8 ms·

"It's your job, the job of business, to gear yourselves up to take the opportunities which a single market of nearly 320 million people will offer. Just think

• jamesdempsy 10y ago
  Except she was Lied to. We all were. Also, it's not as clear cut as 320 million people. They all have different languages. All have different customs. All have different laws. All have different banking structures. The EU is not like the US. Please don't think it is. Have you tried exporting something to the EU? It's not easy. Oh and developing a website for the EU and communicating to it's citizens. Again not easy. I launched a business in the US. I have 1 language, 1 bank, 1 custom to deal with. Oh and as it happens, I speak that language also. Very easy to deal with. The EU was a nightmare!
• aaron-lebo 10y ago
  Was it for real or isn't that just a politician trying to sell something (which it sounds remarkably like)? One of the reasons Brexit is happening (at least it's argued) is due to bureaucracy. Should we agree with the quote or find it wrong in hindsight?
  • mfukar 10y ago
    Just to be clear, are you doubting the existence of a single market for EU members? Because if you are, reality is very persuasive.
    • aaron-lebo 10y ago
      You can agree with the existence of a single market but find most of that quote flowery political rhetoric.
    • blibble 10y ago
      there is certainly a single market for goods, services is far from complete it makes the statement "four freedoms are indivisible" somewhat hollow, because there has never been full freedom of services
      • mathw 10y ago
        Not yet, anyway. There's still a lot of talk about it. I'm particularly interested in the ongoing talk about a single market for digital goods.
      • taway_1212 10y ago
        Can confirm on that the single market for services is far from reality. Today, if I'm a consultant and have a consultancy company registered in EU country X, if I come to EU country Y to provide my services there, it's pretty likely that I will have to set up a separate company in Y or Y's tax people will be after me (that's currently the situation in UK for example).
        • dx034 10y ago
          I cannot confirm that. I found the tax agreements within the EU to be relatively easy in the EU & UK. Of course you deal with two authorities, so there is an additional benefit, but recognizing taxes paid in the UK with another country was not that hard.
          • taway_1212 10y ago
            Yes, there is no double taxation - but you essentially need to involve yourself with the tax authority of every country you are doing business in. In a real single integrated market, I'd have company registered in country X, serve customers across entire Europe, but file taxes on the entire income in X only. I'm thinking they don't allow that because it would open doors to all kinds of tax optimization for the little people - ex. say UK workers would register themselves as companies in countries with very low taxes, and continue to work ("provide services") in UK. This kinds of schemes are allowed for the megacorps, but not for us regular folk.
  • KaiserPro 10y ago
    no, its immigration, and the lack of jobs for "locals" much has been made of "bureaucracy" but in fact, most of that is hidden from the UK. The basic fact is that large parts of the UK have been left to rot, suffering terribly from the lack of decent jobs to replace the decline of manufacturing. This has been blamed on immigration, correctly or not. That is why large swathes of the country voted to leave. Now we won't have that excuse any more.
    • julian55 10y ago
      But brexit isn't going to make life any better for those areas. Most likely it will be worse as the country as a whole will be probably poorer and less able to support deprived areas. But I expect they will still put the blame for this on someone else rather than the total failure of successive UK governments to spread wealth around the country.
  • JohnStrange 10y ago
    No way. Brexit was primarily caused by xenophobia in combination with lack of education about how the EU works. Most people don't even know how many unanimous votes of all member states were necessary to get to the contemporary EU in the first place. Had there been a simple test of 10 questions about how the EU works, drawn from 100 previously published questions, that needed to be answered in order to qualify as a voter, then the Brexit would never have happened. Likewise, if there hadn't coincidentally been a bloody civil war in Syria with many refugees looking for a new future at the time of the Brexit, then the Brexit would also never had happened. Coincidence and lack of knowledge have determined the fate of the UK and Europe as a whole for the next fifty to hundred years or so. But you could say the same about many other historic decisions and events.
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    • dx034 10y ago
      In the end it was all about immigration. Without immigration, people wouldn't have voted against the EU. Other reasons (judges in Luxembourg, EU regulation) are used as placeholders so that others won't think you're xenophobic. But most discussions with Brexit voters sooner or later end up being about immigration (esp. from Eastern Europe).
    • vixen99 10y ago
      Actually you don't know at all how Brexit was 'primarily caused' if indeed there was a primary cause. Plenty of cosmopolitan EU-savvy intellectuals supported 'Leave' with excellent arguments. An opinion is one thing; the pretense of having a penetrating analysis to the extent of proving it with a virtual quiz plus results (wow - it agrees with your prediction!) is another.
      • JohnStrange 10y ago
        Okay, your opinion. I still know that it was primarily caused by these two factors, and even know that I know it. I also have not heard a single excellent argument for Brexit so far - not a single one, and as a well-informed and educated person I've heard many if not all of them. "Plenty of" is too vague to be of any value as a statement, but I also wouldn't agree that there were "plenty of" EU-savvy intellectuals who supported 'Leave', unless you're willing to count people like Boris Johnson to this group. You and the rest of the 'Leave' is being dishonest or simply deluded / misinformed. Please don't bother discussing this topic with me (or Trump supporters or climate change denial, for what it's worth). I'm sick of it and the UK. What I would like to ask you and your kind is to urge your politicians to exit the EU swiftly and then shut up and never blame the EU for anything that happens to the UK again. Bye!
  • thirdsun 10y ago
    Oh, I think it was very real - one of the great things about the EU is the fact that it doesn't matter whether I buy from or sell to france, austria, germany, portugal or hungary. No customs fees, delays or complicated export documents and a common return policy. As someone who knows both sides, this ease of access is great for sellers and buyers alike. Frankly, I'd love to do the same with goods to and from the US, but since it comes with a lot of barriers, I simply don't buy from there. And at work we don't sell our physical goods to non-EU countries. So, yes, it's makes a difference.
  • lucozade 10y ago
    > Should we agree with the quote or find it wrong in hindsight? What Thatcher was talking about was literally a single market i.e. where one could buy and sell goods without tariff and other protectionist restrictions. What we have now with the EU is most definitely not that. We have free movement of people, a much expanded EU with qualified majority voting, significant social (as against economic) legislation, and the Euro. None of these were really evident in '88 and Thatcher was dead against all of them. Fundamentally, she was a supporter of a wide ranging trade agreement and not very much else. If you read May's bullets, she has non-tariff market access as one of priorities. She is effectively using the term Single Market to a much wider scope than Thatcher but still attempting to keep the basis of what was originally envisioned, at least in the UK, on the table. Can't imagine the EU agreeing to this as it's moved well passed that stage but you never know.
    • corney91 10y ago
      >We have free movement of people, A single market includes the free movement of labour, as well as goods and services. Hence, restricting immigration is equivalent to leaving the single market. If we're to have tarriff-free trade with the EU but barriers on migration, that's surely a "protectionist restriction" on British jobs.
      • youngtaff 10y ago
        EU has free movement of labour and goods but does it have free movement of services I didn't think it did (that's a genuine rather than rhetorical question)
        • corney91 10y ago
          Pretty sure it does, it's one of the "four freedoms": http://ec.europa.eu/growth/single-market/ http://ec.europa.eu/growth/single-market/ I got the link from the Wikipedia article, more info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Single_Market https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Single_Market
• coldtea 10y ago
  >It's not some bureaucrat's plan. It's for real. Actually it was a bureaucratic plan all along, and badly managed. And you still can have great access to the same 320 million market even outside of it (like e.g. China or Japan have) -- with the extra benefit that you don't have a German-controlled ECB to impose you rules and monetary policy.
  • iaskwhy 10y ago
    Any examples of monetary policies imposed by the ECB on the BoE? Given the different currency, I'm curious about it.
    • notahacker 10y ago
      I understand there are a few arcane rules concerning the BoE not being allowed to purchase govt bonds directly from the govt. But that's not what most people would understand by control of monetary policy. Similarly with fiscal policy, whilst the UK is supposed to "endeavour" to follow the Stability and Growth Pact rules on keeping deficits down, it can and does cheerfully ignore those rules without risk of penalty.
  • gotchange 10y ago
    > you don't have a German-controlled ECB to impose you rules and monetary policy. The UK had its own currency and central bank from the get go. What are you're referring to exactly here?
    • raverbashing 10y ago
      It's funny how Brexiter arguments usually come from the same collection of "misunderstandings" and lies
  • tmalsburg2 10y ago
    That's very optimistic thinking. First, Japan and China are both more heavyweight economically than the UK, and second, the EU will want to set a precedent: If you leave, it's gonna be painful. They really don't have another choice.
• harryf 10y ago
  "I want my money back!" Margret Thatcher at the European Union summit in Dublin in 1980 "That such an unnecessary and irrational project as building a European superstate was ever embarked upon will seem in future years to be perhaps the greatest folly of the modern era. And that Britain, with her traditional strengths and global destiny, should ever have been part of it will appear a political error of historic magnitude." Margret Thatcher from her book Statecraft published in 2003 ... just pointing out that Margaret Thatchers views on Europe were nuanced at best. Probably best explained by this segment from Yes Minister https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37iHSwA1SwE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37iHSwA1SwE
  • emptyfile 10y ago
    Right, which is why the UK, very successfully, blocked every attempt at EU integration and secured opt outs out of Euro and Schengen for itself. As a European, I believe I'm not alone in thinking it's great that the biggest obstacle to EU integration is leaving the EU, we're just all very puzzled as to why considering the UK had the best deal possible in the EU.
    • digi_owl 10y ago
      Thing is, and it took me all too long to learn this, Schengen is not what enables foreign workers to enter another EU member nation. It just makes it easier. The Brexit yes came overwhelmingly form the old industrial areas of UK. From the towns and such that has seen their quality of life stagnate or deteriorate while the jobs gets done by foreigners that come by the busload. Damn it, i don't live in UK but i have seen the phenomena myself. A local wharf some years back had a boom year, and the the peak there were perhaps twice as many foreigners working there as locals.
      • emptyfile 10y ago
        All EU's fault obviously. Minimum wage, union nagotiated wages, restricting benefits for non working immigrants, IDs to combat illegal immigration, unused emergency brakes for immigration, none of that matters it's the damn EU's fault and most definitely not the UK government. I promised myself I will only post one comment and not get dragged into any discussions so I this is my last one.
• gotchange 10y ago
  Wow, this is coming from the woman herself, the icon of modern conservatism in the 20th century. Capitalism proves to be not self-sustainable and now it's self-cannibalizing which is a good thing as we move gradually to the next stage in history according to Karl Marx to socialism and away from capitalism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx's_theory_of_history#Stages_of_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx's_theory_of_history#Stage...
  • vixen99 10y ago
    Read him by all means; he had one or two interesting ideas. Sadly though, you will find that Marx did not even understand how wealth was created which is a bit of problem when you're creating grand economic plans for the rest of us. I'd remind you that the last 20 years has seen the greatest reduction in world poverty ever in the history of mankind. That was achieved by people trading with each other not by socialism.
• BjoernKW 10y ago
  Nice words and I agree with the message. The implementation however is often still deeply flawed. Quite often it's nothing but some aloof bureaucrat's plan (or shall I say pipe dream?). A prime example of this is VAT regulations in the EU, which supposedly have been harmonised and simplified some time ago yet with every iteration, with every 'simplification' they just got worse, less harmonious and more unwieldy to handle for companies buying or selling goods or services in other EU countries.
  • charlesdm 10y ago
    The problem is, you can't harmonise VAT without harmonising the tax bases. And if you don't harmonise the tax bases, companies will try to set up mechanisms to avoid tax.
    • BjoernKW 10y ago
      The problem is not about the different VAT rates in different countries. The problem is the process for claiming VAT paid in another EU country. That process is so ridiculously complex that up to a certain amount even accountants have largely given up on it because it's not worth the bother.
      • blibble 10y ago
        indeed, I simply stopped selling services to the rest of the EU as it was not worth the effort in dealing with the new EU VAT regime, even though my small operation is below the threshold for VAT registration in my home country
        • rwmj 10y ago
          So is the solution: (a) Fix the VAT registration rules to make them simpler. (b) Leave the European Union.
          • blibble 10y ago