Why **couldn't** the UK leave the EU?

British cows and Chinese cows have equal rights.

AndyW posted

It isn't, actually, except in certain unusual cases (while in certain

*other* cases it is easier to trade with non-EU countries than with EU ones!).

I have spent the last fifteen years selling my output into both EU and US markets, and practically speaking there is no difference whatsoever.

R. Mark Clayton posted

There is no such thing as an irrevocable treaty. No parliament can bind its successors.

They would not, because of WTO.

We have that now. HMRC seize vans of booze every week and go through your bags at the terminals.

Yes, it would be a good idea to require visitors from certain EU countries to have visas.

Why would they do that?

Perhaps, but more likely it would be agreed by an ad hoc treaty.

No, we wouldn't and nobody has suggested anything of the kind, so your argument is self-defeating and ridiculous.

That's got nothing to do with it.

No figures to add but it is a fact that selling into the EU does carry an overhead. To be competitive we would need to produce either more cheaply (doubtful), to a higher quality (possible) or have some political clout behind us which is possible but I suspect that our clout would take a knock as ex-club members.

Even if we are close to EU prices will they buy from us or go with club members? Price is a great decision maker but politics can also be one too.

Europe is a hugely complex issue that gets all bundled up into a tabloid simplification of being ruled by Brussels or the fact that it costs us £XXX Billion per year generally not mentioning the money we get back from the pot albeit less than we put in.

In a lot of the 'looney laws' tales it never gets mentioned that we accept the laws and add bits and pieces before enacting them. Often the UK gold plates the rules, other countries do not which tends to lead to the 'Why are we following these laws when others are not'. We all follow the rules and then we also follow the riders, bolt-ons and gold plating. We enacted a crop 'plough-under' subsidy rule allowing centuries old orchards to be cut down for a subsidy, France, Spain etc realised that would be silly and exempted permaculture.

IMO our biggest problem with the EU is our own politicians.

Andy

To balance our books and reduce the deficit two things would go a long way towards that. One would be leaving the EU and it's associated costs. One of the major parts of those costs relates to the ability of multi-nationals to avoid tax by using essentially fake domiciles within the EU. For instance mining Companies are headquartered in Holland simply because it treats the taxation of organisations who are trading outside of the EU very favourably. They are not Dutch at all. That would stop. The second necessary step would be to stop tax avoidance. The use of artificial mechanisms like Trust Funds to avoid paying UK tax. I bet 100 billion would go off our deficit if we left the EU and prevented tax avoidance.

AndyW posted

You mean an overhead for non-EU members that other EU members do not have to pay? What is it? (and please do *not* include eurozone membership, it's not relevant to the UK)

snip

On the contrary, that is often mentioned, and complained of, too.

It is further evidence that EU membership is for the benefit of the

*political* classes, not the general public. It gives Whitehall lots of extra regulatory powers and bureaucracies that they wouldn't otherwise get away with.

The more laws, the happier they are, and the Commission is nothing if not a law-making sausage machine.

Interesting. I didn't know about that one (although I could give you a dozen other examples, quite recent ones too).

Exactly. And our officials.

One of the few freedoms left in the UK is freedom of speech and even that is under threat. What Cameron tried to do yesterday was silence his M.P.'s and preventing them representing the views of their constituents.

in the first instance it is a value added tax... in the second it is a tariff...

calling a pig and an elephant the same name doesn't grow the pig a trunk....

vat on imports is a tariff wall...a restrictive practice....

no value has been added....

of course they are also both possible to regard as taxes....

tariff walls cost you far more in total than the 'donations' to the eussr

i don't believe you... the uk makes its laws...allegedly

a major reason for the great depression...and wars...

was trade wars

everyone loses...but we still have considerable tariffs in europe which is a form of trade war... the purpose of the wto is to lower those barriers...and it is taking a great deal of time, arm twisting and effort to make advances

meanwhile just about everyone is seeking ways around wto rules...

eg, as another poster said, china has effective slavery...and manipulates its currency on a large scale

he did no such thing...he is playing a far more complex game than that....and so are 'the rebels'

How does the EU stop one national shooting each other?

te:

I don't understand why you introduced VAT into this thread. It seems like a red herring to me. It's not a protectionist measure.

when applied to imports...i don't agree

regards

Absolutely nothing in comparison with the total costs of moving a car assembly plant to another country.

You alos seem to forget that the UK runs a trade deficit with the EU. Any tariff imposition could and probably would be reciprocated as used once to be the case. Generally it's nations in trade deficit that come out best in any trade war which wouldn't happen anyway.

Why not? If the same taxes are applied to internally produced goods, isn't it a level playing field?

Something will give. What they are saying is that via a complete fiscal union with central taxation Northern European countries are going to shell out vast sums of money every year to keep Southern Europe afloat. Or alternatively they are saying they will by their superior governance of the economies of the South that will cause them not to need central EU funds. That will not happen either - the Greeks will always be Greeks. Or alternatively they are saying even though the Greeks are useless and idle we will tax them so that their budget deficit disappears. All utter rubbish, when the shit hits the fan it will short circuit the whole of the eurozone with dire - rhea consequences.

I will retail what it claims:

Firstly and chiefly through trade (see the Rasmussen quote elesewhere).

Then by initiatives promoting cross-border, transnational and interregional collaboration.

Eg they promote civil society. They do this by distributing grants to thousands of charities and NGOs dedicated to the environment, education, etc etc. Crucially, proposals must usually include an international element, i.e. they must bring together charity x in the UK with charity y in Italy and z in Germany.

Or through INTERREG, which brings together regions. For example there's a North Sea region embracing the north east of England, parts of Norway I think and maybe Denmark. Typically, local councillors go off and have a jolly abroad while learning how to reduce traffic-jams or something similar.

Also by joint research programmes under a series of framework programmes lasting 5 (?) years and bringing together boffins from universities to do whatver they do.

At a higher and more ethereal level, the EU is a forum where its member states can hammer out their differences using jaw-jaw not war-war.

Cynics will say this is all bribery, and they have a point.

Does it work? There's no way of telling. You'd have to posit a counterfactual history in which the EU doesn't exist and then create scenarios by which its functions are replaced or not by bilateral links, and then hypothesise that this would lead to war or peace.

However, trade correlates strongly with peace elsewhere in the world. So...

Ever seen La Grande Illusion?