Piston Heads is an automotive forum, if they don't want political posts they are within their rights to restrict that. You do not have freedom of speech on an internet forum you have to comply with the forum rules.

Politics and religion always cause heated debates and a lot of forums I use for overland travel or automotive outright ban any discussion on these subjects to keep the forum focused and avoid arguements

(not saying fastship deserved a ban or supporting PH)

Yes I have just read Patrick Minfords (et al) paper and the take away point on successful BREXIT would leave the UK as a genuine free trading nation in which all goods & services would be bought and sold here at world prices.


Essentially, this articulates in a scholarly fashion a point I made here early on namely that the Mercedes Benz truck in that takes the cheap goods to the ship in China cost £30k whilst the Mercedes Benz truck that picks up the cheap (but now taxed) goods in the EU cost £130k. Following Prof. Minfords model, in a free, EU exited UK the truck would cost £30k here too.


The truck of course, can be an actual truck or a metaphor for any goods or services traded at world prices. Of course there will be adjustments but a genuine free trading nation rather then the EU customs union? I think that is an economy I would like to live with.




The paper acknowledges that the real winner for OUT is immigration and elucidates on the consequences and how a free UK will look post BREXIT.



re. Pistonheads - not much. It's a commercial site (so they have their "interests" to look after) populated by highly materialistic middle England types; it's like Radio 2 on four wheels

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Interesting article recently on how the European Union was actually a CIA project: The European Union always was a CIA project, as Brexiteers discover


Not sure Britain will be even allowed to leave the EU if it's true! But that explains Obama coming tell the brits how to vote !

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Maria

www.franglais-riders.com

Prof Minford was interviewed on the BBC yesterday and he got enough airtime to put across his main points.
It is of some interest that way back earlier in this thread some of these ideas have been mentioned previously- they bear repetition however, especially now that the much wider audience out there in the MSM is being exposed to the concepts.
e.g. WTO rules for trading would work well for the UK with no trade agreements in place, and nearly all nations on this planet are members of the WTO now.

As mentioned earlier, the EU operates a trade restriction policy which is particularly onerous for the emerging economies.

I also read that article published yesterday.
Ambrose E-P, the author, has something of a reputation for writng quite contradictory material i.e. contradicting points that he has written earlier.
Also, I think the Telegraph is one of the MSM that has banned comments about their articles - I could be wrong on that however; it doesn't bother me greatly and it was certainly highly predictable as this referendum approaches.

If you find the gist of the A E-P article of interest then you may like to search for "Gladio" online - therein lies another theory.

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Dave

That paper is from 2013.
The latest joint paper from 8 economists is located here:-
Economists for Brexit

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Dave

So what do people think will happen to all the EU citizens living here now if we leave ??

Will they be rounded up and sent home ?

Will Spanish and Italian workers be made to apply for a VISA to stay unless they are earning £50,000 a year (Which out of touch city Ministers think is an average wage) ??

I live in a city which is full of Continental folk living and working here. They are part of our culture now and almost everyone enjoys and welcomes the diversity and culture that they bring with them.

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Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

I can't see everyone getting rounded up and sent home because we can do the same, so I just can't see it happening. Something will get sorted. It may become more difficult for new settles to move.

50K a year is an average wage, what planet are they on, wish it was

Wayne

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The Balkans
https://new.horizonsunlimited.com/poi_entity/8417

In a a word, nothing significant.
We don't manage to deport illegal immigrants never mind those who are currently in the UK legally and "working hard".

A longer answer:-
One reply to the question is that the UK could, eventually, introduce a visa system that would operate in much the same manner as that currently used by other countries, including the USA and Australia.
Based on a points allocation that gives credit for desirable criteria such as age (old people like me are a drain on the medical system), levels of education, training and experience and shortages in a range of occupations, professions and the like – for instance, virtually all employers in the UK say that they cannot recruit enough engineers (why that is the case is a moot point).

Another view is that a decision to Brexit would result in a number of years of negotiation about the exit process – some say two years, others say much longer; during whatever that time scale is the current EU regulations of free movement of everybody would still apply.
Perhaps of some significance, during any such extended time scale the next UK national elections will be due to take place, but I have never heard anyone mention this in the MSM.

£50K: I haven't seen that kind of figure mentioned anywhere else – there was some discussion a while ago that any such concept would have to take into account the average wage of a NHS nurse or a lot of nurses would be “deported” and the NHS would collapse instantly.

In summary, the broad idea of those who discuss this subject beyond the banal is that there would have to be a system of controlled immigration rather than the free for all that is in place at present.

An alternative answer, for the HUBB pub on a Saturday night, is that only the ugly ones would be rounded up and sent home.
(there is an old Norwegian joke involved therein, but I'm not going there even in this pub).

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Dave

Swiss facts:
1.They have 15% immigration at present.
2. This is of concern to the Swiss people who have made that clear in a referendum that gives their government two years to come up with a solution to what is considered to be excessive amounts of foreign workers imposed upon them by the EU regulations.
The two years expires around the end of this year.

Opinion:
The Swiss have a system of democracy that is the purest/nearest thing to a true democracy this side of utopia.

It does not pay for the Swiss government to attempt to ignore the result of the cantons' referendum (from memory, there are 16 of them and each and every one has a veto).

In any case, we will continue to be able to trade with the Swiss.

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Dave

Musing upon the UK economy, on the one hand we have a government in place (for now at least) that claims to subscribe to the laissez-faire (L-F) approach to everything, the economy, policy for education – everything.
A key exception lies in EU sponsored legislation which is implemented in UK law with alacrity and is then monitored and enforced by the best group of civil servants on this planet.

Meanwhile, our official “opposition” political parties have no answer to this L-F approach, being formed from and based on what amounts to discredited socialist ideology from the 19th century (even Cuba is joining in and is coming in out of the cold).
OTOH, the very same UK government (including anyone bought by the establishment) have claimed via their recent publications to be able to predict, to an order of accuracy of one decimal point, what will come to pass with the UK economy about 15 years from now.
So, we have a L-F approach to the economy on the surface but big government lies behind that; big government that is over-bearing, excessively prone to interfering and generally incompetent in that it takes short term decisions based on their own political expediency, especially when elections are in the offing.
Just put this down as some kind of anomaly or is it the best of both worlds?


Globalisation.
It's the way forward.
For trading that is.
It should be borne in mind that governments don't trade; it is businesses, and individuals, who trade – governments just get in the way, imposing national and international rules as a means of implementing their political power and influence.
But, nation states are extant; they are not going to disappear in some magical process of elimination leading to a utopian planet of world citizens, a single world currency, a single world of common taxation rates and free movement of billions of people from anywhere to anywhere else.
The evidence for this view is clearly seen within the ongoing Eurozone experiment; by any measure , it ain't working.
In the case of the UK, we have been selling off the family silver (to use one cliche) for many years – the net result is that what used to be considered to be key strategic industries are now owned by corporations based in other countries; Germany, France, India, China, USA, you name them.
Some recent examples:-
Tata Steel formerly “British Steel”, aka Corus, from India, will put the interests of their own home nation before those of the UK – their UK boss said as much to the House of Commons committee a couple of days ago.

SSI, another steel production company but based in Thailand, pull out of the UK closing down a plant for which they may* have received earlier grant funding from the UK government.
(Over the past years, various companies have done exactly this, receiving generous subsidies sourced from the UK government/taxpayers for local or national political reasons to set up a facility and then pulling out, virtually at no notice, once the subsidies have been paid into an overseas bank account and any time limitations imposed have expired).

EDF currently indulge in the internal politics of France rather than meet their commitments to UK national energy policy agreed (yet again) directly with the UK government.

The common factor is government interference in trade; a “we know better than those directly involved” approach.

Does any of this matter in the context of in/out of Europe?

*I haven't researched this because there are far too many examples in other industries; they are legion.
In addition, the recent decision to close down the SSI blast furnace was correct from an engineering point of view (and from an economic point of view, if one can get past politically inspired financial decisions, yet again).
Arguably, that plant should never have been re-opened in 2012.
Sahaviriya Steel Industries relights Redcar blast furnace | The Engineer
“This philosophy was, and could only have been dreamed up by individuals with a financial background. I can assure you they were not professional engineers”

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Dave

Here's another version of representative democracy that will be totally ignored, at least until next years' elections in France.
French National Assembly Votes to Lift Russian Sanctions

Edit:
That link will try to get you to sign up, and pay.

Here's the gist of the situation, as described by another online site:-
America and EU countries illegally imposed sanctions on Russia - Washington four times since March 2014 for fabricated reasons relating to Ukraine.

Nations unilaterally or collectively may not impose sanctions on other countries, individuals, businesses or organizations. International law permits only Security Council members to impose them.

They're counterproductive achieving nothing. The EU succumbed to heavy US pressure, instituting its own sanctions on Russian state-owned banks, defense and oil companies, as well as restricting sales of weapons, military and dual-use technologies, high tech and oil industry related products.

Russia responded in kind, banning imports of various EU agricultural products. Sanctions harm both sides, accomplishing nothing for either.

On Wednesday, 101 out of 577 lower house French National Assembly deputies voted on a non-binding resolution to lift sanctions on Russia - 55 for, 44 against and 2 abstentions, the majority of lawmakers not participating.

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Dave

We'll need to. They'll have a lot of our jobs if we Brexit.

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Paul "Every county of England, every country of Europe and every (part of every inhabited) continent of the Earth" 94% done! What's left? Central America, East, Central and West Africa, Australia & New Zealand

Really? Where do you supppose they will find a brake system expert that understands the UK trailer market? How about my customers, the ones making trailers in Belfast and Scotland and Lancashire and Yorkshire, will they ship fitters and welders in? And their customers? Sainsburys and ASDA and Morrisons can buy German or French or Turkish now but choose not to because they wont adapt the design to get into the centre of York or meet whatever safety rule Boris invents next. We export to Norway because the Germans only design for Germany.

Jobs that can be moved are already moving. To India.

Andy

Really.

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Paul "Every county of England, every country of Europe and every (part of every inhabited) continent of the Earth" 94% done! What's left? Central America, East, Central and West Africa, Australia & New Zealand

So a US company moving HQ to Switzerland is them taking over our jobs.

From a US company, not a British one.

So that's a service type industry I take it? More of admin roles etc. Not manufacturing.

See I have a big problem with the way the UK now relies on banking, insurance, financial services etc.
We used to be the biggest industrial nation on earth, hell we started the industrial age. Now we're importing skills from France to build us some power stations.

We built the first commercial passenger jet, and in collaboration with the French, built the only successful supersonic passenger aircraft. Concorde. Yet today we buy from the US and France.

We once exported our skills and goods around the world, now we take a back seat and see what crumbs some faceless non elected bureaucrats throw us.

The skill level in the UK today is very poor.

Most industries are screaming out for skilled workers. There are very few apprenticeships to be had for the young, and those being done are a shadow of the ones that we did.
Our industrial nation is grinding to a halt, not through lack of work but lack of skills.

The government is now messing with the education system again we see. Its already a mess, and about to get a whole lot worse.

The only ones getting richer are politicians and bankers. A lot richer.

I think the government are bricking it. If we do vote out, it will cost a lot of them and their financial institution chums lots.

Yes this will have some backlash further down the food chain, however people will still need the basics. Food will need delivering, lorries will need mending etc, and life will go on.
If Tarquin can't afford his new Bentley, I really don't give a stuff.

Dont get me wrong, the British public can also share in our downfall. Sale of our own domestic products has always taken a beating at home.
Both the car and motorcycle industries are almost extinct due to the British consumer buying foreign vehicles over our own. But then if we were able to apply import duty, I think the number would have dropped significantly.

So back to your point. No its not one of our jobs. Its an imported one for a foreign company that will be sending profits out of the UK and being a further burden in the long run.

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