Media: the non-Martin "debate"
Monday 17 June 2013
A quiet day yesterday did not mean switching off entirely, but for once a reader took up the slack with an analysis of comments on the Iain Martin piece entitled, "Europe: are we in, out, or just shaken all about?", written for the Telegraph Media Group.
The comments more than the piece are interesting, and some have been extracted by my reader. I thought it was worth highlighting them, which I do, without my own specific comments (or corrections), starting with the last two paragraphs of Mr Martin's piece. Thus does Martin write:
The comments more than the piece are interesting, and some have been extracted by my reader. I thought it was worth highlighting them, which I do, without my own specific comments (or corrections), starting with the last two paragraphs of Mr Martin's piece. Thus does Martin write:
It is a testament to the extraordinary campaigning skills and hard work of Mr Farage that the two big parties are being forced to devote so much attention to this issue. The Ukip leader has dedicated his adult life – between pints – to getting the UK out of the EU, and now the Tories are offering an In/Out referendum and Labour is under pressure to follow.Now we get the comment selection, starting with "Flagellum". He says:
Whether or not Farage’s ultimate goal is the right one (I am for renegotiation in good faith and would consider voting to leave), it becomes ever clearer that Britain must soon settle the European question once and for all. The interminable uncertainty about British membership of the EU is debilitating and destabilising and, if it lasts another decade, will become exceedingly boring. Let’s decide one way or another whether we are to be in, out, or shaken all about as a result of renegotiation. Then the country, business, all of us, can get on with the rest of the century.
I would credit Mr Farage, and the whole leadership of UKIP to have well and truly chewed over the implications of leaving the EU and the need to put in place alternatives. They have not been sitting idle for the past ten years.This is answered by "Twyfordbucks":
No they've been busy getting pissed and insulting people. Farage was a failure as a minor broker in the city and a failure when he went self employed, why the hell should anyone like him be trusted to know much about banking, insurance and manufacturing in the export sector? His finance spokesman, Bloom, a drunk who frequents brothels and claims that women of child bearing age should not work. You want us to vote for people like that?Next comes "Wontbegagged":
Absolutely not.
It's clear when asked questions directly, and I have done, Farage has not one clue as to how the UK could regain even a fraction of the tariff free access it has at the moment in 600 different market streams to countries outside the EU, on the back of EU trade agreements. In all cases the WTO has tariffs ranging from 4% to 150%. The latter being to the booming economy of Inda in respect of food and alcoholic drink, a trade currently worth £4.8bn a year to UK.Ukip does not give a hoot about millions of UK jobs, and the families those jobs support, and that includes my family.
Specialist engineering earns the UK billions of pounds worth of revenue every year. We're very good at it. But leaving the EU would decimate our sector and our company will leave the UK after 80+ years. 700 jobs, and I do not want to move abroad to work until I retire, I'm happy here in Buckinghamshire.
If my son got his way the next Ukip candidate knocking on our door would get his teeth parted.
Gerard Batten MEP's paper just says pull out. Although I support this objective, it's a bit like jumping out of a plane without a parachute if you haven't worked out how to manage Life After EU.This brings "Twyfordbucks" back into the fray:
I don't believe that the rest of the EU wants a trade war that will hurt them more than us, but if we left without pinning down practicalities like tariffs on car exports, details on animal/food exports and the certification of goods, there would be administrative chaos.
It would probably go to the World Trade Organisation to resolve, and the latter is keen on the principle once liberalised, trade is forever liberalised, but the best approach is to pin down the practicalities as part of the leaving process.
There may not be grounds for fear as the Lisbon Treaty commits the EU to free trade and friendly cooperation with neighbouring countries, so we should fast-track an agreement to maintain trade THEN leave.
Farage and UKIP are so engrossed in developing other policies that they haven't given due attention to detail on the most important one.
WTO does not negotiate free trade access. We have over 600 market streams with free trade access to countries OUTSIDE the EU, but dependant on free trade agreements negotiated BY the EU.Now we have "ossettian":
Two more are about to come to fruition USA and India. To export to India outside EU treaties for food and alcoholic drink, (a huge earner for the UK) we pay a tariff of 150%. India is a big consumer of UK distilled whisky. The UK would benefit enormously with just these two nations. Around £32bn annually. Our payments to the EU? Just £8bn a year. Nothing like the amounts claimed by Farage & Co. We benefit to the tune of between 12 and 14 times our annual payment to the EU in export receipts.
Two fifths of all foreign owned companies investing in the UK say they would leave, or consider leaving to set up in another EU country if we left. Within those two fifths are major employers totalling 800,000 jobs. That does not include their UK based suppliers.
Even if you had a parachute, Farage would have cut the cords and binned the reserve.
If a referendum was held now, the pro-EU side would:Then "ossettian" then has another go:
Determine the wording;
Determine who got the vote;
Determine what majority was needed for a withdrawal;
Be in charge of the counting;
Ensure that the pro-EU side spent twenty times as much as the anti-EU did;
Have almost all of the MSM on their side;
And in debates be able to point out that the anti-EU side are completely unable to explain the basis on which we would trade with the EU on the day after withdrawal, or explain what legal right UK citizens would have to live in France or Spain.
The idea that there is a magic wand we can wave is simply infantile.
There is absolutely no point in holding a referendum while our political establishment is overwhelmingly committed to the creation of a single European state, and if Farage tries to achieve that, without having bothered to do the tedious and difficult job of working out the practicalities of withdrawal, then he reveals himself as either a thicko or controlled opposition.Skipping one comment, we have "partner":
In financial services, there is a 'passport' which allows UK institutions to carry on business in the EU without authorisation. If we left the EU that right would be lost and inward investors would simply go elsewhere. End of City as major centre. No doubt about that. If we stay the Germans and the French will mug us. It's lose lose.This brings "Twyfordbucks" back into the fray:
UKIP support down 6% to 12% from a high of 18%. As we have seen before, Ukip and maths don't mix.And then, to conclude this segment, we have – by way of balance - "bill mason in the trenches" (edited by a moderator):
Their claim of the UK paying the EU over £50m a day for instance. Payments to the EU, £8bn a year. Thats £21.9m a day. UK GDP, £1,500bn, of which two fifths is dependent on EU free trade agreements.
Farage making out he knows about finance. He was a commodities broker, by all accounts not a very good one seeing as various companies dispensed with his services, and then when he went self employed went bust owing £135,000. Who is the Ukip finance spokesman? Oh hang on, is it that drunk liar, Bloom? The one who said he didn't employ family members on MEP business when he was, and was thrown out of the European Parliament for being pissed?
For the access that £8bn a year buys us, a survey of 147 firms in the City of London found that in the finance sector alone, the UK made over £91bn, in a year that was considered a poor one. The other big banking nation Farage often mentions is Switzerland. They do not do as well because they do not get the same level of access as UK financial services do. Their EU trading agreement has exemptions and they have no influence to change that.
If we left the EU our biggest exporting sector in manufactured goods, automotive, would have to pay an average of £1,100 per vehicle to access countries outside the EU where the EU has negotiated free trade. 41% of our vehicle production goes to such countries, the remaining 34% of exports goes to other EU nations.
The EU has negotiated tariff free trading agreements with almost every country we export to at present, and is about to sign with the USA. We cannot do the same with the WTO who only negotiate on a tariffed basis.
So Ukip, how will you compensate UK farmers for the £2.7bn loss in subsidy, or compensate for the £90bn worth of food and drink exports that would be lost in an instant because the UK would be outside the EU? Without tariff free access such exports become prohibitive, especially the meat and dairy sector.
How will Ukip attract inward investment when over 90% of companies investing in the UK and employing millions of UK citizens, say that EU membership was the no. 1 priority for choosing the UK?
How will Ukip persuade Toyota, Nissan, Honda and BMW UK to stay in the UK, or even invest more in the UK, when suddenly it costs them far more to access countries that were previously tariff free? Don't say go to the WTO, because they do not do tariff free.
How will Ukip make up for the £5.7bn a year that the EU gives to the UK in grants to fund scientific research, such as that given to the scientists that are developing Graphene? Nearly a third of all industrial scientific research in the UK is financed by EU grants.
Finally what does Ukip expect all those motor manufacturing workers, and those in their UK supply chains to do while the UK tries to negotiate access to markets without EU backing, make little yellow and purple rosettes to earn their dole?
Not true. You have fabricated most of your figures.What is significant about this is that the "exit plan" debate is beginning to emerge. As so often, though, the legacy media is trailing. The public is making the running. But the debate has started, and it is not going to go away.
The latest figures indicate that Britain pays 18.5 billion per year to the eu. This is indeed over 50 mil a day.
At the same time the money Britain receives back from the eu fell by almost 25%, mainly due to Blair disgracefully surrendering our rebate a few years back.
All in all our net contribution to the eu has increased by 56%.
British contributions to the EU have outstripped benefits every year since we joined. Without fail.
Your claim that 2 fifths of our gdp is dependent on free trade agreements is utterly wrong since approximately 78% of our entire economy is service related, and is would be largely unaffected by our departure from the eu. Agriculture and industry make up the rest (approx 22%), and the percentage of this that is exported to the eu is even less.
Financial services would probably suffer, but the eu has a vendetta against London anyway and is looking to impose punitive regulations designed to undermine us. Leaving would not make much difference.
By leaving the EU we will almost certainly benefit from a free trade agreement, the likes of which many other countries not in the eu already have in place. We are net importers so eu members will be clammering to have this in place.
Therefore our exports will not suffer.
We would already have a free trade agreement with the USA were we not locked into the eu and unable to negotiate for ourselves. Like a child.
Most of the rest of your post is unsubstantiated conjecture. Typical leftist propaganda and scaremongering. As Iain Martin states in his first sentence 'By now the British car industry was supposed to be extinct'. Well it isn't.
I'm afraid your post becomes more and more outlandish. 5.7 billion in grants? WTF? We only receive 3.6 billion as our entire rebate, since Blair surrendered the rest. Furthermore, Grants and research form a small percentage of the 3.6 billion.
No political party is experiencing year-on-year growth remotely similar to that of ukip, and that is testament to Farage. Your slanderous description of his previous employment is at best inaccurate, and probably amounts to defamation.
Richard North 17/06/2013
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