Current Affairs EU In or Out

[peteblue]

In many ways there's a nice analogy between our situation and one in Australia at the moment, where a whole bunch of senior politicians are resigning because of an arcane rule that says elected officials cannot serve if they have dual-citizenship. It was made in the 1800s when such things were incredibly rare and the world was much less inter-connected, so they felt it wrong to have anyone in power that might have 'allegiance' to a foreign power. Of course, that's patently nonsense these days, when I think around 25% of Australians were born overseas, and therefore have dual-citizenship.

It's harking back to a zero-sum world where other nations were seen as enemies, where populations were largely homogeneous, supply chains were national rather than international and foreign lands were pretty alien places.

Then I would think you would be a supporter of Brexit, with free trading arrangements with as many as possible, unlike being within a defensive EU bloc...........

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Then I would think you would be a supporter of Brexit, with free trading arrangements with as many as possible, unlike being within a defensive EU bloc...........

I would say that very much depends on the kind of Brexit we get Pete. If we are open and outward looking, welcoming to others and confident in our future, then it could be great, but I'm not sure that's the case at all. A lot of the campaigning was that we should 'take back control' so that we could shut down, whether it's our borders to migration or our markets to external competition. That's what so ridiculous about the 'Brexit means Brexit' schtick, because there isn't a unified vision for it, whether among the electorate or even among the cabinet, and that's in large part because the campaign itself did so little in the sense of what a future outside the EU would be. There wasn't a 'manifesto' to get behind (or not), and the government have had to cobble together what Brexit means after people voted for it.

 

[peteblue]

I would say that very much depends on the kind of Brexit we get Pete. If we are open and outward looking, welcoming to others and confident in our future, then it could be great, but I'm not sure that's the case at all. A lot of the campaigning was that we should 'take back control' so that we could shut down, whether it's our borders to migration or our markets to external competition. That's what so ridiculous about the 'Brexit means Brexit' schtick, because there isn't a unified vision for it, whether among the electorate or even among the cabinet, and that's in large part because the campaign itself did so little in the sense of what a future outside the EU would be. There wasn't a 'manifesto' to get behind (or not), and the government have had to cobble together what Brexit means after people voted for it.

I think this is exactly what we will get tbh.........

 

[Bruce Wayne]

I think this is exactly what we will get tbh.........

I'm not sure that's what a lot of people voted for.

 

[peteblue]

I'm not sure that's what a lot of people voted for.

People just need to feel that we have some form of control and can't be overridden by Brussels. It's not a slamming the gates shut, just an ability to do something, set limits or whatever whenever there is a real need to do so. More trade means more interface which leads to more communication and understanding. Done correctly, this could be one of the best peace initiatives undertaken......

 

[Bruce Wayne]

People just need to feel that we have some form of control and can't be overridden by Brussels. It's not a slamming the gates shut, just an ability to do something, set limits or whatever whenever there is a real need to do so. More trade means more interface which leads to more communication and understanding. Done correctly, this could be one of the best peace initiatives undertaken......

It was sold on the need to get migration down to tens of thousands. The only people who have had a more moderate view of things are those that wanted to remain. This whole 'control' thing also overlooks the fact that tariffs are a relatively small part of global trade. The single market is so useful because of the common standards used across the continent. All companies play by the same rules. That very thing requires 'sovereignty' to be lost, as non-UK actors influence the rules by which our companies can operate, and such rules are usually governed by an international body rather than a national one.

 

[peteblue]

It was sold on the need to get migration down to tens of thousands. The only people who have had a more moderate view of things are those that wanted to remain. This whole 'control' thing also overlooks the fact that tariffs are a relatively small part of global trade. The single market is so useful because of the common standards used across the continent. All companies play by the same rules. That very thing requires 'sovereignty' to be lost, as non-UK actors influence the rules by which our companies can operate, and such rules are usually governed by an international body rather than a national one.

Bruce it will be just like trading with any other single country, we have to observe their standards and if they want to sell to us they have to observe ours. It will just be a normal trading relationship where they sell more to us then we do to them.....

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Bruce it will be just like trading with any other single country, we have to observe their standards and if they want to sell to us they have to observe ours. It will just be a normal trading relationship where they sell more to us then we do to them.....

That's not how trade deals work though, is it? It's not about each having mutually exclusive standards that each obeys, it's about having shared standards that companies work by. That was the main stumbling block around thins like TTIP, whose standards is the deal governed by? If you don't have shared standards then it doesn't work, whether it's around the handling of nuclear waste or the management of data. Do you think any British IT company trading in Europe isn't going to be governed by GDPR? That's not 'taking back control' in the sense many people clearly wanted. They were sold a myth.

 

[peteblue]

That's not how trade deals work though, is it? It's not about each having mutually exclusive standards that each obeys, it's about having shared standards that companies work by. That was the main stumbling block around thins like TTIP, whose standards is the deal governed by? If you don't have shared standards then it doesn't work, whether it's around the handling of nuclear waste or the management of data. Do you think any British IT company trading in Europe isn't going to be governed by GDPR? That's not 'taking back control' in the sense many people clearly wanted. They were sold a myth.

We already have those shared standards, so what is the issue. You just seem intent now in finding a way to prove that perhaps not all controls are ever vested or obtained by any country. Meanwhile we will leave the EU, leave the ECJ, control our borders, develop our own foreign policies and trade, decide upon our own taxation, stop paying in Billions to subsidise the poorer EU countries and stop having unelected foreign leaders such as Jucker rule our lives........just some of that will do for me......

 

[Bruce Wayne]

We already have those shared standards, so what is the issue. You just seem intent now in finding a way to prove that perhaps not all controls are ever vested or obtained by any country. Meanwhile we will leave the EU, leave the ECJ, control our borders, develop our own foreign policies and trade, decide upon our own taxation, stop paying in Billions to subsidise the poorer EU countries and stop having unelected foreign leaders such as Jucker rule our lives........just some of that will do for me......

That's the thing Pete. Lets take GDPR as an example. That comes into force at around the time that we leave the EU. It's a regulation governing how personal data is held by organisations. If we abide by the wishes of many leavers, we'd say stuff your GDPR, we'll do our own thing, which would make it very difficult (nay impossible) for any digital company to hold any European data in the UK.

Now you might say the great repeal act will place GDPR onto our statute book. It isn't quite freeing ourselves from Brussels, but is nonetheless eminently sensible.

Here's the rub, we would be putting a static version of GDPR onto our statute books, but of course data is a rapidly changing field (and there are some that would argue that GDPR will already be out of date by the time it's implemented, especially with most machine learning applications being driven by data), so what happens when the regulation evolves? Does Britain continue to accept whatever those changes are? As we sit outside the EU, will we have any input into those changes or be passive consumers of them?

These are all questions that were quite simple under the common market, but are now anything but, and this notion that we can 'break free' and live as an island detached from the influence of the wider world is incredibly misleading. Can you imagine a multinational bank having a base in the city, if the data they hold on European customers is not legal? Or Google? Ikea? Heck, even the car companies now generate huge amounts of data on driver usage, or industrial giants such as Rolls Royce are, by and large, data companies now.

 

[Clint Planet]

This whole 'control' thing also overlooks the fact that tariffs are a relatively small part of global trade. The single market is so useful because of the common standards used across the continent. All companies play by the same rules. That very thing requires 'sovereignty' to be lost, as non-UK actors influence the rules by which our companies can operate, and such rules are usually governed by an international body rather than a national one.

Which is absolutely fine. In fact, without our EU involvement, it'll undoubtedly be a race to the bottom, jumping to the USA's tune - and where's the autonomy in that?

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Which is absolutely fine. In fact, without our EU involvement, it'll undoubtedly be a race to the bottom, jumping to the USA's tune - and where's the autonomy in that?

Suffice to say, I wasn't referring primarily to labour or environmental standards so much as common standards for doing business. It's no surprise that we do most of our trade with the EU, because it's easier to make one product that is fine for 28 different markets than it is to tinker that product to meet local regulations 28 times. This is problematic enough when just talking about physical products, but is even trickier when talking about services. In the US alone there are so many licenses and so on required to practice a whole range of things, and bizarrely those licenses often have different standards between states (and sometimes even within states). It doesn't make trade impossible, but it makes it harder and increases the costs involved in doing so. The EU isn't perfect by any means but it attempts to reduce those costs of doing business that really benefit no one at all.

You do touch on an interesting point about any future trading arrangement between the UK and the US though. There has been criticism on the forum about Obama and his comments about the UK being at the back of the queue, but he did nonetheless highlight the reality of the relative bargaining positions of the UK inside the EU and the UK on its own. TTIP was contentious enough, and it's hard to imagine any UK/US specific agreement would be anything like as weighted in our favour as TTIP was, simply because a deal would matter so much more for us than for the US. They'd hold most of the cards. The idea that Trump would act benevolently towards us because he has a few golf courses in Scotland seems to ignore all of his 'America first' rhetoric completely.

 

[peteblue]

That's the thing Pete. Lets take GDPR as an example. That comes into force at around the time that we leave the EU. It's a regulation governing how personal data is held by organisations. If we abide by the wishes of many leavers, we'd say stuff your GDPR, we'll do our own thing, which would make it very difficult (nay impossible) for any digital company to hold any European data in the UK.

Now you might say the great repeal act will place GDPR onto our statute book. It isn't quite freeing ourselves from Brussels, but is nonetheless eminently sensible.

Here's the rub, we would be putting a static version of GDPR onto our statute books, but of course data is a rapidly changing field (and there are some that would argue that GDPR will already be out of date by the time it's implemented, especially with most machine learning applications being driven by data), so what happens when the regulation evolves? Does Britain continue to accept whatever those changes are? As we sit outside the EU, will we have any input into those changes or be passive consumers of them?

These are all questions that were quite simple under the common market, but are now anything but, and this notion that we can 'break free' and live as an island detached from the influence of the wider world is incredibly misleading. Can you imagine a multinational bank having a base in the city, if the data they hold on European customers is not legal? Or Google? Ikea? Heck, even the car companies now generate huge amounts of data on driver usage, or industrial giants such as Rolls Royce are, by and large, data companies now.

Bruce, the U.K. Government has already said we will be applying GDPR even after we have left the EU. No doubt the UK believe it a sensible step and will ensure that we are always in step. If GDPR is a political bone of contention where each EU country is fighting for a different approach, standards or levels of data, then it is doomed anyway. Once it is applied, and each country has gone to the bother of implementing it correctly next year,including the UK, then future changes will be minimal and sensible. We live with various standards being applied either through international bodies or because one country has the technological lead. This really is no big deal........

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Bruce, the U.K. Government has already said we will be applying GDPR even after we have left the EU. No doubt the UK believe it a sensible step and will ensure that we are always in step. If GDPR is a political bone of contention where each EU country is fighting for a different approach, standards or levels of data, then it is doomed anyway. Once it is applied, and each country has gone to the bother of implementing it correctly next year,including the UK, then future changes will be minimal and sensible. We live with various standards being applied either through international bodies or because one country has the technological lead. This really is no big deal........

I agree that the UK will abide by the EU's GDPR after we leave the EU, but I fail to see how this isn't an example of us in no way 'taking back control' because operating globally prevents that from ever really happening to the extent many people wanted it to.

 

[peteblue]

I agree that the UK will abide by the EU's GDPR after we leave the EU, but I fail to see how this isn't an example of us in no way 'taking back control' because operating globally prevents that from ever really happening to the extent many people wanted it to.

As I've said before, no one has total control, but we will have far more control than we have now and we will live with that....