May engineer another UK vote on the same day to disguise costs?
May 30, 2018
Or, alternately, rather than a mass conspiracy as you claim perhaps Brexit was just a really lousy idea sold by snake-oil salesmen to the easily duped?
May 30, 2018
The leading snake-oil salesman said we should stay in.
May 30, 2018
Andy.
You’re meant to be quiet now. Instead you’re getting the ‘easily duped’s ‘ radars up about the risk of a second referendum.
You do Remain no favours. Not once have you sold the EU to us btw.
May 30, 2018
Andy – do tell us about the great, glorious, golden future that we (and our children) would have had to look forward to had we decided to stick with the EU.
Describe it to us in a few words – surely there was such glowing promise that we should never have ignored it! Tell us what we have missed – it should be easy enough when you are such an admirer.
May 30, 2018
Problem you have JR is that those who matter, the ones who are negotiating with the EU, do not believe in WTO terms.
They seem to want us to remain shackled to the EU for as long as possible.
Why are so many politicians still wanting us to be governed by a foreign power, are they frightened they will be found out as being useless with no one else to blame !
May 30, 2018
Before we exit the EU, T May must be exited. The TAP MUST BE TURNED OFF ON 31/03/2019 and she cannot do it!
zorro
May 30, 2018
With a crisis looming over Italy’s relationship with the EU, now is the time to strike. Mrs May should tell Monsieur Barnier that the EU has not made enough progress in negotiations and we are taking the £39bn off the table while we prepare for “no deal”. If they want to come back and talk sense, we are ready to talk.
May 30, 2018
I suppose Mrs May could remind Monsieur Barnier of his own 2012 report on the paltry benefits of the EU Single Market, about 2% added to the collective GDP of the EU member states, page 13 here:
https://publications.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/c505dbb4-64f1-40a6-8062-ebdea6240bd4
and go on to say that according to another study the gain for the UK was only about half of that EU average; so even if we did take a short economic hit from leaving the Single Market it would only be short term and we would soon recover …
But Theresa May would never say that to Michel Barnier:
a) Because she has always accepted, and still accepts, the Tory party line that the EU Single Market is hugely important to our economy; and
b) It would be impolite for any of the UK’s representatives to say anything like that to any of the EU’s representatives, whatever they may say about us.
May 30, 2018
John
I do not believe an early exit will improve our economic position as this is much more than just the EU
But let us look at the facts instead of potential forecasting/
EU grew for times as fast as we did last quarter
Inflation in the Eu is half of ours
Most countries in northern Europe have a high balance of payments surplus, which we do not
Government deficits d not exist in Germany, Nordics, Netherlands or Austris
Growth in our exports last year was mostly to the EU increasing from 43 to 44% of our external trade.
The problem is not the EU or an early exit, it is our lack of productivity which is much lower than most countries in Europa and in particular with the countries , we like to compare ourselves with, We need to invest in infrastructure, more education (in schools and colleagues) and we need to get the apprenticeship programme to work, this will create more wealth not arguments about when to leave the EU.
The facts speak for themselves
May 30, 2018
‘We need to invest in infrastructure etc.’
Well, we have invested more than enough in EU infrastructure, building motorways in Spain, roads in Poland etc. to the detriment of our own country which is falling apart.
Our lack of productivity has much to do with cheap labour from the EU (why do they come if the EU is so great?) which gives firms the excuse not to invest, as they did in the seventies. When times were bad they said they could not afford to invest and when times were good they said there was no need to. It’s a British thing, a quick buck thing and look where our car and motorbike industries went as a result.
As the most countries in northern Europe have a surplus and have no deficits, it should not be a problem for them to make up for the shortfall in our money so why don’t they be magnanimous and say that as we are doing so badly and the EU is doing so well, they will not take our 39 billion bribe – just to help out a friend in need you understand.
May 30, 2018
look at the facts and sort it out
May 31, 2018
hci – We are STILL in the EU and have been for many decades, so the “facts” are that being a EU member state hasn’t done us any favours and is clearly to the UK’s detriment…
May 31, 2018
I stick to the facts about the UK, if you wish to bring in the EU on this be my guest but I will stick to the facts not unsubstantiated meanings
May 30, 2018
“Well, we have invested more than enough in EU infrastructure, building motorways in Spain, roads in Poland etc. to the detriment of our own country which is falling apart.”
Indeed the Dutch (pro EU) lady I spoke to at the weekend commented that this looked like a poor country and, actually, it is.
This pot-holeing happened whilst in the EU and whilst we were funding other countries.
Britain has gone to the dogs whilst in the EU.
I’m amazed that more people didn’t vote to leave and I know many who didn’t but who really wanted to.
May 31, 2018
Try answering what I said.
May 31, 2018
This comment if for HCI but has found its way down the list.
May 31, 2018
sounds like a good idea we should ask them
May 30, 2018
Most countries in northern Europe have a high balance of payments surplus, which we do not.
Well then hans why aren’t they paying their 2% equal share to NATO if they’re doing so much better.
May 30, 2018
very good point they should as well
May 31, 2018
They are free loaders – always have been, always will be whilst idiots like May keep on shoveling our money in to cover for them.
May 30, 2018
Why are Ireland still owing £7bn rescue package to the UK pay us back if they’re doing so much better than us? Give it back to the UK please. Get these other fantastically successful EU countries to give them the £7bn if it’s Ireland that is still in the doldrums. They’re the ones all in the fabulous Euro.
May 30, 2018
some of them are not do your homework
June 1, 2018
I didn’t say they all were hans I said just the “fantastically successful EU countries”, the ones you identified in your list.
May 31, 2018
In the first instance the UK loaned Ireland £3.2 Billion not 7. Ireland have already paid in excess of £358 Million back to the UK in interest alone and will have paid off the loan by 2020. The UK relies on Ireland having a good economy and vice versa, Ireland is one of the UK’s biggest trading partners. Brexit can only damage the UK and Irelands relationship and the people of Ireland will never accept a British border in any part of Ireland ever again!
May 30, 2018
UK Productivity: I read that the discrepancy is because the UK uses Government revenue, in the form of Tax Credits, to fund the creation of lower paid, lower productivity jobs. This skews the calculated international measure of Productivity against the UK. The UK Unemployment rate is approximately 4.5%; the French Unemployment rate approximately 10%; however, the UK GDP overall roughly equates to that of France. It was a comment by a Mr Jones in the Telegraph that I saved because it was an interesting point.
May 30, 2018
and so it also is in Denmark, Germany, Austria and a number of other countris stick with the facts
May 31, 2018
We have taken more low skilled EU people than any of them and as most don’t pay taxes but get credits it is a drain on the UK. Our birth rate to non British mothers is now the highest ever and exceeds local births. Even more to be supported.
May 31, 2018
Graham
It has been clearly proven that the young EU citizens from southern , eastern and central Europe who arrive to do jobs Brits do not want to do, more than pay for themselves through a lot of research over the past ten years. If you would like the sources I will send them to you . Stay with the facts it would serve you better
June 1, 2018
They need to earn £11,000 before they even start paying any income tax.
Other research shows one needs to earn over £25,000 to be self sufficient.
June 2, 2018
yes but they still national insurance and VAT
June 1, 2018
Where did you find the facts about Denmark, Germany, Austria and a number of other Countries regarding them having the same tax credit system that we operate?
In the European Union, 22 out of 28 Member States have a statutory minimum wage(the exceptions are Austria, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Italy, and Sweden)…Germany was the last major industrialised European country to introduce a statutory
minimum wage, in January 2015. page 4 europarl doc RegData, however, I am having trouble finding the facts to do all EU countries have working tax credits, child tax credits and child benefit and how do they compare to the UK but I will investigate further over the weekend.
June 2, 2018
I was commenting on their low unemployment as the UK not their tax credit of which some have and other not
May 30, 2018
Very odd statistics.
One quarter is a very small period of time.
There was lowish growth in both the EU and the UK yet your maths says 4 times more in the EU.
It’s like saying I made £1 pound today and you made £4 today, so you are 400% wealthier than me.
I note you focus just on North Europe.
Ignoring the terrible debt and growth and unemployment problems elsewhere in the EU.
Is the EU one community of 27 or not?
Your statistic on 1% rise of external trade is also very partial.
Looked at from a different perspective we see the share of EU global trade and EU global trade growth falling.
As you say, facts speak for themselves.
May 30, 2018
yes but we are the one’s exporting more to 500 million as oppose to 5 billion right now fact
May 30, 2018
Well more lovely statistics…comparing 27 nations total GDP with one single nation’s GDP.
May 31, 2018
Edward2
Please kindly read what it really says
May 31, 2018
What does that mean? It’s rubbish. Our exports to the EU 500 million are about 40 percent of our total, (about 8 percent of our business overall, as most is domestic) therefore, ipso facto 60 percent must go to the rest of the world. It will be more when we can do deals with people whose goods are currently kept out of the EU by tariffs to support inefficiency in the EU.
May 31, 2018
Graham,1946
It is actually 46% but it is just a fact that does not seem to have any importance to you, so do not worry relax and do not get too excited
June 1, 2018
Take away the Rotterdam effect and it’s more like 40%
May 30, 2018
I just presented the facts as they stand and it is not just northern Europe, but you make up your own mind I just conveyed the facts. Thank you
May 30, 2018
So give us the figures for Portugal Italy Greece then Rien.
Mass unemployment
Terrible austerity.
Low growth.
Lowered standards of living.
Real hardship.
But you carry on loving the Euro.
May 31, 2018
Portugal growth of 3%, unemployment 6.6%% balance of payment surplus.
Italy, unemployment 10%, low inflation and balance of payment surplus.
Greece, low inflation, balance of payment surplus, unemployment too high
This was about Britain not the EU
Was this what you asked for?
May 31, 2018
Youth unemployment on the south of Italy is near 40%
You happy with 10% overall level of unemployment in Italy?
Low inflation in Greece is due to recession.
Come off it Hans
The Eurozone has terrible mounting problems in the countries I mentioned.
You know it.
And so do I.
May 31, 2018
hans
Er if you are going to get sniffy about facts I would expect you to actually get your facts right.
Portugal’s growth this year is 2.7%
Portugal unemployment 7.9% and 21.3% youth unemployed
Italian unemployment is currently 11.2% youth unemployment 31.7%
dont keep telling people its a Fact and then making up the numbers
May 31, 2018
Hans, Whatever position we are in is not because of Brexit – because we haven’t left yet. So your “facts” fall at the first hurdle.
Selecting a quarters growth is a con – you need to look at the long term growth of the UK before and after subjecting ourselves to a foreign empire. You either know it’s a con, in which case you are a con-man, or you don’t, in which case you are thick.
Don’t like being caught out? Tough. Don’t like being called names? Then attack your fellow Remains instead because they do it to us, and you are tarred with the same brush unless you condemn it.
May 31, 2018
NIckC.
If you played by those rules I would do you the favour but you do not play by those rules either, so sorry I will not do so because you asked me.
The fact is that Britain has grown less for the past four quarters than anybody in the G20 and this has not happened for 12 years so whatever you might say about one quarter the conclusion remains the same.
Stick to the facts Nick
May 30, 2018
I do agree with Mark B’s last paragraph and this lack of experience is partly due to being an MP has become an occupation. We are getting far too many MPs who have absolutely no commercial experience atall. Fifty to sixty years ago many MP were senior members of society with a proven track record in many of the skills needed to deal with the EU and which they had gained in the commercial world.
We should have walked away from the table months ago and if we had we would now be back talking about a good deal. Stop being nice Mrs M and toughen up before we get dragged down into the hole that the EU is digging for it’s self
May 30, 2018
Whilst waiting to drop my car off for service I made the mistake of tuning to Today about 0715 and heard the usual drivel from someone about how disastrous our leaving was and he made the crass point that we are closing ourselves off from the rest of the world by leaving. I turned it off before discovering the identity.
May 30, 2018
Many would be delighted with an early No Deal.
However, it will not happen in the circumstances we currently find ourselves in.
Remainer power would see it off.
This is the key reason EU are able to keep saying no and make more demands.
A change of government would be necessary for No Deal.
May 30, 2018
Peter. Yes, we are being led like lambs to the slaughter by not only this government but a stitch up by most MP’s and the HOL. How we can consider this country to be democratic any more beats me.
May 31, 2018
A change of Parliament, rather. And would voters who want to leave the EU be resolute enough to vote for a party whose policies they hate in order to kick out a Remainer MP? Many of them represent solid Conservative or Labour seats. Would their constituents turn against them and vote for the opposite political side, given that the political fixers may deliberately collude to ensure the challenging opponent is equally remainer?
Will May have the courage to neutralize the HoL ? Will she hell.
The cross-party HoC and HoL remainer conspiracy is basing its strategy on the conviction that any such earthquakes will not happen.
For taxpaying Tory voters desperately want protection against Corbyn, while Labour heartlands are tribal and rooted in family loyalties: Labour supporters may abstain from voting, but that they might vote Tory to get a Brexit government is out of the question. (It even challenges the credulity of Tory voters these days-:)
etc ed
May 30, 2018
Remainers think, somehow, the dung can be put back in the donkey; that staying in the EU after a vote to leave it will be better than walking away.
It most certainly won’t.
The proof that the EU has gone bad is shown in Italy today. Like British voters the Italians have voted the *wrong* way.
There is no *wrong* way in a democracy so clearly the EU is not a democracy.
May 30, 2018
Went to an interesting debate at TPA yesterday on productivity – A darned difficult thing to measure, but it seems we are still well behind France & Germany…Speakers suggested that losing EU regulations would not be the win-win we would hope for, as locally introduced rules are just as cumbersome. We need a bonfire of all productivity sapping regulations as well as the quangos.
It would seem that everything from planning regulations to tax write-offs are holding us back – The whole regulatory framework of the UK is ripe for removal and/or rewrite.
One man, who owned a factory in France, gave a superb example of how the inspectors in this country go overboard in exploting/enforcing the letter of the law, and then some. On visiting his factory, he noticed a vile smell. He asked what it was, and complained that the factory would be shut down if the inspectors came round. ‘No problem’ said the guy in charge – ‘The inspector came yesterday, and merely said that he had noticed a smell, but didn’t report it’.
In the UK, where common sense has all but deserted us, such a situation would have meant the factory would be closed down.
May 30, 2018
@Bryan Harris
Reminds me of the last time I was at the Palace of Westminster
May 30, 2018
When and if the EU figures out an even better way of transferring wealth from richer members to poorer ones then we cop for it even worse.
Historically, irrespective of particular regimes and prevailing ideologies in EU nations states, we in the UK are always relatively more prosperous than most.
Despite their best and genuine efforts, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania and Albania are unlikely ever to be in a position especially with their emigrating populations to countries across the globe to send any excess wealth to the UK helping us out.
In short, we will never be their charity case. But the reverse. Well I give to the Poppy Day Appeal and that’s it!
May 30, 2018
We have already signed up to the RaL. Do you think we ought to go back on our word?
Mrs May has used £40 billion as a divorce settlement. Do we withdraw that offer?
As the EU slides towards bankruptcy, more and more will be demanded of us. Greece and Italy are already there.
So if the transition period comes about, we pay – they say: government by fax.
We need to remain in the EEA and to leave the EU and Single Market. We also need to prolong discussions with the EU and trade with the rest of the world.
Efta provides answers to all these needs. So why are we not pursuing it?
May 30, 2018
Here’s another rhetorical question which is much more to the point, Mike, which you need not bother to read or answer – “Why does JR publish Mike Stallard’s ill-informed nonsense rather than superior comments from the likes of Mark B?”
May 30, 2018
Denis
I’ll take that in good humour. 🙂
There is another side to this and it is slowly emerging. I will say no more than that as I do not want to spoil the surprise.
😉
May 30, 2018
Again, I repeat… EFTA is staying in the EU in all but name. The 4 freedoms, etc. That is why we are not pursuing it. Or not openly, that is.
European Economic Area (EEA) / Relations with the EU
http://www.efta.int/eea
The European Economic Area (EEA) unites the EU Member States and the three EEA EFTA States (Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway) into an Internal Market governed by the same basic rules. These rules aim to enable goods, services, capital, and persons to move freely about the EEA in an open and competitive environment, a concept referred to as the four freedoms.
May 30, 2018
Switzerland is also part of EFTA but is NOT part of the EEA.
I confess that I am pro-EFTA & EEA but only as a stepping stone to full independence.
The freedom of movement only applies to EU and EEA /EFTA members. Yet our government allows vastly more non EEA member citizens to enter here. Why so if they are really serious about controlling immigration ?
May 31, 2018
Labour governments encourage mass immigration because their party needs docile client voters, preferably in unionised state employment.
Tory governments encourage mass immigration because their big industry donors want low-paid workers. (We see May back-pedalling already on post-Brexit immigration. The ridiculously lavish concessions of sovereignty made to EU migrants are only a small part of her U-turn. If she were back at the Home Office, she’d never manage to push any of her previous policies past herself as PM.)
LibDims encourage it because they are LibDims.
Greenies encourage it because it looks virtuous, and makes no difference to them.
May 30, 2018
Mike, we voted take control of our borders. The EEA is a Treaty system which expressly requires free movement of workers. No one is talking about the EEA for that very reason
May 30, 2018
Let’s get out of the EU first Mike. Then we can consider the options.
EFTA perhaps but not the EEA. The EEA means unilaterally accepting a large number of EU laws, giving certain jurisdiction to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) through the EFTA Court and allowing free movement of people from the EU as explained in the paper. EEA also restricts trade with non-EU countries.
May 31, 2018
Mike Stallard, How many times do you have to be told:
Membership of the EFTA is not on offer;
The EEA agreement is not on offer.
The EFTA might be persuaded, but the EU would extract a heavy price from us before they would make the offer of the EEA agreement (their EEA, their rules). In all practicality it would make no difference compared to our current position of us being the supplicant. Asking for the EEA agreement still puts the EU in control.
The only way out of this mess is to walk away and use the WTO deal because the EU is not being reasonable: never was, and never will be, until we assert our own independence.
May 30, 2018
The EU’s want the UK stuck in the default, back stop, fully aligned position for trade where they can keep us under their control for ever and a day.
They want us to pay a shed load of money (which we do not legally have to do) so they can have a legally binding water tight withdrawal agreement incorporating the back stop but they will only give us a political non legally binding promise about future trading arrangements.
What good is the withdrawal agreement if trading arrangements are not nailed down in exchange for the cash payment? Once we pay over the cash we will be at the mercy of a non binding political promise from the EU. We must not bet the farm on such a promise.
May 30, 2018
Or we could reduce taxes by £12bn a year and let people spend that money as they wish, rather than filtering it through thousands of bureaucrats and wasting what’s left on social engineering. Or am I being unduly cynical.
May 30, 2018
I assume the £12bn a year cut in taxes you propose would only go to people who don’t need it. Then more would be took off the poorest, to pay for the millions that the EU and UN say we MUST take in to freeload.
May 30, 2018
Why do we want a deal with them?..we are leaving..so likewise why should we expect the EU to make any proposal to us for a deal, they don’t want a deal, they only pretend they want a deal because we are into blame game territory already?..so let’s get this clear now.. with the June meeting only weeks away- all the signs are there will be no deal
May 30, 2018
“Why do we want a deal with them?” ‘We’ don’t. It is Hammond’s 3-5% big businesses that are aligned with Brussels who want a deal with the EU.
While the taxpayer funds it.
May 30, 2018
Some say that the wobbling wills on the EU Leave vehicle are about to fall off.
Hmmmmm. This sounds like a job for… Bicycle Repair Man.
aka JRM.
May 30, 2018
The President of Italy and the Elite of the EU may soon wish they had never intervened against democracy
“ROME (Reuters) – Italy’s… 5-Star Movement and … League have renewed efforts to form a coalition government …
The parties are trying to find …another name… for the economy ministry…
The coalition may also be widened to include another right-wing party,
the Brothers of Italy, “
May 30, 2018
Everything is so opaque, who knows? What I do know is that a senior member of the medical profession has broken cover to say that if the NHS was more efficient, no more money would be needed at the same an article in the DT pointing out how poor it is in league table terms, so please JR stop this knee jerk, we have more money so give it to the NHS at least until serious reforms are put in place to stop even more waste.
May 30, 2018
That would mean no future deal, no access to Euratom, open skies and so on. And growth would probably of the Minfordian type..
May 31, 2018
The UK has already notified the EU of its withdrawal from Euratom in the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act, on 16 March 2017.
Most airlines and business chiefs are agreed the potential problems to airline access arrangements post-brexit can be sorted. European airlines would have too much to lose from a mutual standoff, and they too think the political gas coming out of Brussels is ridiculous.
Minford’s ideas on free trade and pragmatic regulatory bonfires are persuasively logical and excellent for Britain. Less so for a country like Germany of course, where state-enabled mercantilism and high taxes are an unalterable fact of life
You should rather be concerned with the future of Germany – once Italy has heaped it with a trillion in debt and walked away, Germany will revert to being a dangerous powderkeg.
May 31, 2018
Do you really believe that? Ignorant bliss is a good thing of course..
May 30, 2018
To achieve a successful Brexit we will need a change of Prime Minister and chancellor
That is now obvious
May 30, 2018
It’s an interesting suggestion, but would Lifelogic support so radical an idea?
May 30, 2018
Well, as I have said before ad nauseam one needs to put post-referendum developments in the context of trends which were already established before the referendum. Claims which are only about what has happened since the referendum lack that perspective.
As far UK as economic growth is concerned, I am still not convinced that there has been any significant post-referendum departure from the pre-existing trend of declining growth which had already been running since Q3 2012, as detailed here:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/05/22/uk-net-debt-down-by-18-5bn/#comment-936348
It is a concern that we are stuck with economic growth so far below the long term trend rate of 2.5% a year, and with a growing population the position is even worse on a per capita basis, but that is connected with the 2007/8 financial and economic catastrophe under the Labour government rather than the 2016 vote to leave the EU.
May 30, 2018
What has also to be factored in is that the UK subsidises many countries either via the EU or the Over Seas Aid. This our kind host comments on.
We also take what would be their unemployed and some sick which further reduces the burden on them.
If we were to leave the EU proper I think the real reason why some are doing better would become more widely known.
May 31, 2018
Mark, we still desperately need better domestic policies and higher productivity. The EU has masked and exacerbated those problems, but they’ll still be our problems after we’ve left it. We need better and smarter governance.
May 30, 2018
Totally agree with JR’s article.
I just wish our government had equal clarity.
From the attitude of the EU, there is no deal worth having with it. Clean and simple.
We need to work constructively with the rest of the world and only come back to the EU if ever it has an outbreak of common sense and fair dealing.
May 30, 2018
We’d better not send any money to the EU – I’ve just read on Guido that Davidson and Hammond have come up with the genius idea of taxing more, regulating more and spending more, when spending per household is (apparently) equivalent to 30k per yer
If that figure is remotely accurate, then they need a blooming frontal lobotomy! It is absolutely insane. Really…words just fail me. Really. It’s complete madness!
May 30, 2018
Looks like you and ultimately your party is going to lose big time. Hammond is going to reform Capitalism. Spin for more taxes, more state spending, more regulation. A bit like
Gordon Brown saving the world. Corbyn moves left so do you. Blairism is alive in the Tory party.
May 30, 2018
For forty years in which we have outperformed our peers in the EU .
Interest rates have been held at rock bottom to stop the country sliding into a slump. The rest is tiddler stuff
There is absolutely no mandate to leave the EU at any price
£12 billion (the gross figure…sigh) is about half a percent of GDP
1.5% of government spending
It cannot be exclusively spent only at the bottom of the sum unless we ALSO rearrange our priorities
The Conservative Party have promised to do the reverse
A referendum is that it is like being given a wish by a kindly fairy
Some might wish to have an abortion in civilised circumstances
Others, unfortunately , cheat .
They wish to have thousand more wishes and each one more outrageous than the last endlessly referring back to what was one wish
Now they wish to hand our children International Pariah status
If you want to do any of this you need to go back to the Fairy
The Fairy will tell you to go away (politely)
May 30, 2018
You just dont get it Newmaina.
It’s not about trade.
It’s about independence and freedom and democracy and supremacy of law making.
May 30, 2018
“There is absolutely no mandate to leave the EU at any price”
So when the government promised in writing, in that leaflet it had delivered to every household at a cost to the taxpayer of more than £9 million:
“This is your decision. The Government will implement what you decide”
we were all being very silly to believe that for even one moment.
People like you are not fit to live in decent democratic country, you should shove off to somewhere like Russia where you would feel more at home.
May 31, 2018
We are leavingthe EU but you want to do so in a way that impoverishes the country and , like so many retired people , are boldly prepared to risk jobs families and our future . I cannot say how impressed I am
No-one voted for that , in fact fulfilling the promise of Brexit, to the armies of educationally impaired who voted for it, meant more money.
|It is now universally admitted that we should njot have triggred article 50 leaving ourslves defenceless and why was that?
It was because the far right , encouraged by Mr Putin , knew if they ghave anyone any timneot think it was not going to happen
That is not democracy , that is mob rule and a majoritarian dictatorship
May 31, 2018
“It is now universally admitted that we should njot have triggred article 50 leaving ourslves defenceless and why was that?”
What absolute piffle you write … a very small number of people, almost all unpatriotic anti-democratic Remoaners like yourself, say the government should have waited longer before putting in the notice. Of course that would be “longer” in the hope it would become “never”, as you perfectly well know. Far more say that it should have been put in when David Cameron promised that it would be put in, which would have been straight away. All the way through this there is a consistent equation, “Remoaner = Incorrigible Liar”.
May 31, 2018
Newmania, We voted to Leave; we did not vote for a discussion, and especially not for the extremist Remain policy of staying partly in the EU.
Having voted to stay in the common market in 1975, it became apparent to me in the next few years that I had made a mistake. I, and many like me, decided we should leave the EU before even the USSR collapsed, let alone before Putin came to power.
Your absurd fact-free rants about Putin, levels of education, and how we should subject our nation to a foreign empire, show that you have no actual case to present.
May 30, 2018
Leave meant Leave.
Yes. At ANY cost.
May 30, 2018
I wish I could believe there was a cat’s chance in hell of our leaving with no deal. I think May and Hammond will do anything to avoid it and all there will be next March is a fudge the like of which has never been seen.
May 30, 2018
Just to be clear..we are the ones leaving..so it is up to us to make the divorce agreement a success..that is, if we want another deal with them into the future..if we don’t want a deal with them into the future then we can just walk away march 2019..simple as that..why do our government and negotiaters have to make things out to be more complicated than they actually need to be..am tired of if all now and wishing my life away just waiting for march
May 30, 2018
Ever read Article 8 in the Treaty on European Union?
Or any other part of any of the EU treaties, for that matter?
May 30, 2018
Art 8
The Union shall develop a special relationship with neighbouring countries, aiming to establish an area of prosperity and good neighbourliness, founded on the values of the Union and characterised by close and peaceful relations based on cooperation.
Perhaps in hindsight they should have inserted except the UK?
May 31, 2018
Yes- but that does not include for countries that have already been members of the EU and who have now signaled very clearly that they want to leave and be left alone. The EU should now just go away and mind it’s own business- we didn’t vote to leave and to then look for another deal. We just voted to leave
June 2, 2018
NorthbyEast
How did the EU punish the other 3 countries that have already left the EU? or in what way did they cut them off from an advantageous trading relationships? The largest of those countries that LEFT the EU now has a Free Trade Agreement with the EU
Hmmmm
May 30, 2018
The Tories are moving to the left. If Hammond and his boss ditch their commitment to the free-market and up their claim to more of our money I’ll be abstaining
Not only must we have to tolerate the liberal left tosh pumped out by this grotesque, minority rights activist panderer of a PM but we’re also asked to pay for it
Well, I’m sorry but I refuse to countenance a leader and a party that’s lost sight of its purposes and its function.
The Tory party is slowly dying in front of our very eyes. It is desperately sad to see May and her idiot band of acolytes drag our party to the liberal left and capitulate to the screeching racket of the minority rights zealots
More state spending. Attacks on the private sector and the private person. Higher taxes. An EU vassal state. A morally bankrupt Tory party. Why vote Tory? Why???
May 30, 2018
Duncan:
In response to ‘Why vote Tory?’: because the other parties are worse. Supporting the others with a vote, or enabling them to grasp power merely by abstaining delivers no solution worth accepting.
There are many excellent performers within the Conservative Parliamentary party, but too few of them occupy senior positions within Govt office.
June 2, 2018
Duncan
You are right about the Tory party. Sadly they have been getting by just by not being Labour since Blair left.
Why vote Tory? Because in our god awful travesty of a “democracy” we haven’t got any other choice
May 30, 2018
An England that return to its roots is only as good as its infrastructure, transport system for goods and ports with new automated factories and warehousing, the job is, how to increase lorry transport by 50% while at the same time reducing lorry emissions and accidents on the roads by 50% of what they are today, now.
With Remainders everywhere in business, government, councils and more coming out of uni all the time it will be hard to get anything done even if there is a clean break from the EU, they will rail against everything put forward to improve the country in a business-wise manner and be in favour of EU laws about restrictions on people and how they behave.
That’s one of the reasons why I did not vote in the ref, you can not change the people at the top who are in favour of EU and their laws, who are against business and small businesses and are always looking for ways to stop them from expanding.
I have not mentioned N Ireland, Scotland and Wales because they have their own parliaments and will be messing up leaving the EU in their own way.
May 30, 2018
The job is to turn from aMPs, elite and bankers paradise that goes tits up every few years which leaves 99% of people to bail them out, to an import and export industrially country again.
May 30, 2018
In the light of the gathering Italian crisis, we need a commitment from our government that they will not be roped in to any plans to save the euro or preserve the stability of the EU. We should be prepared to leave at the earliest opportunity to gives us distance from the EU.
May 30, 2018
Classic stuff from the BBC 4 news today, reference Italian elections which were “inconclusive” and party “The League” were at the root of this-note their translation to stain La Liga with EDL, soccer league, aka violent connotations!
Unbelievable.
The Party “We can” in Spain was always referred to as Podemos… yet they happily translate to English when it might help their anti-populist anti-democratic cause.
May 30, 2018
If anything happens to Italy or most any country in the EU, you the English people are on the hook for it, that because of politician the elite and bankers of the UK have been pouring billions of pound worth of loans into the EU buying companies bond and countries bonds for a small percentage of a 1 or 3 percent profit on the money to bail out the EU, they will never see that money again.
It just a matter of time before the loans go bad and politician and the elite with bankers will be calling on you to help them out with more cuts to service, cuts in pay with lower house prices and so on, like in 2008.
Of cos, they could of lend that money to UK industry and infrastructure.
May 30, 2018
Quite so…
FACTS4EU – FREE MOVEMENT? 99% OF WORKING AGE BRITS DON’T USE IT
A comment regarding this article sums it up nicely.
” Real (official) Fact and Figures are hard to negate: Regarding the so-called battle of wits with Remainer/Remoaners, they appear to have become quieter and quieter (of course not including the anti-British Politicians). One can readily see this in the many comment (Blogs) sections of more than 10+ publications that I read on a regular basis.
In the beginning, there was a fair balance of hysterical debate, and sometimes quite nasty personalised comments. However, this has reduced over the past year very significantly. Remoaners in particular, have completely lost the argument and resist engaging in erudite detail; simply resorting to shouting their opponents down. (Andy springs to mind)
Thanks to Fact4EU and other researching publications, people are better informed than ever before. As Brexit continues towards March 2019, the EU is being drawn into increasing chaos of its own making (awakening Europeans to the EU’s nefarious activities and gross stupidity), as can be seen very recently from the Deutsche Welle’s interview with Gunther Oettinger.
This particular debacle exacerbates the inescapable fact (let out of the bag) the EU is intrinsically for the Brussels so-called elites only and not for the good of common citizens throughout Europe (History repeating itself). Talk about shooting one’s own foot and emboldening alternative Political parties to dissent!
This latest article from Fact4EU again brings home the truth about the so-called EU membership benefits myth. From a British perspective, it is clear there are no tangible benefits just enormous costs. Our self-serving politicians (no better than simple, highly paid, administrators) have been pulling the wool over our eyes for so long, they arrogantly believe we are a walk over; (Blair/Cameron/May/et al). But times are changing thanks to the inexorable Facts and Figures generated by Fact4EU.
As someone once said ‘you cannot ignore the simple truth infinitely!’ We are now starting to hold our politicians accountable…at last!”
May 30, 2018
It is views like yours that are unbelievable.
You Brexmoaners, led by the elite, are running scared and rapidly losing the argument about the supposed benefits of leaving the EU.
May 31, 2018
The rich, the unelected and the elite love the EU
May 31, 2018
Why not join the 1% of working age Britons living elsewhere in the EU.
May 31, 2018
B&G, You still haven’t explained why you think the UK should be subject to a foreign empire which owes much of its ethos to the plans of Reichsminister Walther Funk (1942)?
Most of the world is independent of the EU. Independent countries always do better than subject nations which are used as a cash-cow for the benefit of the empire. Why are we uniquely the exception?
And what price freedom and independence? Or don’t you care about that?
May 30, 2018
It’s hopeless. I read that ‘tax and spend’ is the policy of the Tories, or otherwise What Labour wants Labour gets.
What is the point of the Tories? Why doesn’t Mrs Blay and Mr Hammond just admit they’d like to be in coalition with Labour? And both, including our host obsessed with virtue signalling over the money pit which is the NHS and wishing to piss away the money we retain should we ever get out of the EU.
The oarty and the country
May 30, 2018
EU is getting the EBC to turn the screws on Italy populist people by not buying Italy bonds so they will go up in price, with other ideas to frighten the populist people into voting for politicians and elite in the EU and Italy, by way of the banking system, it’s what they are doing hear with loans to businesses and people, cutting back and laying the ground for another referendum after burying the economy.
May 30, 2018
This is for Soros and all the other Eu loving remoaners
“And ultimately it will be the judgment of the British people in the referendum that I promised and that I will deliver. You will have to judge what is best for you and your family, for your children and grandchildren, for our country, for our future. It will be your decision whether to remain in the EU on the basis of the reforms we secure, or whether we leave. Your decision. Nobody else’s. Not politicians’. Not Parliament’s. Not lobby groups’. Not mine. Just you. You, the British people, will decide. At that moment, you will hold this country’s destiny in your hands. This is a huge decision for our country, perhaps the biggest we will make in our lifetimes. And it will be the final decision. So to those who suggest that a decision in the referendum to leave… …would merely produce another stronger renegotiation and then a second referendum in which Britain would stay… …I say think again. The renegotiation is happening right now. And the referendum that follows will be a once in a generation choice. An in or out referendum. When the British people speak, their voice will be respected – not ignored. If we vote to leave, then we will leave. There will not be another renegotiation and another referendum.”
David Cameron, 2015
May 30, 2018
With May and Hammond at the helm John, leaving with no deal will never happen.
It is depressing.
May 30, 2018
I can see Mrs T. May stepping down from her office of government like Mr Cameron did who gave up his post in 2016, for Mr Cameron it was, so I try to keep me and my wife network of friends which we have built up over years and be on side with banking for jobs and loans for later on or do the job before me in a clean Brexit, Mr Cameron choose to bail and wouldn’t blame Mrs T. May for doing the same, It’s a hell of a thing having people you have known for years hating you and you all know how hateful remainers are but you can not judge a book by its cover as they say.?
May 30, 2018
The National Trust is going about with a begging bowl so it can purchase more land. It has allowed fracking on otherwise lands , Yorkshire,where previously money-givers thought were completely and absolutely free from such industrial exploitation. The National Trust should be terminated. There is no trust there or here for its continued existence.
May 30, 2018
Trust not. You should think yourself lucky. You could be blighted by enormous wind turbines waking you up and making your life a misery every day. We are lucky that we don’t hear the turbines near us but I know of 5 people whose lives have been completely wrecked. At least once the fracking site has been set up you will hardly notice it is there. It will also bring in much needed well paid jobs unlike wind turbines which don’t need many to carry out maintenance.
May 30, 2018
Now I see in the press, its Turkey fault and not ECB and the city of London working to bail-out the EU, always good to have a fall guy.
May 30, 2018
Will you vote against the EU Withdrawal Bill to ensure we leave on WTO terms? It can’t be right to vote to waste £40-50bn of taxpayers on a terrible deal worse than no deal.
Reply I will vote for the Withdrawal Bill as it does not include any future deal
May 30, 2018
‘We will not be paying…..on the kind of deal they are currently proposing’. A weak statement which doesn’t fool me.
NO. We should not be paying them any money at all.
May 30, 2018
Russian and UN doctors, immediately, should be allowed access and examination facilities including testing facilities and access to what would have been video footage of the operations on the Skripals.
There is increasing uncertainty, and I hate Russia so who knows what more neutral people would think, that all this was an elaborate fake.Also that Ukraine has let the UK down by a botched fake murder in lockstep with the Salisbury alleged events.
May 31, 2018
“The recent slow growth of the UK economy still locked into the EU mirrors the slowdown in growth on the continent, with a special UK twist.”
Special UK twist = Brexit.
But the Brexit fantasists will never admit that they are responsible for this unfolding disaster.
Reply No, not Brexit!
June 3, 2018
The ‘balance of payments’ always balances.
So for as long as we attract more investment into the country for which foreigners have to buy sterling, compared with the amount of foreign currency we need to buy assets abroad, there will always be a deficit on the current account.
Economies with a future (e.g. the US and the UK) have near permanent trade deficits. Economies going nowhere like Japan have big trade surpluses.
Neither is selling assets to foreigners a bad thing. Not so long ago investors in B&Q sold the company to Westfarmers for £340 Million. Westfarmers recently sold it again for £1 to Hilco, having subsided it with losses for the intervening period.
UK Investers are good at doing this. Foreign companies often write off large amounts of money they’ve invested in the UK and many foreigners including foreign banks located here routinely lend the UK government vast sums on money buying Gilts at miniscule rates of interest and with negative real returns. In doing so they subsidise us.
In due course many of the foreign investors who’ve bought all this property here might well find they have to sell it back to UK residents at much lower prices.
All this money we give the EU and Overseas Aid is is indeed a waste, But it’s not a penny total loss to the economy in macroeconomic terms. This money starts off as Sterling, and MUST inevitably end up back here either invested in the UK or spent here either by the recipients of it, or whoever the recipients sell it to, at some point.
Given the inefficiency that dogs the NHS there’s no reason to suppose that spending it on the NHS would be any better for us than spending it the way we do now.
The best way to invest it is in tax cuts for high wealth people who would then come and live and invest in Britain and spend their money, and pay their taxes here rather than elsewhere.
June 3, 2018
I’m sure you’ve got whole cupboards crammed with postgraduate degrees in economics but, strangely, you seem to have a problem with numbers…numbers of MPs in the House of Commons. As a Daily Telegraph article (centre pages) stated last week, no deal is dead because MPs are overwhelmingly against it. And also – business doesn’t want it. It’s ludicrous to keep peddling the idea that has already DAMAGED our negotiating position. You’re just feeding your ever-angry supporters with a bankrupt policy that’s purely driven by ideology. If you had an ounce of political common sense, you’d be participating in the inter-Conservative Party discussions to create consensus for a ‘sensible’ Brexit, with a deal giving the best access we can get to the Single Market. Your Crackers Brexit would lead to a second referendum within a decade.
June 3, 2018
The notion of a ‘No Deal Brexit ‘ is not, as Simon Coleman says, ‘dead’, on account of MP’s being against it.
We’re Leaving the European Union by operation of law on March 29th 2019. If there is no deal by then, then ‘no deal it is’.
If MPs weren’t willing to contemplate leaving the EU without any deal at all they shouldn’t have voted to call the Referendum in the first place and then go on to to invoke Article 50.
The Article 50 activation is NOT legally contingent upon a deal being agreed in advance of us leaving. It’s quite open to the EU to refuse any deal at all.
And it’s quite open to Tory backbenchers to vote against it. If Mrs May can persuade SNP and Labour MPs back her to push a deal through against the wishes of Tory voters so be it. Let’s see where that leaves us.
Article 50 is a FINAL decision effective on March 29th, unless the UK government makes an application to Remain in, and all 27 other countries agree to let us do so on whatever terms they demand.
We are Leaving the EU because Remainer MPs joined Leave MPs, both in voting to hold the Referendum in the first place. then lost it, and then actually voted to invoke Article 50.
There’s nothing Parliament can do about this now unless they are willing to bring down the Government and replace it with another one which will make an application to stay in.
Unless they do that, (and do it quick because it would near certainly result in another General Election, prior to which Tory Constituency parties would throw out the guilty men and women ), Parliament has only two choices:-
Accept whatever deal the Government gets, or vote it down and we Leave with No Deal.
If I were an MP I would vote against ANY deal and thank the feckless Remainers for empowering me to do so.
They gambled and lost when it came to the Article 50 vote were too cowardly to say NO. So tough.
The only Remainer Tory MP has has any integrity in all this, is Ken Clarke. He voted against having the Referendum in the first place and against invoking Article 50.
The rest of them knew exactly what they were doing, but unlike Mr Clarke, they wanted their cake and eat it.