Not necessarily anything that couldn't be bought elsewhere. I remember reading a figure years ago that Britain ships almost exactly the same number of toilet rolls to Germany as Germany ships to Britain.mistercrayon wrote:Surely if half exports go to the EU there is something the UK sells that the countries in the EU want.
Quoted for page turn.GooberTheHat wrote:You're thinking about the maths wrong. 50% of exports doesnt equal 50% of imports.
Yes, about 15% of the UKs economy. The EU could theoretically stop buying everything the UK sells, they'd do the UK out of £25bn. In return, the UK wouldn't be able to do anything apart from do the EU out of £35bn by not buying from them.GooberTheHat wrote:So you're saying that half of all UK exports go to the EU?
There is but it isn't necessarily unique to the UK.mistercrayon wrote:Surely if half exports go to the EU there is something the UK sells that the countries in the EU want.
I don't have the figures for that. It's a minefield out there. £35bn would be a smaller chunk of the total EU economy (minus UK) than the £25bn part of the UK economy, but I have no idea about how much other economies rely on their exports & especially exports to UK.GooberTheHat wrote:But what is that as a % of GDP for each side? Who has the most to loose? And as such has the weaker bargaining position?
Because the UK would only have to apply those regulations to products traded with the EU and not the other 70% of internal UK trade or the other 15% traded with other countries.Funkstain wrote:If we wanted similar deal to now we would have to accept much of EU's current regulations, like Norway. Again I ask: what is the point of this?
Who's to say the UK wouldn't keep paying billions to the EU? Who's to say the UK wouldn't relax its border controls even more?GooberTheHat wrote:And who is to say we wouldn't implement similar, the same or more restrictive regulations should we leave?
Absolutely every single person who is campaigning for Brexit. The people who would take charge of the Tories, and therefore Brexit negotiations. So let's not pretend this is a referendum about degrees of choice. There are only two discrete options.IanHamlett wrote:Who's to say the UK wouldn't keep paying billions to the EU? Who's to say the UK wouldn't relax its border controls even more?GooberTheHat wrote:And who is to say we wouldn't implement similar, the same or more restrictive regulations should we leave?
I'm not. I was pointing out the problem with that line of arguing. I'll be voting to stay and I don't like the tories, but wanting to stay in EU because they limit the ability of the democratically elected government, is an awful reason.monkey wrote:Absolutely every single person who is campaigning for Brexit. The people who would take charge of the Tories, and therefore Brexit negotiations. So let's not pretend this is a referendum about degrees of choice. There are only two discrete options.IanHamlett wrote:Who's to say the UK wouldn't keep paying billions to the EU? Who's to say the UK wouldn't relax its border controls even more?GooberTheHat wrote:And who is to say we wouldn't implement similar, the same or more restrictive regulations should we leave?
JonB wrote:I'm none the wiser.
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