So much for 'Brexit' being the saviour of our economy !!!

I've been all around Europe and I've never had a visa, I'm not even entirely sure what it is but I always hear a working visa so I assume it's a documentation card that says you're allowed to work while travelling in certain countries?

I just have a passport.

 

That's probably because you're not old enough and have lived all or most of your life in the EU. Countries that were nnot part of the Common Market that was, one needed visas for in addition to a passport or ausweiss.

 

I lived in Australia for over a decade.

 

Some form or reciprocal agreement between Australian and EU immigration authorities obviously.

 

It was so obvious.

 

Events might change but there seem to be three ways this could go.

1 – By 2021 we get a comprehensive free trade agreement with the EU.

2 – We fail to get an agreement and extend the transition period.

3 – We fail to get an agreement and crash out of the EU.

Getting an agreement

Most experts think the only way to get a full free trade agreement with the EU by the end of 2020 would be to basically cut and paste the present system in some type of Norway type deal (explained in more detail in other Brexit threads).

Basically that would mean full access to the single market, and very limited barriers to trade with the EU.

But in return we would have to make substantial contributions to the EU budget (many analysists think it could be higher than what we currently pay to the EU).

And we would have to follow most EU rules and regulations (without having any say in them as we would as an EU member) and in Norway this system also mean means accepting the so-called four freedoms - the freedom of movement of goods, services, capital and people.

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This scenario would cause the least disruption to the UK to the country the economy and people’s lives. In many ways it would be businesses as usual it just means we would have little influence in the EU, paying more and still keeping to EU rules.

However I think this would be seen as a ‘betrayal’ by many leavers and unacceptable and the Johnson Conservative party would pay a heavy electoral cost so I just don’t see that happening.

Extending the transition period.

Trade agreements usually take years to negotiate and we would have the added problem of any deal have to be accepted by all of the 27 EU states who could for national reasons hold it up or veto it (think Spain and the Gibraltar question for example).

So extending the transition period would seem to make sense, allowing for trade to continue for however long the process takes to get a deal.

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Of course even with an extension whatever deal is not going to be a good at the one we would have abandoned as a member state but given plenty of time we might get something that is not too costly to the UK.

However once again this would be seen by many leavers as another ‘betrayal’ I mean to get a reasonable deal for the UK it could take 5 or even 10 years (the EU-Canada deal took 7 years) and I think many leavers would find such a prospect unacceptable however rational it might be.

Crash out of the EU

I’ve talked to many people (leavers and remainers) that think this has always been what Johnson/Cummings have wanted all along. That they never meant to negotiate in good faith while blame the EU for causing all the problems and getting the right wing press to paint the EU as the villains

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This might play well with the leaver base but it makes no rational sense (as explained in the thread).

Even if the Johnson Conservatives spend a great deal of time, energy and money preparing to mitigate against the adverse effect of a no deal Brexit the effects would still be immense and the effort would become obvious causing EU exporting companies to see the direction of travel and act accordingly. While I think it would be criminal not to prepare while knowing that was what you knew you were aiming for (and will be seen as such or as incompetence).

And we would still need to get some type of trade agreement with the EU it would just mean we would be in an even worse position.

 

But wasn’t Brexit meant to make things better?

It was implied that we would get all the benefits of the EU while having none of the supposed drawbacks (like paying for membership and allowing in EU workers).

It seems to many that the deal we already had with our largest trading partner (the EU27) was a good one but it seems to me that before the referendum the leavers seemed to be saying they could get a better deal (to have our cake and eat it).

Any tariffs or delays in trade between the UK and the EU27 is going to have an adverse effect on the UK. As an entity 44% of UK exports go to the EU27 but as an entity (it being one trading block) the EU only exports 10% to the UK.

Now any agreement is not going to be as good as full membership so it then comes to how bad will it be (see post above on the three choices).

We some might say that any loses will be ofset by the gains of trading outside the EU. But as has been mentioned before in exporting terms Germany already exports more to China and India than we do. What are we going to suddenly manufacture, create and sell when we are not part of the EU that we are not doing now when in it? And as for importing well I see machinery and cars are mentioned as big imports into the UK form the EU, and that the UK could get them from South Korea and Japan, well the UK has signed a preliminary continuity agreement with South Korea which is a continuation of the terms we had as a EU member and we want the same with Japan.

What seems to be suggested by the leavers is that the UK will be in the position of exporting less while importing more? In the long term that is not a healthy position for a country to be in.

Again can a leaver please explain the rational reasons for having Brexit?

 

Sorry are you saying you think the EU gets more from us than the UK gets from being part of the EU, with the implication that somehow that is the EU’s fault?

If so can you back that up in any way – what is your substantive argument?

I mean of course other EU states don’t want the UK to leave but isn’t the question why does the UK want to leave?

As I keep repeating no leavers has yet given a rational reason why leaving will be good for the UK.

I mean as part of the EU we are part of a trading block in which they trade with us and we trade to them without let or hindrance, and as a whole the EU27 exports around 10% of goods and services to the UK while the UK export around 45% of its exports to the EU.

Why is it in the UK’s advantage to make that trading more difficult?