Sir Keir Starmer

aguerrrroooooooooooo said:
We could've honoured the referendum and got this whole sorry mess out of the way if we'd have ensured we stayed in the single market and customs union quickly with an EFTA style deal instead of cocking around for 5 years.

But no, we had to commit to losing freedom of movement, leaving the single market for no discernible reason and shoot ourselves in the foot.

The idea that the forecasts were bunk doesn't make any sense when you consider we've slipped in GDP rankings by a few places, brexit hasn't happened yet and it's already had a negative impact on us economically.
Click to expand...
I get where you're coming from of course, and I am not saying you're entirely wrong.

But unfortunately it was pretty bloody obvious that rightly or wrongly (wrongly) the nation's vote to leave was very strongly motivated by a desire to control immigration. Personally I believed back then (and still do) that we could have found a workable compromise on this within the EU. Other countries face the same challenges and we could IMO have found allies, built a concensus and got changes which gave us some protections and at the same time allowed the zealots in the EU to save face. Anyway, we didn't do this and the country voted out. So that being the case, we simply cannot remain in the customs union.

And as to the damaging effects, well we don't know yet how much the slowing of our economy is down to what will happen, or down to our indecision and the fact that nothing has been happening. I suspect it's more the latter than the former. The FTSE250 is miles up since Thursday, and there's talk of all sorts of investment starting to flow in already.
 
Chippy_boy said:
I get where you're coming from of course, and I am not saying you're entirely wrong.

But unfortunately it was pretty bloody obvious that rightly or wrongly (wrongly) the nation's vote to leave was very strongly motivated by a desire to control immigration. Personally I believed back then (and still do) that we could have found a workable compromise on this within the EU. Other countries face the same challenges and we could IMO have found allies, built a concensus and got changes which gave us some protections and at the same time allowed the zealots in the EU to save face. Anyway, we didn't do this and the country voted out. So that being the case, we simply cannot remain in the customs union.

And as to the damaging effects, well we don't know yet how much the slowing of our economy is down to what will happen, or down to our indecision and the fact that nothing has been happening. I suspect it's more the latter than the former. The FTSE250 is miles up since Thursday, and there's talk of all sorts of investment starting to flow in already.
Click to expand...

The vote to leave the EU might well have been on immigration but this could be easily addressed by lowering ROW immigration rather than shooting ourselves in the foot. I also believe if you look at leave voting areas it was a cry for help from the poorer areas of the country, places that needed investment could've been addressed rather than just blame it on immigrants.

It is economic stupidity on a grand scale and we both know it, let's not bury our heads in the sand about it for the sake of being positive.
 
Chippy_boy said:
And genuinely I am now of the opinion that forecasts of doom have been greatly overplayed. A no deal Brexit would be damaging I am sure, but let's not panic about that unless we get one, and even then we will have to deal with it. e.g. wIth interest rate cuts, government incentives and tax breaks for businesses etc.

But if we get an FTA with low or zero tariffs, then there will be no reason for any inward investment to leave the UK, no reason for any export business to be lost. And every reason to believe we can be more agile and more dynamic an economy than the rest of the EU, with appropriate reward to result.
Click to expand...

Any FTA that involves zero tariffs and quotas will be no more than we have now, but will exclude services. Since we are a service based economy and no small part of our GDP involves exporting financial and professional services to the largest market for such services in the world it is absolutely inevitable that GDP will fall.

The only question is by how much.
 
Chris in London said:
Any FTA that involves zero tariffs and quotas will be no more than we have now, but will exclude services. Since we are a service based economy and no small part of our GDP involves exporting financial and professional services to the largest market for such services in the world it is absolutely inevitable that GDP will fall.

The only question is by how much.
Click to expand...
Why must it exclude services?
 
aguerrrroooooooooooo said:
We could've honoured the referendum and got this whole sorry mess out of the way if we'd have ensured we stayed in the single market and customs union quickly with an EFTA style deal instead of cocking around for 5 years.

But no, we had to commit to losing freedom of movement, leaving the single market for no discernible reason and shoot ourselves in the foot.

The idea that the forecasts were bunk doesn't make any sense when you consider we've slipped in GDP rankings by a few places, brexit hasn't happened yet and it's already had a negative impact on us economically.
Click to expand...

The trouble is Cameron’s government shoved leaflets saying “a vote to leave is a vote to leave the Single Market and Customs Union” through the letterboxes of the nation.

You can’t then go back on that when it returns a leave majority.
 
Chippy_boy said:
Why must it exclude services?
Click to expand...

(A) the clue is in the name
(B) why would the EU give us unlimited access to their market when they can supply that need themselves?
(C) most favoured nation clauses in most EU trade agreements means if they allow the UK access to their services they would need to replicate that for their other trading partners.

It ain’t going to happen.
 
Ban-jani said:
The trouble is Cameron’s government shoved leaflets saying “a vote to leave is a vote to leave the Single Market and Customs Union” through the letterboxes of the nation.

You can’t then go back on that when it returns a leave majority.
Click to expand...

Except the people who actually won the referendum said it wasn’t
 
Ban-jani said:
The trouble is Cameron’s government shoved leaflets saying “a vote to leave is a vote to leave the Single Market and Customs Union” through the letterboxes of the nation.

You can’t then go back on that when it returns a leave majority.
Click to expand...
Perhaps they shouldn't have done that?

Fills you with confidence for the next 5 years
 
Chris in London said:
Except the people who actually won the referendum said it wasn’t
Click to expand...

Yeah I get that, it’s been a fuck up of epic proportions but my point is as a voter, that stuck in my mind and if I wished to leave, I wouldn’t be happy if they shoved us into an EFTA agreement.
 
Ban-jani said:
Yeah I get that, it’s been a fuck up of epic proportions but my point is as a voter, that stuck in my mind and if I wished to leave, I wouldn’t be happy if they shoved us into an EFTA agreement.
Click to expand...
Tough quite frankly. We shouldn't be looking to economically destroy ourselves just because people who don't understand how international trade works might get their knickers in a twist
 
aguerrrroooooooooooo said:
Tough quite frankly. We shouldn't be looking to economically destroy ourselves just because people who don't understand how international trade works might get their knickers in a twist
Click to expand...

Well it’s irrelevant now as that’s not the WA.

The tough part is on you and I not getting what we want, to remain in the EU, within the SM and CU. It’s not happening and we’re offski.
 
Ban-jani said:
Well it’s irrelevant now as that’s not the WA.

The tough part is on you and I not getting what we want, to remain in the EU, within the SM and CU. It’s not happening and we’re offski.
Click to expand...
Yeah I'm aware of what's happening mate. It's mindnumbingly stupid though and could've easily been mitigated with an EFTA deal while fulfilling our obligation to leave the EU
 
aguerrrroooooooooooo said:
Yeah I'm aware of what's happening mate. It's mindnumbingly stupid though and could've easily been mitigated with an EFTA deal while fulfilling our obligation to leave the EU
Click to expand...

My view on EFTA is that it’s pointless. The UK shouldn’t be taking legislation from Europe without having a seat at the table. We’ve done too much and sacrificed too much to allow that.

We either go and it’s a FTA or we remain in my opinion.
 
Ban-jani said:
My view on EFTA is that it’s pointless. The UK shouldn’t be taking legislation from Europe without having a seat at the table. We’ve done too much and sacrificed too much to allow that.

We either go and it’s a FTA or we remain in my opinion.
Click to expand...
I'd like to remain but that was off the table when the vote came in, the next best solution was EFTA and then if we got on okay with that and got our affairs in order maybe we could've eased ourselves away from EU law later down the line.

As it is now we're going to be in a position where we're hit hard because we're simply not ready to cut ties with Europe with no other deals in place.
 
aguerrrroooooooooooo said:
I'd like to remain but that was off the table when the vote came in, the next best solution was EFTA and then if we got on okay with that and got our affairs in order maybe we could've eased ourselves away from EU law later down the line.

As it is now we're going to be in a position where we're hit hard because we're simply not ready to cut ties with Europe with no other deals in place.
Click to expand...

We aren’t cutting ties with Europe. The plan is for a FTA.

As I say, being a rule taker is worse for me. Remain is preferred by a country distance and then Canada+ by me.
 
Even if we do manage to negotiate a feee trade agreement, there’s still significant potential impacts depending what’s agreed on non-tariff barriers. I work in the retail/pharmaceutical sector for a multinational company and the potential additional administrative and regulatory costs even with an FTA could be crippling.
 
meltonblue said:
Even if we do manage to negotiate a feee trade agreement, there’s still significant potential impacts depending what’s agreed on non-tariff barriers. I work in the retail/pharmaceutical sector for a multinational company and the potential additional administrative and regulatory costs even with an FTA could be crippling.
Click to expand...
Exactly why I believe we should've stayed in the single market. I'm pretty sure these types of issues are mitigated in a single market scenario.

Anyway I think we might be going off topic a bit lol
 
bluethrunthru said:
Thats a no from me. Met her at a conference about 4 years ago - talked to her on and off most of the day - she addressed the hall etc etc. Her vapid delivery doubtless left an indelible blank on many a delegates memory - I bet loads who saw and spoke to her forgot it had even happened by the time they got back home.
Click to expand...

I don't know her personally but I'd suggest a fair bit has changed for her personally over the last four years. She seems to have become the 'face' of the Labour Party when it comes to political programmes on TV particularly with the BBC. Whenever I've seen her she always comes across as reasonable, articulate, personable and, above all competent, whether she's got the sheer ruthlessness to shit over all challengers I'm not convinced but I do like her.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Unread Posts

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top