EU Poll - "Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?"

[Tweek]

That report talks a lot about long term affects.

 

My worry is that the short term Brexit affects and all the uncertainty that will go with it (0 to 5 years), given the current standing of our economy / finances / liabilities / reserves / PS, CS wage and pension bills could actually see IOM PLC go bust in the very short term.

[woolley]

Brilliant idea, Tweek. All we need is an out vote and the feckless here can blame all our ills on Brexit. You ever thought of going into politics?

[Tarne]

I think the Brexit crowd are doing quite well, as I was firmly in the Don't leave the EU Camp, and now I'm thinking "Well, would it really be bad if we left? And actually, if we left we could still have a 'special relationship' with the EU too"

[GD4ELI]

I think the Brexit crowd are doing quite well, as I was firmly in the Don't leave the EU Camp, and now I'm thinking "Well, would it really be bad if we left? And actually, if we left we could still have a 'special relationship' with the EU too"

 

Sorry - not possible.

[hillshepherd]

 

 

Are Isle of Man residents allowed to vote on this?

 

Interesting for me. I assumed I am not allowed to vote as I don't live in the UK: But..

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatnews/11633091/Expat-vote-ban-lifted-but-not-in-time-for-EU-referendum.html

 

Not sure how this works. I was 12 years on the Island and have been 4 years in China. So I have not had a UK address for 16 years.

 

I think if you have a British Passport, or entitlement to a British Passport, you should be allowed to vote in something as important as this. I will have to ask the local UK consulate. This is an important vote that affects millions of Brits living abroad.

 

Then again, to show my two faced nature, I agreed that only people living in Scotland should be allowed to vote in the independence referendum. Because it mainly affected them.

 

Am I wrong to see the two votes differently?

 

 

 

Not at all,the world is full of ex pat scots who love their country so much they can't wait to leave the dump and head out to preach to the world how wonderful Scotland is.

 

 

And as Billy Connolly says they also sing songs about being exiled far away across the oceans when they are still living in Scotland

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CB8F8g1-4Uw; a great number for friday morning.

[Chinahand]

How can people be in favour of creating uncertainty upsetting all the UK's trade and diplomatic relations and the resulting confusion which renegotiating all of them will involve.

 

Do people really think a free trade agreement with say South Korea will be negotiated just like that - the UK doesn't have trade negotiators any more, just the logistics of recruiting them, drawing up the proposals and negotiating them will take years.

 

And in the mean time trade will be effected by the red tape that trading without a most-favoured status that EU membership brings.

 

And the end result - how much different from the reality we already have?

 

UK businesses have to adopt EU standards to sell to Europe, South Korea is currently negotiating a trade treaty with Europe - they aren't going to suddenly stop those negotiations and grant the UK better terms than a trading block multiple times bigger than the UK economy.

 

It is a pipe dream and a guaranteed way to put the UK to the back of the queue with the weakest hand as multiple trade blocks are negotiated.

 

It will be genuinely damaging to the UK economy in the sort run with a weaker trading nation resulting as we simply don't have the economic heft on our own to negotiate more strongly than the huge economic blocks.

 

Polish plumbers have been a huge benefit to the UK economy - even given the economic damage they've brought by undercutting British plumbers.

 

I'm sure Woolley will pitch in dreading what all the immigrants and refugees will do to us, but the idea we can pull up draw bridges and prosper is really naive.

 

The world is a complex place where it is difficult to negotiate a place within it without compromises and give and take.

 

Stay - we have to deal with that.

 

Leave - there will be 5+ years of huge economic and trade uncertainty and then the emergence of a settlement not particularly different from what we all have.

 

Pointless.

[woolley]

@ Chinahand:

Leave - there will be 5+ years of huge economic and trade uncertainty

 

No there won't. That is just what the eurocrats and politicos, full of their own importance, want you to believe. They believe it themselves because they are genuinely convinced that they are vital to trade when in reality they are virtually irrelevant. They are so puffed up that they even think they have singlehandedly kept the peace in Europe for 60 years.

 

On Exit day + 1 everything will go on much as before. We have a balance of trade deficit with the EU and they are not going to walk away from that trade. Money talks. Everything else is subordinate. In the end as you say, trade agreements will be much as they were before. However, the UK will not be part of the sclerotic union which will ultimately implode very messily in any case.

[pongo]

The truth is that nobody knows for certain how an exit would definitely affect trade and the economy. That, of itself, will inevitably create a significant period of unnecessary uncertainty and should therefore be seen as a negative.

 

Unfortunately much of the populist media, including the former broadsheets, are rather excited about the idea of an exit. The British media feeds on drama and an exit would be the bigger story.

[woolley]

Yes. Can't argue with that I suppose. The markets are notoriously jittery and illogical, but the backwash would soon smooth out.

[pongo]

Yes. Can't argue with that I suppose. The markets are notoriously jittery and illogical, but the backwash would soon smooth out.

It is not only about market abstractions. It will directly impact pending contracts, orders, tenders, new startups etc etc

[woolley]

 

Yes. Can't argue with that I suppose. The markets are notoriously jittery and illogical, but the backwash would soon smooth out.

It is not only about market abstractions. It will directly impact pending contracts, orders, tenders, new startups etc etc

 

The effect would be transitory and within two to three years the freed up UK economy would leave Europe behind in its wake.

[Chinahand]

The UK will immediately loose all the trading privileges it has via the EU. That is a fact.

It will have to renegotiate its Favoured Status on an individual basis. Just like South Korea.

South Korea is currently negotiating trade agreements with China: it trades more with China than we do.

The idea the UK will leap to the front of the queue and be granted better privileges than the 100s of negotiations going on is rubbish.

In the meantime it will be have a non-Most Favoured status.

This is high politics and trade negotiations don't get settled overnight even when Trillions of dollars of trade is at stake. Are you aware of the stalled WTO rounds? You're being Panglossian if you think it won't have significant effects over a significant time.

And the idea at the end of it the UK will gain any better concessions seems unlikely too. Why would a country give better status to an economy of 60 million compared to one of 350 million.

It doesn't compute to me.

[pongo]

The effect would be transitory and within two to three years the freed up UK econoly would leave Europe behind in its wake.

This is speculation.

 

Also - the UK economy is not especially restricted by the EU currently. You will find very few people arguing coherently that the EU restricts the economy. The arguments against the EU are typically fairly nebulous from a business perspective.

[woolley]

The arguments in favour of the EU in all respects are so nebulous that they had to be concealed from the electorate during the 1975 referendum.

[woolley]

@ Chinahand: The UK will immediately loose all the trading privileges it has via the EU. That is a fact.

 

That is not a fact. It is nonsense. There would be a period during which the arrangements for withdrawal would be negotiated and during the interregnum the current arrangements would persist. As I have said before, there is a huge trade imbalance in favour of the EU, so this would temper the anti-British sentiment. In short they will not destroy trade because they would be cutting off their nose to spite their face. They would suffer more than Britain as a result of raising trade barriers so it won't happen.