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UK faces worst downturn of any advanced economy, OECD says

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Re: UK faces worst downturn of any advanced economy, OECD says

#31

There have been some concrete advantages to Brexit: - Regained control of borders. This is going to be an increasingly important issue going into the 21st century as Africa is going through an enormous population boom. -No longer on the hook for the debt of certain EU nations (Italy and Greece being big ones) It'll be interesting to see his this shakes out over the next decade. If the UK achieves some degree of freet…

> Regained control of borders

Can you elaborate on how that has changed since Brexit? The UK was never part of Schengen and African migrants are not EU-citizens so would not benefit from freedom of movement laws.

Re: UK faces worst downturn of any advanced economy, OECD says

#32

There have been some concrete advantages to Brexit: - Regained control of borders. This is going to be an increasingly important issue going into the 21st century as Africa is going through an enormous population boom. -No longer on the hook for the debt of certain EU nations (Italy and Greece being big ones) It'll be interesting to see his this shakes out over the next decade. If the UK achieves some degree of freet…

The problem with this plan is that “the UK coming out of Brexit ‘up’” would be meaningfully bad for the EU if it encourages other countries to follow. And at the same time, the party with the greatest power to determine free trade agreements between UK/EU is the EU itself. This always struck me as the worst paradox of the whole idea: you’ve created an adversarial zero-sum environment where a much more powerful oppone…

> In practice it doesn’t look this will even be an issue, since Brexit is already producing such bad results and losing popular support as demographic changes wipe out its base of support.

We shall see. Remember that when rejoining the EU are going to try and get the best deal possible for themselves. I think you'll find that public sentiment can turn very quickly under such circumstances.

You are also assuming no problems in the EU (such as an Italian debt crisis) meaning that rejoining has real negative downsides as well.

The final process to rejoin the EU would at a minimum look like this:

- Referendum on rejoining EU - Negotiations with EU on what exactly that would mean - Some sort of deliberative process to determine if rejoining under these conditions is acceptable.

This will not happen for another decade at a minimum. And a lot can happen in that time. And if part of that agreement is the UK loses control of its borders again then I would bet money on no agreement being reached.

Re: UK faces worst downturn of any advanced economy, OECD says

#33
post #31

There have been some concrete advantages to Brexit: - Regained control of borders. This is going to be an increasingly important issue going into the 21st century as Africa is going through an enormous population boom. -No longer on the hook for the debt of certain EU nations (Italy and Greece being big ones) It'll be interesting to see his this shakes out over the next decade. If the UK achieves some degree of freet…

> Regained control of borders Can you elaborate on how that has changed since Brexit? The UK was never part of Schengen and African migrants are not EU-citizens so would not benefit from freedom of movement laws.

EU citizens have rights to freedom of movement in other countries. This included the UK.

While on paper you are correct about the African migrants in reality people were rightly concerned that the will to enforce this was weak. The issues in the English Channel still show this problem exists. And Europe continues to show little desire to actually take action in this problem and so we are seeing similar sentiments arise in Italy as lead to Brexit.

Imho the real blame for Brexit lies at the feet of Angela Merkel. Brexit would never have happened if she hadn't opened the borders in the Syrian refugee crisis. While this was a very open-hearted and kind gesture, as a geopolitical action it was disastrous.

Re: UK faces worst downturn of any advanced economy, OECD says

#34
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No longer on the hook for the debt of certain EU nations That might actually be the first credible benefit I’ve heard

This wasn't really true though. Not being a EuroZone member the UK was not part of the European Stability Mechanism and "The UK is not liable through existing emergency funding schemes". https://fullfact.org/europe/will-uk-pay-future-eurozone-bail...

We'll see how this plays out. The appetite for Germany/France paying Italian debt is basically 0 and I predict this will lead to some major reformulation in the EU.

When that happens it would be a good time for the UK to propose a freetrade agreement with the EU to help boost economic growth in the continent to make this more palatable.

Re: UK faces worst downturn of any advanced economy, OECD says

#35
post #16
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this instance, you can unspill a lot of the milk by unwinding Brexit. The UK won't get back the absolutely insane, sometimes one-sided benefits that they had before Brexit--those are gone permanently. However, they would get back the unified market and probably arrest the destruction of London as a financial center.

Large financial institutions and banks are expanding footprint in London, and have announced new office developments after Brexit. So this claim of yours seems to be based on pre-Brexit fearmongering that never came to pass. I mean, come on, this is easily dis-proven as a talking point. 1 minute of Googling will show it's totally false. [1] >“London's position in Citi's global framework and strategy is undiminished a…

The UK is still the most finance-friendly country in Europe by far. There were attempts to setup in France etc but regulation is much more onerous and so those plans fell apart quite quickly.

Re: UK faces worst downturn of any advanced economy, OECD says

#36
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing how hard it is for humans to understand compounding growth. England's GDP has historically grown at 1.5-2.0%. That implies about 20% growth in a decade. Let's say Brexit leaves GDP 2% lower than it currently is by the end of 2023. Now to grow 22% in 9 years (i.e. get back to even), they need 2.4% annual growth, which is a 20-60% acceleration sustained every year for 9 years just to get back to the baseli…

What makes you think I don't understand compound growth? I do. I also understand that certain policies can lead to changes that will disturb QOL in a country outside of raw GDP (go ask Swedes how they feel about immigrant behaviour in their country in recent years). Is Swedish GDP up? Absolutely. Is it worth the price of open hang warfare and frequent shootings that have sky-rocketed since 2015? Depends how you look…

> The last thing the UK should do is try and rejoin now at a point of weakness especially when things aren't exactly looking wonderful in much of the EU either.

Why though? To save face? What if both the EU and UK would still do better together than apart? At the same time, why would Scotland want to be tied to England who isn't doing so hot?

Re: UK faces worst downturn of any advanced economy, OECD says

#37

There have been some concrete advantages to Brexit: - Regained control of borders. This is going to be an increasingly important issue going into the 21st century as Africa is going through an enormous population boom. -No longer on the hook for the debt of certain EU nations (Italy and Greece being big ones) It'll be interesting to see his this shakes out over the next decade. If the UK achieves some degree of freet…

On the other hand, over the long run, Britain will lose out by not having the population growth from Africa. Capitalist economies demand that growth to do well.

... And the UK won't decouple itself from Greek debt until the UK decides it shouldn't have imposed the arbitrary debts in the first place

Re: UK faces worst downturn of any advanced economy, OECD says

#38
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Regained control of borders Can you elaborate on how that has changed since Brexit? The UK was never part of Schengen and African migrants are not EU-citizens so would not benefit from freedom of movement laws.

EU citizens have rights to freedom of movement in other countries. This included the UK. While on paper you are correct about the African migrants in reality people were rightly concerned that the will to enforce this was weak. The issues in the English Channel still show this problem exists. And Europe continues to show little desire to actually take action in this problem and so we are seeing similar sentiments ari…

Would the Syrian refugee crisis have been as bad if Britain hadn't hopped in with the US to destabilize the area? You could easily lay that blame on George Bush more than anyone else

Re: UK faces worst downturn of any advanced economy, OECD says

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this plan is that “the UK coming out of Brexit ‘up’” would be meaningfully bad for the EU if it encourages other countries to follow. And at the same time, the party with the greatest power to determine free trade agreements between UK/EU is the EU itself. This always struck me as the worst paradox of the whole idea: you’ve created an adversarial zero-sum environment where a much more powerful oppone…

> In practice it doesn’t look this will even be an issue, since Brexit is already producing such bad results and losing popular support as demographic changes wipe out its base of support. We shall see. Remember that when rejoining the EU are going to try and get the best deal possible for themselves. I think you'll find that public sentiment can turn very quickly under such circumstances. You are also assuming no pr…

The underlying assumption in this entire comment is that the EU will want the UK back.

Does the EU want the UK back?

Re: UK faces worst downturn of any advanced economy, OECD says

#40
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU citizens have rights to freedom of movement in other countries. This included the UK. While on paper you are correct about the African migrants in reality people were rightly concerned that the will to enforce this was weak. The issues in the English Channel still show this problem exists. And Europe continues to show little desire to actually take action in this problem and so we are seeing similar sentiments ari…

Would the Syrian refugee crisis have been as bad if Britain hadn't hopped in with the US to destabilize the area? You could easily lay that blame on George Bush more than anyone else

Right, and not only Britain. How many Syrian refugees did Russia admit?
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