Brexit.

[LCohen]

All I ask is that if someone says there is an economic argument for a UI that they make it or point to it? Likewise if there is an economic argument that makes it more likely or more viable due to Brexit

The economic case for a UI is that the 6 counties falls further behind the rest of the island each year. That case is improved by Brexit because Brexit will damage the NI economy and likely reduce transfer payments also as it will damage the whole UK.

Really, these facts are not in dispute by anyone other than the DUP. The only useful debate is about the significant problems that exist getting from here to there.

But the case for a UI needs to be made in RoI. Show me the analysis that ROI tax base can afford the subvention?

Then if you are going to stress test the UK economy you need to do the same for RoI. What's the Brexit impact on RoI? What would be the impact of RoI losing any one of the 10 companies that pay c40% of the tax take through Brexit or otherwise?

[armaghniac]

David McWilliams addressed this issue. Firstly on the general situation the gap is clear



As  he said 
The UK's annual subvention is just over €10bn annually. When seen from the perspective of the North, with its total GDP of under €50bn, it looks like a significant figure — but when seen from the perspective of Dublin, it is not insurmountable. The usual way financial markets assess whether national expenditure and debts are sustainable is the debt/GDP ratio. Northern Ireland would cost less than 4 per cent of the Irish Republic's GDP annually. Of course, even this manageable figure would end up lower because the combined Irish GDP of the Republic combined with the North would be well over €300 billion, reducing the subvention as a percentage of income yet more. In pure budgetary terms, there is little doubt that the Republic's economy could absorb the North and this is before the commercial dynamism of unification kicks in.

Then if you are going to stress test the UK economy you need to do the same for RoI. What's the Brexit impact on RoI? What would be the impact of RoI losing any one of the 10 companies that pay c40% of the tax take through Brexit or otherwise?

Brexit is bringing more of these companies, not less. The Brexit impact on the ROI might be significant, but it can grow out it, agri produce can be sent to the Continent instread of Britain, not least because Welsh lamb etc will no longer be competitive there.

[LCohen]

David McWilliams addressed this issue. Firstly on the general situation the gap is clear



As  he said 
The UK's annual subvention is just over €10bn annually. When seen from the perspective of the North, with its total GDP of under €50bn, it looks like a significant figure — but when seen from the perspective of Dublin, it is not insurmountable. The usual way financial markets assess whether national expenditure and debts are sustainable is the debt/GDP ratio. Northern Ireland would cost less than 4 per cent of the Irish Republic's GDP annually. Of course, even this manageable figure would end up lower because the combined Irish GDP of the Republic combined with the North would be well over €300 billion, reducing the subvention as a percentage of income yet more. In pure budgetary terms, there is little doubt that the Republic's economy could absorb the North and this is before the commercial dynamism of unification kicks in.

Then if you are going to stress test the UK economy you need to do the same for RoI. What's the Brexit impact on RoI? What would be the impact of RoI losing any one of the 10 companies that pay c40% of the tax take through Brexit or otherwise?

Brexit is bringing more of these companies, not less. The Brexit impact on the ROI might be significant, but it can grow out it, agri produce can be sent to the Continent instread of Britain, not least because Welsh lamb etc will no longer be competitive there.

Im sure McWilliams would be the first to issue the health warning that comes with using ROI GDP figures. Irish GDP figures are effectively meaningless and allow debt to earnings figures for ROI to be significantly understated. Radio 4's More Or Less programme did a brilliant deconstruction of this.

I wouldn't underestimate the Brexit impact on ROI. The government is hardly relaxed about it.

I like you idea that restricted access to your main market us just an opportunity to send it to another market. This is the Brexiteer argument and it's idiotic. Ireland's main food export market is UK. If access to that market is restricted you can't just put the stuff on a boat to the continent and hope that the current suppliers to that market will push off

Don't underestimate the devastation to the RoI economy of another country undercutting it tax rate or if Trump actually did succeed in getting some of them to report more profits in the US

[RadioGAAGAA]

Likelihood of UK default running >95%. Show me the workings on that one?

Some serious questions need to be asked as to why international media are not covering this impending doom

You do realise the implications of a no deal exit?

Forget about trading under the WTO - as the UK won't have a tariff system set that isn't the (hideous) basic rates - that is basically stupid talk to fool stupid people. Industries simply would not be able to compete if they are handing over 20, 30, 40% of the final price in tariffs to the importing country. The UK cannot go tariff free as the wider connotations for that are also disastrous.

The media are not covering it because they are trying too hard to appear impartial - and they are also somewhat inept.

Some places have touched on it, here for instance, James O'Brien talking with Bryce Baschuk, Bloomberg's man on the WTO:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DIz9UTmMQk

[RadioGAAGAA]

If there is no serious analysis to point to then what are the arguments based upon?

There will be no serious analyses as it is not something that (serious) people have seriously considered until the past few months.

Everything will be high level, large assumptions and hand waving. You wanting details that do not exist in any papers (and to a large extent, are going to be erroneous) is not really a viable pre-condition for discounting the high level back of an envelope numbers.

[RadioGAAGAA]

The zero funding for NI was your figure. I quote it back to you and you disown it.

My bad for not being clear - I do mean this in the context of all the stupid wastage in NI.

So no more funding pissed away on "community organisations", services pared back far beyond absolute minimum.

For all intents and purposes, the public sector will collapse.

There would be an executive and a stormont because the GB government would never agree to their removal in a UI scenario

What is the basis for that assumption? That is far more far-fetched than anything I have talked about regarding roads, railways, even the UK default!

I don't believe there is anything in the GFA that insists on stormont remaining in event of UI. If there is a no-deal, and border poll resulting in UI, the least of the Brit's worries will be whether Stormont continues to exist or not!!!

[RadioGAAGAA]

Still plenty of room for civilised debate in the meantime eh??

Don't pre-condition your side of the debate with unrealistic daft expectations.

[seafoid]

UK  default is based on

1 current account deficit = buying groceries on the credit card
2 No deals
3 counties lining up to shaft the U.K. in negotiations
4 the EU can shut down the U.K. if it wants .

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/07/no-deal-brexit-medieval-siege-eu-britain-industries
If they go ahead with Brexit it is over

As an ardent remainer I find the article chilling. For me it sets out a series of risks that no sane person would willingly subject their economy to. That said it's an article that projects a series of worst case scenario events and says they will all happen in combination. It's intent (quite reasonably) is to scare the life out of anyone with the power to prevent a no deal Brexit. It's intent is not to present an evidenced impact analysis hence the lack of numbers

Switzerland tried to impose its rules and gave up

Hannan thinks the U.K. can walk away with 39bn

Han nan €39 non

https://youtu.be/eXqMrCObXbo

The EU can just withhold fin services authorization

The U.K. is fucked because of the state of the economy

Galbraith

"The conventional wisdom gives way not so much to new ideas as to the massive onslaught of circumstances with which it cannot contend »

[armaghniac]

Im sure McWilliams would be the first to issue the health warning that comes with using ROI GDP figures. Irish GDP figures are effectively meaningless and allow debt to earnings figures for ROI to be significantly understated. Radio 4's More Or Less programme did a brilliant deconstruction of this.

Of course he understands the difference, which is  why he did not use GDP but GNI* in the chart above.

I wouldn't underestimate the Brexit impact on ROI. The government is hardly relaxed about it.

I didn't say Brexit would not have an effect,  I said the ROI would recover. When you are growing t 5% pa you can take a knock.

I like you idea that restricted access to your main market us just an opportunity to send it to another market. This is the Brexiteer argument and it's idiotic. Ireland's main food export market is UK. If access to that market is restricted you can't just put the stuff on a boat to the continent and hope that the current suppliers to that market will push off

There is a specific opportunity in lamb which I mentioned as Britain exports it.
However, there is a general point, there is still a big market available, this is not the 1930s.

Don't underestimate the devastation to the RoI economy of another country undercutting it tax rate or if Trump actually did succeed in getting some of them to report more profits in the US

Trump's measures affect the Bahamas ectc more than Ireland. Of course there are threats, but prospects are infinitely better than for NI either way.

[seafoid]

UK  default is based on

1 current account deficit = buying groceries on the credit card
2 No deals
3 counties lining up to shaft the U.K. in negotiations
4 the EU can shut down the U.K. if it wants .

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/07/no-deal-brexit-medieval-siege-eu-britain-industries
If they go ahead with Brexit it is over

As an ardent remainer I find the article chilling. For me it sets out a series of risks that no sane person would willingly subject their economy to. That said it's an article that projects a series of worst case scenario events and says they will all happen in combination. It's intent (quite reasonably) is to scare the life out of anyone with the power to prevent a no deal Brexit. It's intent is not to present an evidenced impact analysis hence the lack of numbers

There are no numbers in the Brexit debate
It is assumed that the horse can be flogged as much as is necessary.
The horse is not well

The U.K. is paying for groceries with credit.. There are no margins.

Every version of Brexit will add costs that the U.K. can't afford

https://mobile.twitter.com/peoplesvote_uk/status/1096370360348561413

The DUP are magical thinking  So are the headbangers

https://mobile.twitter.com/itvpeston/status/1070461783700267008


https://youtu.be/eXqMrCObXbo

Switzerland tried to dictate terms and gave up

They wanted sovereignty plus choice plus free trade and were told to pick 2

Same for the UK

Arlene Foster is a gobshite.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/no-brexit-deal-better-than-bad-deal-says-dup-1.3796699

So is Raab. :

They can't see the danger so they think there is none. FF were the same. Gobshites.

[seafoid]

https://www.ft.com/content/9cd62bde-32ba-11e9-bd3a-8b2a211d90d5

Although Japanese businesses, particularly in the automotive and financial services sectors, have spent two years fretting over a hard Brexit or a no-deal scenario, the UK's desperation to have trade deals in place before or shortly after its scheduled departure from the EU on March 29 is now becoming increasingly clear to the Japanese public. Japan's state broadcaster NHK devoted part of an extended show on the 40-day countdown to Brexit by showing a bewildered panel of presenters a "Brexit survival pack" of dried foods and other provisions.

The differences of position, which the Hunt/Fox letter acknowledges as "challenging issues", centre around Japan's refusal to accept a simple "cut and paste" of the terms of the EU-Japan agreement ratified last year. Instead, its officials have been told to negotiate as they would any other trade accord, and to seek better terms from the UK than Japan won through its long haggle with the much larger EU

      https://www.ft.com/content/9cd62bde-32ba-11e9-bd3a-8b2a211d90d5

   Iron Knee

The Drinkers' Guide to the Brexit Scam
https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2016/07/david-davis-trade-deals-tax-cuts-and-taking-time-before-triggering-article-50-a-brexit-economic-strategy-for-britain.html

So be under no doubt: we can do deals with our trading partners, and we can do them quickly. I would expect the new Prime Minister on September 9th, 2016 to immediately trigger a large round of global trade deals with all our most favoured trade partners. I would expect that the negotiation phase of most of them to be concluded within between 12 and 24 months. So within two years, before the negotiation with the EU is likely to be complete, and therefore before anything material has changed, we can negotiate a free trade area massively larger than the EU. Trade deals with the US and China alone will give us a trade area almost twice the size of the EU, and of course we will also be seeking deals with Hong Kong, Canada, Australia, India, Japan, the UAE, Indonesia – and many others

   

   Boris Zohnson @justapleb No, a customs union is simply a common tariff zone: it applies to incoming goods only.  Any trade agreement agreed between a third country and the EU would not include the UK, so we would have to make our own outgoing trade
   https://www.ft.com/content/9cd62bde-32ba-11e9-bd3a-8b2a211d90d5

   Eden de Vizes

Not only are Hunt & Fox hopelessly naive about the availability of replacement FTAs on cut-and-paste terms, they are also hopelessly naive about the etiquette of dealing with the Japanese.The idea that such incompetents hold high position in the British government bodes very ill for the good management of the country whatever the Brexit outcome.Let us be blunt about this: the best FTAs-  whether they already exist through our membership or will accrue to us in the future because we remain a member  - are to be had via the EU.  There is one possible exception: we might possibly in the short term do more trade with the US faster than would be the case via the EU, but only at the cost of a devastating weakening of regulations protecting UK consumers and the NHS.arrangements.  Like we are attempting to do with Japan now...

      https://www.ft.com/content/9cd62bde-32ba-11e9-bd3a-8b2a211d90d5

   Gwynforsenior

Politics aside, this looks like clear evidence of the UK's lack of trade negotiating skills. This isn't surprising given that our external trade has been governed at EU level for 46 years. Attempts to fill the gap by recruiting from other countries, management consultancies etc would be second best even in normal times. In the extraordinary situation we now face, the shortfall is massive and likely to endure for years. In the normal world, major new projects start with a dispassionate assessment of risks - but hey, this is labelled 'project fear' isn't it?ReportShareTwitterFacebook2RecommendReplyBelgiansense 5ptsFeatured8 minutes ago@Gwynforsenior has nothing to do with negotiating skills, only with negotiating power... brexiteers think that with clever negotiating skills they can overcome the lack of power... as such assuming their counterparts can be outwitted... they are a funny bunch those brexiteers... they did outwit the remainers, but I imagine the negotiators are more clever than average Joe sixpack

[Rossfan]

I see the England and Wales Labour Party starting to disintegrate  with 7 MPs jumping ship.

[Walter Cronc]

What do they hope to achieve? Corbyn gets the boot and re-join? Surely easier to make change from within.

[seafoid]

I see the England and Wales Labour Party starting to disintegrate  with 7 MPs jumping ship.

7 neoliberals I think

Berger is a piece of work

Whining about anti-Semitism when what she really wants is to prevent  a Labour Government changing the economic system

[Saffrongael]

I see the England and Wales Labour Party starting to disintegrate  with 7 MPs jumping ship.

7 neoliberals I think

Berger is a piece of work

Whining about anti-Semitism when what she really wants is to prevent  a Labour Government changing the economic system

I think Seafoid is Corbyn