Don't norway have the major advantage of small population massive government income from oil
Poll: The EU Referendum: How Will You Vote? (June Poll)
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Don't norway have the major advantage of small population massive government income from oil
Hmm. Given how many people are actually going to base their vote on what that awful newspaper says, that's a huge blow for the Remain camp.
Then again, the government mobilized the BBC from the start to push their agenda so they really do deserve this.
Then again, the government mobilized the BBC from the start to push their agenda so they really do deserve this.
Soldato
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Dan Hannan outlines 10 EU plots afoot for after the UK votes to stay in: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-bombshells-EU-s-keeping-secret-ve-voted.html
- Banning hair-dryers (not too bothered about this one tbh)
- A bigger budget - well duh!
- Open borders for Albania, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Turkey
- More bail-outs - the last Greek bail out forced the UK to cough up £600m. How much will it be next time?
- Deeper integration, specifically on budgets, economic policy, taxation and elements of social security
- More Human rights cases being ruled on by the ECJ, which was supposed to only rule on trade disputes
- Arts import licences - because London is the centre of the global fine art trade
- Wrecking our ports - a really important one that shouldn't be overlooked.
- Quotas for online TV - might be good for getting rid of stupid TV series based on comic books for kids tbf
- A European Army - yes it's coming, we all know it.
The Daily Fail and you expect to be taken seriously?
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Even if some of the scare stories turn out to be true and my house loses some value, I'm OK with that. Some things are worth the sacrifice and I know to step away from the superstate and to be in control is much more important in the longer term.
I find it the less risky option. You don't have 27 other countries to worry about. You can also get things done without getting the agreement of the other 27.
I find it the less risky option. You don't have 27 other countries to worry about. You can also get things done without getting the agreement of the other 27.
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Thank God for FPTP.
rofl @ people doing what The Sun tells them to do, then bragging about how it's awesome.
Seriously people... just rofl.
If you want to vote leave - fine, go ahead, but doing so because The Sun says so... Christ that's embarassing, that's like doing what VIZ or the Beano tells you, or something..
Seriously people... just rofl.
If you want to vote leave - fine, go ahead, but doing so because The Sun says so... Christ that's embarassing, that's like doing what VIZ or the Beano tells you, or something..
I just found it interesting when a lot of people have bashed Norway's model but in real terms they are better off than most EU states when it comes to lifestyle spending due to their different approach.
Soldato
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No, if you read it again I said large economic blocks make deals which favour themselves rather than smaller entities.
What is the relevance of this statement?
Soldato
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A pro Leave opinion piece from Norman Lamont in the Telegraph. The claim that struck me was that the external tariff of 3-4% was actually lower than the £8-9Bn net we pay into the EU which is equivalent to 7% on our exports to the EU.
The Remain campaign’s case for remaining in the European Union is based on the single market. They argue that while the EU has its faults, and while we would like lower immigration, these things are the price we have to pay because the EU gives us the priceless asset of the single market. I am sure that the Prime Minister and lots of people across the country sincerely believe this. But is it correct?
The impression given is that the EU single market is a walled garden and that we and the other members have some special silver key that gives us privileged access to its delights that others cannot access.
But this is wrong. Every developed country has access to the single market. The EU has a relatively low external tariff with the exception of certain goods such as agriculture. The inconvenient truth is that non-members of the EU have often exploited the single market far more successfully than we have.
A fascinating book on this subject has been written by Michael Burrage, a former academic at the LSE and Harvard and a visiting professor at several Japanese universities. He is not, in short the sort of person, that even the Chancellor could call “economically illiterate”. The Myth and Paradox of the Single Market is packed full of statistics and graphs. While the OECD, the IMF, the Treasury and others have tried on the basis of various economic models and assumptions to predict the future – always impossible – Burrage looks at the past, what has actually happened and the known facts.
His conclusions are counter-intuitive. First, the UK’s exports have grown least during the period of the single market while those of non-EU countries have benefited the most. The US exports more to the EU than we do and its exports have increased at a much faster rate than ours recently. Switzerland exports per capita five times more to the EU than we do. Even more surprisingly, the non-EU members that have no particular trade agreements with the EU such as Australia, Japan and the US, have benefited from the single market more than those like Switzerland, Norway and Iceland, who have negotiated special trade agreements.
Why might this be? One reason is that the single market is open to all advanced economies, in exchange for paying a relatively modest tariff of 3 to 4 per cent, something that evidently does not stop non-EU countries from selling within it. The EU also has the power to determine “standards and rules” within the single market, something sometimes said to amount to a “hidden protection” for the EU’s domestic industries, but which has not, in fact, been much of a deterrent to those selling from outside the EU.
These statistics refer to goods. What about services? It is services that, after all, are the UK’s strength, and many authorities consider that the future in trade belongs to services. The EU likes to measure the degree of integration in services within the single market by looking at services trade as a percentage of GDP. Unfortunately, that preferred measure shows that the degree of integration within the EU is extremely low and has been falling, despite all the calls from British prime ministers for “the completion of the single market in services”.
Revealingly, from 2002 to 2012, the EU’s exports of services – that is from the EU to outside the EU – have grown faster than their exports to each other within the EU. These surprising conclusions call into question whether there is any such thing as a single market in services. When one looks at the growth rate of services exports of 20 EU member countries to other EU members, with the exports of 19 non-member countries to the EU, there is no significant difference.
Many of the non-EU members who exploit the EU single market successfully do have one distinct advantage over us. Those who do not have any special trade arrangement with the EU, like the United States or Australia, do not pay any contribution to the EU budget. Non-EU countries do, of course, have to pay the external tariff to the EU. But Britain has to pay £8-£9 billion into the EU budget, the equivalent of a tariff of about 7 per cent on our goods. Our free access is not free access at all. Arguing for the single market on the grounds that you can avoid a 3 per cent tariff by actually paying 7 per cent fee is mis-selling on a scale that dwarfs the PPI scandal.
The CBI claims that giving responsibility for negotiating trade agreements to the EU has benefited UK exports. This, too, is doubtful. In January 2014, the EU had trade agreements in force with 55 countries whose aggregate GDP was $7.7 trillion. By way of comparison, the aggregate GDP of all the countries with which Switzerland had agreements in force was $39.8 trillion; Singapore had agreements of $38.7 trillion, Chile agreements of $58.3 trillion and Korea $40.8 trillion.
Of course, these agreements included the EU, which has a GDP of $16.7 trillion but, even so, the scale of trade agreements negotiated by these countries vastly exceeds those of the EU. There is a very simple reason for this. The EU is a cumbersome, slow negotiator because it has to take into account the interests of 28 different countries. Moreover, most of the agreements of these independent countries cover services, whereas only two thirds of the EU’s trade agreements do so. The EU has opened services markets of nearly $5 trillion to UK exporters, whereas the Swiss have opened services markets worth $35 trillion.
The importance of trade deals can be exaggerated. Countries primarily succeed with or without trade deals if they produce goods of high quality and services that other countries want to purchase. In the modern world, tariffs between developed countries are low and are small compared with movements in exchange rates. The flawed myth of the single market is that is that it is seriously advantageous to its members. The paradox is that non-members have managed to benefit from it more than members.
There may be arguments for remaining in the EU but they do not revolve around the single market. On trade we have nothing to fear but fear itself. Which is exactly what the Remain campaign has been attempting to stir up.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick was Chancellor of the Exchequer 1990-93
The impression given is that the EU single market is a walled garden and that we and the other members have some special silver key that gives us privileged access to its delights that others cannot access.
But this is wrong. Every developed country has access to the single market. The EU has a relatively low external tariff with the exception of certain goods such as agriculture. The inconvenient truth is that non-members of the EU have often exploited the single market far more successfully than we have.
A fascinating book on this subject has been written by Michael Burrage, a former academic at the LSE and Harvard and a visiting professor at several Japanese universities. He is not, in short the sort of person, that even the Chancellor could call “economically illiterate”. The Myth and Paradox of the Single Market is packed full of statistics and graphs. While the OECD, the IMF, the Treasury and others have tried on the basis of various economic models and assumptions to predict the future – always impossible – Burrage looks at the past, what has actually happened and the known facts.
His conclusions are counter-intuitive. First, the UK’s exports have grown least during the period of the single market while those of non-EU countries have benefited the most. The US exports more to the EU than we do and its exports have increased at a much faster rate than ours recently. Switzerland exports per capita five times more to the EU than we do. Even more surprisingly, the non-EU members that have no particular trade agreements with the EU such as Australia, Japan and the US, have benefited from the single market more than those like Switzerland, Norway and Iceland, who have negotiated special trade agreements.
Why might this be? One reason is that the single market is open to all advanced economies, in exchange for paying a relatively modest tariff of 3 to 4 per cent, something that evidently does not stop non-EU countries from selling within it. The EU also has the power to determine “standards and rules” within the single market, something sometimes said to amount to a “hidden protection” for the EU’s domestic industries, but which has not, in fact, been much of a deterrent to those selling from outside the EU.
These statistics refer to goods. What about services? It is services that, after all, are the UK’s strength, and many authorities consider that the future in trade belongs to services. The EU likes to measure the degree of integration in services within the single market by looking at services trade as a percentage of GDP. Unfortunately, that preferred measure shows that the degree of integration within the EU is extremely low and has been falling, despite all the calls from British prime ministers for “the completion of the single market in services”.
Revealingly, from 2002 to 2012, the EU’s exports of services – that is from the EU to outside the EU – have grown faster than their exports to each other within the EU. These surprising conclusions call into question whether there is any such thing as a single market in services. When one looks at the growth rate of services exports of 20 EU member countries to other EU members, with the exports of 19 non-member countries to the EU, there is no significant difference.
Many of the non-EU members who exploit the EU single market successfully do have one distinct advantage over us. Those who do not have any special trade arrangement with the EU, like the United States or Australia, do not pay any contribution to the EU budget. Non-EU countries do, of course, have to pay the external tariff to the EU. But Britain has to pay £8-£9 billion into the EU budget, the equivalent of a tariff of about 7 per cent on our goods. Our free access is not free access at all. Arguing for the single market on the grounds that you can avoid a 3 per cent tariff by actually paying 7 per cent fee is mis-selling on a scale that dwarfs the PPI scandal.
The CBI claims that giving responsibility for negotiating trade agreements to the EU has benefited UK exports. This, too, is doubtful. In January 2014, the EU had trade agreements in force with 55 countries whose aggregate GDP was $7.7 trillion. By way of comparison, the aggregate GDP of all the countries with which Switzerland had agreements in force was $39.8 trillion; Singapore had agreements of $38.7 trillion, Chile agreements of $58.3 trillion and Korea $40.8 trillion.
Of course, these agreements included the EU, which has a GDP of $16.7 trillion but, even so, the scale of trade agreements negotiated by these countries vastly exceeds those of the EU. There is a very simple reason for this. The EU is a cumbersome, slow negotiator because it has to take into account the interests of 28 different countries. Moreover, most of the agreements of these independent countries cover services, whereas only two thirds of the EU’s trade agreements do so. The EU has opened services markets of nearly $5 trillion to UK exporters, whereas the Swiss have opened services markets worth $35 trillion.
The importance of trade deals can be exaggerated. Countries primarily succeed with or without trade deals if they produce goods of high quality and services that other countries want to purchase. In the modern world, tariffs between developed countries are low and are small compared with movements in exchange rates. The flawed myth of the single market is that is that it is seriously advantageous to its members. The paradox is that non-members have managed to benefit from it more than members.
There may be arguments for remaining in the EU but they do not revolve around the single market. On trade we have nothing to fear but fear itself. Which is exactly what the Remain campaign has been attempting to stir up.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick was Chancellor of the Exchequer 1990-93
Nice try but it was a piece written by a Conservative MEP.
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I'm sure most of you should be able to view this video, made me chuckle. Andrew Neil dispelling some "facts"
https://www.facebook.com/358469527671375/videos/524138537771139/
https://www.facebook.com/358469527671375/videos/524138537771139/
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So now the top two most widely read newspapers in the UK are backing the Leave campaign. That's a *LOT* of potential press coverage for the remainder of the run up to the referendum.
rofl @ people doing what The Sun tells them to do, then bragging about how it's awesome.
Seriously people... just rofl.
If you want to vote leave - fine, go ahead, but doing so because The Sun says so... Christ that's embarassing, that's like doing what VIZ or the Beano tells you, or something..
Where did anyone say they were voting Leave on the basis that The Sun are backing them?
They might not have said they were personally (because they are already voting Leave) but they are saying it will give a big boost to the Leave campaign, so they are saying plenty of people will be doing
I firmly believe that if this situation comes up, the rest of the EU will say: "You want out, there's the door." The alternative is to start Spain et al. all clamouring for special favours just to stay. And quite frankly the sentiment isn't there anymore. If the UK tried this 'treat us special or we go home' approach ten years ago, it would have worked. But after Greece, the economic crisis... I think the Leave campaigners don't realize that there's as little patience left on the European side as they have themselves. The UK has always acted as a special ********* in Europe. If it threatens to leave, Germany, France and the rest will go "okay". And then the trade barriers will come down as those still in turn to support each other for preference. The really big worry would be if it impacts London's position as a financial hub. Like it or not, successive British governments have destroyed the UK's manufacturing base. Most recently when we vetoed a European bill to impose tariffs on Chinese steel. Consequently, though I loathe to say it, we're heavily dependent on London's financial dealings. They comprise a very hefty proportion of the UK's GDP. IF leaving the EU impacts that, then in combination with the sudden absence of cheap labour, we're at serious risk. Do you have any idea, to pick a single example, of how many nurses in the NHS are not UK nationals? Expect a serious degrading of the NHS, a sudden sharp slow-down in the building sector and many other impacts.
People thinking: "oh, we'll threaten to leave and get special concessions" or "we will leave but still get the perks" are the most deluded of all, imo.
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Beautiful. I am liking Andrew Neil more and more, one of the few TV interviewers who can cut like a knife without recourse to sarcasm or puerile comments.
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