Well the Director General of the CBI speaking on radio 4 this morning had a completely different opinion to you WP 🤔
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Labour chop another member of parliament for racist comments.
Yes Stolly. This is the same person who claimed they speak for 190,000 members to the DEXU Select Committee. It turned out they only have 1500.
One of their members is the National Farmers Union and they have circa 55K members and she was counting the members of members.
In the Scottish Referendum on Independence they actually registered with the Electoral Commission to allow them to campaign and spend money to lobby for a no vote.
A number of their Scottish Members resigned in protest at the CBI getting involved in politics - not in my name they said.
9 Universities, The Law Society, a bunch of QUANGOS like Skills Development Scotland, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Visit Scotland.
You know, the real commercial players North of the Border were their key members.
The idea that the CBI is representative of business is for the deluded.
This is bollocks and shows a lack of understanding of trade, tariffs and country of origin - and I know you are a bright guy - this is just outside of your area it seems.
Honda has UK and Turkish factories and they are pulling them.
They came here for tariff free access, they now have it in 10 years, so they no longer need to invest here to gain access. If they did remain here they would have to reduce domestic production.
So if we remained in, it would make no difference to the Honda decision. The plant has been in decline for 10 years as Honda has struggled to gain traction in the European market and been much more successful in North America.
But consider this.
The EU sell 3 times more cars here than we do in the EU.
If worst case scenario and we have 10% tariffs and customs clearance costs, the UK manufactures will gain more sales in the UK (because EU imports of VW and Renault increase 10%) than they lose in the EU, so there is actually more motive for Honda to keep the plant open if we leave under WTO terms than if we leave with a Norway + type arrangement.
You will see on some of the other posts this matter dealt with.
Yes you are right though. There is a case for a Federal Europe.
Maggie was pro Europe and an architect of the Single Market, but when she got wind of Maastricht and the Euro she said no and they moved her on swiftly as she would have blocked it.
She knew that if you had a common currency you needed an effective mechanism for fiscal transfer, just like we do and the USA does and it would lead to a Federal Europe or fail.
The UK and US versions are imperfect. They lead to disparities. But nothing compared to those across the EU.
Pat if you're going to look at it, do it properly instead of the back of fag packer method.
I saw the discussion on Politics Live, with Andrew Neil a couple of weeks ago.
You can go on the trading economics website and generate your own graphs from the stats.
Australia is another modern economy that's wiped the floor with the Eurozone over the last 25 years, mostly in the first half of the period.
In terms of the US as a model, I never said we should follow it.
What I said was that my opposition on here big up the EU in terms of trade. What a success they claim, why would we leave?
But it isn't.
We can't compare to developing economies of course. But it is not a model that anyone, anywhere is seeking to replicate.
But then what's the surprise? It's the same with our untouchable NHS which has worse health outcomes than most and again no one tries to replicate, yet many Brits would die to maintain it.
So Witton Park, Muddy Retriever and Stagger, three members of a fell running forum, know more about the effects of leaving the EU without a deal than the Confederation of British Industry. Hmmm... 🤔
Edit: Actually I’m being unfair to Stagger. He hasn’t really demonstrated that he knows anything about anything 😊; only that he wants out!
I live in a democracy majority rule.
Don't you?
From the referendum on joining the common market to becoming bound by their laws is wrong.
That's why I voted leave.
It's not your fault stolly that you are smarter than the rest.
Its a shame you can't demonstrate it though.