Brexit deal

[SydneyRover]

If johnson drags the UK into no-deal he's more likely to be associated with Lord Haw-Haw than Churchill wouldn't you think?

[SydneyRover]

Hi guys just thumbing my way through a few newspapers looking for some good news on brexit ..... dum de dum ......... or on boris ..... de dah ................ or about the economy ...............dum de dah ........... or about trade deals ........... di dum ........... um. I know what about ............ oh that's right Grayling is no longer flushing public money down the bog.

[Bentley Bullet]

Just been surfing through a few sites looking for some good news on vegetarianism.......Mcdonalds, Burgerking, KFC, Greggs... dum de dah......

[SydneyRover]

Anyone out there in forum land that can show me some good news about Brexit from anywhere at all?

[Bentley Bullet]

Just been on the Mcdonalds, Burgerking, KFC and Greggs sites and there's still food on their shelves.

[SydneyRover]

Read all about it, good news about brexit, officials say that those that can still afford food will be able to eat.

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

Aye. At 10%. And it basically replaced a Purchase Tax we'd had since the War.

I'm not against a sales tax per se. Pretty much every developed economy has one. It helps control consumption.

But in the UK,it was introduced at 10% by Heath. Reduced to 8% under Wilson. Increased to 15% by Thatcher and 17.5% by Major, reduced to 15% under Brown and increased to 20% under Cameron.

Draw your own conclusions.

VAT rates across Europe.  If you want to get below 15% there is only one way to go

https://taxfoundation.org/vat-rates-europe-2019/

Slightly mischevious point though, I don't think it needs to be any lower than it is?

[SydneyRover]

My original point of posting about VAT rates was that the loss of trade income or in fact the increased cost of processing both imports and exports will have to come from somewhere if we are to maintain the low quality of services. There are a few alternatives raise the VAT, raise income tax or use it as an excuse to further dismantle the welfare state.

[Bentley Bullet]

Isn't VAT a fairer tax than income tax? At least it means individuals who CHOOSE to spend the most on purchases pay the most VAT.

[MachoMadness]

I see this little shite is stirring the pot.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49251257

What, precisely, are the EU supposed to negotiate with us that they haven't spent the past 30 months negotiating?

This is the plan though. Have no f**king plan whatsoever for negotiations, blame the EU for not negotiating, then call an election and assume there'll be enough Pavlov Dog anti-EU votes to get them in.

Cue Brexiters being angry the EU won't negotiate while also claiming they always voted for no deal anyway.

[Bentley Bullet]

Aaaaaannnnnnnddddddd the wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and rou....!

1) Brexiters voted to leave with no deal.

2) Any deal after should have no bearing on the result.

[albie]

BB,

As I recall, "No deal" was not an option on the Ref vote.

The rhetoric at the time was that it would be easy to agree a better deal than that we had as EU members.
This was clearly not true.

So any deal (or lack of one), is crucial to the next stage of implementation, if you think the non binding Ref should be respected despite the significant change in context since 2016.

But you knew all that, didn't you?

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

Isn't VAT a fairer tax than income tax? At least it means individuals who CHOOSE to spend the most on purchases pay the most VAT.

Fair in that concept, but also means it's a higher proportion of a lower earner's outgoings than it is for a high earners in some cases - though you could argue that higher earners will see more of their purchases VAT applicable where a higher portion of lower earners' purchases are exempt or lower rate.  I don't think income tax is necessarily unfair as taxes go at it's current levels either, there has to be a point the richer pay more, where that point is though is debatable.

[Glyn_Wigley]

Aaaaaannnnnnnddddddd the wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and rou....!

1) Brexiters voted to leave with no deal.

2) Any deal after should have no bearing on the result.

If that's true, why wasn't a rabid defender of democracy such as you claim to be jumping up and down throughout the whole of the two years of deal negotiations denouncing them as being not what people voted for and antidemocratic in the same way that you've protested that a second referendum supposedly is?

[MachoMadness]

1) They didn't - there are several people on this very thread who've said they didn't, none of the polling shows they did, and internet search data shows most people weren't even considering it until years after the referendum.
2)This is nonsense and doesn't apply in any walk of life.

[SydneyRover]

But now it looks like brexiters would happily subvert the will of the people and parliament to get something they never thought about on the first place. Freedom and sovereignty r us.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Regarding 2)

Do you think it would be reasonable if we came to a deal that said every first born British child should be shipped off to Brussels to be sacrificed in exchange for us getting a trade deal?

If you answer "No" then you've accepted the principle that the content of a deal has a bearing on how you view the 2016 Referendum result.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Regarding VAT, here's the data from the Office of National Statistics.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/theeffectsoftaxesandbenefitsonhouseholdincome/financialyearending2017#indirect-taxes-increase-inequality-of-income

Have a look in particular at Figure 5 and the text below it which says "although richer households pay more in indirect taxes than poorer ones in total, they pay less as a proportion of their income. The poorest fifth of households paid almost 30% of their disposable income in indirect tax – with VAT (12.8%) being the biggest component – compared with 14.6% of disposable income for the richest fifth of households. This means that indirect taxes increase inequality of income.

The graph shows categorically, that, as a proportion of income, the poorest pay far more than the wealthiest on VAT and other indirect taxes, and also benefit far more from Govt spending on state education and the NHS.

Now. Stop and think.

In 2010, the first thing the Tories did was to increase VAT by a third. And they have also significantly cut the amount of our national income we spend on state education, and the NHS. Farage has a career of saying that he wants to decrease income tax (a tax which actually makes poorer people better off, because they pay little of it, but it pays for a good chunk of the NHS, pensions and education) and he wants us to move away from the Govt paying for the NHS through taxes.

Again. Draw your own conclusions.

[Bentley Bullet]

Albie. As far as I'm aware there was no talk of any deal that would mean us remaining in the EU prior to the vote, should we vote to leave. We had a vote and voted to leave. Since then, the EU has jumped on the bandwagon of support from some of our politicians who have betrayed our democratic vote to leave. This would not have been possible had they not received public support of their betrayal.

[BillyStubbsTears]

BB

How, precisely, has the EU jumped on a bandwagon of betraying our democratic vote to leave?

[albie]

BB,

You are confusing the issue.
It is not a matter of whether there was a possibility of remaining in the EU. That is a complete red herring, and not relevant.

It is about whether people voted to leave in ALL circumstances, or whether they supported leave to deliver an improved offer.

Now I suspect most would have said that the reason they supported leave was to achieve a better deal for the future.
No deal is NOT a better deal by any measure. It is not anything, other than the loss of present trading arrangements.

I sometimes think some folk imagine a no deal exit on October 31 is the end of the story.
It is not, it is just the beginning of many years of negotiating new trading relationships.

This at the same time as dealing with new tariff barriers that will limit the functioning of the economy, and place the UK lower down the bidding rank compared to EU countries.

Look what is now happening to UK vehicle manufacturing as a case in point!

[wilts rover]

Albie. As far as I'm aware there was no talk of any deal that would mean us remaining in the EU prior to the vote, should we vote to leave. We had a vote and voted to leave. Since then, the EU has jumped on the bandwagon of support from some of our politicians who have betrayed our democratic vote to leave. This would not have been possible had they not received public support of their betrayal.

Sorry BB but I am bit confused here. Which you would no doubt (correctly) say wasn't too hard but - Who has betrayed the democratic vote to leave:

a) The Tory MP's who voted for May's deal to leave the EU
b) the ERG MP's who voted against May's deal to leave the EU

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

Regarding VAT, here's the data from the Office of National Statistics.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/theeffectsoftaxesandbenefitsonhouseholdincome/financialyearending2017#indirect-taxes-increase-inequality-of-income

Have a look in particular at Figure 5 and the text below it which says "although richer households pay more in indirect taxes than poorer ones in total, they pay less as a proportion of their income. The poorest fifth of households paid almost 30% of their disposable income in indirect tax – with VAT (12.8%) being the biggest component – compared with 14.6% of disposable income for the richest fifth of households. This means that indirect taxes increase inequality of income.

The graph shows categorically, that, as a proportion of income, the poorest pay far more than the wealthiest on VAT and other indirect taxes, and also benefit far more from Govt spending on state education and the NHS.

Now. Stop and think.

In 2010, the first thing the Tories did was to increase VAT by a third. And they have also significantly cut the amount of our national income we spend on state education, and the NHS. Farage has a career of saying that he wants to decrease income tax (a tax which actually makes poorer people better off, because they pay little of it, but it pays for a good chunk of the NHS, pensions and education) and he wants us to move away from the Govt paying for the NHS through taxes.

Again. Draw your own conclusions.

BST of course that is heavily swayed by the fact higher earners lose over half of their earnings to income tax, NI etc before they even get it, so they can't possibly pay more of a proportion in VAT etc, it's not VAT that causes that but income taxes?  Not to mention that higher earners will pay more on mortgages and invest/save more which doesn't take a tax rate - thus it isn't something that can necessarily be avoided unless you propose taxing higher earners even more than they already are?  A classic example of how the statistics sway the reality a bit there!

Farage's policies on that are bonkers, hence why playing in to the Brexit party's hands on Brexit is a daft move from Labour, Lib Dems etc.

[Bentley Bullet]

Regarding 2)

"Do you think it would be reasonable if we came to a deal that said every first born British child should be shipped off to Brussels to be sacrificed in exchange for us getting a trade deal?"

Do you think it would be reasonable? Do you think the EU would think it reasonable? I think it would be an offer to end all further offers and the UK should tell them to f**k off and go it alone. NO DEAL!

......Mind you, that would mean us losing out financially wouldn't it..........Let's say they can have the kids as long as they're sacrificed humanely!

"If you answer "No" then you've accepted the principle that the content of a deal has a bearing on how you view the 2016 Referendum result."


referendum RESULT! are you finally, finally, finally admitting that the outcome, end, conclusion of the referendum was a RESULT?

[Bentley Bullet]

Albie. As far as I'm aware there was no talk of any deal that would mean us remaining in the EU prior to the vote, should we vote to leave. We had a vote and voted to leave. Since then, the EU has jumped on the bandwagon of support from some of our politicians who have betrayed our democratic vote to leave. This would not have been possible had they not received public support of their betrayal.

Sorry BB but I am bit confused here. Which you would no doubt (correctly) say wasn't too hard but - Who has betrayed the democratic vote to leave:

a) The Tory MP's who voted for May's deal to leave the EU
b) the ERG MP's who voted against May's deal to leave the EU

That's not too hard, Wilts.Sorry, beat me to it. The ERG voted against May's deal because they didn't consider it to be actually 'leaving' in the sense that the vote supported leaving. Those who supported May's vote obviously thought that it was. Either way, the vote shouldn't have been about whether we left or not. We'd already voted to do so.

[BillyStubbsTears]

BFYP.

That graph was dealing with costs and benefits as a proportion of DISPOSABLE income. So the fact that richer people pay more in income tax and mortgages is irrelevant, because we're talking about the effect of indirect taxes on the money that you have left AFTER paying Income Tax and housing costs.

Nobody's trying to spin stats here. It's entirely indisputable that indirect taxes like VAT are regressive (i.e. they hit the poorest hardest). And direct taxes like Income Tax are progressive (they hit the richest hardest).

It's also a matter of factual record that no Tory Govt has ever reduced VAT, and no Tory Govt in my lifetime has ever increased Income Tax.

Like I say, draw your own conclusions.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Go on then BB. When you say that May's deal wasn't "leaving in the sense that the vote supported leaving", how does that square with May's deal being a far cleaner break with the EU than the arrangements that Switzerland and Norway have, and Switzerland and Norway being flagged up time after time in 2016 by Leave as examples for us to follow.

Or. If you have trouble with that question, how do YOU know what sort of Brexit Leavers voted for in 2016.

[Bentley Bullet]

I was answering Wilts question of why the Erg voted against May's deal, not why I did. I never voted.

I was under the impression that most people would have heard what this bloke said.

https://youtu.be/gUsKWsPcRXE

[wilts rover]

Albie. As far as I'm aware there was no talk of any deal that would mean us remaining in the EU prior to the vote, should we vote to leave. We had a vote and voted to leave. Since then, the EU has jumped on the bandwagon of support from some of our politicians who have betrayed our democratic vote to leave. This would not have been possible had they not received public support of their betrayal.

Sorry BB but I am bit confused here. Which you would no doubt (correctly) say wasn't too hard but - Who has betrayed the democratic vote to leave:

a) The Tory MP's who voted for May's deal to leave the EU
b) the ERG MP's who voted against May's deal to leave the EU

That's not too hard, Wilts.Sorry, beat me to it. The ERG voted against May's deal because they didn't consider it to be actually 'leaving' in the sense that the vote supported leaving. Those who supported May's vote obviously thought that it was. Either way, the vote shouldn't have been about whether we left or not. We'd already voted to do so.

So:

The MP's who voted against leaving the EU honored the vote to Leave whilst the ones who voted to leave have betrayed it

thanks for clarifying BB

[Bentley Bullet]

No Wilts, Those who voted against it didn't consider it to be leaving in the way intended. That doesn't mean they want to betray the democratic vote to leave.