How do we resolve the Brexit mess?

[roubaixtuesday]

I'm sorry but this is ridiculously ignorant. Did you forget what happened in 2020 when a virus destroyed our entire economy and sent us home for months on end? A time when we were paying people 80% of their salary to not work? A virus with a total cost to the economy of at least £300bn, a £5,000 cost to each individual person?

That was a real event that mattered greatly to the economy and it also affected the global economy. The EU affects trading nuances within the EU which ultimately don't matter that much, especially given 50% of our trade is with the rest of the world where those nuances are irrelevant. If it mattered so much and was so beneficial then why is Europe itself doing so badly? Reading on here I'd expect European countries to be posting 1,2,3,4% growth whereas we'd be stuck in the mud but it's totally untrue, they're literally doing no differently to us.

We can name minutiae losses in trade figures but these are perfectly explainable by major events such as COVID or the Ukraine War which is why the exact same losses are also occuring elsewhere in Europe. Nobody can still explain to me why Brexit was the apocalypse and yet the largest EU economy Germany is doing no better than we are. You can't say that the Ukraine war is causing German struggles and yet in the UK it's absolutely Brexit, it's nonsense.

I can't even be bothered to link it but just look at UK total GDP today. It is at the highest that it has ever been. We were told that there would be an apocalypse immediately post-Brexit, there hasn't been, I'm still waiting for it to happen. I looked at our GDP growth for the entire of the 2010's and it wasn't affected in the slightest by Brexit. The only major stressor and economic shock was in Q1 2020, again please just Google what happened in Q1 2020....

Your argument around passed on costs is also mute, we've just had an inflation boom that was not caused by Brexit, it aligned exactly to what the rest of Europe experienced and was directly caused by the Ukraine war. Following monetary intervention why is inflation now more or less exactly the same as Europe? Where is Brexit in this? Again it's just nonsensical.

Economic effects of Brexit - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

You're welcome.

 

[Churchlawtonblue]

What's the betting that if we go into recession in the next 6months the usual suspects on this thread will be blaming it on brexit and not the Chancellor. I suspect it's pretty certain.

 

[hampshireblue]

I'm sorry but this is ridiculously ignorant. Did you forget what happened in 2020 when a virus destroyed our entire economy and sent us home for months on end? A time when we were paying people 80% of their salary to not work? A virus with a total cost to the economy of at least £300bn, a £5,000 cost to each individual person?

That was a real event that mattered greatly to the economy and it also affected the global economy. The EU affects trading nuances within the EU which ultimately don't matter that much, especially given 50% of our trade is with the rest of the world where those nuances are irrelevant. If it mattered so much and was so beneficial then why is Europe itself doing so badly? Reading on here I'd expect European countries to be posting 1,2,3,4% growth whereas we'd be stuck in the mud but it's totally untrue, they're literally doing no differently to us.

We can name minutiae losses in trade figures but these are perfectly explainable by major events such as COVID or the Ukraine War which is why the exact same losses are also occuring elsewhere in Europe. Nobody can still explain to me why Brexit was the apocalypse and yet the largest EU economy Germany is doing no better than we are. You can't say that the Ukraine war is causing German struggles and yet in the UK it's absolutely Brexit, it's nonsense.

I can't even be bothered to link it but just look at UK total GDP today. It is at the highest that it has ever been. We were told that there would be an apocalypse immediately post-Brexit, there hasn't been, I'm still waiting for it to happen. I looked at our GDP growth for the entire of the 2010's and it wasn't affected in the slightest by Brexit. The only major stressor and economic shock was in Q1 2020, again please just Google what happened in Q1 2020....

Your argument around passed on costs is also mute, we've just had an inflation boom that was not caused by Brexit, it aligned exactly to what the rest of Europe experienced and was directly caused by the Ukraine war. Following monetary intervention why is inflation now more or less exactly the same as Europe? Where is Brexit in this? Again it's just nonsensical.

Thanks for the compliment. The highlighting of the 2020 figure was not actually mine. It was you who stated "We left in 2020 and UK GDP is now 15-20% higher" and therefore you were happy to include the 2020 figure. So let's strip that out as well as the 2021 figure as that was clearly another outlier following the 2020 fall. You then get 4.8 in 2023 part of which would have been a comparison with 2022, the early part of which there were still C19 restrictions, and 0.3% in 2023.

So actually you quoted a period in which there is only one "normal" year and that figure was 0.3%. A far cry from the 15-20% you stated. But then we know you're not so good with figure as you also said "So for those people leaving the EU perhaps means at most that they will be €6 worse off every 3 years"

As for the costs: I gave a clear, factual example of a company needing to restructure and the associated additional costs to do so and you start going on about Ukraine and then ask "where is Brexit in this". Either you can't actually understand why Easyjet took the action they did or you choose to cover your ears/eyes and pretend things never happened.

Now back to your quoted GDP figure: I wouldn't go so far as to say the period and figures you quoted are "ridiculously ignorant", rather.. just a load of bollocks!! Now toddle off, stop coming out with words you probably need to look up before using, and just quote some sensible facts and figures for a change.

 

[Mr Blue Moon]

Are they singing at half speed?

 

[inbetween]

Thanks for the compliment. The highlighting of the 2020 figure was not actually mine. It was you who stated "We left in 2020 and UK GDP is now 15-20% higher" and therefore you were happy to include the 2020 figure. So let's strip that out as well as the 2021 figure as that was clearly another outlier following the 2020 fall. You then get 4.8 in 2023 part of which would have been a comparison with 2022, the early part of which there were still C19 restrictions, and 0.3% in 2023.

So actually you quoted a period in which there is only one "normal" year and that figure was 0.3%. A far cry from the 15-20% you stated. But then we know you're not so good with figure as you also said "So for those people leaving the EU perhaps means at most that they will be €6 worse off every 3 years"

As for the costs: I gave a clear, factual example of a company needing to restructure and the associated additional costs to do so and you start going on about Ukraine and then ask "where is Brexit in this". Either you can't actually understand why Easyjet took the action they did or you choose to cover your ears/eyes and pretend things never happened.

Now back to your quoted GDP figure: I wouldn't go so far as to say the period and figures you quoted are "ridiculously ignorant", rather.. just a load of bollocks!! Now toddle off, stop coming out with words you probably need to look up before using, and just quote some sensible facts and figures for a change.

Maybe Google is lying? UK total GDP at the start of 2019 was $2.851tn and for 2024 it is worth $3.4tn, so a 19% increase?

The one thing missing is the fact that the UK economy was actually worth $3tn in 2007 so we've only grown by perhaps less than 10% in 20 years but this is better than the rest of Europe. Many countries in Europe still haven't recovered to their pre-2008 figures. Spain's economy was worth $1.6tn in 2007, today it's worth $1.581tn...

Easyjet indeed restructured a bit but that's because Easyjet is a European airline so it's hardly surprising. The big question is so what because what has actually changed, they made very decent profit last year? If you want to look at something actually tangible then a simple way to help Easyjet would be to remove/reduce passenger tax (APD). Are you in favour of tangibly helping Easyjet and airlines by reducing or removing APD? I very much doubt it.

I find it really ironic that people talk up the economy and big business on this thread and yet on the Labour Government thread the same people are talking about increasing taxes and hammering big business. They also talk up the obscenity of huge big business profits and yet on here they're moaning that the economy is collapsing due to Brexit, it's truly and utterly bizarre.

I see no reason whatsoever for the EU to exist in its current massive political form but apparently I'm wrong and an organisation with its own flag, anthem and political goals is necessary. This means that the EU identity is actually becoming nationalistic and something much more than a simple trading bloc. I don't like that, sorry.

 

[hampshireblue]

Maybe Google is lying? UK total GDP at the start of 2019 was $2.851tn and for 2024 it is worth $3.4tn, so a 19% increase?

The one thing missing is the fact that the UK economy was actually worth $3tn in 2007 so we've only grown by perhaps less than 10% in 20 years but this is better than the rest of Europe. Many countries in Europe still haven't recovered to their pre-2008 figures. Spain's economy was worth $1.6tn in 2007, today it's worth $1.581tn...

Easyjet indeed restructured a bit but that's because Easyjet is a European airline so it's hardly surprising. The big question is so what because what has actually changed, they made very decent profit last year? If you want to look at something actually tangible then a simple way to help Easyjet would be to remove/reduce passenger tax (APD). Are you in favour of tangibly helping Easyjet and airlines by reducing or removing APD? I very much doubt it.

I find it really ironic that people talk up the economy and big business on this thread and yet on the Labour Government thread the same people are talking about increasing taxes and hammering big business. They also talk up the obscenity of huge big business profits and yet on here they're moaning that the economy is collapsing due to Brexit, it's truly and utterly bizarre.

I see no reason whatsoever for the EU to exist in its current massive political form but apparently I'm wrong and an organisation with its own flag, anthem and political goals is necessary. This means that the EU identity is actually becoming nationalistic and something much more than a simple trading bloc. I don't like that, sorry.

Oh, FFS. Heres the chart from the ONS. 2019 to the latest available. It isn't 19% is it?

 

[hampshireblue]

Maybe Google is lying? UK total GDP at the start of 2019 was $2.851tn and for 2024 it is worth $3.4tn, so a 19% increase?

The one thing missing is the fact that the UK economy was actually worth $3tn in 2007 so we've only grown by perhaps less than 10% in 20 years but this is better than the rest of Europe. Many countries in Europe still haven't recovered to their pre-2008 figures. Spain's economy was worth $1.6tn in 2007, today it's worth $1.581tn...

Easyjet indeed restructured a bit but that's because Easyjet is a European airline so it's hardly surprising. The big question is so what because what has actually changed, they made very decent profit last year? If you want to look at something actually tangible then a simple way to help Easyjet would be to remove/reduce passenger tax (APD). Are you in favour of tangibly helping Easyjet and airlines by reducing or removing APD? I very much doubt it.

I find it really ironic that people talk up the economy and big business on this thread and yet on the Labour Government thread the same people are talking about increasing taxes and hammering big business. They also talk up the obscenity of huge big business profits and yet on here they're moaning that the economy is collapsing due to Brexit, it's truly and utterly bizarre.

I see no reason whatsoever for the EU to exist in its current massive political form but apparently I'm wrong and an organisation with its own flag, anthem and political goals is necessary. This means that the EU identity is actually becoming nationalistic and something much more than a simple trading bloc. I don't like that, sorry.

We'll deal with EZY separately. EZY "were" a British airline that had full freedom to operate where and when they wished within the EU. that ability was removed by Brexit.eg A British airline was no longer allowed to operate intra European flights as its' Air Operator's Certificate(AOC) was no longer eligible to do so. It therefore had no option but to establish a new airline EasyjetEurope to aloow it to continue to operate as it had. This had a £10m impact on their bottom line some of which inevitably was passed onto the consumer. I used EZY as an example as many organisations went through similar changes to their structure with inevitable costs attached.

Now back to EZY. I spent years in my old role helping not only Easyjet but all airlines operating into and overflying UK airspace to make tangible savings. The main way to do this was to make their flight profiles more efficient and hence reduce fuel burn. Sometimes the savings were almost negligible, 20kg per flight on a particular route. But multiply that several 100 times per day and over the course of a year the savings became considerable. This methodology was susequently adopted by many of the Air Navigation Service Providers across not only Europe but around the globe.

APD is indeed a punitive tax but removing it doesn't necessarily help the operator apart from giving the opportunity to keep ticket prices the same and pocket what was previously a tax. No help to the consumer at all.

I'll ignore your last 2 paras as they don't apply to me.

 

[Vic]

 

[Vic]

We'll deal with EZY separately. EZY "were" a British airline that had full freedom to operate where and when they wished within the EU. that ability was removed by Brexit.eg A British airline was no longer allowed to operate intra European flights as its' Air Operator's Certificate(AOC) was no longer eligible to do so. It therefore had no option but to establish a new airline EasyjetEurope to aloow it to continue to operate as it had. This had a £10m impact on their bottom line some of which inevitably was passed onto the consumer. I used EZY as an example as many organisations went through similar changes to their structure with inevitable costs attached.

Now back to EZY. I spent years in my old role helping not only Easyjet but all airlines operating into and overflying UK airspace to make tangible savings. The main way to do this was to make their flight profiles more efficient and hence reduce fuel burn. Sometimes the savings were almost negligible, 20kg per flight on a particular route. But multiply that several 100 times per day and over the course of a year the savings became considerable. This methodology was susequently adopted by many of the Air Navigation Service Providers across not only Europe but around the globe.

APD is indeed a punitive tax but removing it doesn't necessarily help the operator apart from giving the opportunity to keep ticket prices the same and pocket what was previously a tax. No help to the consumer at all.

I'll ignore your last 2 paras as they don't apply to me.

With that experience I wonder if you can explain why Jet2 (and TUI to a lesser etxent) think it's worth avoiding UK airspace charges by flying to the Canaries from Manchester via Dublin? I've seen one flight (on flightradar) from Birmingham to Tenerife fly over Liverpool then cross the Irish Sea before turning south south west.

 

[inbetween]

Oh, FFS. Heres the chart from the ONS. 2019 to the latest available. It isn't 19% is it?

I don't know, I was looking at the graph below.

At the very worst it hasn't risen as fast as maybe it could have but this isn't really surprising given the same story is told throughout Europe, it's readily explained by other factors.

I just can't see by which measure everything has turned sour as a direct, specific result of Brexit. I see headlines and anecdotes from sources obviously tinged with bias but where is the rest? Tangibly across the country in terms of statistics and figures as a whole I just don't really see the major impact and I know that it hasn't affected me, my friends or family.

Again, I was a remainer, the biggest criticism I have of Brexit is more about what was supposed to be gained and not what was lost because so far I just can't see what we've truly lost but simultaneously we've definitely gained nothing.