A discussion at work on Brexit

[Suff]

I was talking to a colleague who mentioned the whole "farming could go bust" thing without EU subsidies. I wasn't really in full debate mode and had not seen the news on it. So imagine my surprise when I looked up the details and found it was around £350m. Quite a lot you might think.

Until you realise that we pay.. Net... around £7bn per year. Why do I say net? Because we pay a hell of a lot more but some of that extra pays for the £350m we get back.

Reality?

If we left the EU, we could pay those subsidies ourselves and still have around £7bn a year more to spend on our industry.... In fact we could double the subsidy due to "adversity of the brexit" and still be circa £6.5bn in hand to use on other things. By reacting to the impact of Brexit the UK government could bend quite a lot of the WTO rules on government subsidy. At least for a while.

I really, really, hate FUD and I'm really annoyed with the press for purveying it.

On the EU referendum the press are doing something which the climate debate coined a really great phrase for. They are guilty of...

"Drive by Disinformation".

[cromwell]

I've seen the same thing on other boards Suff. The latest figures I read was that we pay into the EU £12.9 billion and receive back £6 billion.

Yet people (aided by the lie machine otherwise known as the BBC) still think that the EU is giving US money!

This attitude is like me giving you £20, you giving me £10 back at which point I fall to my knees with joy and say "Oh thank you! Without your kindly gift of £10 I don't know what I would have done!"

Crazy, but people are led into believing it.

[Aggers]

I do find that your posts are most informative and interesting, Suff.

It's a great pity that they can't be made available to a much larger readership - honestly!

Have you ever thought of writing for a newspaper? (I'm serious).

[pederito1]

I have always been aware that we pay massively more to the EU than we get back in subsidies and grants. So if we go for Brexit, though I doubt if the vote is out it will ever happen, then theoretically there would be plenty of money to fund everything with lots of change though knowing the current gov they are more likely to fritter it away on projects like happy homes for illegal migrants.

[TheOstrich]

This attitude is like me giving you £20, you giving me £10 back at which point I fall to my knees with joy and say "Oh thank you! Without your kindly gift of £10 I don't know what I would have done!"

Crazy, but people are led into believing it.

And don't forget that, having given you £10 of your £20 back, I am going to insist that you put a little blue and yellow plaque up on the side of your house informing everyone what I have done for you ....
If you don't, I will require my £10 back.

[medsec222]

This attitude is like me giving you £20, you giving me £10 back at which point I fall to my knees with joy and say "Oh thank you! Without your kindly gift of £10 I don't know what I would have done!"

Crazy, but people are led into believing it.

And don't forget that, having given you £10 of your £20 back, I am going to insist that you put a little blue and yellow plaque up on the side of your house informing everyone what I have done for you ....
If you don't, I will require my £10 back.

And now that you are beholden to us, get back in line and do as you are told.

[Suff]

Have you ever thought of writing for a newspaper? (I'm serious).

I've thought about it Aggers, but, in the end, I don't want that kind of visibility in my life and Mrs S would kill me, or divorce me, not sure which would be more of an impact....

So, for me, the press is out even for ad hoc stuff. I have considered writing to the letters column of a few, but that is a game of chance and more often than not a waste of effort.

[Workingman]

So let us see what this says.

Oh! The UK got £676m in farm subsidies in 2013, just a bit more than £350m.

And what does the CBI think?

£100bn (5% of GDP) lost to the economy, 1 million jobs down the drain and a serious economic shock.

Brexiters "Drive by Disinformation", don't they ever!

The problem for both sides is that they can only "predict" what will happen either way - nobody can be "sure". For me they should do it on one set of figures and not their own "cherry picked" pseudo data.

[Suff]

350 or 650 makes no difference when the figures are added up. What % of the 50% of the 100% we pay them, comes back to us, is irrelevant. We can cover that without ANY cost to us.

As for the CBI? I'd love to see their figures. Because they lie like a cheap naffi watch over the EU every time they move their lips....

[Workingman]

350 or 650 makes no difference...

Of course it matters when it is presented as a fact to open up a Brexit argument.

Look, for every "fact" thrown up by Brexiters I can put up an equal and opposite one from the Remainers. It is not worth it, though, in order for me to keep my blood pressure in check. I find it much better to smile at the lies, half-truths, myths and legends and move on, but them sometimes.....

The reality, the real one, is that Brexiters cannot say, with any sort of certainty, what things will be like if the UK votes out. The negotiations for a clean break will take two years, at least, probably more. During that time the UK will still have to work to EU rules but without any say what they are - Limbo. And the UK will be fighting two fronts because the Scots will certainly be pushing for a new Independence referendum.

So, will the UK be joining the EEA or EFTA or the Commonwealth of Nations or the WTO: one, many or all? That is a possible set of 15 different negotiations to be going at and does not include the negotiations to join each trade block. Add on to those the negotiations with global companies, banks, manufacturers and there is no clear idea of what things will be like: not one.