a mutually destructive trading relationship is not gonna bring the german economy to its knees or anything, but if it happens then frau merkel or whoever is gonna have to go to a bunch of recently-made-redundant car factory blokes and explain that their jobs had to be sacrificed to protect the stability of the EU

seems politically poisonous to me. altho they do seem to love their EU over there

You're not wrong.

I cannot understand how people who claim to be intelligent can believe an economic and political union of countries with vastly different economies, standards of living, welfare states, employment figures, education, health services etc etc will survive when people from the poorer countries will simply move to the richer nations.

Well, the young, rich, and educated will move. The poor nations will simply be left with the old, the poor and the uneducated.

But hey, this is progress and makes for a much better world........

Hopefully the madness that is the EU is soon to be confined to the history books.

A Europe which trades with each other, respects each other, deals with climate change together - and other important issues - is what we should have. Not this nonsense.

O.A.F.K.1.1 - I disagree about that. I roll eyes at all the "bash the bankers" stuff, but even I'd swap having an outsize financial sector for more manufacturing and fishing any day - for reasons that are more about society and regional balance than pure numbers.

Financial sector passporting is not a big issue on Teesside and nor should it be.

everyone here seems to be overthinking it anyway. it's just going to be a normal trade deal like half the world has with the eu. there isnt going to be anything special about it.

it's going to be worse than the single market, as the swiss found out, and maybe the eu goes after british services a bit, but it'll not be some dramatic bargain. it'll be a bit more protectionism. we'll all be a bit poorer. and life will go on.

It matters everywhere in the UK when tax receipts to the treasury fall, it also matters everywhere when bankers lose their jobs and stop spending their money in the UK economy.

Over all damage to the finance sector represents a bigger risk to GDP than manufacturing, its not binary though, their are still risks to GDP from loss of manufacturing.

This is why it matters everywhere.

Also we are not just going to swap out finance for manufacturing, the tories have been desperately trying to rebalance the economy since 2008 and have failed woefully, the UK is just not a good place to make things.

I think you are massively overestimating the total amount of redundancies.

The EU is not run for the benefit of its poorer members. Greece/Spain should make that obv. to you. Far from member states become closer economically the poorer ones are becoming bankrupt.

The rich member states will push for the best deals in their own interests. Otherwise they can just leave, like us.

The Finance Sector threatens to leave every year because how dare the govt have the audacity to tax them.

We shouldn't rest our economy on these parasites. They'll be gone some time soon anyway.

I'd far rather we had a mix of services in this country and a big manufacturing sector. That would also help lessen our massive trading deficit.

Of course for people who cannot see anything better/other than the EU I don't expect them to envisage a different UK.

Out response should be free trade or WTO tariffs on everything - 10% tariffs on cars from EU.

Plus now we can negotiate our own deals with i.e Japan/US and we should say 0% tariffs on their cars.

Or better build the cars in the UK.

I think you underestimate the amount of jobs which can be lost by the EU in this scenario.

Perfidious Albion ****ed us over when they chose to eliminate the rights of European companies and the European citizens. Now they want to dictate us the conditions for a deal on British terms. I say no! No longer will we be soft to these outsiders that never consider our wishes anyway. Let the car companies sell cheaper cars at home if they want to sell more. No longer will we send fine European cars abroad in return for speculation and dubious financial services created by a country the cant be trusted.

It's time to show strength and take back control. Dont sell out our sovereignty or limit the choice of our people by binding it to a deal with these people.

This is just unicorns and fairies.

It would be fantastic if the UK could rebalance its economy.

Its been tried and it cant, manufacturing is never going to play a big part in the UK again, its just not structurally set up to do so in a global economy and be competitive. That is the non unicorns reality.

That you mention tax makes me think you dont really understand the passporting issues for the financial sector.

That's all true. People are going to have to pay their own taxes instead of have bankers do it for them. It's about much deeper stuff than money though - of which the UK has plenty. The poverty in the UK is not a kind that can be fixed with money, it's a spiritual poverty. Getting proper jobs back to the regions can make a big difference. Wealth transfers from the south can't.

@richdog Spain and Greece are far from the poorest members of the EU even now. They are middle income countries - what makes them special is their superlative levels of budgetary irresponsibility.

Again just total unicorns, fantasy thinking that has no basis what-soever in reality.

The unicorns keep on coming.

I heard that even with massive tax receipts from the city, the UK was having this problem with its budget, oh yes, massive ****ing deficit they call it.

But lets just wave gandalfs wand and hand wave away the massive budgetary problems that could result from even small declines in our finance sector because when we throw the ring in volcano spiritual poverty will vanish as everyone in the Shire suddenly gets a proper job making things abracadabra.

So when will UK GDP be high enough then?

http://www.bbc.com/news/education-33984082
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...6-nations.html
https://www.theguardian.com/society/...-western-world



and the kids are just a symptom of what's happening in wider society.

Need to add another 5% to GDP, 10%, 15%? Then it'll be ok?

You can't solve this type of social problems with financial means.

If we wave gandalf's wand we can move the goal posts from here, to all the way over there.

What is this nonsense?

You are actually trying to argue that it will be fine if we lose tax revenues from the finance sector because it will make kids happier.

JFC.

We have gone from who will holds the cards in negotiating a trade deal to wont you fink of the likkle children.

Amazing.

Our miserable teenagers is what makes the UK great anyway.

It's not just the kids. Society is broken. If you did the same survey for adults you would get similar results.

I'm not saying it's fine if the city shrinks down but if the price of getting domestic manufacturing and fishing jobs back from the continent and from continentals is that the city has to take one for the team then so be it.

In other words, passporting should not be as high a negotiating priority as it seems at first sight because you can't just judge the costs and benefits of these things directly in money.

Thinking that the negotiating team is going to weight in the factors you are talking about is the biggest unicorn of them all.

But trying to tie the "brokeness" of our society to membership of the EU is a new semantic low.

The Volk of the UK need spiritually pure and fulfilling work!

If you think they just need money then answer my question of how much money is enough. 5% more on GDP, 10% more? When will it be enough?

I mention tax because you seem to think the banks will stay indefinitely
in the UK if passporting is still allowed.

I recognise that the banks are forever threatening to leave the UK because we dare to ask them to pay tax and in this era of global banking it's unlikely they will stay here forever.

Just like the SNP and oil putting all your economic plans on the performance of one sector, and hoping it remains long term, is pure folly.

Also, do you really not think we can build things here?

If Labour under Blair/Brown hadn't ignored the manufacturing sector whilst cosying up to the rich bankers we may have been in a better situation than we are now. However, I still believe that with well though out plans and investment we can restore some of the sector.

The Remainers believed that Armageddon would be unleashed if the UK voted out yet cannot see a manufacturing sector being reborn in the UK. Amazing.

Hmmm lets actually engage the main brain and think for a moment. If you try it you may be surprised by the results.

Most of the serious manufacturing in this country is actually foreign, its located here exactly for one reason, yep, access to the EU.

And yes we are not complete and utter fantasists that despite tons and tons of empirical, factual and historical evidence, think abracadabra, manufacturing can just rise like a phoenix from the ashes because Richdog threw some magic beans on a brownfield site.

Leaving the EU is mostly downside, depending on deal, which looks most likely to be bad, for whatever ManF UK can still muster thanks to foreign investment.

Not until you trigger article 50 at least. Which seems perfectly reasonable.