Don't Confuse Me
Monday, 13 April 2020
Saturday, 11 April 2020
Don't Confuse Me 3 11/4/2020
Don't Confuse Me
- MPs have been given an extra £10,000 each to support them working from home
- This is on top of the £26,000 office budget each MP gets annually
More facts:
- Food banks give out over 13 million meals a year
- Dominic Raab (our deputy PM) said the 'typical food bank user had cash flow problems episodically' and was not 'languishing in poverty'.
- Raab found it impossible to answer the questions of an actual food bank user.
Friday, 10 April 2020
Don't Confuse Me 2 10/4/2020
Don't Confuse Me
...with the facts:
• European countries have fished in each other’s waters for centuries
• Everyone’s fishing fleets has become smaller as fishing vessels have become larger
• The EU Common Fisheries Policy introduced quotas to stop over-fishing
• UK quota owners sold half of their quotas overseas and sold their boats
• We export 80% of the fish we still catch, mostly to Europe
• The EU wants to protect their fleets by keeping access to their fishing grounds
• Otherwise the EU will need import quotas and high duties to protect their fleets
• Which would hurt our fishing industry
• Our fishing industry needs a deal
Thursday, 9 April 2020
Sunday, 17 March 2019
Brexit's supply shock
What will happen if we do exit the EU without a deal?
The closest parallel example is probably what happened to NZ when the UK joined the EEC. At that time the UK took 30 % of NZ exports.
Currently the EU takes over 50% of UK exports.
The NZ exports to the UK had preferential customs and duty treatment ('imperial preference'). This could not continue once we were in the Common Market. We had to impose duties on NZ produce.
If we leave the EU without a deal then our European customers will have to impose duties on our exports - we pay no duties at the moment.
NZ exports fell sharply, as did business investment. Growth slowed, and it took 15 years to return to its previous rate.
Business investment has already fallen massively in the UK, with a number of firms disinvesting, and we haven't even left yet. A recent survey showed finance and service companies are planning job cuts. Meanwhile car manufacturers are already pulling out. Nissan is the most recent - announcing the closure of the Sunderland plant which they ploughed £250 million into only a couple of years ago. They are moving production to Japan, as the EU and Japan have just concluded a trade deal which will mean low tariffs for car exports, while Brexit may well mean high tariffs on cars made in the UK.
New Zealand moved its trade to countries nearer to it - ironically making trade easier and cheaper than when exports had to go half way round the world.
We will have to trade further afield, adding to transport time and costs.
Given that we don't even have a plan for Brexit, we should take May's deal and sort things out carefully over the next few years rather than jump off a cliff while keeping our fingers crossed.
The closest parallel example is probably what happened to NZ when the UK joined the EEC. At that time the UK took 30 % of NZ exports.
Currently the EU takes over 50% of UK exports.
The NZ exports to the UK had preferential customs and duty treatment ('imperial preference'). This could not continue once we were in the Common Market. We had to impose duties on NZ produce.
If we leave the EU without a deal then our European customers will have to impose duties on our exports - we pay no duties at the moment.
NZ exports fell sharply, as did business investment. Growth slowed, and it took 15 years to return to its previous rate.
Business investment has already fallen massively in the UK, with a number of firms disinvesting, and we haven't even left yet. A recent survey showed finance and service companies are planning job cuts. Meanwhile car manufacturers are already pulling out. Nissan is the most recent - announcing the closure of the Sunderland plant which they ploughed £250 million into only a couple of years ago. They are moving production to Japan, as the EU and Japan have just concluded a trade deal which will mean low tariffs for car exports, while Brexit may well mean high tariffs on cars made in the UK.
New Zealand moved its trade to countries nearer to it - ironically making trade easier and cheaper than when exports had to go half way round the world.
We will have to trade further afield, adding to transport time and costs.
Given that we don't even have a plan for Brexit, we should take May's deal and sort things out carefully over the next few years rather than jump off a cliff while keeping our fingers crossed.
Monday, 4 March 2019
On the road to nowhere
The Road Haulage Association is very worried about a no deal Brexit. Their concerns centre on contracts and data. The contracts they have don't allow for no deal. Things such as pricing and delivery schedules will still have to be met even though tariffs will raise costs and border controls will delay deliveries. Failing to meet the contract requirements will mean financial penalties - just when costs are going up.
These contractual problems can then lead to legal disputes - and these will cause further problems. Currently, as a member of the EU, we are signed up to treaties which streamline cross-border dispute resolution. Leaving without a deal would mean that companies would have to defend themselves using a foreign legal system, in countries where there will be a feeling that as the UK created the problem it is not up to the EU to sort it out. The legal basis of the contracts themselves may even be undermined by our departure from the EU.
Even if our exporters manage to deal with the contract problems, there is another serious issue that could cause just as much pain. Leaving without a deal will mean that the UK would need to negotiate a specific 'data trade deal' with the EU to allow our companies to transfer personal data to and from Europe. If this doesn't seem a particular serious issue, consider an exporter that isn't allowed to store the addresses of its EU customers. The EU takes data protection seriously - just ask Google who were slapped with a £40 million fine for breaking the rules last month.
This isn't what Leave promised us. The Brextremists who refuse to sign up for Mrs May's deal are sacrificing UK businesses and UK prosperity to their misguided political obsession.
These contractual problems can then lead to legal disputes - and these will cause further problems. Currently, as a member of the EU, we are signed up to treaties which streamline cross-border dispute resolution. Leaving without a deal would mean that companies would have to defend themselves using a foreign legal system, in countries where there will be a feeling that as the UK created the problem it is not up to the EU to sort it out. The legal basis of the contracts themselves may even be undermined by our departure from the EU.
Even if our exporters manage to deal with the contract problems, there is another serious issue that could cause just as much pain. Leaving without a deal will mean that the UK would need to negotiate a specific 'data trade deal' with the EU to allow our companies to transfer personal data to and from Europe. If this doesn't seem a particular serious issue, consider an exporter that isn't allowed to store the addresses of its EU customers. The EU takes data protection seriously - just ask Google who were slapped with a £40 million fine for breaking the rules last month.
This isn't what Leave promised us. The Brextremists who refuse to sign up for Mrs May's deal are sacrificing UK businesses and UK prosperity to their misguided political obsession.
Sunday, 3 March 2019
The Will of the People
Mrs May has offered the Brexit MPs what they said they want, what they keep saying the People want, but they have refused it.
Instead of supporting Mrs May's deal to Leave the EU, they are blocking it. Essentially they are hoping to force her - and us - over the cliff edge. If they don't support the deal, they calculate, then we will be forced out with no deal at all.
This is hardly what they promised us three years ago - the easiest deal in history, with us staying in the common market.
Like a predatory loan shark who ups your payments week by week, the ERG faction in the Conservative party has been leveraging the referendum result ever since it delivered us into their hands. They have been steadily repudiating the promises they made in the campaign and replacing them with what they really want. Anyone who dared stand up to them has been vilified as 'enemies of the people' - be they judges, company directors or ordinary concerned citizens.
Mrs May thought that she was doing the right thing giving the job of negotiating a deal to the Brexit brigade, the ones who had wanted it. However, once they had that responsibility they didn't do a thing. Mr Davis was put in charge of the team and then sat on his hands. He attended only four days of negotiations in his entire time in post - and even then he brought no preparation with him. After some months of no progress at all Mrs May got rid of him, replacing him with Mr Raab, who proved equally uninterested in forging an agreement. Even then it should have been clear that the Brextremists were aiming to crash out with no deal. Unforgivably and inexplicably, neither did they make any effective effort to sign trade deals with other countries.
Mrs May finally had to take matters into her own hands, having to give up on developing her policies for the Just About Managing, letting domestic issues slide as her own ministers were not doing their job.
Now that she has a deal on the table - a deal that gives everything the Leave campaign asked for and more - they simply ask for impossible things, refusing whatever she offers.
The referendum only asked 'in' or 'out', the Brextremists use this vagueness now to justify their cry "the will of the people" for each new demand they make, with no reference to what the UK electorate actually want, with no concern for the effect on ordinary people.
What effects?
People are starting to wake up to this. 84% of new voters - voters who were too young to vote in the Brexit referendum - would vote Remain in a second referendum.
It is hardly surprising then that the very people who claim "the will of the people" are the very ones who are most strongly against a second referendum. What they are trying to force on us is their own dream - which for many ordinary people will quickly become a nightmare. They are not interested in what we, the British people, want.
The irony is that by trying to force no deal the Brextremists might end up keeping the UK in the EU, as the Tory moderates unite against them and Labour pivots towards supporting another vote.
Like a spoilt child throwing a tantrum, "I don't want that one, I want that one!", by refusing Mrs May's deal the Brextremists may end up 'betraying Brexit' themselves.
Instead of supporting Mrs May's deal to Leave the EU, they are blocking it. Essentially they are hoping to force her - and us - over the cliff edge. If they don't support the deal, they calculate, then we will be forced out with no deal at all.
This is hardly what they promised us three years ago - the easiest deal in history, with us staying in the common market.
Like a predatory loan shark who ups your payments week by week, the ERG faction in the Conservative party has been leveraging the referendum result ever since it delivered us into their hands. They have been steadily repudiating the promises they made in the campaign and replacing them with what they really want. Anyone who dared stand up to them has been vilified as 'enemies of the people' - be they judges, company directors or ordinary concerned citizens.
Mrs May thought that she was doing the right thing giving the job of negotiating a deal to the Brexit brigade, the ones who had wanted it. However, once they had that responsibility they didn't do a thing. Mr Davis was put in charge of the team and then sat on his hands. He attended only four days of negotiations in his entire time in post - and even then he brought no preparation with him. After some months of no progress at all Mrs May got rid of him, replacing him with Mr Raab, who proved equally uninterested in forging an agreement. Even then it should have been clear that the Brextremists were aiming to crash out with no deal. Unforgivably and inexplicably, neither did they make any effective effort to sign trade deals with other countries.
Mrs May finally had to take matters into her own hands, having to give up on developing her policies for the Just About Managing, letting domestic issues slide as her own ministers were not doing their job.
Now that she has a deal on the table - a deal that gives everything the Leave campaign asked for and more - they simply ask for impossible things, refusing whatever she offers.
The referendum only asked 'in' or 'out', the Brextremists use this vagueness now to justify their cry "the will of the people" for each new demand they make, with no reference to what the UK electorate actually want, with no concern for the effect on ordinary people.
What effects?
- A hardship fund is being created for the post-Brexit surge in jobless Brits - and a good thing too. The economists supporting Brexit are quite clear that Brexit is going to destroy a number of UK industries - that is why they want us to Leave (they call it 'creative destruction').
- The UK has not a single 'ready to go' trade deal agreed with any country or trade bloc. Leaving on WTO terms will mean price rises. Companies are starting to relocate to Ireland and the Continent to avoid price hikes on their exports - already taking jobs from the UK even before Brexit.
- The border checks necessary once we leave will mean delays at ports, causing shortages of goods in shops and industry - already stockpiles are being made.
- Teacher recruitment is falling. Attempts to boost teacher numbers by recruiting from overseas have raised little interest. Some schools receive no applications at all for advertised posts and end up relying on staff unqualified for the subject they are teaching. Our children's education is already suffering - our next generation of entrepreneurs and professionals - just when we are attempting to go it alone.
People are starting to wake up to this. 84% of new voters - voters who were too young to vote in the Brexit referendum - would vote Remain in a second referendum.
It is hardly surprising then that the very people who claim "the will of the people" are the very ones who are most strongly against a second referendum. What they are trying to force on us is their own dream - which for many ordinary people will quickly become a nightmare. They are not interested in what we, the British people, want.
Like a spoilt child throwing a tantrum, "I don't want that one, I want that one!", by refusing Mrs May's deal the Brextremists may end up 'betraying Brexit' themselves.
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