4 ms·

Entertaining, but realistically the UK will just get a "bad deal". Life will go on, political parties are blamed, then we get to repeat it all again because the

Entertaining, but realistically the UK will just get a "bad deal". Life will go on, political parties are blamed, then we get to repeat it all again because the next party to be elected does it on a platform of "renegotiating".

kevingadd 8y ago
The article lays out a great many potential outcomes from a bad deal, though. Even if it's not as bad as 'no deal' there are a lot of issues enumerated that would (almost) all need to be mitigated to avoid significant negative impact on the populace and the economy - and tanking the economy and harming the populace is a good way to destabilize a government.
NeedMoreTea 8y ago
Realistically the UK is shaping up for no deal. Highly appealing to Rees Mogg and his tax haven based hedge fund, not so good for everyone else. No deal will mean life goes on with tariffs on many goods in either direction. As we have seen over the last two years the Foreign Office has seemingly lost everyone who has diplomatic ability. Funny, they used to be famously good at it. This is not promising for the chances of equitable trade agreements with anyone after Brexit. Life will go on but it appears it'll be a damn sight more expensive. If the next govt wants to renegotiate re-entry to the EU the terms will be much less appealing than first time around.
- pjc50 8y ago
  It's not so much the tariffs as the customs clearance per se. Everyone seems to have forgotten that transporting goods across a border has VAT implications, and if you don't check and aren't part of the same VAT area there's a huge opportunity for "carousel fraud". And the UK is absolutely not set up to cope with customs checks on every vehicle crossing the Channel. See "operation stack". Oh, and all our international air travel agreements are part of EU membership. Unless something is agreed planes will be grounded.
  - trocadero 8y ago
    >It's not so much the tariffs as the customs clearance per se. Everyone seems to have forgotten that transporting goods across a border has VAT implications, and if you don't check and aren't part of the same VAT area there's a huge opportunity for "carousel fraud". That would give the EU reason to block imports from the UK. It doesn't give much of a reason for the UK to block imports from the EU. So there's no reason to expect that the UK will starve or Amazon will shut down. The only way for that to happen is for the UK to shoot themselves in the foot (again). Exports, of course, are a whole different story and that's where the risk lies. General economic damage from increased friction in exporting to the EU.
    - pjc50 8y ago
      Even if the UK decides to accept fraud and have a customs-free border, shipping is bi-directional; once the tailbacks start, lorries start parking up on the M20. Drivers are going to be reluctant to cross the channel if they can't get back again in a timely fashion. (Are EU truck licenses valid in the UK after Brexit? And vice versa? Who knows?)
      - trocadero 8y ago
        The issues you mentioned are relatively minor. Drivers will still cross if they are paid enough. The UK can easily recognize EU truck licenses on their own. Undoubtably Brexit will cause some disruption to UK/EU trade, but it's pretty far fetched that it will completely break down.
    - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
      They have to get through customs and multi-mile stacks on the M20 even when empty returning from a delivery. If half a EU company's drivers are stuck in the UK for a day or week longer than intended the chaos will quickly spread far beyond just affecting UK exports only. Given modern approaches to warehousing and logistics (see how quickly KFC completely fell apart when changing chicken supplier recently) there will be shortages and probably issues with fresh produce. If there are some shortages, any shortages, panic buying and last minute stockpiling will commence. Then there will soon be real shortages.
ComradeTaco 8y ago
There is a non-zero chance that May is replaced by a hard brexiter and they insist, by will of the referendum, that a hard brexit must occur. You can see UKIP bubbling back up in frustration. When you consider what a soft brexit is, it's genuinely nothing of what leave wanted. The UK still doesn't have a solid border between itself and the EU because of the Good Friday Agreement, the UK still had to pay the EU and follow it's regulations and for all that it gets zero say in the EU legislature. So there is a real chance of a hard brexit and it's going to be very messy.
- arethuza 8y ago
  And the most likely candidate is Jacob Rees-Mogg "Honourable Member for the 19th Century": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Rees-Mogg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Rees-Mogg <sob>
  - gnode 8y ago
    18th Century according to the article linked -- which I'd say is more accurate.
    - arethuza 8y ago
      Probably made that mistake because I went to a state school!
maeln 8y ago
Even if the UK just get a bad deal, it might have some real hard consequences. UK will adapt, whatever happen, but adaptation takes time. In this time of adaptation, the short term consequences of the "bad deal" might still yield some really bad results. I mainly think of layoff in company that highly rely on the trade agreement with the EU to sustain their business. An augmentation of unemployment combined with a possible devaluation of the money and an increasing inflation due to new importation taxes on basic needs items (food medicine, ...) could have some disastrous consequences on the lower and middle classes. It could convince Scottland, which already struggle with poverty and voted against the Brexit (62%), to separate from the UK and try to join the EU (the last referendum was "only" 55% against leaving the UK). This might create even more trouble. It is likely that a bad deal might yield enough difficult short term consequences to spiral out of control. A strong political leadership will be needed to handle them before they do. And currently, it is not unrealistic to say that no parties are ready to handle them.
scotchmi_st 8y ago
That assumes someone, at some point, takes a path other than the one of least resistance and faces down the Rees-Moggs. Given the concessions to the whitepaper produced last month, and the track-record of the government since 2015 or before, that doesn't seem at all likely. If that doesn't happen then we'll be leaving the EU automatically next March. Life will of course go on. The sun will still shine. But the idea that things will stay more or less the same in that case are mistaken.
BerislavLopac 8y ago
Any kind of deal is practically impossible. Anything that might be acceptable to the current government is not acceptable to the EU, and vice versa. So the only remaining options are: a) Nothing changes, and in March 2019 the UK crashes out of the EU with no deal ("hard brexit"). b) Article 50 somehow gets revoked, and the UK remains in the EU, with a lot of distrust in the years to come. Personally, I'm hoping for the latter but expecting the former.

kevingadd 8y ago

The article lays out a great many potential outcomes from a bad deal, though. Even if it's not as bad as 'no deal' there are a lot of issues enumerated that would (almost) all need to be mitigated to avoid significant negative impact on the populace and the economy - and tanking the economy and harming the populace is a good way to destabilize a government.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago

Realistically the UK is shaping up for no deal. Highly appealing to Rees Mogg and his tax haven based hedge fund, not so good for everyone else. No deal will mean life goes on with tariffs on many goods in either direction. As we have seen over the last two years the Foreign Office has seemingly lost everyone who has diplomatic ability. Funny, they used to be famously good at it. This is not promising for the chances of equitable trade agreements with anyone after Brexit. Life will go on but it appears it'll be a damn sight more expensive. If the next govt wants to renegotiate re-entry to the EU the terms will be much less appealing than first time around.

pjc50 8y ago
It's not so much the tariffs as the customs clearance per se. Everyone seems to have forgotten that transporting goods across a border has VAT implications, and if you don't check and aren't part of the same VAT area there's a huge opportunity for "carousel fraud". And the UK is absolutely not set up to cope with customs checks on every vehicle crossing the Channel. See "operation stack". Oh, and all our international air travel agreements are part of EU membership. Unless something is agreed planes will be grounded.
- trocadero 8y ago
  >It's not so much the tariffs as the customs clearance per se. Everyone seems to have forgotten that transporting goods across a border has VAT implications, and if you don't check and aren't part of the same VAT area there's a huge opportunity for "carousel fraud". That would give the EU reason to block imports from the UK. It doesn't give much of a reason for the UK to block imports from the EU. So there's no reason to expect that the UK will starve or Amazon will shut down. The only way for that to happen is for the UK to shoot themselves in the foot (again). Exports, of course, are a whole different story and that's where the risk lies. General economic damage from increased friction in exporting to the EU.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    Even if the UK decides to accept fraud and have a customs-free border, shipping is bi-directional; once the tailbacks start, lorries start parking up on the M20. Drivers are going to be reluctant to cross the channel if they can't get back again in a timely fashion. (Are EU truck licenses valid in the UK after Brexit? And vice versa? Who knows?)
    - trocadero 8y ago
      The issues you mentioned are relatively minor. Drivers will still cross if they are paid enough. The UK can easily recognize EU truck licenses on their own. Undoubtably Brexit will cause some disruption to UK/EU trade, but it's pretty far fetched that it will completely break down.
  - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
    They have to get through customs and multi-mile stacks on the M20 even when empty returning from a delivery. If half a EU company's drivers are stuck in the UK for a day or week longer than intended the chaos will quickly spread far beyond just affecting UK exports only. Given modern approaches to warehousing and logistics (see how quickly KFC completely fell apart when changing chicken supplier recently) there will be shortages and probably issues with fresh produce. If there are some shortages, any shortages, panic buying and last minute stockpiling will commence. Then there will soon be real shortages.

ComradeTaco 8y ago

There is a non-zero chance that May is replaced by a hard brexiter and they insist, by will of the referendum, that a hard brexit must occur. You can see UKIP bubbling back up in frustration. When you consider what a soft brexit is, it's genuinely nothing of what leave wanted. The UK still doesn't have a solid border between itself and the EU because of the Good Friday Agreement, the UK still had to pay the EU and follow it's regulations and for all that it gets zero say in the EU legislature. So there is a real chance of a hard brexit and it's going to be very messy.

arethuza 8y ago
And the most likely candidate is Jacob Rees-Mogg "Honourable Member for the 19th Century": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Rees-Mogg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Rees-Mogg <sob>
- gnode 8y ago
  18th Century according to the article linked -- which I'd say is more accurate.
  - arethuza 8y ago
    Probably made that mistake because I went to a state school!

maeln 8y ago

Even if the UK just get a bad deal, it might have some real hard consequences. UK will adapt, whatever happen, but adaptation takes time. In this time of adaptation, the short term consequences of the "bad deal" might still yield some really bad results. I mainly think of layoff in company that highly rely on the trade agreement with the EU to sustain their business. An augmentation of unemployment combined with a possible devaluation of the money and an increasing inflation due to new importation taxes on basic needs items (food medicine, ...) could have some disastrous consequences on the lower and middle classes. It could convince Scottland, which already struggle with poverty and voted against the Brexit (62%), to separate from the UK and try to join the EU (the last referendum was "only" 55% against leaving the UK). This might create even more trouble. It is likely that a bad deal might yield enough difficult short term consequences to spiral out of control. A strong political leadership will be needed to handle them before they do. And currently, it is not unrealistic to say that no parties are ready to handle them.

scotchmi_st 8y ago

That assumes someone, at some point, takes a path other than the one of least resistance and faces down the Rees-Moggs. Given the concessions to the whitepaper produced last month, and the track-record of the government since 2015 or before, that doesn't seem at all likely. If that doesn't happen then we'll be leaving the EU automatically next March. Life will of course go on. The sun will still shine. But the idea that things will stay more or less the same in that case are mistaken.

BerislavLopac 8y ago

Any kind of deal is practically impossible. Anything that might be acceptable to the current government is not acceptable to the EU, and vice versa. So the only remaining options are: a) Nothing changes, and in March 2019 the UK crashes out of the EU with no deal ("hard brexit"). b) Article 50 somehow gets revoked, and the UK remains in the EU, with a lot of distrust in the years to come. Personally, I'm hoping for the latter but expecting the former.