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Will, I don't think it was a German finance minister who made those comments; it was Markus Kerber, chairman of the German CBI, who said that imposing any tariffs on trade between the UK and Europe would be 'very, very silly' as it would lead to job losses for both sides. Of course, that doesn't mean it won't happen as the powers that be inside the European Union have shown that they can be very, very silly - as in the disastrous attempt to force economic union and a common currency on widely divergent economies.And as regards the elite suffering, the one at the top of the pyramid has already felt obliged to fall on his sword.
As for multinational companies moving large numbers of jobs from the UK across the channel, well let's wait and see. Two of the reasons they are here in the first place is that they don't want to be operating under a currency that is constantly facing collapse, nor do they want to be stuck with European employment laws.
having a thriving economy is wishful thinking in itself, even within the EU. Now it is is just utterly inconceivable.
B J - You mean this article where Marcus Kerber says that "a vote to leave the EU would lead to a 'serious disruption' to the German-UK economic relationship"?http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36...
This is not a German finance minister saying that there will be no trade tariffs. It is the German equivalent of the head of the CBI saying that any trade tariffs would be foolish. And that is precisely what we have left ourselves open to.
And yes David Cameron has gone, but probably to be replaced with either Boris Johnson or Michael Gove. This is not a victory for the common man or woman. All we have done is to replace the more moderate side of the conservative party with the further right eurosceptics.
A currency facing collapse? I'm sorry to say that as of today, that is the pound, not the euro.
Multinationals don't want to be stuck with European employment laws? You mean, the same employment laws that currently protect UK workers? So you are saying that Brexit means that the UK will reduce workers' rights? Funny - no-one mentioned that in the debate.
The Leave focused on two key issues - the £350 million a week figure plastered across the bus and immigration. Yet within a few hours of the result, Farage is distancing himself from the £350 million figure and key Leave MEP Dan Hannan is saying that the Leave campaign never promised to reduce immigration. It is all starting to unravel.
At some point people are going to realise that Leave doesn't mean what they were promised. I just hope that too much damage isn't done before we get to that point.
Well, I've done my bit to help the British economy by buying pounds today.Nought else I can do.
Farage doesn't actually speak for Leave as he was not part of their official campaign nor is he an MP with any access to power & decision making. That said, it was perfectly obvious that Brexit Tories are also fairly hardline anti-state spending and would never countenance the £350M (a figure that is open to dispute) being ploughed back into state spending, even on the NHS.
It's very ambiguous, it says we send the EU £350 m a week, let's use it to fund the NHS. It doesn't promise the same sum weekly.
Patti (baconater) wrote: "Well, I've done my bit to help the British economy by buying pounds today.Nought else I can do."
Pounds of what?
Oh, sorry, never can get used to British currency. Or the steering wheel on the wrong side, either. Every time we're watching a British program and someone gets in a car I keep wondering "Why is he getting in on the passenger side? Who's driving...oh, that's right."
We've got our right hand drive car in France and it's was re-registered there. If we get someone dangerously tailgating us I open the passenger window and lean right out to give the other driver a long hard glare while husband keeps up the speed. They usually take a few minutes to catch on but the expressions are priceless. I've had a French policeman pull us over because I was on the phone (in the passenger seat). The other policemen with him were laughing hard but he couldn't lose face. He told me not to do it again. One of the best ones was we were queuing to get in a car park and as it was taking a while I decided to get out and go to my appointment and husband would park and meet me. As I got level with the car behind us the driver leaned on his hooter and started shouting out me. He was livid, he told me I couldn't just leave a car there and go etc. His lady passenger was laughing at him as by then my husband had moved off the ramp and was in the car park proper. There was nothing in front to hold him up but he really didn't get it. Pure magic.
Pound seems to be running along steady, as the children on the gambling floors realise that nothing is going to change for two years. I think people forget the two years.
In two years the French could have a front national president, their own referendum and the Italians could have left the Euro.
Ironically I think a lot of 'remain' people are panicking and not seeing the big picture. A lot can and will happen in two years. At the moment people are laying out their negotiating stances. But quite a lot of those people may not be there to do the negotiating in two years to three years time. Will Merkel still be in charge in Germany, where the Euro-skeptics have increased in number and influence. She's already had a long run and no longer looks invulnerable
Jim - you must be kidding!Yesterday the pound fell 8% against the dollar and 6% against the Euro. Tne FTSE 100 lost 3.15%. The FTSE 250 lost 7.2%. Saying things like "the pound seems to be running along steadily" is about as far from the truth as it is possible to get.
Moody's has just downgraded the UK's credit rating to "negative". That is going to mean higher borrowing costs and therefore more austerity.
Yes, a lot can happen in two years. We can have a recession and job losses on a scale we haven't seen before.
Panicking and not seeing the bigger picture? It is precisely because we are seeing the bigger picture that we are depressed by this decision to leave the EU.
I bought euros for 78p. a few weeks ago it's 81 now. It has been up to 95p. It's quite a volatile example. I don't know about dollars as I've not used them recently, UK Stock market down 2%. , Germany down 6%, France down 7%, Belgium down 5.5%, Spain down 11%. Very clear EU are worst effected not the UK.
Picking out the Ftse 250 is not representative of overall trading.
By any measure, yesterday was a bloody day for our economy. It's also having an impact world-wide as the uncertainty affects other countries. This can't be spun as "it's not so bad, really". The FTSE 250 is very much a good measure of the UK economy. The FTSE 100 only looks at the largest companies, who can be resilient enough to cope with something like this. The medium sized companies in the FTSE 250 are more indicative of the pain that is to come.
Moody's have downgraded the UK to negative. That will cost us billions in extra debt repayments.
the EU will look to have us leave with as few favours as possible since they will look to make it as unappealing to other member states to take the same path as britain. Plus there is the underlying emotion of wanting to punish us.The key thing to my mind economically is how much instability and paralysis there will be during the process of withdrawal which will effect business confidence and planning, but more centrally whether the EU is able to relocate Europe's financial services hub from London to Frankfurt since that would kneecap what is a great wealth generator for the UK
Yes companies like Debenhams who were saying costs will rise etc. Why didn't they buy British years ago when we had a fabulous textile industry in this country. It takes years to reap what we sow in some cases, stirring and talking up gloom and depression is not helping. There is more than enough angst and handwringing on social media at the moment.
Lordy are you ever right about social media, Lynne.It's taking me ages to scroll through all the political crap on my Facebook to find my friends' holiday photos.
Will wrote: "Jim - you must be kidding!Yesterday the pound fell 8% against the dollar and 6% against the Euro. Tne FTSE 100 lost 3.15%. The FTSE 250 lost 7.2%. Saying things like "the pound seems to be runnin..."
look at today's price, fall over.
And the FTSE lost 7.2% , so what, it can gain it in a day as well.
It'll go back up the next time that Trump looks like winning or the EU has problems.
Marc wrote: "the EU will look to have us leave with as few favours as possible since they will look to make it as unappealing to other member states to take the same path as britain. Plus there is the underlyin..."Germany is now suggesting we be a "associated partner country"
http://news.sky.com/story/1717150/ger...
I was going to buy a leather bag from a company I'd bookmarked then I saw theyd tweeted thisBad, bad day for the UK today. As Donald Trump remarked recently: "We won with the poorly educated. We LOVE the poorly educated!"
#Brexit
I tweeted back that they have just lost a sale and they blocked me. It's crap like that that is going to cost commerce dear.
Jim - today's losses for the FTSE are on top of yesterday's losses. That's how the stock market works. Exactly which bit of good news are you expecting to overturn that?I'm really sorry, but there is no way of spinning this away. The experts said that the stock market would crash if we voted Brexit and that is precisely what has happened.
So this is what we can expect...
In the next few days we will see an increase in the cost of petrol and diesel. There is normally a few days lag after the value of the pound falls against the dollar.
That will lead to a period of "stagflation" where we have a stagnant economy and higher inflation. In other words, everyday goods will get more expensive but your income won't increase to compensate.
The downgrading of the UK's Moodys rating from stable to negative will make it harder for the government to borrow to fund the deficit. Add this to lower taxation income (as we all spend less) and there is a greater need for austerity measures.
This will almost certainly wipe out any savings from not paying our contribution to the EU, making the £350 million figure on the side of the Leave bus even more of a fiction than it was during the campaign.
Within the next few months we will see job losses as firms relocate to Europe. Eventually we will see further job losses as other firms lose income and either fold or reduce in size.
After at least two years of uncertainty we might start to be able separate ourselves from the EU and start the long and drawn out process of negotiating trade deals with other countries. It will be a long time before we come close to matching (let alone exceeding) the tariff-free deal we have had with the EU.
Around about this time, Ireland and Scotland (quite understandably) separate from what used to be called a United Kingdom, or Great Britain, but which is probably more accurately called Poundland from now on.
At some point in all this, Boris (if he is an honourable man) will keep his promise and apologise.
And all of this on the gamble that we might come up with something new, but no-one knows what it is yet.
Calm yourself, Will. Apoplexy really isn't good for you. For one thing it appears to have affected your ability to read. In your reply to my post you say, "This is not a German finance minister saying that there will be no trade tariffs. It is the German equivalent of the head of the CBI saying that any trade tariffs would be foolish."Yes, I know. If you take another look at my post you'll see that that is exactly what I said.
"Multinationals don't want to be stuck with European employment laws? You mean, the same employment laws that currently protect UK workers? So you are saying that Brexit means that the UK will reduce workers' rights?"
Our employment laws meet European requirements and I've not seen anyone comment that the Brexit plan is to weaken those protections. But some European countries have gone much further with the result that their economies are suffering and they are struggling to reduce unemployment. The French government is in the process of trying to remove some of those additional protections - hence the crippling strikes and protests. Do you really think that any multinational will be looking to relocate thousands of jobs into that situation?
"The experts said that the stock market would crash if we voted Brexit and that is precisely what has happened."
Well, that's what the pro-Remain 'experts' were saying, but it hasn't crashed. The FTSE is 100 points above where it opened last Monday and 10% higher than it was in February.
Stockmarket fluctuations are no longer the result of expert analysts taking a long term view of a company's prospects, but the result of traders seeking short term profits.
Back in 1973/74 the London stockmarket really did collapse recording a fall of 67%, but within 12 months the market was back above its previous high.
Please don't bandy about words like recession. These things tend to have a self-fulfilling potential - although this may satisfy your desire to say "I told you so." Having said that, a recession is not really the disaster the media would have us believe. It's merely two consecutive quarters other which the GDP shows falls, which is an absurdly short period of time over which to measure the performance of a country's economy - especially given the difficulties in determing an accurate measure of GDP.
I can only suggest that you find yourself a quiet corner, sing 'Don't worry, be happy' a few times and try to accept the fact that sometimes those you regard as ignorant and ill-informed are in the majority.
B J wrote: "Calm yourself, Will. So you are saying that Brexit means that the UK will reduce workers' rights?""
Yes, a Tory wet dream ever since the 1980s. They will pull us out of the Human Rights Act as well, which means we will share the status of not being signed up with those paragons of democracy Belarus & Khazakstan.
I don't know what will happen to the Stock market and yes its machinations always redound to the will of traders who are there purely to make money. But your statement comparing the figures back to Monday as being higher is a little disingenuous since it rose significantly Tuesday & Wednesday because the signals were that Remain would triumph.
Why should Will, or anyone else, calm themselves?We've just had a referendum about our EU membership decided almost entirely on the issue of immigration.
If someone believes that our future is best served by being in the EU, that doesn't change overnight.
Lynne (Tigger's Mum) wrote: "We've got our right hand drive car in France and it's was re-registered there. If we get someone dangerously tailgating us I open the passenger window and lean right out to give the other driver a ..."Well, sounds like you're having great fun! And giving lots of other people quite a few laughs, too.
But I must add that being confused by right-hand drive cars on TV is nothing compared to being in a right-hand drive cab going through a roundabout for the first time. I remember going into Nairobi from the airport; driver goes left into the first roundabout and I almost screamed "Omygod what the fuck are you doing?" He laughed. I'm betting he got that a lot.
I simply looked at a full week's trading.I assume that we will lie outside the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights, but I doubt if the Tories, with their tiny majority, would be able to repeal our 1998 Act.
Michael Cargill wrote: "Why should Will, or anyone else, calm themselves?We've just had a referendum about our EU membership decided almost entirely on the issue of immigration.
If someone believes that our future is b..."
I'm not sure it was all down to immigration. The buzzword when people were asked was 'sovereignty', but if you challenge people to define what they mean by that they don't have a scooby. But it was a word they could latch on to and wave around like a Union Jack. In the global economy there is very little sovereignty for any country. You can legislate on social matters but effect little in terms of economics. And it's very hard to make a change that improves things, though a whole lot easier to legislate change that makes things considerably worse. As our referendum result will soon reveal.
Just a pity that the referendum was decided for a whole host of reasons, most of which had nothing to do with the EU itself. But then we shouldn't be surprised, for 30 years certain elements of the Press, with Boris Johnson at the forefront back in the day before he got sacked from the Telegraph for improper journalistic standards, were telling us the EU was crazy, demanding we only accept straight bananas and the like. That's one thing I will credit Boris & The Mail/Express/Telegraph, they sure showed stamina
B J wrote: "I simply looked at a full week's trading.I assume that we will lie outside the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights, but I doubt if the Tories, with their tiny majority, would be abl..."
as with history, one can prove any trend simply by carefully choosing which dates you analyse
B J - I think you need to get your facts right before you start accusing anyone else of anything.Jim was the one who quoted from the German finance Minister in post 3449. I replied to it in post 3450, pointing out that the German finance minister had said the exact opposite of what he had remembered.
You then weighed in on post 3456, referring to a different quote by a different German. It doesn't go anywhere near rescuing Jim's point because Marcus Gerber is not a government Minister. He has very little influence and anyway he is just saying what everyone else who is remotely credible is saying - that the vote to leave the EU is very damaging to the UK economy.
You need to read the whole of the article, not just the bits that you think justify your point of view.
Got it?
The stock market collapse is real and can't be wished away. Comparing the FTSE 100 with last Monday is deeply short sighted. The market has been getting spooked by the possibility of Brexit constantly over the last couple of weeks. It climbed from Monday because of what turned out to be false speculation up to Thursday night that Remain was going to win.
One estimate is that $2 trillion - yes, trillion - has been wiped off the value of global equities since the brexit vote. The bank of England is standing by with £250 billion - yes, billion - of liquidity to try to stave off a recession.
This is what Moody's had to say when they revised the UK's credit rating from stable to negative: "In Moody's view, the negative effect from lower economic growth will outweigh the fiscal savings from the UK no longer having to contribute to the EU budget."
And yes, the technical definition of a recession is at least two quarters of negative GDP growth. But please notice the words "at least". It doesn't mean that a recession will only be two quarters of a falling GDP.
You might want to stick your fingers in your ears and say "nah, nah, nah, I can't hear you". The rest of us who care about this country won't do that.
Lynne (Tigger's Mum) wrote: "That's what it has become. I do see the irony but I don't like the aftertaste at all. There's no generosity of spirit and no dignity anymore. It's all gloating or spitting venom."Maybe it is because these days it is easy to live your life in an echo chamber. People - especially the young - do seem genuinely shocked that there are other opinions, possibilities and even facts out there.
Why "especially the young"?If anything, the young have shown themselves to be more flexible, more open-minded and more tolerant of other people's opinions.
more willing to embrace diversity for sure. But that's not quite the same as tolerating differing opinions.I feel torn about this. Their elders have pulled the rug from under their futures by voting Leave, but then if they really wanted to fight for it they would have turned out in greater numbers because as we all know, they tend to have lower turnout
Yes, I've got it. I always had. I believed that Jim wrongly ascribed the quote to a German minister and that you were fruitlessly searching for the quote. I merely pointed you in the right direction so that you could find the words of Markus Gerber. And, yes, I read the whole article. A very sensible highly-experienced businessman doing his best to urge politicians to behave rationally.I'm disappointed at your determination to describe a modest fall during one day of trading as a 'stockmarket collapse'.
I simply don't understand your final paragraph. I've been listening to your points and replying to them. We all care about this country. 100% of those who voted in the referendum care - that's why they turned out.
That's a tough one. It does seem to be true that older voters tend to be more conscientious about voting. There is an old saying about poor weather traditionally being good for the Tories as they tend to have older voters who will get to the polling station whatever happens.I don't know. Maybe people thought that Remain was bound to win and so stayed away? We may never know.
There's a petition calling for a second referendum which currently has more than 1.5 million signatures - the fastest growing petition ever since the government introduced internet petitions. Who knows? We may be doing this all over again.
Marc wrote: "more willing to embrace diversity for sure. But that's not quite the same as tolerating differing opinions.I feel torn about this. Their elders have pulled the rug from under their futures by vot..."
Yes. It is a very narrow diversity, kept within strict bounds of what it is deemed acceptable to say and think.
The young have only ever known life in the EU, but the older ones have known both in and out.
So maybe the older folks have done the youngsters a favour through the benefit of experience.
David wrote: ... So maybe the older folks have done the youngsters a favour through the benefit of experience ... What was that you were saying about there being other opinions out there?
I think the old who voted leave did so not on immigration but on some notion of sovereignty and a return to the early 70s when the UK was responsible for itself. But I'd like to know exactly what their notion of sovereignty actually is and also that there is no way we can return to the situation of the 70s as the world is a very different place.
The older people remember life before the EU and want a return to things like the Three Day Week.All hail Other Opinions!
I feel sure you're right, Marc. We can't change the world to how it used to be, but there may be a chance of moving the EU away from the ideals of a common currency and political union ( with all the devastation that has caused) and back to the basic free-trade ideals of the Common Market.
That would be good, but it will be almost impossible to achieve from the outside.
can't see it BJ. If the EU survives this cataclysm and that's quite a big 'if', they will move for more integration. Something incidentally which as a Brit I would have supported, but which I know is a position at odds probably even with most who voted to Remain.
No, I can't see it either. I suspect that many 'leave' voters also couldn't see it. If they'd seen any sign that this might have been possible from inside then they would have voted 'remain'.But you never know. Just maybe the shock of the UK vote, and the rising demand for a similar referendum in other European countries, might make their politicians think, "Hang on a minute, have we really got this right?"
Especially when the next 10 billion euro bail-out to Greece is handed over.
The 'another referendum' petition gathers pace. It wouldn't really be surprising if the total reached 16, 141, 242 and was then swelled by those would-be 'Remain' voters who didn't want to go out in the rain.
the referendum was a nonsense from the start, since neither side could actually argue from a position of fact. Remainers probably acknowledge the flawed nature of the current EU and were voting for an ideal of the institution. Leavers had no facts on how an exit would work out. Given that, the talking heads and speechifiers had only insult, scare mongering & speculation to appeal to
This just about sums up our position for me -
I voted out because I really do think the EU is unsustainable as it is. They had no intention of reform, Juncker is a prime example of a man who thinks he's doing a wonderful job. I think we are better out before they crash. Yes mass migration has caused massive problems to Germany, Italy is struggling to cope with the numbers, Greece also. The barriers are up along the borders with Austria, and Hungary. The facts are not being reported in France at all and it's this censorship of events which confirms my sincere belief that they have lost control and simply aren't willing to acknowledge the scale of the problem or just cannot manage to process genuine refugees or economic migrants. It's a mess, chaos in parts and not acceptable. I don't think shanty town shit holes, aided by charities feeding and giving old clothes springing up along the borders is a managed solution to anything. They aren't temporary either. Some of them have been there for years, remember Sangatte. At the other end of the EU we have lords, ladies, barons and baronesses living the life on the high hog. The ridiculous sight of the 6 monthly move to Strasbourg complete with lorry loads of paper files is ludicrous. It's that huge contrast which has sickened me. So if you want to analyse my vote as an anti immigration knee jerk by a poor uneducated old fart, go ahead, but you'd be wrong.
Spot on. I feel sure that the reports are correct that Cameron only agreed to hold it to relieve pressure from his own MPs and that he was expecting to still be in coalition with the LibDems who would not have allowed it to go ahead.
Exactly, all to do with Uk politics & nowt to do with the Eu itself. Labour culpable too as after Scot Ind disaster, they were petrified of sharing platforms with Tories again, so distanced themselves from whole campaign which is why their voters up North repudiated the party line. Labour offered no leadership. A simple get out for them would have been just to say the issue was a matter of conscience for their MPs and the Party itself would not support one side or the other but let individuals debate & campaign locally
Will wrote: "There's a petition calling for a second referendum which currently has more than 1.5 million signatures - the fastest growing petition ever since the government introduced internet petitions. Who knows? We may be doing this all over again. "If democracy in the UK is worth anything then the petition is worthless. The petition would have to be larger than 17,410,742 to have any validity. Anything less would be a travesty.
By logic, the petition is not worth the electrons wasted on it.
I agree. The only genuine opposition to the outcome of the result should come if the majority of the claims/promises made by the Leave campaign are reneged on.
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I'm not sure how they got that figure, both sides seemed to agree on 44% of our trade is to the EU, but actually it's nearer 30% because a lot goes through Europort where it never actually enters the EU because it's just transshipped and goes to the US or wherever