EU – The Moment of Truth

Listened to both sides and whatever i vote the world will end afterward so no point really

brilliant video. says it all. well done.

sceptical guy get real!

From The Economist, which strangely seems to think that the Brexiteers are going to get a rather nasty shock if we leave…
No doubt there will be obscenities and personal abuse here – *shrugs shoulder at some of the fools who’ve been doing this – but it does seem that people may be about to vote themselves into something rather horrible in terms of their living standards. Maybe we won’t leave, though, hey? We’ll see.

:- THERE is an old story that puritanical Scottish preachers used to tell their congregations about sinners cast into the fires of hell. The condemned call out to the Almighty for mercy who replies “Did I not tell you to abandon your lives of drinking, fornicating and sinning?” “Yes, lord” comes the pitiable reply “but we didna ken.”* “Well” comes the implacable reply “Ye ken noo.”

The British vote on the EU is remarkably close despite the parade of experts—the Bank of England, IFS, IMF and OECD, as well as the vast majority of economists—who have pointed to the potential adverse effects. The problem is that many voters simply don’t believe the experts, especially in the wake of the 2008 crisis. And the Conservatives in the Leave campaign, who cheerfully cite such experts when attacking Labour party policies during general elections, now disdain them altogether. Similarly when business leaders pronounce for Remain, their views are dismissed by Tories who normally treat the needs of business as pretty sacrosanct.

And what is the plan if we leave? As far as we can tell from Boris Johnson, who struggles with the facts, there isn’t one. He will mutter “Carpe diem” or whatever Latin phrase comes to mind (Festina lente? Sic transit Gloria mundi?). We don’t know if we will end up with a Norway-style link (in the single market, and still with freedom of movement) or with a Canadian style deal (no freedom of movement and restricted access for the services sector). Labour politicians are just waking up to the fact that a post-Brexit government led by Michael Gove and Boris Johnson will not be friendly to workers’ rights; those EU regulations they want to sweep away include labour market protections. Labour voters will only find that out, of course, if they vote Leave.

There was another example of the contradictions in the Leave camp yesterday when Tony Blair and John Major warned of the impact on Northern Ireland if Britain exits the EU. Currently there are no border controls between southern and Northern Ireland. So our options if we leave are:

1) continue with no controls (which Leave says will happen)

2) take control of our borders (which Leave also says will happen)

Both can’t be right. As far as I can tell, Leave claims that the Irish can be relied upon for our security, and that migrants won’t come across the border because they won’t have the permits to work. Your blogger is all in favour of immigration but this seems the flimsiest of arguments. If work permits are all we need to control borders, how come we have to stand in long lines at Heathrow? And if the Irish are in control of our borders, then Britain is not.

Anyway, the shoddy reasoning may win out in the end. And then people will complain later in 2016 when jobs are lost and the purchasing power of their pounds declines, and say that no-one told them such things might happen. And it will give the rest of us no satisfaction at all to say “Ye ken noo”.

* For those unfamiliar with the Scottish dialect, they are saying “We didn’t know”. And God replies “Well, you know now.”

Pete,
Facts in Europe give figures (eg for science, whose major subsidy fomr teh EU will be ended., etc etc etc), but I keep away from figures. Stats are unreadable to most, they are met with some really idiotic replies here, and they take up a lot of time if I want the accuracy needed, time whihc is wasted when it is drowned in personal abuse.

What we do know is that there willb e some sortof serious recession in the UK at least after 23 June if we leave- maybe before if opinion polls show a decisive result against the EU earlier. There’s a high chance that the crisis will hit the news headlines pretty quickly, and it will hit our pockets within the month. How long, how sharp? I don’t know. Nobody knows.

What we do know is that a vote to leave is a vote to disrupt complex trading relationships by people who have no clue about the complexity of trading relationships. We’ll be breaking from the Single Market to face a world of major economic powers like the USA and China, which will not be kind to us, and we will be paying much higher prices for EU goods. We have 61 trade deals which will be declared nullified because they were EU trade deals (this was confirmed by the head of the World Trade Organisation last week), and hard bargaining is going to take place which may be not good for us. The detail of all this? Nobody knows.

My guess is that a second referendum will have to be organised for a Norway-type relationship with the EU. We’ll then be part of the Single Market, but not in the EU. This will not be as advantageous as the present UK position, but we may be in such a deteriorating condition that there will be an overwhelming vote to accept.

But who knows? maybe everything will be hunky dory – China and the USA will smile and extend their generous arms with trade deals which give us a good advantage; maybe the EU will say “hey Brits, we love and need you, we’re going to allow you to have all the advantages of the EU without any need to pay for them; and we’ll all sing Rule Britannia with you.

Maybe. In which case I will happily accept the title of chump and accord superior knowledge and intelligence to our Brexiteers here.

I actually would be very happy to do that, because I am very worried for all of us. Genuinely worried.

Let’s hope the vote on 23 June will be made wihtout the current flag-waviong emotion, and with a hard head. And I will breathe a sigh of releif if the vote does go to Remain.