Discussion
don4l said:
They are talking about their London HQ.
Newbury is quite safe.
I just met with some Vodafone management.Newbury is quite safe.
Neither Newbury nor London is "safe" - the issue comes down to their ability to shift profits/dividends across geographies.
Right now they can repatriate cash to the UK (mostly from Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal) without paying any withholding taxes.
If that changes they will have to shift their main base of operations to the EU (the UK doesn't actually generate much cashflow for them).
Obviously they still need to operate VOD UK but the corporate HQ would need to shift and a bunch of that is in Newbury too I believe.
It's weird isn't it. It like a members club where no one wants to be a member except for the people who started the club and the people who get a free lunch. What was the original aim of the EU anyway? If it was a free market and mutual military security, surely that could have easily been achieved without all the other associated crap that has come with it?
Guvernator said:
It's weird isn't it. It like a members club where no one wants to be a member except for the people who started the club and the people who get a free lunch. What was the original aim of the EU anyway? If it was a free market and mutual military security, surely that could have easily been achieved without all the other associated crap that has come with it?
I do believe that originally it's aims were to prevent Germany/France from going to war. IIRC the reason it began as the European Coal and Steel Community was because it was recognised that these industries were required to build a war machine and go to war, so control of them was taken away from national governments.Esseesse said:
Guvernator said:
It's weird isn't it. It like a members club where no one wants to be a member except for the people who started the club and the people who get a free lunch. What was the original aim of the EU anyway? If it was a free market and mutual military security, surely that could have easily been achieved without all the other associated crap that has come with it?
I do believe that originally it's aims were to prevent Germany/France from going to war. IIRC the reason it began as the European Coal and Steel Community was because it was recognised that these industries were required to build a war machine and go to war, so control of them was taken away from national governments.Camoradi said:
s2art said:
It would average out at approx 4-5%. But on cars it would be 10%.
Am I correct in my understanding that for goods coming from the EU to UK, EG a nice shiny BMW at £50k, the tariff would be imposed and collected by the UK government? So a nice £5k to spend on nurses wages 
jjlynn27 said:
KTF said:
The EU is playing hard ball by saying free movement is mandatory to gain access to the single market: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36659900
Why do you think that that's playing hardball. Wasn't it always that? Even with Norway & Switzerland? To me that seemed like a foregone conclusion. I believe that now the only negotiation will be along the lines, do you want to access EU market? It comes with this this and this. Not negotiable. Now we can talk about how much that access will cost. (Obviously an example)Edited by jjlynn27 on Wednesday 29th June 15:13
TTIP includes free access to the single market, without free movement.
The EU has several FTAs granting access to the single market without free movement.
Liechtenstein has membership of the EEA without free movement.
Oh, and if you're also going to assert that FTA access to the single market also comes with charges, you'll be able to point out the contributions to the EU made by those non-EEA countries with free access to the single market...
Hell, China has tariff free access to the single market if it wants, via the deal it has with EFTA. Subsidiary in Zurich, sell to the rest of Europe tariff free.
Camoradi said:
Am I correct in my understanding that for goods coming from the EU to UK, EG a nice shiny BMW at £50k, the tariff would be imposed and collected by the UK government? So a nice £5k to spend on nurses wages
Yes. But we don't have to reciprocate whatever tariffs they choose to impose. I'm generally in favour of just getting rid of tariffs and letting other countries do as they please.jjlynn27 said:
KTF said:
The EU is playing hard ball by saying free movement is mandatory to gain access to the single market: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36659900
Why do you think that that's playing hardball. Wasn't it always that? Even with Norway & Switzerland? To me that seemed like a foregone conclusion. I believe that now the only negotiation will be along the lines, do you want to access EU market? It comes with this this and this. Not negotiable. Now we can talk about how much that access will cost. (Obviously an example)Edited by jjlynn27 on Wednesday 29th June 15:13
TTIP includes free access to the single market, without free movement.
The EU has several FTAs granting access to the single market without free movement.
Liechtenstein has membership of the EEA without free movement.
Oh, and if you're also going to assert that FTA access to the single market also comes with charges, you'll be able to point out the contributions to the EU made by those non-EEA countries with free access to the single market...
Hell, China has tariff free access to the single market if it wants, via the deal it has with EFTA. Subsidiary in Zurich, sell to the rest of Europe tariff free.
Camoradi said:
Am I correct in my understanding that for goods coming from the EU to UK, EG a nice shiny BMW at £50k, the tariff would be imposed and collected by the UK government? So a nice £5k to spend on nurses wages
The ears of some EU leaders will be getting bent by the CEOs of BMW, Daimler-Benz, Peugeot-Citroen, Fiat and others. It's the last thing they want.AJS- said:
Yes. But we don't have to reciprocate whatever tariffs they choose to impose. I'm generally in favour of just getting rid of tariffs and letting other countries do as they please.
I agree. Which is what makes the "free trade area" a contradiction in terms. You can only define a free trade area by levying tariffs on goods from outside. If they genuinely wanted free trade, the free trade area would be called Earth.
vonuber said:
Surely just a two year wait before people who are non uk citizens can claim benefits (with NHS treatment recovered from the host country) along with paying a wage that incentivises the lazy arsed to actually go to work - so it's not worth being on benefits - is the most obvious solution to all of this?
Why should any non-UK citizen be allowed to claim any UK benefits? After any duration of hiatus?(We can claim back treatment costs already but don't. That's a significant home grown malaise with our NHS IMO that the government need to set straight).
John145 said:
Does free movement of labour include freedom to claim benefits?
I'd expect a compromise could be anyone can come but only British passport holders can claim British benefits.
I believe it's free movement of people, and so yes it does mean freedom to claim benefits - essentially a government cannot discriminate between EU people of any nationality while we're a member. With that clause in, and with free movement of people allowed, the only way to prevent major problems across Europe would therefore be to unify politically and fiscally. The EU power brokers know this, IMO, and hence with unification as their primary objective, they attach the strings of free movement of people etc to everything. It furthers the goal. I can see no other reason for having those strings.I'd expect a compromise could be anyone can come but only British passport holders can claim British benefits.
Of course our own government is free to set its own policies on benefits so could have reduced them to a point where there would be absolutely no question of this being a motivator to come here (real or imagined). But those policies would have had to apply to indigenous Brits too. Unfortunately that wouldn't go down too well with more than 50% of our electorate (I'd be on the losing side of that one
).Your suggestion makes sense, but I'm not sure simply letting people in would not work - the EU won't want to concede EU nationals being treated differently, and I doubt there'd be appetite from pulling safety nets/comfort blankets from people here legally by certain quarters of our own electorate.
If we could shift the principle to free movement of labour it would be a step in the right direction IMO. But even that has significant issues. We don't have good enough data to tell us what the impacts of EU migration really are for starters. It would be good if we could agree things in principle whilst at the same time getting better quality, independent figures on the actual impacts in detail (not just net figures). e.g. does the importing of a workforce used to cheaper wages/lower standards of living encourage/exacerbate the unemployed already in the UK?
vonuber said:
Seems to me the majority of problems in this country are home grown - successive governments ignoring the regions (ironically leaving the eu to plug the investment gap, speak to cornwall for further details) along with a benefits system that can make work pointless due to low wages and tax credits subsidising employers.
Totally agree with this. Maybe now the government are seeing that they cannot take a cowed electorate for granted though, and things will start to change across the board. That's one of my more fantastical hopes out of this result. Perhaps there's room for a Farage to have a single manifesto stand once more after all But it will need wholesale change in our system IMO - the Tories were most likely to get a handle on this, but even with a majority government they have not.walm said:
don4l said:
They are talking about their London HQ.
Newbury is quite safe.
I just met with some Vodafone management.Newbury is quite safe.
Neither Newbury nor London is "safe" - the issue comes down to their ability to shift profits/dividends across geographies.
Right now they can repatriate cash to the UK (mostly from Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal) without paying any withholding taxes.
If that changes they will have to shift their main base of operations to the EU (the UK doesn't actually generate much cashflow for them).
Obviously they still need to operate VOD UK but the corporate HQ would need to shift and a bunch of that is in Newbury too I believe.
There is far too much network infrastructure at Newbury to consider moving.
Moving London would fix any financial issues.
AJS- said:
Camoradi said:
Am I correct in my understanding that for goods coming from the EU to UK, EG a nice shiny BMW at £50k, the tariff would be imposed and collected by the UK government? So a nice £5k to spend on nurses wages
Yes. But we don't have to reciprocate whatever tariffs they choose to impose. I'm generally in favour of just getting rid of tariffs and letting other countries do as they please.Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff