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The UK votes to leave the European Union |OUT2| Mayday, Mayday, I've lost an ARM

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Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
The PM in Australia has just put together a task force to examine the opportunities and challenges Brexit provides.

The idea that the Commonwealth will at all be hostile or reluctant to negotiate trade deals with the UK is somewhat bizarre, I'm pretty sure that the Commonwealth these days accounts for a greater share of world GDP than the EU. Most Commonwealth countries are quite compatible with the UK (for obvious reasons).

In 2014, the gross output of the Commonwealth Realms was $10.45 trillion; compared to $18.5 trillion for the EU. So no, the EU is about twice the size. Not only that, the EU is the end destination for 46% of UK exports, the Commonwealth only 11%. Not only that, the EU already has free trade deals with 62% of the Commonwealth and is currently negotiating with 26% of those remaining. Not only that, the UK does not have sufficient diplomatic staff to negotiate trade deals in any kind of reasonable time frame.

So no, this was still a shitty idea.
 

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
The PM in Australia has just put together a task force to examine the opportunities and challenges Brexit provides.

The idea that the Commonwealth will at all be hostile or reluctant to negotiate trade deals with the UK is somewhat bizarre, I'm pretty sure that the Commonwealth these days accounts for a greater share of world GDP than the EU. Most Commonwealth countries are quite compatible with the UK (for obvious reasons).

As long as Commonwealth is not a trade union and doesn't negotiate as an union, it doesn't matter, what matters are the individual countries. Looking forward to see what kind of deal they put up for UK.

Far too late to start being sanctimonious about the long term effect in the case of Greece. Nothing fixes Greece in the long term without addressing the debt.

I was not talking about the impact on Greece though.

Just as a note, I don't agree with kicking the can down the road either.
 
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Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
EU 19% of World GDP (although that includes the UK and not the EEA and EFTA countries), Commonwealth (including UK) 16%

16% is the Commonwealth in PPP terms; which are not relevant for international trade because you can't have differential purchasing prices per country if something is traded internationally or you have infinite arbitrage opportunities. Commonwealth is 13% nominally. Conversely, EU is about 24% nominally.
 
Protectionist India with whom its Commonwealth brother has been trying to negotiate a trade agreement for years accounts for 1.9 trillion of that figure.
 
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Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
Protectionist India with whom its Commonwealth brother has been trying to negotiate a trade agreement for years accounts for 1.9 trillion of that figure.

The EU started negotiating a trade deal with India in 2007.

The process is ongoing.
 

CTLance

Member
An extension of the 2-year period must be agreed on unanimously by all member states. And there is no "kicking out" necessary, it is just the result of Article 50 and not reaching an agreement within the two year timeframe.
Do you honestly believe the UK will be able to get all 27 EU countries on its side without some major wheeling and dealing behind the scenes? All of them, unanimously? EU is already like herding cats while blindfolded at the best of times. And with rabid weasels in your pants. While on a unicycle.

But yeah, the two year time limit is just a cutoff date, not an active kick out date, but for all intents and purposes, this amounts to the same thing. Simply cutting off/invalidating those numerous contracts from one day to the next will wreak major havoc.

Which is why I'm kinda concerned that some clown with an ego could sabotage the entire process by throwing a spanner into the wind down proceedings of their own particular resort, thus possibly endangering the entire process - many of the issues that will need to be discussed are interconnected, and delaying one particular key item for too long will most likely cause the entire thing to crash and burn because the already strict time table can't be achieved. Sure, the EU would bleed, but the UK would be devastated.
My understanding is that the two years aren't to negotiate a free trade deal post breakup, but to disentangle the the ties between the union and the exiting country.

Of course the UK will be heavily damaged without free trade with Europe, putting the ball very much in the EU negotiators' court.
Yeah, I expressed that badly. I mean, obviously the UK will exit one way or another as a "third country" and only then attempt to (re)join in a capacity of their choosing, but if they don't manage to disentangle in time any future negotiations on that matter will be severely overshadowed and complicated. A "rough" Brexit will leave a great many legal issues up in the air, and trying to address them after the fact will be incredibly complex, particularly because UK will have to have implemented their own laws and agreements by that time, which will start negotiations at zero instead of a comfortable known configuration.
 

Arksy

Member
The EU started negotiating a trade deal with India in 2007.

The process is ongoing.

Australia just started negotiating a deal with India, like mere months ago. Willing to bet that it will be concluded before the trade deal with the EU is.
 

Arksy

Member
I forgot to finish my thought. I was actually referring to Australia. Which given its shared Britannic roots only needed to begin joint study for an FTA 8 years ago.

Australia is in the 9th round of negotiations. They began in 2011. Initial feasibility studies began in 2008.

I stand corrected.
 
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Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
Australia just started negotiating a deal with India, like mere months ago. Willing to bet that it will be concluded before the trade deal with the EU is.

No, you started with the feasibility projects in 2008; only about 9 months after the EU's project began.

EDIT: badly beaten by shinra
 

Funky Papa

FUNK-Y-PPA-4
Protectionist India with whom its Commonwealth brother has been trying to negotiate a trade agreement for years accounts for 1.9 trillion of that figure.

Somewhat unrelated fun fact:

India is so damn protectionist when it comes to its defence industry that it welcomes foreign companies to send them some of their most advanced light weapon systems under the pretense of supplying/modernisation contracts, only to reverse engineer said weapons, cancel the bids and use homegrown copies instead of purchasing materiel from abroad, even if that means that they'll be fielding subpar to terrible weapons due to less strict local standards and manufacturing. Case in point, South Africa's Denel NTW-20 anti-materiel rifle turning into the Vidhwansak after Denel was expelled under false accusations of using kickbacks to grab a contract.

And then you have the God awful, locally made INSAS assault rifle, which was fielded for over a decade despite being an unreliable heap of garbage, only to be replaced after much bitching from the army with the upgraded Excalibur rifle, which is still a total POS by most accounts and failed to qualify, meaning that the Indian army is still dependant on positively ancient AK and FAL rifles.
 

Maledict

Member
It's also worth noting that India is *incredibly* protectionist - to the point where even Apple struggles there. Modi hasn't unlocked things to the level people were hoping for, and is unlikely to make any huge strides anytime soon.

There's also the fact that as a service based economy a standard trade deal isn't hugely beneficial for us anyways compared to other countries. No matter what happens we won't be able to replace the EU because we're never going to get the equivalent of the banking passport with India or the US. We'll just have to get as close as can be.
 
Not to mention we have 30 UK-specific negotiating staff.

30.

Even New Zealand has over 200.

New Zealand.

I see huge potential for growth in the neotiator market at the very least. Might be time to re-train.

Edit:

Seriously, is there some sort of trade negotiator school? I wouldn't mind jetting off to all these exotic locations to haggle with the locals. I just bought a house, so I think I have the basics down.
 
Better get cracking indeed.

Only 15% of UK total trade is currently with countries that are not members of the EU and are not covered by any EU trade agreements. 51% of UK trade is with members of the European Union, 4% is with countries in the European Economic Area (EEA), 9% is covered by existing EU Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) and 21% is with countries with whom an EU PTA is currently under negotiation or exists, but it is not yet implemented.

The EU currently has existing PTAs with 52 countries, and it is negotiating trade agreements with another 72 countries. In case of Brexit, the UK would therefore need to re-negotiate or start new bilateral negotiations on 124 trade agreements, plus 1 additional trade agreement re-defining its own trade status as a third country vis-à-vis the EU.
...
18 of the UK’s top 50 trade partners are EU countries, 1 (Norway) is an EEA country, 1 (Turkey) has a customs union agreement with the EU, 8 countries have existing EU PTAs in place and 13 countries are currently negotiating EU trade agreements. This would translate into a minimum of 24 negotiations to be concluded.
http://bruegel.org/2016/03/fog-in-the-channel-brexit-through-the-eyes-of-international-trade/
This is just to replicate the state of trade relations as they exist now.

4 per negotiator. Good coverage.
 

Zaph

Member
Don't worry, the UK will loan some negotiators from New Zealand to negotiate a FTA with New Zealand.

It's funny, but with all the diplomatic turmoil and legal unravelling to sort our laws, trade deals, negotiations etc, fuck knows what is going to get snuck into where. I'm sure there's going to be plenty of lobbyists who just want "one little change that doesn't really mean anything".
 

Funky Papa

FUNK-Y-PPA-4
Wow, that sounds like good reading material. Would you happen to know of a -preferably entertaining- write up on those issues?

Then again, gotta admire that chuzpe.

This is the best I could find. By that time India had already copied the South African rifle and fielded the clone.

If you want some light reading, you can check this dissection of the INSAS rifle from some Indian army person. You don't even have to be particularly familiar with firearms to know that is some "designed by committee" garbage that should have never been fielded. Soldiers died after it overheated and ceased to function, sprayed oil in their faces or just fell to pieces in the midst of a firefight. But it was Indian made.

You have to ponder what kind of trade deals are you going to sign if India is willing to go to such extremes to procure Indian made weapons for its army.
 
The PM in Australia has just put together a task force to examine the opportunities and challenges Brexit provides.

The idea that the Commonwealth will at all be hostile or reluctant to negotiate trade deals with the UK is somewhat bizarre, I'm pretty sure that the Commonwealth these days accounts for a greater share of world GDP than the EU. Most Commonwealth countries are quite compatible with the UK (for obvious reasons).

Australia have found a new partner in punishing refugees and immigrants. Woo.
 
Close to. I mean, the UK already has lower corporate tax rate than a lot of countries. Japan has a 38% corporate tax rate, for example, so why hasn't Nintendo moved to London? Because Japan is where the staff and infrastructure are. Companies have many, many reasons for the precise location of their headquarters, and corporate tax rate is only a small component. So large changes in corporation tax only prompt small changes in corporate location.

Consider my small economy where all the firms together make £1000 and I tax at 10%. I decide to reduce my tax rate to 9% to get some of the firms in your economy to leave, because frankly Cyclops I'm amazed you had a personal economy in the first place. For my decision to bring a net revenue increase, I need 0.09*(1000+F) > 0.1*1000, which solves for 112 (rounded up from 111.11), which is a 12% increase in total firm value headquartered in my economy to make up for a 10% tax reduction. That's a rather high rate of elasticity that you'd almost never see in real life.

There are obviously diminishing returns to this - a reduction from 25% to 24% tax hurts revenue less than 10% to 9%, because 1% from 25% is a smaller proportion than 1% from 10%. But in general, reducing corporation tax is an extraordinarily inefficient way to increase revenue, if it works at all. It's a nice talking point that has some credence because people who only studied a first year course of economics deal with perfectly competitive frictionless markets, which means firms don't have to worry about infrastructure or staff. In such a world, the country with the lowest tax rate would have *all* the companies. But we don't live in that world.

Well firstly, please leave my personal economy out of this. I have issues regarding its size that I'm working through with my girlfriend and I don't appreciate my ... problems being publicly aired.

Secondly, sure, I don't think that Corporation Tax reductions will "fund themselves" via Corporation tax but that extra 12% of business activity that you cruelly stole from me, Ireland style, isn't neutral. The extra people employed pay income tax, they pay national insurance, the businesses pay more national insurance, the local economy has lots of fancy sandwich shops and artisanal coffee shops open to supply all those traitorous wankers that left. Or, rather, didn't leave - new Crab employees (jesus, they don't even have hands, they have clackers - though at least they have 2 eyes, I guess...) reduce the rate of unemployment, so your dole payments, child tax credits, housing benefit etc go down whilst mine goes up. Also there's a boost to local suppliers for businesses, local R&D to help these firms get better at not hiring people, etc

Obviously it goes beyond just tax neutrality, too - people having meaningful employment is, national P&L aside, to be celebrated.
 
What do you understand by leniency for Greek people?

Edit: do you understand that there is more at play here than just UK well being? Like the whole EU existence and the huge impact its disappearance would have on everybody on the continent?

TBF this is only a possibility - whatever deal the UK gets - if enough people feel like they don't benefit from the EU. If everyone loved it, this wouldn't be an issue. The "pour encourager les autres" idea is only required because so many are unhappy.
 
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Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member

ye-es, but this is only true if causing a company to change headquarters actually causes them to move significant amounts of staff, which is even rare than HQ changes in the first place. Most multinationals are HQ'd solely for tax purposes and HQ move brings like 1,000 people, tops.
 

Hasney

Member
Link? Top google result for "2nd EU referendum" is this BBC article titled "No second EU referendum if Theresa May becomes PM"...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-36570120

CnK2MHcWgAIjtJK.jpg
 

Maledict

Member
2nd EU referendum to be debated on the 5th September according to the BBC.

Small glimmer of hope?

Nope. Even if it did happen later on, they aren't going to talk about it now. Too soon and nothing has materially changed to justify it.
 
ye-es, but this is only true if causing a company to change headquarters actually causes them to move significant amounts of staff, which is even rare than HQ changes in the first place. Most multinationals are HQ'd solely for tax purposes and HQ move brings like 1,000 people, tops.

Corporation tax isn't only about headquarters though, right?
 
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Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
Corporation tax isn't only about headquarters though, right?

No, but it plays an even smaller part in all the rest because the moment it stops being purely about HQs and starts being about factories etc., you end up with the problem of needing to be sufficiently appealing to draw people in away from areas that already have the infrastructure even more so than you did for an HQ move. That needs *big* reductions in corporation tax to have any noticeable attraction.
 
No, but it plays an even smaller part in all the rest because the moment it stops being purely about HQs and starts being about factories etc., you end up with the problem of needing to be sufficiently appealing to draw people in away from areas that already have the infrastructure even more so than you did for an HQ move. That needs *big* reductions in corporation tax to have any noticeable attraction.

Sounds like London's gonna be fine then :D
 

PJV3

Member
Hammond is estimating about 6 years from launching the exit process to getting a new trade deal with the the EU. I'm gonna say a straight decade if the way the clowns at Westminster have behaved so far is anything to go by.
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
Sounds like London's gonna be fine then :D

Finances are the easiest service to move, so that will sting, but if we can negotiate a deal with passports, you're right, finance will be more or less okay. I'm more worried about the North, because while existing projects might stagger on, future investments are dead.
 

kmag

Member
Hammond is estimating about 6 years from launching the exit process to getting a new trade deal with the the EU. I'm gonna say a straight decade if the way the clowns at Westminster have behaved so far is anything to go by.

So that's potentially 4 years without any deal whatsoever.
 

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
Wouldn't be in Torries' favour to not sign an EU trade agreement before the next GE? Especially something including freedom of movement.

Not that they could sign it earlier and they won't. That 6 years estimate sounds pretty realistic.
 

Jonnax

Member
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/12/fixed-rate-dual-fuel-energy-tariffs-brexit-uswitch


Twelve energy providers have pulled fixed-rate tariffs and replaced them with more expensive deals since 23 June, in signs that the pound’s fall in the wake of the Brexit vote could push up household bills.

Comparison website uSwitch found a dozen dual-fuel deals had been replaced since the referendum, with new offers costing up to £105 a year more for the average customer.

Woo.
 

pigeon

Banned
Wouldn't be in Torries' favour to not sign an EU trade agreement before the next GE? Especially something including freedom of movement.

Not that they could sign it earlier and they won't. That 6 years estimate sounds pretty realistic.

The period between article 50 and a trade agreement being signed will presumably be the toughest period for the British economy for a long time. I doubt the Tories will want to blow everything up AGAIN and then have a general election on the ruins.
 
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