Exiting the EU - What are the cons?
Discussion
Du1point8 said:
RYH64E said:
Globs said:
You pay nearly £1 a day (£55m per day, about £70m souls in the country) for those 'fast' regulations that you know nothing about. You are governed by the EU, nothing less.
Trade is irrelevant - we are the big customer, we have a stronger hand than the EU and any kind of leader would use that.
Nearly £1 a day eh? And you struggle to understand why I'm not fussed? It's a pittance and not worth the risk of exit.Trade is irrelevant - we are the big customer, we have a stronger hand than the EU and any kind of leader would use that.
That explains a lot.
Ogden Nash said:
... and always keep a hold of nurse, for fear of finding something worse.
djstevec said:
einsign said:
djstevec said:
Thankfully Im not religious and think for myself then. The sheep IMO are those lap up the simplistic and sensationalist media stories about "evil Brussels" and how theyre out to destroy us and our industry, yet apparently the EU is reliant upon a propserous UK to keep flogging BMWs and Mercs to.
Are you sure, the minority of people who actually know what they are talking about dont seem to be listened to, just shouted down all the time.Business leaders(across all sectors and industries), OpenEurope (eurosceptic leaning think tank), CBI (pro-business), politicians on all sides in UK and EU (meh), FT (quite capitalist newspaper), Economist (a business orientated periodical Ive heard), Telegraph (not exactly a leftie paper), EU stance on Switzerland (no more EU agreements), work colleagues I talk to everyday in our Frankfurt office (I work for a private asset manager so hardly the PH "lentil eating lefty brigade), where the average opinoin is they simply don't give a crap anymore if we leave, etc etc etc...or the same band of anti-Eu posters on PH?
Hmmm...tough choice. My personal preference is the re-negotiation the return of whatever regulation and decision making for business that we can back to the UK.
And with that I'm out. Tired of the circular argument, so feel free to interpret that as "HA...he's lost the argument" if u wish not fussed.
fido said:
Even the woman who appeared on Question Time seems to have a leftist stance.
Is that the opposite of a gentleman who dresses to the right? 
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=200707...
Something I expect we will be seeing more of in the run up to any referendum, business leaders pushing the pro-eu case.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brit...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brit...
Business said:
But in their letter the businessmen write that on a purely economic basis, exiting the EU would be deeply damaging to Britain. “The economic case to stay in the EU is overwhelming,” they say. “To Britain, membership is estimated to be worth between £31bn and £92bn per year in income gains, or between £1,200 to £3,500 for every household.
Oh and we will lose consumer protection rules, isolating our market and making it less competitive.
We will have to make laws similar to block exemption.
We will lose pan European warranties on products, ever tried to claim on a warranty for a digital camera from Hong Kong?
Oh and we have medical devices directives, EU wide notified bodies.
I'm not sure how any of this will work if we aren't members. We will probably end up having things dictated to us.
We will have to make laws similar to block exemption.
We will lose pan European warranties on products, ever tried to claim on a warranty for a digital camera from Hong Kong?
Oh and we have medical devices directives, EU wide notified bodies.
I'm not sure how any of this will work if we aren't members. We will probably end up having things dictated to us.
Edited by jamoor on Monday 20th May 10:16
Edited by jamoor on Monday 20th May 10:22
A totally crap analogy coming up:
Maybe we should look at it like a golf swing - often to reconstruct a pro's swing, they break it back down to the basics and then rebuild it - there's a period where they lose a certain amount of form but it comes back stronger afterwards.
I too think there will be difficulties, short term, by leaving the EU but over time it will strengthen the UK.
Maybe we should look at it like a golf swing - often to reconstruct a pro's swing, they break it back down to the basics and then rebuild it - there's a period where they lose a certain amount of form but it comes back stronger afterwards.
I too think there will be difficulties, short term, by leaving the EU but over time it will strengthen the UK.
AJS- said:
Probably. I also expect that such pronouncements will continue to be seen as a bunch of aspiring Lords throwing wild figures around in the hope that they will be taken more seriously if they come from "business."
I expect a significant majority of business leaders will be against leaving the eu. We had the CBI last week, the boss of Honda UK has already spoken out, there will be many more over the coming months and years. It's important to differentiate between the emotional issues such as why restaurants can't serve olive oil in re-fillable bottles, and the more substantive issues such as economics and jobs. The less important argument is easily won by the eu sceptics, I'm more interested in the cold hard facts of jobs, trade and economics - where the debate has hardly begun.
RYH64E said:
AJS- said:
Probably. I also expect that such pronouncements will continue to be seen as a bunch of aspiring Lords throwing wild figures around in the hope that they will be taken more seriously if they come from "business."
I doubt it, I expect a significant majority of business leaders will be against leaving the eu. We had the CBI last week, the boss of Honda UK has already spoken out, there will be many more over the coming months and years. It's important to differentiate between the emotional issues such as why restaurants can't serve olive oil in re-fillable bottles, and the more substantive issues such as economics and jobs. The less important argument is easily won by the eu sceptics, I'm more interested in the cold hard facts of jobs, trade and economics - where the debate has hardly begun.
Hence the substantive issue is what is best for the economy and consumer. Big international business taking away consumer choice and with production in the cheapest region, or small to medium business locally sited producing a greater range of products increasing market size and competition?
These same regulations and other countries political quirks, prevent the UK from making trade deals with emerging economies, having to wait until the EU gets its ducks in a row, in the meant time independent nations are free to make these deals now, and consequently are better positioned to exploit the growing World Market as opposed to being fixated on the shrinking EU.
RYH64E said:
I expect a significant majority of business leaders will be against leaving the eu. We had the CBI last week, the boss of Honda UK has already spoken out, there will be many more over the coming months and years.
It's important to differentiate between the emotional issues such as why restaurants can't serve olive oil in re-fillable bottles, and the more substantive issues such as economics and jobs. The less important argument is easily won by the eu sceptics, I'm more interested in the cold hard facts of jobs, trade and economics - where the debate has hardly begun.
The pro EU side has been banging on about trade and jobs for as long as I've been following this debate and for some time before. However beyond the basic "trade is good" argument there doesn't seem to be much of substance there.It's important to differentiate between the emotional issues such as why restaurants can't serve olive oil in re-fillable bottles, and the more substantive issues such as economics and jobs. The less important argument is easily won by the eu sceptics, I'm more interested in the cold hard facts of jobs, trade and economics - where the debate has hardly begun.
It's easy to dismiss things like banning olive oil dipping bowls as trivial populism, but the fact is they're borne of a complete lack of democratic control over what governments come up with, and however many worthy captains of industry may huff and puff about mind boggling sums of money and trade figures we little folk wouldn't understand, no country with an overbearing government free of any democratic control has ever achieved anything worthwhile in the long run.
If we can maintain open trade and free ourselves of the burdensome EU regulations then I can't see how this wouldn't be a good thing in economic terms.
AJS- said:
If we can maintain open trade and free ourselves of the burdensome EU regulations then I can't see how this wouldn't be a good thing in economic terms.
The key word in the above sentence is 'if'. I hear lots of rhetoric about how we are going to negotiate beneficial trade terms if we exit the eu but as far as I can see that's far from being a foregone conclusion, I see no reason at all to think that the countries remaining in the eu will make things easy for us if we choose to leave.
RYH64E said:
AJS- said:
If we can maintain open trade and free ourselves of the burdensome EU regulations then I can't see how this wouldn't be a good thing in economic terms.
The key word in the above sentence is 'if'. I hear lots of rhetoric about how we are going to negotiate beneficial trade terms if we exit the eu but as far as I can see that's far from being a foregone conclusion, I see no reason at all to think that the countries remaining in the eu will make things easy for us if we choose to leave.
rudecherub said:
As noted. Big business benefits from EU membership because EU regulations act as a barrier to small to medium sized competitors entering the market.
As the owner of a small business I have direct experience of the above and can say that I've experienced no significant barriers to entry when trading inside the EU. If anything, complying with the various Directives that apply to my industry makes it easier to compete with the larger companies in the industry as compliance equates to fit for purpose. Intra EU imports and exports are far easier, and with much less paperwork, than the same inports and exports from/to the rest of the world. And when exporting to the rest of the world being able to state that the goods are of preferential eu origin is a definite plus.
Du1point8 said:
RYH64E said:
AJS- said:
If we can maintain open trade and free ourselves of the burdensome EU regulations then I can't see how this wouldn't be a good thing in economic terms.
The key word in the above sentence is 'if'. I hear lots of rhetoric about how we are going to negotiate beneficial trade terms if we exit the eu but as far as I can see that's far from being a foregone conclusion, I see no reason at all to think that the countries remaining in the eu will make things easy for us if we choose to leave.
Einion Yrth said:
The only reason I can see for the remaining members of an EU without UKGBNI to be at all upset at our leaving would be because they want our money. If we weren't giving it to them they'd have to earn it so I don't think trade would suffer too much.
How about setting a precedent to discourage other states considering exit? Or as a protectionist mechanism to favour eu based companies?RYH64E said:
How about setting a precedent to discourage other states considering exit? Or as a protectionist mechanism to favour eu based companies?
Obviously I couldn't absolutely write off some bizarre cutting off of noses to spite faces, but it would be irrational in the extreme since we run a BoT deficit with Europe.RYH64E said:
Einion Yrth said:
The only reason I can see for the remaining members of an EU without UKGBNI to be at all upset at our leaving would be because they want our money. If we weren't giving it to them they'd have to earn it so I don't think trade would suffer too much.
How about setting a precedent to discourage other states considering exit? Or as a protectionist mechanism to favour eu based companies?I cant see any validity in any of your statements... it all if this, if that, blackmail us to stay in, etc... were as the counter argument is that we would be better off and then can negotiate our own agreements.
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