EU Referendum - How will you vote?

Well it's true that to a lot of people the key issue is immigration and there are very specific concerns about Muslim immigration.

 

So, if leave campaigns are arguing for more trade with the commonwealth then those people npwith concerns need to be asking what that will mean in terms of movement of people.

 

Put bluntly, Osborne seems to have discovered recently that immigration is key to our growth plans. EU is a key source of immigrants but if you remove that source then the immigrants will have to come from somewhere. Where though? It's a reasonable question to ask.

Nobody with any authority is suggesting that the UK should stop the immigration that it wants.

It cuts both ways, unbeliever: you need to stop misrepresenting the risks.

 

Regarding the bit in bold, common sense alone says that the UK, once outside the EU, would be placed neck and neck with the US and the BRICs in terms of business opportunity: whether for goods or services, once the facilitation arising out of EU membership is removed, which do you think is more competitive, right now (never mind in 2025)?

 

Pro-Brexiters need to shake off this baseless certainty that UK-sourced goods and services are irreplaceable for their EU customers. For a start, all UK owners of current EUIP rights are going to find life very interesting

It always cuts both way, except that the UK is THE largest single trading destination for EU goods. If you believe that EU businesses can or wants to replace about 16% of its trade overnight you need to have another think. The same goes for IP holders. IP is a commodity like everything else as you well know, and that commodity works two ways. It isn't a thing that the EU possesses and grants as some sort of royal concession.

What's actually going to happen is that reciprocal deals will be put in place, initially looking a lot like the current EU internal arrangements, and these will gradually become a UK/EU market where competition reigns instead of bureaucratic inertia.

It cuts both ways, unbeliever: you need to stop misrepresenting the risks.

 

Regarding the bit in bold, common sense alone says that the UK, once outside the EU, would be placed neck and neck with the US and the BRICs in terms of business opportunity: whether for goods or services, once the facilitation arising out of EU membership is removed, which do you think is more competitive, right now (never mind in 2025)? Alright, losing 50% of the export trade is fairly hard to believe. But 10%? 20%?...not impossible at all. And the UK would certainly feel even 1%.

 

Pro-Brexiters need to shake off this baseless certainty that UK-sourced goods and services are irreplaceable for their EU customers. For a start, all UK owners of current EUIP rights are going to find life very interesting

I don't believe I have at any time mis-represented the risks.

Non-tariff barriers may emerge which at times make it harder for businesses focused on EU trade to compete with internal EU traders.

I'm not at all clear how big of an effect this will be, but I would never pretend that it is not an issue.

On the other hand, the EU can be protectionist in some areas where there are opportunities.

We could gain considerable advantage over the EU in some areas, by making simple free trade agreements with other states where no such agreements exists with the EU.

One should also consider that we are currently paying the EU (we are a net contributor) a lot of money for easy access to their markets, but we operate a trade deficit with the EU where as we operate a trade surplus with the rest of the world. If we are ever to reach a trade balance, or surplus, it seems unlikely that it can be achieved by EU trade,

That is the argument we keep hearing from those who want to remain in the EU and it seems to be based on the premise that our friends in the EU would seek to punish us for leaving. Why would they want to do that? Leaving the EU isn't a declaration of war. It isn't a declaration that we don't want to do business. It is simply a declaration that we would like our relation to be just business. Why do you think the EU would seek to hurt us for that?

They come across like folk who have done a 25 year stretch in Armley Jail and are frightened of being released into the free world.

Bring back "British Standards". Is that what you mean?

 

All those businesses that want to trade in Europe will want the British Standards to align with European standards, as they do now (and of course British Standards are a already a big player in setting these European Standards). Those businesses will strongly push for continued unification with European standards, regardless of whether we are in the EU, and they will win, because they are a lot more powerful and important to the UK than those companies who only want to trade within the UK.

 

If we are going to finish up complying with European Standards, which we will, then it is better for British Standards to be part of the system which chooses the standards in the first place.

Less than half our trade is with the EU.

Much of our trade is in the form of services and not goods.

You describe a hypothetical problem of standards conflicts which doesn't sound at all plausible because it would already have manifested in other international trade and it hasn't.

As I said, we operate a trade surplus with the rest of the world, but a massive deficit with the EU. This is unsustainable.

We're paying them billions of pounds per year to make it easy for them to sell things to us.

I believe this will persist unless the EU regulatory regime is binned and started again from scratch. Which isn't going to happen.

---------- Post added 22-02-2016 at 11:57 ----------

Nobody with any authority is suggesting that the UK should stop the immigration that it wants.

 

 

 

It always cuts both way, except that the UK is THE largest single trading destination for EU goods. If you believe that EU businesses can or wants to replace about 16% of its trade overnight you need to have another think. The same goes for IP holders. IP is a commodity like everything else as you well know, and that commodity works two ways. It isn't a thing that the EU possesses and grants as some sort of royal concession.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What's actually going to happen is that reciprocal deals will be put in place, initially looking a lot like the current EU internal arrangements, and these will gradually become a UK/EU market where competition reigns instead of bureaucratic inertia.

Very well said.

It always cuts both way, except that the UK is THE largest single trading destination for EU goods. If you believe that EU businesses can or wants to replace about 16% of its trade overnight you need to have another think.

Quite on the contrary, my post was grounded in taking the long view.

You can't seriously believe French and German Eurocrats and big industry lobbyists are going to just let the UK maintain its competitivity -at their expense- unhindered once outra-EU, do you?

That would extremely naïve, and I don't believe you are.

The same goes for IP holders. IP is a commodity like everything else as you well know, and that commodity works two ways. It isn't a thing that the EU possesses and grants as some sort of royal concession.

Heard of OHIM? It's 22 springs young this year, and for the occasion is getting a rebrand as the EUIPO.

You might have overlooked the not-so-insubstantial issue of jurisdiction in your analysis

There's a lot of UK (and non-UK) businesses who own Community trademarks and designs and, within that, a lot who let their decades-old UK trademarks die through the seniority-claiming mechanism (no loss of rights at all, just more cost-effective). They'll still own the CTMs and CRDs after a Brexit, just the same US, PRC <etc.> companies and individuals can own these rights...but the UK jurisdiction will be expunged from their scope as a result of Brexit. Meaning lots more UK TM and design filings by EU and non-EU companies, lots of infringement litigation in the pipeline by/against UK rights owners who'll do nothing...Brexit = mountain of professional cash waiting for me

What's actually going to happen is that reciprocal deals will be put in place, initially looking a lot like the current EU internal arrangements, and these will gradually become a UK/EU market where competition reigns instead of bureaucratic inertia.

I think it does, it a simple case of haves and have nots. They want the security and prosperity that we have and they don't. The refugees have lost faith that they'll ever get it where they live, so solving this problem is the key to solving the refugee problem.

 

This problem is the West's problem, not just the EU's, so in or out of the EU we'll have to work towards find a solution with the rest of the other countries.

The poverty and violence that Muslims are fleeing are the product of their religion and culture and it is not in the gift of the West to fix them. All we can do is stop the madness taking root in the West and if the EU states aren't going to do that then we need to be out of the EU.

Nobody with any authority is suggesting that the UK should stop the immigration that it wants.

 

 

 

It always cuts both way, except that the UK is THE largest single trading destination for EU goods. If you believe that EU businesses can or wants to replace about 16% of its trade overnight you need to have another think.

Not true. If we were to leave the EU then it would be 16% of exports for the EU (ie not including trading between EU countries). But overall it is about 3% (including trading beteween EU countries). Not insignificant but very small. As I said earlier, against this, EU accounts for 44% of our exports (and 55% of our imports) which is a little bit more significant.

Should we choose to leave, then we won't be negotiating from a level playing field, that is for certain.

You can't seriously believe French and German Eurocrats and big industry lobbyists are going to just let the UK maintain its competitivity -at their expense- unhindered once outra-EU, do you?

 

You can't seriously believe British Eurocrats and big industry lobbyists are going to just let the EU maintain its competitivity -at their expense- unhindered once outra-EU, do you?

You do know that Europe has more to lose than we do from trade restrictions?

You can't seriously believe French and German Eurocrats and big industry lobbyists are going to just let the UK maintain its competitivity -at their expense- unhindered once outra-EU, do you?

Not in the slightest. That is the whole point really.

The rest of European business really, really, really wants to remain competitive, just like the UK, meaning that the end result is likely to be a Brexit contagion and the collapse of the EU as we know it. That's why EU bureaucrats are fighting so hard because if the UK leaves the gravy train grinds to a halt.

I'm sure that we can all imagine a massively trimmed EU that's about trade, not political union. It's what people voted for in the 70's and in many ways it is what we'll actually be voting for again on June 28th.

Not true. If we were to leave the EU then it would be 16%. But overall it is about 3%. Not insignificant but very small. As I said earlier, against this, EU accounts for 44% of our exports (and 55% of our imports) which is a little bit more significant.

 

Should we choose to leave, then we won't be negotiating from a level playing field, that is for certain.

It remains implausible to suggest that the EU would create trade barriers with an independent UK when such barriers would cost them more than they cost us.

In fact the German government has already stated emphatically that they would not. They have far more sense than to burn their money on spite.

Some non-tariff barriers to trade with the EU may still emerge. There's no point denying this. But as long as we subject ourselves to the EU's regulatory regime, we will continue to run an unsustainable deficit in our trade with the continent.

Outside the Eu, there is at least a chance to negotiate an arrangement which does not disfavour UK industry so severely and should that fail, markets will naturally push UK trade outside Europe eroding the trade deficit that way.