Liveinadive wrote:

From a mate's Facebook feed

Jason J Hunter wrote:

In laymans terms: "But Germany, France and Italy won't stop buying things from the UK if we leave" say the brexiteers, they NEED us, and they won't put us into a tariff regime, so says the Leave EU camp. It won't be a choice, it's not a case of the EU damaging their imports to be spiteful to a UK that just voted to leave the EU. The fact is that there exists a document called the Treaty of the European Union and it sets out the very foundation of how the 28 member states work and cooperate together. It was part written by the UK and part drafted by UK lawyers. It was agreed by all Member States that the EU would create a 'thing' called the "EU Common External Tariff Regime" for countries outside the EU that wanted to to trade with EU businesses. Different tariffs are in place for different product types. Higher for products the EU doesn't desperately need and lower for the things it does need desperately like energy for example - which explains why Norway get such a good deal as around half of Norways exports to the EU is oil and gas. When we tear up our membership card, Article 50 of the Treaty I mentioned comes into force. It says that a country that notifies the EU we are leaving the club all our agreements terminate 24 months after notification. When this happens (potentially summer 2018) we are automatically under the external tariff regime that the UK helped to draft and fully signed up to. The ONLY way this could be changed is if the Treaty is changed. This requires the agreement of all remaining 27 countries. Many of whom have a referendum lock if there are any changes to the Treaty. It just isn't feasibly possible to have all the necessary referendums and treaty change agreed by heads of state of 27 nations across Europe in the 2 year time limit. Meanwhile we could continue to renegotiate the 4,500 plus different product groups that we trade with the EU to try and get lower tariffs on the things we buy and sell. This could take as much as a decade (or longer if other trade negotiations are any guide). The point is that the UK becoming a part of the EU Tariff Regime (which meets WTO guidelines) is automatic if we elect to Leave and there is nothing that Germany, France or Spain or even the UK can do about it. Currently we enjoy unlimited trade with the largest trading bloc on the planet free from duties, tariffs or quota and that is my main reason for voting to stay IN the EU. It's also worth noting that of all the top ten economies in the world every single one of them with a population of less than one billion people is a member of a continental trade bloc like the EU. Do we really think we are powerful enough to buck the trend of global trade and international economics? I think not. We are pretty good, but not *that* good.

Funkstain wrote:

.... But like I said I've gone off economics right now (yes yes I Know that it is intimately related to how we deal with refugees, what their prospects are etc it just seems so far removed from the daily nightmare reality of fishing kids' corpses out of the water whilst we enjoy a morning coffee).

hunk wrote:

Britons should stay because it would be boring without you guys!

Funkstain wrote:

Other countries do so much more it's shockingly embarrassing. Germany are taking in millions, and much of their media is remains broadly supportive, whilst acknowledging the pressures and the tolls. If other EU countries did even a tenth of what Germany are doing there would be no "refugee problem".

Yossarian wrote:

Funkstain wrote:

Double counting Greens doesn't help your argument.

Also I think you are (deliberately?) missing his main point, which is that dismissing the views of lots of people will not lead to happy land.

I saw that, I just had nothing to add to it. I agree that it's a bad thing, and um, yes.

And my general argument is that there are more left-wingers than right in the country, whichever party they vote for. I recall reading a stat a while back that left-wing parties tended to outpoll right-wing ones in general elections, but the left-wing vote was more fragmented. Haven't looked into how this idea holds up now, but the last election may have shaken things, perhaps.

mistercrayon wrote:

It's a level of scaremongering that will only harden people already on the out side and question the rationality of those on the in side.

Yossarian wrote:

That's not my argument at all, my argument is that Chinese exports don't need boosting because they are aleast dominant. Making them slightly cheaper by the removal of tariffs isn't going to make them more competitive, as they're already outcompeting everywhere else in the world. It has nothing whatsoever to do with what China's economy is or isn't based on.

Diluted Dante wrote:

Childintime wrote:

Diluted Dante wrote:

Cinty, it's generally their arguments that paint them as unknowing economically cavalier racists. Apparantly all of Turkey is about to move to Lincolnshire when they get EU membership in the next few months.

Except it's most likely decades, and just because they can move here doesn't mean they will.

And "they" are? Daily Mail readers?
Tory voters?
UKIP voters?
Old people?
The working class?
Who?

Because all of the above outdo Labour, The Greens and The Guardian (in terms of votes and readership) by quite some margin. "They" represent the UK better than we do, it seems, as painful as it is to admit. So if we want our county to be less shit in future we should probably stop hoping they magically disappear, because it's not gonna happen. Dismissing and patronising entire swaths of the country as deluded, idiotic racists (once again, as if the people here are all knowledgable on the details of international economics and immigration) is dumb as fuck.

"They" would be Brexiters (#NotAllBrexiters), you know the people who you mentioned in the post that I pulled that from. I thought that would have been blindingly obvious, but apparently not.