This morning listening to Swivel Garage on the Andrew Marr show it struck me again: These kippers keep repeating this mantra that EU needs Britain a lot more than the other way around simply because “we buy more from them, than they buy from us”.
I have only ever heard one UK politician in parliament challenging this notion. Sadly I can’t Google the reference in Hansard for some reason. I remember he said something like: “I always thought selling abroad was the hard bit; buying from abroad seems the easy bit!”
Every UK bank note used for foreign imports is in fact something like a British IOU:
I, Governor of the Bank of England, promise the bearer of this note to pay x or y amount.
No wonder so much of the UK’s infrastructure is now ‘foreign owned’, These UK IOU bonds eventually wing their way back from China, Germany, France etc.
Can someone please call Farage on his life show tonight and ask him to get to the bottom of his economic thinking: Why does he think that the UK can continue living on credit after #brexit. How does saying “beye beye” to your largest export market help solve what ‘The Economist’recently referred to as ‘The other deficit’ ?
IdentitySpace 
The idea isn’t that we say “bye bye to our largest export market”. Brexit is not about closing all trade with the EU. Its about removing ourselves from the political union, and maintaining trade.
The argument about “We buy more from them” is to strengthen the argument that they wont just close trade to us, which is a ridiculous proposition anyway, I have no idea why anyone would believe this.
Because their trade also relies on the UK to continue to buy from them. That’s the argument. We are the EUs biggest export market.
So in short, we need to stop peddling this myth that Brexit is about closing all trade and relations with the EU. It is not.
Sorry swiveleyed, but your answer just illustrates to everyone reading this blog how thick kippers really are: Here we have a blog that talks mainly about the economics of #brexit. How if you want to close a trade gap, the country with the trade deficit can fix this by either importing less or exporting more.
Of the two solutions the ‘exporting more’ is by far the better one as it increases GDP in both countries. Leave the EU and British exports will get slapped with the EU’s common external tariff, hence make Britain’s exports more expensive on the European continent, hence our European customers will be buying less of them, hence the UK’s trade deficit deteriorates even more!
Meanwhile all you can come up with is the ukip cliché “their trade also relies on the UK to continue to buy from them”. Can’t you get it into your thick head we were taking about them buying from us, not you buying from them, which is the easy bit and continues to be easy after brexit.
Unless of course the UK wakes up with this enormous hangover after their brexit party, finds out their current account deficit is getting worse and ukip now decides it want’s to slap on retalliatory tariffs on German, French and italian built cars.
Problem is that the UK won’t be in a position to do that under WTO rules. I have written another post to explain why that is and you will have to read that here:
EU very much has the whip hand in brexit negotiations
In short, the practical outcome of this is that, irrespective of whether the UK reaches a deal with the EU, its Member States will be able to continue exporting to us, while we will find it very difficult to export to them. The EU very much has the whip hand. That’s the argument.
Firstly, I wasn’t rude to you, I’d appreciate it if you dropped the insults.
You sound like you know what you are talking about until you start getting all keyboard warrior on us. Besides, I’m not here for a fight, just a discussion.
I read your blog. I read the post. What you fail to tell us, is WHY the EU would impose all these restrictions. WHY they would want to enter into some kind of proxy trade war that would benefit no-one.
All I ever hear in arguments for “remain”is fear based off of scenarios that frankly would be terrible for the EU and us.
And if you are going to tell me that the scenario of them implementing tariffs on us and us not to them, would end in anything but an eventual lose-lose situation for all concerned, then I will call you liar and know I have the truth of it.
To be honest if you really want an answer to that question you should read Dr. North EUreferendum blog. http://eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=85800
An ‘outer’ like you he nevertheless is a realist while you seem to be a dreamer. He captures the essence in this sentence: “The EU cannot agree to an exit deal, which gives a departing state a better deal than the terms available to ordinary members”. To do so would be suicide for the EU and the EU is not in the business of self harm as people like you seem to be?
Sweet Jesus Christ. I, nor most people suggesting that the trade deal we strike will be better, or even on par as member states. I have not seen anyone suggest that.
What I am suggesting, as are most people in favor of Brexit is that it wont lead to financial ruin, or chaos.
What we suggest is The trade deal we will strike with the EU in the event of a Brexit, and in conjunction will he autonomy we will get back, coupled with the money we will save, is going to leave us in a stronger position than we are now. Economically, Socially, globally when all is taken into account. Some areas we will be better off, some less, but better overall.
What you are suggesting is that we will be forced into financial (and probably if I could be bothered to read your other posts, social) ruin via some sort of draconian deal that the EU throws us, and that if that scenario happened the steps we would take would not be mutually as damaging for the EU. It’s utter nonsense.
Your posts indicate that all Kippers are mouth frothing idiots that can only see one vision. You are no different. Just the other side of the argument.
First of all the majority of mouth frothing kippers on Twitter do think they can get a better deal, that’s why they keep tweeting on and on about FTAs that other countries have and they feel is their right to have also. The more realistic Eurosceptics know this is nonsense. Maybe you are in that category? So they aim for the Norwegian option. The problem there is that a) UK is a much different economy and b) UK can’t really afford it and c) even Cameron is smart enough he can never sell the Norway option to the electorate as a positive outcome of his ‘renegotiation’
Yeah some are a bit frothy. I like character though, its why im still mulling this over with you. Cameron’s negotiation is a sham, brought on by the fact he never thought he would get a majority i the first place. You know that, I know that. Lets just take it off the table. Its in or out as you well know.
So you do admit that the EU has FTAs with other countries? They don’t slap them about with the “We will tariff them, they cant tariff us option” all the time? They can see the benefit of a FTA with certain countries? So then we might be able to negotiate our own option rather than just the Norwegian model?
Look, in all likelihood the EU is going to want to play hardball in the event of a Brexit. This means “no FTA for the insubordinate dog, here have some tariffs, got to make it look like everyone cant leave etc etc”
But please at least concede that if they have agreements on trade (Not all FTA’s I will grant you) with Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, Serbia, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Fiji, Macedonia, Cameroon, and Madagascar, to name a few, and that they might, just might in all likelihood be willing to deal with a country that is so important to trade for several of their most prominent members?
OK so you want to debate this. That’s fine by me, but if you loose the argument on economic grounds, don’t change the subject to “yeah but it’s all about sovereignty anyway”. To me sovereignty is a highly overrated thing. I’m with Bill Clinton on this: “It’s the economy stupid!”
Reading between the lines of your previous comment you have already noticed and agree with me, that there is no such thing as a ‘free’ Trade Agreement in the same way Milton Friedman once said that in business, there is no such thing as a ‘free’ lunch.
The kippers that tweet “such and such a country has an FTA with the EU, why can’t we” just don’t get that. It’s even worse when they mention countries in Central America or Africa as an example. I am not an EU trade negotiator, but it seems clear they are more likely to be magnanimous to a poor developing nation in Africa than to a rival economy like China. They would certainly think twice before giving any country on the European continent a special deal because of the precedent it would set. Giving the UK trade terms for ‘free’ when let’s say the Netherlands has to pay for the same privilege, is clearly out of the question. This may seem obvious to you and me, but believe me, for a kipper mind to accept this requires a leap of faith: they still think that because the UK buys so much from Germany, Germany’s car bosses will do their bidding at the EU commission. It simply doesn’t work like that. Richard North knows this better than anyone.
So what kind of ‘paid for’ [not free] trade deal might the UK expect after a brexit? The default position would be that the UK would revert back to standard WTO terms. This is in effect what ukip says it wants:They think the UK is big and strong enough to thrive on those simple terms. Dr. North, who looked into this in far more depth than I have, thinks standard WTO terms would be catastrophic for the UK. I would second that.
So the more educated Eurosceptics, the ones that have read ‘FleXcit’, have latched on to this ‘Norway option’, where Cameron will say we pay but have no say. To them this is a transitory position from which they will eventually evolve to much bigger things as explained in their Harrogate resolution. Problem is kippers haven’t got the vision and the patience for this; Cameron definitely sees the Norway option as a retrograde step: He wants to cover himself in renegotiating glory before retiring. The Norway option doesn’t give him that glory so he ruled it out.
So here we have it: The ‘OUT’ ‘LEAVE’ ‘BREXIT’ brigade finds itself between a rock and a hard place. All the ‘Remain’ ‘In’ Europhile camp has to do is hold the fort; debunk the most obvious LEAVE.EU fallacies and wait for Cameron to return from Europe with some sort of fudge that will persuade the ‘don’t know’ majority that what’s on the table is probably better than the risks and uncertainties associated with a brexit.
well said marcus, seems to stay is a much more sensible option