Yep they’re screwed…no way they reach an agreement in two months.
Exactly. Australia could be a huge beneficiary of this as our livestock and produce will be in big demand
I’m sceptical on the 10%. Aus entering the TPP was supposed to be 1% over 50 years(?). A 10% immediate drop seems extraordinarily high. I’d want to know what assumptions that’s based on I.e. no negotiated trade deals at all.
The big risk I think is the financial market, the city is the financial powerhouse of Europe. Leaveing the EU will hurt, and allready is from what I hear. But the full impact will take decades.
The pound will be seriously devalued if there is no deal meaning their buying power for imports is greatly reduced. Therefore cash will need to be spent wisely given their ability to bring in cash through exports may be severely compromised.
I agree with all of this. The fundamental problem is that the Brexiters have continuously made promises that are as possible to deliver as pink unicorns. Their promises and desires have also been completely at odds even within their own ranks. All of which left May negotiating a deal in adverse conditions against a backdrop of impossible demands. I see no reason why any other deal would have been fundamentally better at meeting the desires of all Tory members.
(not to say that May hasn’t shot herself in the foot multiple times, such as calling the election).
Unfortunately, Corbyn isn’t really Remain, he’s Labour. Remain has had no true spokesman and Corbyn as the ‘nominal’ spokesman has promised as many pink unicorns as the Tories.
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Yeah, I’m sure the EU blockading the UK, starving it’s population and letting people in need of medicine to just die will go down well.
Similar thoughts.
The EU is happy to watch the UK shoot themselves in the foot.
But it becomes a different ball game when other industries and countries go into recession themselves. I doubt French dairy farmers and wine producers are going to sit by as their export market gets smashed.
If that did happen we might have to fire up Nauru and Manus again as I’m fairly confident not many Poms would want to hang around in those conditions.
We don’t put white people on those islands, were not savages, geez…
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Oh whoops! Didn’t realise
In addition to what Redbull has stated above (requoted below), you seem to have the wrong impression. No deal is not “no deal”. No deal is WTO rules. Under which, Britain cannot just “write whatever rules they want”. Whatever rules they put in place apply to everybody. So if they give EU unfettered access, everyone has unfettered access. Which kind of kills the ability to do any free trade deals.
The second problem is standards. Currently, there is no border checking between the EU and the UK as everyone runs off the same system. The UK has to start checking everything that comes in from the EU. If they don’t, under WTO rules everyone doesn’t have to be checked. So what they apply to the EU holds for everyone else as well. If they don’t check anything, then criminal gangs or cheap importers can start dumping low standard or toxic food in the UK. If they check everything, then that applies to the EU as well, and will create grid lock at the entry points as the UK doesn’t have the manpower, systems, or skills base to perform those checks in a timely manner.
Either way, they either have no food (and medicine, and other resources) coming in, or they open their market up to zero standards and become a dumping ground. And of course, in this situation their exports are smashed as the EU will be checking everything, hence gridlock. Because the EU aren’t about to drop their standards. Pity that the UK doesn’t have enough vets to do all the testing required to meet EU standards for a non-EU country, and that most of the vets they do have that work in agriculture (vs. looking after local pets) are EU citizens…
A real shame if your diabetic and need insulin, or need one of a half-dozen radioactive isotypes for chemo or other medical tests as well.
Oh, and no deal means that the UK financial system can’t passport into Europe, which would be a huge blow. In the year to 2017 the Financial Services industry contributed 11% of total taxes, which means they contributed a hell of a lot to GDP (see here). A decent chunk of that would be gone very quickly.
All of which leads to the pound crashing, which leads to @redbull’s post below.
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That makes more sense. Ta
Also, just to be clear, you can get around WTO rules by doing trade agreements. But they obviously take a very long time to implement. Which the UK doesn’t have.
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On the arguments or merits for a second referendum. To be clear, those pushing for it are doing it because they are hoping for a Remain win. But there are plenty of good arguments for a second referendum:
- Democracy has failed to provide a workable deal to leave the EU. The best solution is more democracy, with the options on leaving and remaining clearly spelled out and people voting on their preferred option.
- The current options to leave (May’s deal or No Deal) are worlds apart from what was promised by Leave during the 2016 referendum. Simply put, the current options are not what was voted on, and
- There was significant misinformation and mismanagement of the 2016 referendum. It is also clear that the populace didn’t entirely know what they were voting on. How is getting their views after two years of information not a good thing?
- The 2016 referendum was potentially illegal as hundreds of thousands of eligible voters living overseas did not receive postal votes in time, meaning they could not participate. This is a violation of democracy.
- There is now known illegal activity that occurred with the funding of the Leave campaign, the use of illegally sourced data by Cambridge Analytica, and the illegal funding and contribution by Russia or its proxies. This is known, and should be the basis of a new vote on its own.
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They revert to WTO trade rules if no deal?
The problem with that is that you’d get 25% for option A, 26% for B and 27% for C and the remainder for None of the Above. So the winner would have the support of nothing like a majority of the people.
And if Remain in the EU was an option it would be the clear winner, although whether it would be an absolute majority is pretty doubtful.
All of which leads to exactly the chaos they have now.
Oops. Rather than “preferred option” I meant to write “via preferential voting”. Which fixes the problem. You’re right, including those options with winner takes all would be unfair
Too complicated for the Brits. They have no idea what it is.
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I dunno if preferential voting in a referendum/plebiscite is even legal. Pretty sure here it needs to be a straight yes/no choice, and we probably nicked that bit of law from the UK, so I suspect it’s the same there.
This would be a fair point if it was a trade between two equals. It’s not. It’s a long way from that.
The UK is about 10% of the EU by GDP.
But the UK exports 45% and imports 50% of their stuff from the EU
Based on that I’d take a wild stab the UK will feel it much more than the EU will.
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