4 ms·

Could part of the problem be that EU politicians view the British POV as not only arrogant but very greedy? Historically Britain has benefited greatly from the

Could part of the problem be that EU politicians view the British POV as not only arrogant but very greedy? Historically Britain has benefited greatly from the EU, pulling off deals granted to no other EU country. Now they try to make those exclusive deals for their post brexit but don't bring enough to the table. This short clip by School of Life [1] explains just how privileged Britain's position in the EU has been. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgu6pFz5oxA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgu6pFz5oxA

gadders 9y ago
Britain is a net contributor to the EU, so it puts in more than it gets out.
- afandian 9y ago
  Of what? Cash or all benefits (including intangible ones)?
  - dazc 9y ago
    OK, I'll bite. What would be an intangible benefit, for example?
    - icebraining 9y ago
      Participation in Erasmus, to take a random example. Hard to put an euro amount on it, but it's a benefit for the students and probably for the countries.
      - dazc 9y ago
        As someone who has lived in Alicante for a period of time I have seen Erasmus in all it's glory thank you. It's not something I am going to miss paying towards.
        cr1895 9y ago
        >As someone who has lived in Alicante for a period of time Among intangible benefits was your ability to live in Alicante for a period of time, without having to apply for a work/study visa or whatever other hoops someone non-EU would have had to jump through.
        dazc 9y ago
        Yes, I could argue that the hoops to jump through aren't that great, but I will concede that I was able to move on a whim, and did. If I had to apply for visas, etc I may not have bothered.
        cr1895 9y ago
        >I could argue that the hoops to jump through aren't that great Yes, it might have been doable. But you must also remember that such an ability is a privilege, not a right- if you lost your job, quit school, or whatever granted you your hypothetical residence permit ceased to be a thing, you'd have to leave and uproot your life. As a UK citizen EU member, you had a right to live and work anywhere in the EU. Post-Brexit, not so much.
        icebraining 9y ago
        I don't think the benefits to the UK come from its students spending time abroad, but the opposite. Erasmus allows good students from poorer countries to get used to living in richer foreign countries like the UK, increasing the chances they'll emigrate. Unlike during the 60s, when the migrants from Southern countries like mine were mostly the poor and uneducated, nowadays the opposite happens. Lots of qualified English-speaking people leave, looking for more than an unpaid internship and a meal ticket, while the others know there's no longer great demand for unskilled workers in France and Germany, and at least here they have their parents' home and their grandparents' pension to live off. So by removing itself, the UK makes it more likely that the "brain drain" will go to Germany, Finland, Sweden, etc.
    - afandian 9y ago
      An analogy: I pay a certain amount of council tax, of which £X is spent emptying my rubbish bins at the curbside and in the street. I could look at it as buying £X of services from Veolia. If I bought the same services myself, how much would I pay. Am I getting good value for money? Or I could look at the overall benefit of living in a society where there isn't rubbish lining the street wherever I walk. I feel like the people who say "we make a net contribution to the EU" look at the arrangement as a cash transaction without taking a holistic view of the resulting environment. Of course, I'm sure some economist could come along and put a price on living in a society without rubbish lining the street, but to most people that's not a monetarily quantifiable thing. So I'm sure someone could put a price on all of the below points, to varying extents. But I'm fairly certain when people talk about "net contribution" they are not doing this. So, that acknowledged, intangible benefits of being in the EU I feel, off the top of my head: - common standards and lack of trade barriers that let companies in the UK make things and sell them abroad, paying tax in the process - common standards and lack of trade barriers that let me buy something made anywhere in the EU - ease of international travel for leisure and cultural exchange, including immigration, aeroplane safety and standards - living in a country where I can eat cheaper summer fruit because migrant work can flow - (very specific) I'm friends with instrument makers who do business in the UK and the continent. The import/export tariff situation (as things are currently looking) means that they won't be able to do business - living in a country where researchers and academics can travel in the EU to do whatever they need to do - not having to think about travelling to meet with colleagues and vice versa - contributing to a bloc which enforces environmental standards that align with what I consider to be Good Things (although the CAP is arguable) - ditto animal welfare - ditto human rights - ERASMUS You can't eat money. My life would be incalculably less rich for having grown up in an insular country without many of the above. Maybe I'd be a few pounds better off. How much happiness could I buy with that? I'm not saying that the EU is perfect by any means. It could do with a bit of reform, which the UK could have helped with.
      - dazc 9y ago
        OK, I think you could paint the same kind of picture for both sides of the argument but, it helps to see where you are coming from.
- ZeroGravitas 9y ago
  "A CBI literature review suggests that the net benefit of EU membership to the UK could be in the region of 4-5% of GDP or £62bn-£78bn a year – roughly the economies of the North East and Northern Ireland taken together" http://www.cbi.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/our-global-future/factsheets/factsheet-2-benefits-of-eu-membership-outweigh-costs/ http://www.cbi.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/our-global-future...
- pimmen 9y ago
  There's more benefits than those received directly from the EU organization budget. The fact that capital movement is not regulated is one that benefits the banks far more than the UK spends, for example. That's why the banks are moving. Next party to be hurt hard is the import-export industry, followed by research institutions. Tariffs will hurt import-export alot and since about a quarter of UK researchers are non-British they might lose them to the continent or Ireland unless they do something.
- markvdb 9y ago
  Let's say the UK is a net financial contributor to the EU as a set of institutions. It does look like that indeed. That does NOT mean that the UK is putting in more than it is getting out. Even when only considering the financial impact of EU membership, I dare guess that all member states get out more than they contribute.
  - gadders 9y ago
    >>Even when only considering the financial impact of EU membership, I dare guess that all member states get out more than they contribute. How does that work? It generates money out of knowhere?
    - markvdb 9y ago
      Trade and tourism for example are not zero sum games, and part of the real economy. They generate a taxable financial surplus in all member states. That surplus wouldn't be there without EU membership.
yardie 9y ago
They got those exclusive deals because the EU was still in beta testing. Article 50 was never supposed to happen, only to be invoked if the experiment failed. The U.K. was still running on the beta build while the rest of the EU has moved on to production. Now that the pound is out expect the EU to have a unified monetary and budget policy. Brexit only strengthens the EU.
- lucian1900 9y ago
  The UK isn't the only EU country to not use euros. The many other exceptions are the issue.
  - yardie 9y ago
    Good point. And I knew this was going to be brought up. While there are other members with independent currency the largest members, except the UK, are all on the euro. With such a big no contributor exerting influence its hard to have a uniform monetary policy.
fredley 9y ago
The view from Britain is also that our position is arrogant and greedy. Hopefully when Teresa May's head finally rolls we'll be able to get someone who will take a less absolutist position.
icebraining 9y ago
I really doubt that top EU politicians view these matter in such terms. This is just business, and the UK simply doesn't have the leverage it once did.
Silhouette 9y ago
Unfortunately, cherry-picking as that video does rarely informs or advances the debate productively. For a lot of the issues it mentions, the situation as it was 10/20/30 years ago when the quoted comments were made is very different in 2017. Here are some specific examples: CFP and particularly CAP have become rather controversial. The UK hasn't done the majority of its international trade with the EU for a while. Both EU and non-EU trade have been growing, but the gap has also been widening. The European Parliament has been strengthened to a degree, particularly since the Lisbon Treaty. However, if you look at for example the secretive TTIP negotiations, transparency remains a concern for the EU administration as a whole. Likewise, the real power still mostly rests with the Commission, which in practice remains mostly unaccountable. EU regulations in growing fields like technology and creative industries are excessive and do cause real problems, particularly for smaller businesses. In short, the answer to your video's question "Dear UK, Why Are You Leaving the EU?" is probably "Because the situation changed and the case for remaining wasn't enough to convince our voters any more". (My standard disclaimer applies to this and all my comments in today's discussion: I'm just pointing out counter-arguments from the other side in the interests of interesting and informed debate. This should not be taken as a personal position on Brexit or the EU as a whole, nor as a claim that there aren't also valid points on the other side.)

gadders 9y ago

Britain is a net contributor to the EU, so it puts in more than it gets out.

afandian 9y ago
Of what? Cash or all benefits (including intangible ones)?
- dazc 9y ago
  OK, I'll bite. What would be an intangible benefit, for example?
  - icebraining 9y ago
    Participation in Erasmus, to take a random example. Hard to put an euro amount on it, but it's a benefit for the students and probably for the countries.
    - dazc 9y ago
      As someone who has lived in Alicante for a period of time I have seen Erasmus in all it's glory thank you. It's not something I am going to miss paying towards.
      - cr1895 9y ago
        >As someone who has lived in Alicante for a period of time Among intangible benefits was your ability to live in Alicante for a period of time, without having to apply for a work/study visa or whatever other hoops someone non-EU would have had to jump through.
        dazc 9y ago
        Yes, I could argue that the hoops to jump through aren't that great, but I will concede that I was able to move on a whim, and did. If I had to apply for visas, etc I may not have bothered.
        cr1895 9y ago
        >I could argue that the hoops to jump through aren't that great Yes, it might have been doable. But you must also remember that such an ability is a privilege, not a right- if you lost your job, quit school, or whatever granted you your hypothetical residence permit ceased to be a thing, you'd have to leave and uproot your life. As a UK citizen EU member, you had a right to live and work anywhere in the EU. Post-Brexit, not so much.
      - icebraining 9y ago
        I don't think the benefits to the UK come from its students spending time abroad, but the opposite. Erasmus allows good students from poorer countries to get used to living in richer foreign countries like the UK, increasing the chances they'll emigrate. Unlike during the 60s, when the migrants from Southern countries like mine were mostly the poor and uneducated, nowadays the opposite happens. Lots of qualified English-speaking people leave, looking for more than an unpaid internship and a meal ticket, while the others know there's no longer great demand for unskilled workers in France and Germany, and at least here they have their parents' home and their grandparents' pension to live off. So by removing itself, the UK makes it more likely that the "brain drain" will go to Germany, Finland, Sweden, etc.
  - afandian 9y ago
    An analogy: I pay a certain amount of council tax, of which £X is spent emptying my rubbish bins at the curbside and in the street. I could look at it as buying £X of services from Veolia. If I bought the same services myself, how much would I pay. Am I getting good value for money? Or I could look at the overall benefit of living in a society where there isn't rubbish lining the street wherever I walk. I feel like the people who say "we make a net contribution to the EU" look at the arrangement as a cash transaction without taking a holistic view of the resulting environment. Of course, I'm sure some economist could come along and put a price on living in a society without rubbish lining the street, but to most people that's not a monetarily quantifiable thing. So I'm sure someone could put a price on all of the below points, to varying extents. But I'm fairly certain when people talk about "net contribution" they are not doing this. So, that acknowledged, intangible benefits of being in the EU I feel, off the top of my head: - common standards and lack of trade barriers that let companies in the UK make things and sell them abroad, paying tax in the process - common standards and lack of trade barriers that let me buy something made anywhere in the EU - ease of international travel for leisure and cultural exchange, including immigration, aeroplane safety and standards - living in a country where I can eat cheaper summer fruit because migrant work can flow - (very specific) I'm friends with instrument makers who do business in the UK and the continent. The import/export tariff situation (as things are currently looking) means that they won't be able to do business - living in a country where researchers and academics can travel in the EU to do whatever they need to do - not having to think about travelling to meet with colleagues and vice versa - contributing to a bloc which enforces environmental standards that align with what I consider to be Good Things (although the CAP is arguable) - ditto animal welfare - ditto human rights - ERASMUS You can't eat money. My life would be incalculably less rich for having grown up in an insular country without many of the above. Maybe I'd be a few pounds better off. How much happiness could I buy with that? I'm not saying that the EU is perfect by any means. It could do with a bit of reform, which the UK could have helped with.
    - dazc 9y ago
      OK, I think you could paint the same kind of picture for both sides of the argument but, it helps to see where you are coming from.
ZeroGravitas 9y ago
"A CBI literature review suggests that the net benefit of EU membership to the UK could be in the region of 4-5% of GDP or £62bn-£78bn a year – roughly the economies of the North East and Northern Ireland taken together" http://www.cbi.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/our-global-future/factsheets/factsheet-2-benefits-of-eu-membership-outweigh-costs/ http://www.cbi.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/our-global-future...
pimmen 9y ago
There's more benefits than those received directly from the EU organization budget. The fact that capital movement is not regulated is one that benefits the banks far more than the UK spends, for example. That's why the banks are moving. Next party to be hurt hard is the import-export industry, followed by research institutions. Tariffs will hurt import-export alot and since about a quarter of UK researchers are non-British they might lose them to the continent or Ireland unless they do something.
markvdb 9y ago
Let's say the UK is a net financial contributor to the EU as a set of institutions. It does look like that indeed. That does NOT mean that the UK is putting in more than it is getting out. Even when only considering the financial impact of EU membership, I dare guess that all member states get out more than they contribute.
- gadders 9y ago
  >>Even when only considering the financial impact of EU membership, I dare guess that all member states get out more than they contribute. How does that work? It generates money out of knowhere?
  - markvdb 9y ago
    Trade and tourism for example are not zero sum games, and part of the real economy. They generate a taxable financial surplus in all member states. That surplus wouldn't be there without EU membership.

yardie 9y ago

They got those exclusive deals because the EU was still in beta testing. Article 50 was never supposed to happen, only to be invoked if the experiment failed. The U.K. was still running on the beta build while the rest of the EU has moved on to production. Now that the pound is out expect the EU to have a unified monetary and budget policy. Brexit only strengthens the EU.

lucian1900 9y ago
The UK isn't the only EU country to not use euros. The many other exceptions are the issue.
- yardie 9y ago
  Good point. And I knew this was going to be brought up. While there are other members with independent currency the largest members, except the UK, are all on the euro. With such a big no contributor exerting influence its hard to have a uniform monetary policy.

fredley 9y ago

The view from Britain is also that our position is arrogant and greedy. Hopefully when Teresa May's head finally rolls we'll be able to get someone who will take a less absolutist position.

icebraining 9y ago

I really doubt that top EU politicians view these matter in such terms. This is just business, and the UK simply doesn't have the leverage it once did.

Silhouette 9y ago

Unfortunately, cherry-picking as that video does rarely informs or advances the debate productively. For a lot of the issues it mentions, the situation as it was 10/20/30 years ago when the quoted comments were made is very different in 2017. Here are some specific examples: CFP and particularly CAP have become rather controversial. The UK hasn't done the majority of its international trade with the EU for a while. Both EU and non-EU trade have been growing, but the gap has also been widening. The European Parliament has been strengthened to a degree, particularly since the Lisbon Treaty. However, if you look at for example the secretive TTIP negotiations, transparency remains a concern for the EU administration as a whole. Likewise, the real power still mostly rests with the Commission, which in practice remains mostly unaccountable. EU regulations in growing fields like technology and creative industries are excessive and do cause real problems, particularly for smaller businesses. In short, the answer to your video's question "Dear UK, Why Are You Leaving the EU?" is probably "Because the situation changed and the case for remaining wasn't enough to convince our voters any more". (My standard disclaimer applies to this and all my comments in today's discussion: I'm just pointing out counter-arguments from the other side in the interests of interesting and informed debate. This should not be taken as a personal position on Brexit or the EU as a whole, nor as a claim that there aren't also valid points on the other side.)