Brexit Dividend

[drfchound]

Read my earlier post Billy. Brexit has cost only £10 per person per week. I've shown where this figure comes from and how it tallies with OBR analysis - do you dispute it?

It's not a case of people choosing not to notice - it is simply not a big enough impact for most people to notice.

No sensible extrapolation of economic performance into the future (even with the OBRs highly dubious 4% GDP fall) could in anyway shape or form be compared to an avalanche.

I don't dispute there has been some economic hit but listen to Osborne here www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36355564. Views backed up by the majority of our politicians who stood on the same remain platform as him.

Is it any wonder after the vote that the £ fell, business' held off on investments and wage rises, and the stock exchange fell. The majority of the economic hit has been due to misplaced sentiment off the back of political lies and nothing to do with the fundamentals of Brexit itself.

£68,000,0000 x 10 so only 680,000,000 per week, what a bargain, I wonder how many hospital etc ........

And if only 10 people lived in the UK that would be £100 per week. What point are you making exactly?

Now you are getting silly Branton, where are you getting your figures from, 10 people living in the UK, surely it's more than that?

   There is no hope.

[River Don]

I think we have to keep in mind, what's driving this inflation in Europe is energy prices. It's cost push inflation and in the UK it's imported.

Energy prices are high for a number of reasons. We're coming out of the pandemic and demand is rapidly returning but the supply isn't meeting it. It's not meeting it because of a number of reasons.

The wind levels haven't been very high in Europe, intermittent renewable energy has been low. The Germans are decommissioning their nuclear power plants resulting in a loss of base load energy. Vladimir Putin has chosen this moment to pressurise Europe and is limiting gas supplies. China has been trying to transition away from coal to natural gas. More competition in the market, higher gas prices. The UK has closed down the Rough gas storage facility giving lower reserves to fall back on.

On top of all of this there is a global push to transition away from fossil fuels. Which means there has been a reduced commitment to developing new fossil fuel rescources. The high prices now would normally signal the green light for developing new fossil fuel fields but that is being held back.

If we're talking about structural problems this is quite a big one.

So far the renewable energy that is supposed to help build back better is not taking up the slack and even if we give up on meeting Co2 targets, which would be foolish, it would still take years to crank up the industry to reboot and reduce our reliance on Russian gas.

My guess is we are looking at a new higher inflation environment. Lower growth and feeling cold in the winter. I would suggest a concerted effort to insulate Britain, those nutters gluing themselves to roads have a point.

[selby]

  Its not sitting down weather until April RD, haven't you noticed?

[SydneyRover]

  Its not sitting down weather until April RD, haven't you noticed?

Tell us why job security has declined selby?

[Branton Red]

Billy taking your points one at a time

1)The £10 per week is an average, not all individuals will have been affected equally, so claiming a typical family of 5 with 3 below working age kids have been impacted by £2500 per year is clearly not correct.

2) If most people haven't noticed a 2% loss (c. £10 per week) in 3.5 years it would seem illogical to suggest they will notice a 2% loss of growth (if your 4% is accurate) over what I assume is a longer 'medium term' which is what 10,20 years? Or I suspect an elastic period dependent on relative UK economic performance. If noticed will they associate this loss with a vote which happened over a decade or more ago?

This is really important. Leaving the EU or just the Single Market are not irreversible. If there is a move to rejoin either some point in the future then it needs the consent of the public. I'm not convinced that the majority will ever notice a personal hit from Brexit or that they associate with Brexit. Remain (Regain?) need to inform/persuade the public on what Brexit is costing people personally. That process should (from a Remain standpoint) be starting now and be continuous yet all I see on the cost of Brexit is at a macroeconomic level (this thread being an example) which doesn't engage most people.

3) I wasn't calling 2020 a Year Zero on Brexit just stating that Covid makes the impact of Brexit in 20/21 difficult to quantify.

4) I agree we haven't even seen the main consequences of our change in trading arrangements with the EU yet, but that's different to saying we haven't seen the biggest hit to the economy yet. I can't imagine that the collapse in market confidence in the UK immediately post-vote due to (largely-misguided) sentiment, particularly the significant falls in the £ and investment levels, will prove to have less of an economic impact than an increase in paperwork and border checks on EU exports.

The OBR agrees with your consensus 4% hit to GDP. They base this on trade with the EU being 15% lower. I expect the other credible economists making similar predictions will be relying on a similarly incredible looking assumption on trade loss.

5) Your assertion that the government have borne the majority of the costs of Brexit is proven false by the data www.theglobaleconomy.com/United-Kingdom/government_size/. Government spending in 2017-9 was actually lower as a % of GDP than before the referendum vote. The large increase in 2020 is due to Covid. Therefore the logical reason behind the Government making the unpopular decision to increase taxes is the impact of Covid on Government finances not Brexit.

[foxbat]

Yet another Brexit benefit! Rosslare port in Ireland

[SydneyRover]

Yet another Brexit benefit! Rosslare port in Ireland

It's part of the BBB, the Brexit Britain Byass and could have been a metaphor for the future ............ if it wasn't real.

[SydneyRover]

''BORIS VOWS TO UNLEASH BENEFITS OF BREXIT'' screams the Express.

fmd if he doesn't get started all those that voted for it will be dead .....

[foxbat]

We have spent 5 years on the streets of Leeds talking to thousands of people, many of them Brexit supporters. And in all that time not one of them has been able to tell us about a meaningful benefit of Brexit.
(Leeds for Europe )

So forgive our cynicism about Boris Johnson’s current “initiatives”. https://t.co/J1dUde7gmQ

#BrexitReality  #BrexitHasFailed   

[BillyStubbsTears]

Well it's kicking off in NI.

Remember back in 2016, when Johnson said it wasn't beyond the wit of man to find an Irish accommodation of Brexit?

Remember in 2019 when he signed an agreement explicitly requiring customs checks between GB and NI, then consistently lied that there'd be any such checks?

Well there were checks.

But the DUP leadership has just  instructed border officials to stop making them. which means as of today, the UK is in breach of the Brexit deal with the EU. (Yeah, that one that Johnson lied about.)

As if that wasn't bad enough (and it is....very bad) the DUP First Minister is now reported to be about to resign, over the same issue. Which would cause a crisis in the NI Govt.

Hard to find words to express what a Kitson Johnson has been over this. He's tipped NI right to the very edge, for absolutely zero reason other than his own career progression.

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

A resignation in NI, there's a surprise. That government collapses far far too often and a card they use too often.

But it does demonstrate something has to change, the requests and wants of that community shouldn't be forgotten.  Checks to NI don't matter to most of us but clearly it's sensitive to them.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Go on then BFYP. Follow the logic.

What happens if you get rid of checks between the UK and NI?

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

They get enforced on the Irish border.  So you have half of northern Ireland wants one there the other elsewhere. There's not much of a win either way.

Of course there could be and is solutions to avoid a border at all but that gap is also too big to bridge.

[Glyn_Wigley]

They get enforced on the Irish border.  So you have half of northern Ireland wants one there the other elsewhere. There's not much of a win either way.

Of course there could be and is solutions to avoid a border at all but that gap is also too big to bridge.

Apart from the UK rejoining the Single Market or a united Ireland I'd love to hear one.

[BillyStubbsTears]

There has to be a border either between NI and GB or between NI and Ireland. There is no possible way of avoiding that. There is no example anywhere in the world of a boundary between two entirely sovereign trade blocks that has no border checks on goods passing over the boundary. Talk about "solutions" is hogwash. There are no "solutions" if there's a boundary.

And as you say, if there's a boundary, one side or the other in NI is disadvantaged. Which is precisely what some of us were saying 6 years ago, and being told we were playing Project Fear. The one and only way in which stability could have been maintained in NI (short of reunification, which would lead to civil war) was by us staying part of the SM and CU. One day, Brexit supporters will have to accept that fact.

[SydneyRover]

Damn Guardian journalist Freedland has been reading the off topic.

''How can Jacob Rees-Mogg find ‘Brexit opportunities’? They don’t exist''

''''Here’s how it can be identified. Take the Brexiters at their word – that leaving was about more than ending European immigration – and ask them to name some other reform that Britain badly needed but which proved unachievable so long as we remained in the EU: a specific change that only Brexit could unlock. The committed leaver will struggle and sputter, before either mentioning blue passports or else retreating into abstract nouns: “freedom” or “sovereignty”. Press them for a concrete, real-world benefit of Brexit, one that survives scrutiny, and they wilt. They either end up making something up, as Johnson did, or else phoning a friend – like Rees-Mogg’s call-out to Sun readers''

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/11/jacob-rees-mogg-brexit-opportunities-britain-economy

[selby]

  The EU is being threatened with a war on its borders, The Balkans situation is rearing it's ugly head once again, and the Reports of 16 bodies some completely naked found on the Greek Turkish border of frozen  migrants turned back by Greece is horrific.
  The place is turning into a basket case, with Macron trying to wrestle the power strings from a wilting Germany, and trying to be the Billy big b*llocks and the Eastern states now realising the land of milk and honey without us chipping in millions for them to gorge themselves on  is upsetting Hungary and Poland, and it's just starting to fester, it's a long way to go yet, let them get on with it, we are well out of it.

[SydneyRover]

  The EU is being threatened with a war on its borders, The Balkans situation is rearing it's ugly head once again, and the Reports of 16 bodies some completely naked found on the Greek Turkish border of frozen  migrants turned back by Greece is horrific.
  The place is turning into a basket case, with Macron trying to wrestle the power strings from a wilting Germany, and trying to be the Billy big b*llocks and the Eastern states now realising the land of milk and honey without us chipping in millions for them to gorge themselves on  is upsetting Hungary and Poland, and it's just starting to fester, it's a long way to go yet, let them get on with it, we are well out of it.

Looks like putin got his way then cutting a sheep from the flock?

[drfchound]

  The EU is being threatened with a war on its borders, The Balkans situation is rearing it's ugly head once again, and the Reports of 16 bodies some completely naked found on the Greek Turkish border of frozen  migrants turned back by Greece is horrific.
  The place is turning into a basket case, with Macron trying to wrestle the power strings from a wilting Germany, and trying to be the Billy big b*llocks and the Eastern states now realising the land of milk and honey without us chipping in millions for them to gorge themselves on  is upsetting Hungary and Poland, and it's just starting to fester, it's a long way to go yet, let them get on with it, we are well out of it.

Looks like putin got his way then cutting a sheep from the flock?

SR, can you point out any untruths in that post by selby?

[selby]

  Must be something wrong Hound you have had the last say for nearly a full day, come on Syd show some effort.

[SydneyRover]

  Must be something wrong Hound you have had the last say for nearly a full day, come on Syd show some effort.

see you over at the brexit dividends thread selby, oh we are here, looks like ONS will have the last say then as usual, comparing exports to the EU and to the rest of the world.

''Highlighting the disproportionate impact of leaving the EU, exports to the rest of the world excluding the 27-nation bloc dropped by a much smaller £10bn, or about 6% compared with 2018 levels.

UK exports of goods to the EU have fallen by £20bn compared with the last period of stable trade with Europe, according to official figures marking the first full year since Brexit.

Despite the disruption, the EU remains the UK’s largest trading partner. However, for the first time since comparable records began in 1997, the UK now spends more importing goods from the rest of the world than it does from the EU''

brexit is working a treat aye selby?

[selby]

  Yes it is Syd no problem at all.

[drfchound]

  Must be something wrong Hound you have had the last say for nearly a full day, come on Syd show some effort.

He doesn’t provide answers matey, only questions.

[SydneyRover]

  Yes it is Syd no problem at all.

Nothing much to say about johnson either selby, see you over there soon?

[BillyStubbsTears]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55997641.amp

Understatement of the Decade..
"I actually think it was not thought out."

[SydneyRover]

If brexit was a trade battleship it would have been stripped and scuttled to make a reef

[Glyn_Wigley]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55997641.amp

Understatement of the Decade..
"I actually think it was not thought out."

I was telling anyone who would listen what would happen even before the referendum took place. It's not a surprise to anyone who understands it.

[SydneyRover]

Maybe the trade battleship sank and blocked the harbour?

[normal rules]

If brexit was a trade battleship it would have been stripped and scuttled to make a reef

Interesting analogy. Reefs are good things aren’t they? Good for eco tourism good for the environment ?

[SydneyRover]

Maybe, but boats that are any good are not used for that purpose are they.