Scottish Independence Referendum 2

mikeybabes2

I doubt Nicky Sturgeon - or more accurately the Glaswegian hordes - are particularly bothered whether the ship is sinking or just suffering localised flooding. Indeed, many of those ex-shipbuilders who now fill the nationalist ranks will simply say there is no ship

I not sure that actually matters Trollslayer. Wherever our food comes from distancing ourselves from the single market has introduced a profound and enduring reduction in Sterling. Perhaps that was long overdue with or without Brexit. But the latter has made the markets wake up and realise that we - as a huge debtor nation - are turning away from our biggest trading partner and thus will have short-medium term income issues. Regardless of where we buy our food, we will get less for our money now.

Rasczak

And of course all these 'situations that are likely to worsen' will magically fix themselves if somehow we stay on the EU.

Trollslayer

There are no magic fixes. But stable trade with the EU, our biggest partner, helped no. 1 and no.4. Being part of the world's biggest trading bloc along with substantial farming subsidies sheltered us against no. 2 and no. 3.

IronGiant

Paying for Greece (in part, it affects the overall budget), putting up with Italy's perpetual personal debt and paying for extra layers of bureaucracy.
Not all bad.

gizlaroc

  Very Clever

Trollslayer

Sterling has been massively inflated for years, we have been buying from Europe (clothing and footwear) at €1.20 since 2009, which is where it was set when we were at €1.13 to the £.
All my suppliers have agreed to stick at €1.20 until the end of 2017 unless it drops below parity, in which case we will look at it again.

Most of my product is priced in £, €, CHF etc. and the price is usually the same for € and £, which shows me that the £ has been a good 20-25% over priced for the last couple of years.
We have had it very good price wise in that period, look at something like a BMW 530d or Mercedes E350d, why should we have been getting them 25-30% cheaper in the UK than in Germany?
We are now paying what everyone else in Europe has been paying for their stuff, which is fair.

Plus we still tend to have wages that are higher than many parts of Europe as well.


Plus, if you read the foreign press you will see many of the other countries economists think the UK will be the strongest economy in Europe when we leave the EU.

Worst case scenario for me, as a footwear importer using factories in Spain, Portugal, Italy and France is we work to standard world trade tariffs, which would add 8% to the price, however, all the factories I work with have said they could swallow at least half of that to keep my business, so it would be an additional 3 or 4%.

I think most of the doom and gloom is coming from people who are not in the industries they are claiming are doomed.

I think the EU will be a very different place by the time we leave, and whether you are English, Scottish or British I don't think people will be as worried about leaving half as much as they are at the moment.

jason g

Expect the Netherlands to begin muttering about this next - great partners for the UK.

Trollslayer

at least the UK can made trade deals without the consent of the EU once we leave, the EU can't even do 1 deal.....


EU-Canada free trade deal at risk after Belgian regional parliament vote

nabby

You might want to check some facts before making a blanket statement like that, although we are of course in a post-truth political world now:

List of European countries by average wage - Wikipedia

The UK is lower than Switzerland, Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Germany, France, Netherlands and Belgium. In other words, we are the lowest of the main Western and Northern European countries.

Of course, I haven't asked you how much you pay your staff as a footwear importer (or your thoughts on reporting on how many non-British workers you employ).

I thought we didn't trust experts or economists any more, or did I miss the memo?

nabby

I'm confused.

We can trade with whomever we want now. Otherwise our companies wouldn't be able to sell goods and services to anywhere in the world (with the exception of rogue states such as N Korea).