Forums Forums National News Project Fear III

At last the media are giving some credence to the reality of a no-deal Brexit being a much better option than probably any other deal the EU will agree to. Hopefully Project Fear III will come to a grinding halt.

There is very little to fear from a no-deal Brexit other than the amount of disinformation that will be spread around and the financial markets doing a short hiccup (which they WANT to do because that is how they make money out of nothing).

The EU will continue to trade with us, they aren't going to leave their crops lying on their fields, they are not going to close the VW plants down etc.

We will not have to pay the EU £39bn, however I can see us paying some some sort of sweetener mainly out of diplomatic good will.

We will be able to trade with the rest of the world without the EU imposed levies etc.

Shock horror but we will still lead the world with human rights just like we did before we joined the EU.

Both us and the EU have already got most of the required contingencies in place, at our borders the EU aisles will have to have some changes and more staff employed.

The UK will leave the Irish border open.

Ireland will also leave the Irish border open.

The EU will agree to a technological/administrative soft border at Ireland after wetting their pants for a while (this may be paid for with our sweetener mentioned above.

Both the EU and UK will have a visa-free visitor passport arrangement as most countries do, probably 6 months. There will also be the usual visa arrangements, both already have these in place for many other countries.

Both the EU and the UK will agree to have existing residents stay within restrictions that have already been negotiated.

We will re-instate our fishing rights in our own waters, if Spain, France etc want access to the they can pay for those right, the EU has made it very clear that is normal in other markets.

The price of our food will come down as will the price of other goods including cars.

We will close our borders to immigrants that don't meet the asylum criteria, we will have a points based system for immigrants workers we wish to be in the country.

What's not to love?

And then you woke up DD.

Nah, I'm still awake, can you see any holes in the argument?

The sheer shameless tribalism, nationalism and selfish xenophobia which pervades your post?

Nationalism is a lot better than the total mess that globalisation has caused?

Humans are naturally tribalistic.

I fail to see anything xenophobic?

Hahahahaha!

As ever DD,you put forward a logical senario of what could or may happen, however unlikely, it reads like it was written by the good fairy of brexit, the reality I'am afraid will read a lot differently.

As usual, because I have put forward an argument that you cannot find a response to, in both responses in this thread you have resort to trolling me instead of sticking to the subject. I will take that as a sign that you cannot find fault with what i put forward.

I can think of no better response to the three nonsensical statements you have spouted apart from laughing at them. Come on, DD. You must see the funny side of "I fail to see anything xenophobic" after a long and ill-informed rant about teh benefits of pulling up the drawbridge to protect little England.

"The price of our food will come down as will the price of other goods including cars."

Oh yeah? How the hell is that going to happen when the pound goes through the floor? It is falling as we speak, and I think when we leave you'll see out trade deficit plunging from the deep hole its in now to an abyss! Imports will cost a HUGE amount more.

You say (as if its a fact!)



The point is that this cannot happen unless exactly the same tariffs exist on both sides. After a hard brexit the EU will be compelled by WTO rules to impose the same tariffs on us as they do on all other countries outside the EU. (I bet you didn't even know this is a WTO rule!) . Once these tariffs are in place a border and customs posts follows like day follows night. If you want a simple analogy think of locks on a canal. If the water is on the same level both sides, they can be removed. If they are different, and you remove the locks all the bloody water runs from the high side to the low side.

I'm not wasting my time going through your post point by point. They range from irrelevant, to just plain wrong.

I can't see a hard brexit happening. MPs can be greedy, venal. selfish and craven, but they are not generally stupid which is why opposition to a hard brexit is something all sides are united in. It will not happen. You should be rejoicing not moaning about it! They will be doing their job and protecting you from your own folly.

WTO sets a ceiling tariff ie a maximum tariff, it does not set a minimum tariff (otherwise trade agreements would all be in breach of WTO rules). The EU can agree a free-trade, reduced-tariff or zero tariff agreement with us without any intervention from the WTO.

As the balance of trade between the EU and the UK is grossly in the EU's favour, if they hit us with tariffs and we reciprocate, the EU loses out. In the car industry alone the EU has a £30bn/yr surplus on the balance of trade with us. Further more we can use the money gained from the tariffs without intervention from the EU.

The UK has stated it will not close the Irish border, Ireland has stated it will not close the Irish border. Just because there are disparate tariffs does not force a physical border. I continued to say that the EU would come to an arrangement on the border but you failed to include that in your quote, it is highly unlikely that it would be a physical border. We already have non-physical borders around the EU, in fact I can travel to and from a non-EU country without a passport or visa.

There is already disparate taxation between Northern and Southern Ireland, that's why everybody crosses the open border and buys their washing machines in Northern Ireland, it is nothing new, its been happening for years.

The only reason the pound will fall significantly is because the finance markets want it to, and the pound will recover soon afterwards because the finance markets will want it to. They make huge profits out of movement of prices, they don't like stability. Trade is not going to stop over night, it would be far too punishing to the EU as well as the UK, we already trade quite happily with many other countries without any trade agreements as indeed the rest of the EU does and much of the rest of the world.

There is no unknown abyss, this is normal day-to-day trading that we already do with many other countries.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that only 25% of VW's manufacturing plants are in the EU.

The reason the pound will fall is that our trade balance will get a hell of a lot worse due to the departure of our very profitable services sector and the manufacturing that was set up by global companies to supply the whole of Europe. Nissan, for example, makes all the electric 'Leaf' vehicles for Europe here.

They will leave because it is the only way they can remain competitive, and the result will be that we will import MUCH more than we export.. We do already by around £80 billion a year we can expect this to double or treble at least - it may go as far as ten times this., (Makes the £39 billion we've agreed to pay the EU look rather trivial by comparison)

The result of a large increase in this will be that we will be seen as living on tick, and our currency will no longer be seen as credible. It will go down in value. This is due to the country buying more than we sell and no the whim of speculators.

The fact that only 25% of VW's manufacturing plants are in the UK is interesting as it demonstrates how easy it would be to move production to a new plant in - say - Romania where labour is cheap. The same is true of other manufacturers like Nissan who will also see the benefits of a brand new more efficient factory in a low-cost country. Particularly as the EU promotes this under their objective one policy of getting poorer countries supplied with decent infrastructure and employment.

"Just because there are disparate tariffs does not force a physical border."

Pure nonsense. There would be nothing whatever to stop you or me buying a van and smuggling bottles of wine or whisky or anything else across it! How are you going to stop this? Employ a minister to shout "Technology" at the stream of white vans?

A no deal brexit would be catastrophic. Fortunately it now seems pretty unlikely despite the government's feeble sabre rattling! Liam Fox let the cat out of the bag yesterday by pointing out that when May's referendum is rejected by parliament. brexit becomes a 50-50 business. I think its a lot less likely than that. Either the government will revoke article 50 or a referendum will be arranged and that will result in a revokation.

The EU hasn't got unified VAT rates, Luxembourg at 17%, Hungary at 27% and both in the Schengen area.

The UK and Eire aren't in the Schengen area, we don't have open borders with Schengen countries.

As I stated before, I can travel to and from a non-EU country without a passport or visa, there is nothing new about potentially leaky borders.

Think about this instead of throwing comments like "Pure nonsense" which keep backfiring on you.

If its OK for me to smuggle wine across, why is it not OK for a large commercial operator to buy tariff-free solar panels - say - by the thousand in the low tariff side of the border and smuggle them across?

If you have vastly different tariffs (the whole point of brexit) you will need to enforce them with customs.

Both the UK government and the EU sees the need for a border if the tariffs are different both sides of the NI border, so I suggest you visit Brussels and No 10 and explain why they have it wrong. Or indeed to learn from both that you are wrong.

Its hardly a secret that Brussels has many things wrong.

I see the European Army build up is well on its way to going ahead, this of course includes nuclear weapons which effectively gives Germany nuclear weapons again even though they are banned from doing so.

Its all a build up to a super power which will be the United States of Germany .... or possibly more correctly the German Republic Union. We ignored this before WW2, it is happening again. There is only France standing in the way and I'm not sure they even realise that.

I see Prince Harry is to be off to Norway to join our Royal Marines in an exercise to thwart any possible Russian invasion of Europe,for what little or no difference they would make, as we are back to being a contemptible little army again, looks like a case of sabre rattling or more likely a distraction from the current fiasco of brexit, we should be more concerned with the Irish who seem to be shaking the stick.