Brexit

Been a while since I posted here properly, and I suppose this is mainly for the Brits in here, but I'm happy to get opinion from Yanks as well. This is going to be a long read, and it's something I'm aiming to start doing on my facebook page more often and will aim to cover things like Religion (look forward to your thoughts when I do that RD), Trump, gun control in America and other subjects.

First one is going to be Brexit, and if anyone can get thru reading it (it's a little long...) then I'd love thoughts and discussion around it. I admit it's a bit rambling in places and needs cleaning up to get the the heart of the matter, but this is my first go at this so feedback is always welcome. In return for feedback on this, I'll do a few RP reviews 😉

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Brexit

I'm hoping people read this and give some honest thoughts. There is a lot here, but the aim is to enlighten people who haven't grasped the importance of Brexit and what it all actually means, and also to cut thru as many of the Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage, Daily Mail and Sun lies that are printed every day.

So, simple question (with a very long, complicated answer…), what would you do if the Brexit vote came around again, and why?

I'll jump in with my thoughts first, which I've spent time researching, reading up on, and trying to get balanced opinions by listening to Nigel Farage and other leading Brexiteers as well as Remainers (like James O’Brien).

I voted remain, and would vote remain again. My knowledge of the situation was reasonable at the time, but is far greater now and I'd be even more certain than before that remain was the right vote. I do still get irritated by the facebook posts that were around at the time of the referendum showing Winnie the pooh talking about still being friends regardless of the way people voted, and still get irritated by people posting about others being “experts in politics”. I appreciate many people don’t understand politics, and many people don’t care about the future for themselves and their children, but I do, and I care that the country has massively punched itself in the face with the Brexit vote and those taht voted to leave don’t really understand why they voted to leave except “foreigners”, “they make our laws” and “bendy bananas” which are all completely false. Below I’ve gone into far, far more detail...

But, I understand the leavers vote, from an emotional point of view, but in 18 months I haven't seen an argument in favour of leaving that's actually stood up to any kind of scrutiny.

I’ve added my thoughts on some of the major topics around Brexit.

Trade- It's a fact that any deal we get to trade with the EU will be worse that what we currently have. The evidence of this was with the German car manufacturers who all said they wouldn't deal with us directly. The USAs priority is a trade deal with the EU rather than us. It's blatantly not true that “they need us more than we need them”, and any truthful research into this makes it clear. I'm happy to post more on this to clarify if needed, but it should fall into the common sense category.

Immigration- It's a fact that immigration issues and open borders haven't been down to the EU, but to successive governments not using the legislation at their disposal to control it. In Germany, if you emigrate there and don't have a job in 3 months then they can deport you. We could have the exact same rules in place (if it wasn't handy for successive governments to be able to blame immigrants for everything). The reason we don’t use the 3 month rule is simple. Immigration isn’t as big a problem as “The Sun” and “The Daily Mail” lead you to believe. In fact, if we applied the 3 month rule it would actually cost us more money to police it then we spend on dodgy benefit claims, and that’s why we don’t use it. Immigration actually gives us a net benefit. According to the University College London the extra amount of tax immigrants have paid since 2000 is almost £5bn net from Eastern European countries (Romania, Poland etc). EU immigrants as a whole (France, Germany etc) have contributed £15bn net in extra tax. Non-EU immigrants have also contributed a further £5bn. So, studies by people cleverer than me prove that we are better off, from a tax point of view, with immigration. “WHAT ABOUT BENEFIT SCUM” I hear you cry… From the same report (pesky facts…) it shows that immigrants are 43% less likely than UK born natives to claim benefits or tax credits, and are 7% less likely to live is social housing. According to the London School of Economics (more pesky facts and sources) immigrants are “younger and better educated than their UK born counterparts”. So, skilled tradesmen, nurses, doctors etc. Surely this is good for our economy? Unless Barry with his GCSE in Media is going to be a Doctor? Yes, there is bad immigration. People coming over, working cash in hand on trade jobs, low skilled and undercutting UK born tradesmen (had a chat with my brother who is an electrician about this) but I don’t see how voting out of the EU stops this. If these “tradesmen” are over here and working cash in hand and then sending most of their money back to Romania/Poland (his examples) being out of the EU doesn’t stop this. Surely, we focus on the people employing the “tradesmen” illegally and fix the root cause? The sad thing about immigration is that literally all the evidence points to this being a good thing and something that makes our country stronger. It’s the people that are paying Romanians/Polish etc cash in hand that are the problem. Immigration is supporting our NHS, rather than draining it, and all the actual evidence is in support of this (whether that’s immigrants coming over as trained nurses and working for us, or immigrants coming over and paying tax to support the institution). If your reason for voting leave was because of “too many foreigners” then, unfortunately for you, that means you’re a racist and you need to look at why that is. I would hazard a guess that you read The Sun or Daily Mail and have been “radicalised” by those papers (whose owners are billionaires and keep their money offshore so they don’t pay tax on it, rather at odds to the immigrants they demonise).  Since the Brexit vote went thru the number of EU citizens migrating over to the UK is down on previous years, but the number of non-EU citizens migrating over to the UK is up and is almost double that of EU migration. With the immigrants that are already over here, what do you think will happen to them now? We wont be deporting people, so the ones that are here are staying. We just wont be getting the skilled labour that we’ve been relying on for the last 40 years.

EU Army- Some people are opposed to thoughts that there may, at some point, be an EU army. I’m opposed to the army in general and don’t see a massive need for it currently. However, a European army makes far more sense to me, and I’m not sure why we need to be afraid of an army we are in.

EU makes all our laws- The EU does make laws, and we're expected to follow these, however, EVERY member state has the equivalent of a big red button that we can press and say “we don't want that one” and then we don't have to have it. Again, successive governments just haven't used this option often enough. Add to that, I’ve had several conversations with several people, and not one person has ever been able to name one law that the EU has instigated that Brexiteers are keen to get rid of.  The EU wanted us to have the Euro, we said no and kept the pound. The EU wanted us to be in Schengen (22 of the 28 member states of the EU who abolished all border controls and passports at their mutual borders), and we said no. We’ve always had the power to decline laws and rules, but sometimes these laws are good and right (freedom of movement, working time directive, the right to be forgotten and the right to clean water have all come from the EU).  As we will no longer be a “member state” of the EU we will obviously lose our power of veto (the big red button), so if we sign a trade deal with the EU (as we surely must do) we will also have to follow their rules and laws, but we wont have the power to opt out and we wont be on the inside and be able to help form these laws in the first place. In effect, Brussels will be making our laws for us, which I thought was one of the main reasons people voted Brexit in the first place. It’s ironic that one of the major reasons for voting Brexit was a lie, and could become truth by being on the outside of the EU.

Good Friday Agreement- Northern Ireland is a huge issue with Brexit. Ireland is in the EU, Northern Ireland Ireland is coming out. The central point of the Good Friday Agreement is that the two markets between Ireland and Northern Ireland need to be legally the same, but they won’t be due to the different trade tariffs between the EU and the WTO (or whichever trade deal we go with). This will mean that the the agreement is broken. Northern Ireland have already asked for an exemption and to stay in the EU to get around this process. If they are given special dispensation, then London, Grimsby (more below on this) and Scotland have all asked for the same dispensation, with more ready to follow. They have asked for this as they see coming out of the EU as suicidal for business. If Northern Ireland are unable to get an exemption then they have two choices (that I can see), either the Northern Ireland/Ireland border is moved to the English channel which basically means a united Ireland, which isn’t what the Northern Irish want as they are part of the UK. The second option is to put in a hard border, with full border controls. Basically, build a wall. Problematic as there is land owned by people that stretches over both sides of the border, and I’ve heard stories (altho you have to remember that anecdote doesn’t equal data) that some houses are actually on both sides of the border. Whatever way you look at it, the Good Friday Agreement will disappear when we leave the EU and I can’t see that being a good thing.

Grimsby- Speaking of Grimsby. Fish. As I said above, they have asked to be exempt from Brexit. This is because Youngs (one of the biggest fish sellers in the UK) have said they would struggle and have to shed jobs due to brexit as they currently import most of the fish they sell in this country. Coming out of the EU doesn't mean we have free reign to fish anywhere we want. We will have to make a trade deal with the EU, and fishing jurisdiction will be part of this. Brexiteers look at fish as a reason to come out of the EU as they think it would give the UK back control of their waters, when in fact it would still be regulated, and as we would have to make a trade deal with the EU regardless (because the member states of the EU are unable to make individual deals, so deals with Germany and France can never happen whilst they are a part of the EU) there is every chance that the deal we make will include an agreement over where we can and can’t fish and where Spanish fishermen can and can’t fish.

We pay too much and don't get enough out- Actually, the independent company that advises the chancellor on his budget have released figures that show in 5 years time we will be in a far worse place due to a lack of tax contributions from EU workers (stop reading the Daily Mail and The Sun and actually do some research into EU workers tax contributions). If we make a deal with the EU to continue trade, we’ll end up paying more than we do now, but will have far less rights (freedom of movement, working time directive) and, importantly, we will have NO say in the formation of future rules, as well as losing our opt out ability if we wish to continue trade. We currently have to pay £50bn to cover the time period we are still in the EU, and will then have to settle a bill to cover what we have previously agreed to contribute. On top of that, we will have to pay to trade with the EU, which will probably be a deal similar to Norway (altho Norway has freedom of movement). We currently pay less per capita than Norway do, so if we strike a similar deal not only will we pay more to import goods from the EU (most of our NHS products come from Europe) but we will pay more to do it because we’ll pay, per capita, at least the same as Norway and the pound has dropped 15% against the euro. Bad news, bad news, bad news.

We should use the £50bn “divorce settlement” on other things like the NHS- Had this one from a friend of mine recently (Lewis). I don't think many people who voted Brexit (certainly the ones I've spoken to) understand this process. Think of the EU as Vodafone, and the WTO as O2. You currently have a contract with Vodafone which gives you free calls (even tho you pay for your contract, they are classified as “free calls” just the same as EU is free trade despite is paying for it). You decide you don't want Vodafone any more, even tho they offer you more free minutes than anyone else, and decide to move to O2 who have said that if you sign for them they'll give you a free unicorn at some point. O2 are more expensive and only offer you a limited amount of free minutes, but you really want that Unicorn. Your new O2 contract doesn't start for another 18 months, and so you will continue to use the free minutes from Vodafone for the next year and a half, and therefore will continue to pay the monthly contract with Vodafone until the new O2 contract starts. So, there isn't £50bn to spend on anything else because it's being spent already.

No trade deal will mean we can make deals with everyone- Who can we make deals with that we don’t already trade with? 30% of the world's GDP goes thru the EU (as of Japan signing a deal with the EU recently). The USA have prioritised the EU over us to make a trade deal with, but we already trade with the US. What's left, that we can't already trade with? We will have to make a trade deal with the EU, and that deal will mean we continue to pay into the system (more than we do now) but will not be able to affect any policy because we won't be a member state. Basically, we lose the red button I mentioned earlier and won't be able to influence to making of policy. No deal also means reverting to WTO rules, which is far more expensive than current trade deals. The other issue with No Deal and reverting to WTO tariffs is that if we have a zero % trade deal with Ireland for beef, it means all beef is zero % trade, and we all know that means argentinian beef floods the market as it’s cheaper (and arguably poorer quality and harder to trace) and lots of Irish beef farmers go out of business.  David Davis, the lead brexit negotiator and one of the leaders of the brexit movement (along with Boris Johnson and UKIP) actually tweeted (and it’s still on his twitter feed if you want the evidence) that his first stop as chief negotiator would be in Germany, which highlights just how little he (again, one of the main people who convinced 52% of voters to vote leave) actually knew about the leave process. Individual countries in the EU CAN NOT negotiate individually but only as an EU block. If we want access to 30% of the world's GDP then we have to make a deal with the EU, and anyway you look at it, that deal will be worse that our current one.

Coming out will make us stronger in the long run- Maybe. But how many of you are happy to be worse off for the next 5/10/15 years and maybe we’ll be OK by 2030. Also, how many of you are self employed and are happy that your customers will be worse off fof the next decade or so? I'm yet to see anything that backs up this “it'll be fine in 10 years” argument. In fact, we actually become weaker by coming out. If you were China and you want to move into Europe, would you prioritise the block that is a single country of 70 million potential, or the block that is the EU and has closer to 700 potential customers? Yes, a deal can be made with both, but who will get the better deal? Economies of scale is a massive reason to remain in the EU. You also have to keep in mind David Davis, again. When the vote first came in, Teresa May put him in change of the brexit negotiations (in my opinion, this was a great case of “you said it would be unicorns for everyone so you can be in charge of making sure everyone gets one). The first job David Davis had to do was begin writing Impact Assessments on how leaving the EU would affect the UK economy. He’s on record as stating, around a year ago, that these Impact Assessments exist and there were 58 of them covering all aspects of the economy. More recently he has outright denied the existence of the Impact Assessments, and categorically stated that they never existed. Obviously this immediately proves one of the main leaders of the brexit movement as a liar, but when you think a little deeper about this, you get to “why”. Why did he say there were 58 Impact Assessments of the UK economy that were being worked on and why is he now saying there are none? Why would he lie and say there were some if there never were? That makes absolutely no sense. And why would he readily put himself in a position to look like an idiot by saying several months later that there were no Impact Assessments? The only logical conclusion I can come to is that the Impact Assessments he originally spoke of showed such a bleak future for the UK that it was better for him to look like an incompetent liar by stating there were never any Impact Assessments that come out and say that the entire Leave campaign was a terrible idea for everyone in this country and the Assessments show us heading towards a cliff edge with no brakes...

I want a black passport again- Again, our passport didn't have to change colour. It could always stay black (it wasn't blue). However, the passport I currently have gives me access, free from visas, to 27 countries. The passport I'm getting won't. The passport I currently have means I could study in France, and then work is Germany visa free. The passport I'm getting won't. The passport I have gives me freedom of Europe, the passport I'm getting doesn't.

We didn't struggle to recruit nurses or pick crops before we joined the EU, so we won't struggle after we leave- Actually, there is already a short fall in crop pickers and some farmers crops are rotting in fields. This is projected to get worse. Currently, figures coming out of the NHS show that more nurses in their 40s are leaving than ever before. Less people are applying to go into nursing at college level than ever before, and less people are moving into that vocation. If the current European nurses leave our health system we will have a massive shortfall (that's not politics, it's just counting). The NHS is severely underfunded, and better funding should encourage more nurses/doctors etc into the NHS, however, the Leave campaign that put forward the £350m bus and said all the money saved could be put into the NHS were lying to us all.

I just want to be out- Difficult one to argue with TBH. The more I research Brexit the more I see it as Emotion Vs Fact. People vote Brexit because it “feels” right. Most of the conversations I’ve had with people come down to either “too many foreigners” or “I don’t want to be controlled by the EU”, both of which are not down to us being in the EU, but are down to successive governments not using the laws and rules at their disposal to control immigration (big red button, and the German example of border control). I understand the “I want it to be different” argument, but leaving the EU isn’t about it being different, it’s about it being worse.

I didn’t vote for the bureaucrats in the EU-  Nope, but you did vote in the general elections and local elections and the people we all voted into power then put other people into jobs on our behalf. Did anyone vote for David Davis who is the person who is leading the brexit negotiations? He was put into the position he has by Teresa May. Same as the rest of the brexit negotiating team. That’s how politics works. Seriously, if this is your argument then you shouldn't be voting for anything.

Sovereignty- This is a word that I’ve heard brexiteers say. “We’ve got our sovereignty back”. Not found one that can actually explain it yet tho.  Sovereignty means “the authority of a state to govern itself or another state” and all the evidence points to always having that (as we had the power of veto and the power to control our borders and just chose not to use these things). The ironic thing is that by leaving the EU we risk giving up sovereignty as any deal we sign with the EU will come with terms and conditions attached that we will not be able to veto (as we will no longer be a member state). The EU has been clear about where it stands, and it stands to protect its members (which we will no longer be in April next year). Teresa May has already tried to cherry pick certain parts of EU policy to keep and has drawn her “red lines” on the things that she wont back down on, and the EU didn’t blink. Jeremy Corbin, in his speech on the 26th of Feb, also stated the parts he would like to cherry pick from the EU and will get the same response from the EU if he gains power. The bottom line is, if we want access to the biggest free market in the world then we will have to pay for that priviledge and we will have little to no say on the terms and conditions of any deal as we wont be on the inside. The lie that Brexiteers were told was “they need us just as much as we need them”, when the truth is “we need them far more than they need us”. All the negotiations undertaken by David Davis since the  referendum has proven this as the EU hasn’t budged on a single point.

Low skilled jobs will open up for low skilled Brits- Finally a positive. In some sectors (manual labour on building sites and care homes) there has been a wage depression caused by unskilled labour coming over from the EU. However, there is a massive shortage of skilled labour (electricians, plasterers etc) which hasn’t been dented by immigration.

We won, you lost, get over it- What did you win? You voted for something that’ll make you poorer and make the rich even richer (disaster capitalism) , but please let me know what you won?

For balance, I’ll do a list on what happens if we stay in as well.

Not much will change- Yep. Your life will stay pretty much the same as it is. The way to truly change the EU is from the inside. Reform was the way to go. Stay in. Send good politicians (instead of jokes like Boris Johnson who only looks out for Boris Johnson) and actually try and make a difference. Stop papers like The Sun and The Daily Mail reporting rubbish and lying (freedom of speech and lying are not the same thing).

So, in short, I think it’ll be pretty bad all round to come out. To sum up what I think are the key points-

* Immigration. Was always controllable and successive govenments chose to not impliment the rules and laws that would limit it because it would cost the country more to police these laws than it does in benefits etc. Immigration actually makes money for us as the vast majority of immigrants do pay tax etc.

* Brussels make all our laws. They make laws and many are for our benefit. However we have the power of veto on all EU laws, and have used this veto to keep the pound over the euro and to stay out of shengen. However, I’m yet to speak to anyone who can actually name any laws that the EU made that we are looking forward to getting rid of.  Also worth keeping in mind that “bendy bananas” has been proven to be a lie made up by Boris Johnson when he was reporting back from Brussels for the Express (I think it was the express). Unfortunately these things are believed when widely reported in the media despite there being no truth to them.

* Trade will continue regardless. Yes it will, but will cost the country more money, esepcially under WTO tariffs. WTO tariffs will also adversly affect British farmers with all farmers under WTO able to trade with the UK, regardless of quality. Also, within the EU we can just strengthen our current links with other countries. Germany trades 5 times more products with China than we do. Why haven’t we also pushed our trade deals with countries that have existing deals within the EU like Germany have done in this instance?

This has taken me about a month to research, put together and post, so thoughts are welcome on any area of this. My aim was to shed some light in certain areas of the actual process and what will actually happen as I feel too many people, on both sides, are very ill informed. I know there is a lot contained in this post, but I’ve tried to keep it factual and not my opinion as much as possible.

Like I said at the very top, this whole debate boils down to Reason (remain) Vs Emotion (leave). People, in my opinion, shouldn’t vote based on emotion. It should always be based in fact and knowledge, especially when it’s something as major as Brexit that will affect everyone for generations. I also think the Conservatives and Labour are continuing to hurt the people of the country by not offering a new referendum based on the result of brexit negotiations (something the Lim Dems are offering). I think many more people are far better informed now on the issues surrounding brexit, and any vote taken today would be a landslide for remain simply because people can’t be stupid (or maybe racist) enough to vote leave again.

Thoughts welcome.