On 21 Jun 2016 at 9:25am Zebedee wrote:
France have said that if the UK leaves the EU they will exit the Le Touquet agreement and stop allowing the UK to do the border checks on the french side of the channel (as they would, just as the UK would if positions were reversed). Then the 4000 migrants currently at the camps in Calais would come here.
Couple that with the fact that the EU will require us to sign up to 'free movement of peoples' and the Shengen agreement before they'll consider any trade deals and that our government has been unable to reduce the 50% of immigration it is in its power to do so and, contrary to the expectations of many, immigration is likely to rise if we Brexit.
To be clear, we are currently the only EU member country not signed up to the Shengen agreement. Before considering a trade deal with non-EU countries Sweden and Switzerland the EU insisted they sign up to the Shengen agreement. If we Brexit the EU will certainly insist we do the same (and they are not going to do us any favours).
So, the number one reason most are considering voting Brexit is not even valid. Why don't the Leave camp tell us this I wonder?
Brexit: be careful what you wish for.
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On 21 Jun 2016 at 9:35am Jerry wrote:
Precisely. Expect an encampment near Newhaven.
More immigration - and we're poorer. Read George Soros this morning. You can dismiss the IMF, Goldman Sachs and the Treasury as EU stooges if you wish, but ignore Doctor Doom at your peril
On 21 Jun 2016 at 12:28pm Amon wildes wrote:
Sadly the dedicate 'leavers' on this forum and probably elsewhere don't want to hear the truth. They believe the 'Leave' lies peddled by unscrupulous chancers like Johnson, Farrage and Gove, ably supported by the right wing press. Quite what a pretty intelligent bloke like Gove thinks he's doing with this bunch of Brexiteers, I really don't know.
On 21 Jun 2016 at 1:08pm Fred2016 wrote:
The EU legal framework does not allow the type of action mentioned above. Trade and people movement are not linked and no opportunity for "blackmail" exists. The Same is true of financial services. An interesting EU directive that we are currently obliged to follow will stop the government from bailing out the NHS. Public services will be regulated like private companies. Also the UK contribution to the EU is to be raised within 18 months, this is a know process and is part of the strategy to bring Turkey into EU and provide more support funds for problem countries.
On 21 Jun 2016 at 1:47pm Zebedee wrote:
@ Fred.
The EU always insists that an non-EU European country signs up to the Shengen agreement and the free movement of people before it will sign any trade agreement with them. Nothing to do with any legal framework. It's just the way it is. If you have evidence to the contrary please present it but I can almost guarantee you'll not find any. You might however find reading about EU negotiations with Switzerland and Norway illuminating.
The UK is alone in being in the very privileged position of being within the EU trade block and not having had to sign up to the Shengen agreement. By Leaving we ruin that and will be in the position where to trade on favourable terms with the EU we will need to take on a whole raft of EU regulation, pay almost as much as we do now, sign up to free movement of people and have no say in anything the EU does.
It's truly a lose/lose situation.
At first I thought you were talking about TTIP but you say an EU Directive already exists to stop our government bailing out the NHS (whereas TTIP has a long way to go before it's anything like likely to be approved by the EU parliament). Can you provide a link please? Thanks.
On 21 Jun 2016 at 7:32pm Just 1 question wrote:
Can someone in remain explain to me why they think we need a trade deal with the EU to trade with the EU?
Sorry I'm confused and many of your assumptions seem to rest on this detail.
On 22 Jun 2016 at 1:26am Just 1 answer wrote:
Just 1 question
Without free trade agreements, governments can impose tariffs, quotas and restrictions on the importation of goods from one country to another.
E.g. let's say you're a manufacturer of widgets in a non-EU country and you want to sell your widgets inside the EU. Your manufacturing costs are cheaper than in the EU so you reckon that you can sell them more cheaply than EU produced widgets. But the EU widget makers employ a lot of people, and so the EU would like to protect the homegrown widget industry, so they impose a 30% tariff on widgets imported from your country, or they insist that widgets sold in the EU must comply with an EU standard that would raise your manufacturing costs. You appeal to your government to make a trade deal with the EU, which might involve some reciprocal deal for the unrestricted importation of your widgets.
Japan in particular used to have very heavy restrictions and quotas on imported goods, but they have moved more towards free trade in recent decades.
On 22 Jun 2016 at 6:56am Just 1 question wrote:
But surely we have a trade agreement other than EU common market, they are members of the WTO so is the UK?
Also I thought the EU was legally bound to make a trade agreement with us under the Lisbon treaty?
On 22 Jun 2016 at 7:29am border control wrote:
Jerry,
Your idea of an "encampment near newhaven" made me chuckle - what a complete load of old b*llocks. Why would they camp this side of the channel when they could go and work for peanuts with Branson and Co?
On 22 Jun 2016 at 7:41am Zebedee wrote:
No. Trade agreements come in all flavours. The main issue is that the EU always insist that an non EU European country signs up to the Shengen agreement before it will sign a favourable trade agreement. With no trade agreement individual EU countries are able to impose tariffs on our goods to protect their industries. We can trade under WTO rules, but this is nothing to having a favourable [tariff free] agreement.
I personally am very much looking forward to the post-Brexit day when Gove and Johnson are forced to admit to the population that we either accept free movement of people or accept we have no trade deal with the EU. This is likely to be around the time the population realise Brexit has screwed the UK economy big time.
A reasonable summary from the (pro-Brexit) Telegraph on post-Brexit trade scenarios.......
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On 22 Jun 2016 at 8:22am Undecided wrote:
A very good and impartial article by the Financial Times on post-Brexit trade options. A must-read if you want to make an informed choice. Hopefully it's a public article (and not behind the FT paywall).
Check it out here »
On 22 Jun 2016 at 8:56am Bored of Brexit wrote:
The lies told in the debate last night were staggering. Lies or the Brexiters are stupid, and dangerously so anyway. We will fund bailouts if we stay in? No we won't. It's already agreed we won't. Turkey joining is a risk? Why then did Boris campaign for Turkey to join? (Watch the video and laugh at what a dangerous man he is, saying anything for money). Immigration will go up if we stay? Norway is out and has higher immigration. And still pumps money into the EU. Lie after lie and no plan. Thank God I'm educated enough to see through it.
On 22 Jun 2016 at 10:20am Just 1 question wrote:
But like I said, we already have a trade deal - WTO, this doesn't involved signing to Shengen and is in place already.
Plus it not like an agreement can be ultimately vetoed as claimed in some other threads in this forum, the EU is legally obliged to sign a trade agreement as part of the Lisbon Treaty. Logic dictates that will be a better deal than WTO, WTO we can live with anyway.
Plus it's only Camoron that's suggested we leave BEFORE all these details are sorted, BREXIT have very sensibly said this might take up to 10 years to sort.
I really don't see what all the fuss is about...
On 22 Jun 2016 at 11:00am Zebedee wrote:
I'm pretty sure you are not right that the Lisbon Treaty ensures the EU has to sign a trade agreement with an exiting UK. At least I can find no evidence supporting it and all informed comment indicates it's not true (see FT link above). Would you post a link to your evidence please? Thank you.
On 22 Jun 2016 at 11:33am Just 1 question wrote:
"I'm pretty sure you are not right that the Lisbon Treaty ensures the EU has to sign a trade agreement with an exiting UK. At least I can find no evidence supporting it and all informed comment indicates it's not true (see FT link above). Would you post a link to your evidence please? Thank you."
Article 50 (2), I can't believe I'm actually having to answer this question...
On 22 Jun 2016 at 12:32pm Zebedee wrote:
You are being asked to provide proof of what you are saying. What's so unbelievable about that? As it is you have now proven that you are incorrect and that no proof exists. I've copied *all* of article 20 below and there is no mention that the EU has to make a *trade* agreement with the UK before it leaves. As demonstrated in the thread where you continually called me a moron, you are about to cast a vote based upon false assumptions and lies and very sadly you are not alone. A large number of people seem content to base their vote not on reasoning and fact, but on a knee-jerk emotional reaction fed by dishonest sound bites and xenophobia from the Leave campaign.
Tomorrow is the most important vote of your life. You should take it very seriously. Otherwise you might just plunge our country into economic chaos and severely damage the prospects of the next generation and our country as a whole.
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Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty (in full)
1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.
2. A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention. In the light of the guidelines provided by the European Council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union. That agreement shall be negotiated in accordance with Article 218(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union*. It shall be concluded on behalf of the Union by the Council, acting by a qualified majority, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.
3. The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.
4. For the purposes of paragraphs 2 and 3, the member of the European Council or of the Council representing the withdrawing Member State shall not participate in the discussions of the European Council or Council or in decisions concerning it.
A qualified majority shall be defined in accordance with Article 238(3)(b) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
5. If a State which has withdrawn from the Union asks to rejoin, its request shall be subject to the procedure referred to in Article 49.
* This refers not to *trade* but to Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. See link.
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On 22 Jun 2016 at 12:43pm Boris McHaggis wrote:
Last night's debate?! What a f**kin' shambles!
Boris had no idea what he was talking about. He spouted rubbish from start to finish. Did you hear him say that the EU banned us from selling haggis to the US? Ha ha ha. It's the US that won't buy haggis from us. In fact, they've banned it (due to health reasons, so they say)!
And to think the Brexit camp respect this guy and think he will make a good prime minister. Good god. Says much about our education system, or depreciating gene pool, or something....
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On 22 Jun 2016 at 4:50pm Just 1 question wrote:
Zebedee I didn't call you a moron
You have been very selective the point I was making was this: "we already have a trade deal - WTO" not this.
We both know this process has never been done, so the definitions are unproven.
We are not only negotiating exit we are also negotiating our agreements going forward (they are linked as much as you would like to pretend not).
"the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union. "
And I'm not being funny if Mexico (among many others) can have a free trade agreement with the EU, why do you give the UK no chance of having one?
Check it out here »
On 22 Jun 2016 at 6:50pm Zebedee wrote:
Sorry, I thought you were someone else.
A trade agreement is not included in Article 20 and anyway will take much longer to draw up than the two years allowed for exit. One very simple reason for this is (although there are many) is that the EU will insist the UK signs up to the Shengen agreement, the free movement of people (as it does for all non-EU European countries) and I can't see Gove or Johnson having that.
Trade agreements come in all shapes and sizes. Trading under the WTO is something completely different from an EU trade agreement and does not negate tarifs. That this is true is reinforced by the eagerness of non EU-members Switzerland and Norway to gain a trade deal with the EU. To gain an agreement they have both had to accept the Shengen agreement, a raft of EU regulations, and must pay the EU for the privilege! They now have less control over their borders than we do.
With Brexit it really is a case of 'Beware what you wish for. It might not be what you expect'