parts an prices from china

[flecc]

Somehow the UK had huge industrial capacity before joining the EU but now only has a small fraction of that and according to you that is suddenly because the UK lost productivity purely by coincidence of joining the EU.

I've explained to you at length the realities of Britain's severe decline before we joined the EU, but your extreme anti EU bigotry and total ignorance of the earlier facts means your blind refusal to see those realities.

For example that icon of British manufacturing, Rolls Royce, who went bankrupt in 1970, two years before we joined the EU.

I still remember the early 1950s arguments I had with my first boss about our vehicle industries failings, and his admission in the mid 1960s that I had been right.

Our industrial failures began from 1930 on and accelerated from 1950 on when our commercial failures joined them. And those failures continue as the EU countries economies comfortably overtake us.

But I'm not going to waste any more time with someone who distorts and ignores the facts and throws totally unjustified insults about so freely.
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[MikelBikel]

"German BASF boss goes to China with Chancellor.." "Opens its €10bn chemicals site in Zhanjiang, company's third-largest site worldwide."
"Downsizing permanently in Europe." "Cuts 2,600 Jobs After a Year of High Energy Costs".

"Companies from four European countries — Germany, the Netherlands, the U.K. and France — now comprise 87% of the total foreign direct investment (FDI) value over the past four years.." (e.g. also Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes-Benz Group)

Sounds like they're pulling out of the EU for China and latterly Vietnam, Thailand, India, etc?

 

[flecc]

"German BASF boss goes to China with Chancellor.." "Opens its €10bn chemicals site in Zhanjiang, company's third-largest site worldwide."
"Downsizing permanently in Europe." "Cuts 2,600 Jobs After a Year of High Energy Costs".

"Companies from four European countries — Germany, the Netherlands, the U.K. and France — now comprise 87% of the total foreign direct investment (FDI) value over the past four years.." (e.g. also Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes-Benz Group)

Sounds like they're pulling out of the EU for China and latterly Vietnam, Thailand, India, etc?

Pulling out is what we've done, our old British companies abandoning manufacturing and leaving it entirely to Chinese companies.

What they are doing is shifting their EU production to where it makes the EU more competitive profit wise. So long as they retain full employment at home that makes sense.
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[Woosh]

Surely Brexit is about setting your own rules independently to fix the economy and might mean higher taxation in places to create funds for investment elsewhere.

unfortunately, that's not what is proposed. Brexit is more like what Johnson and Truss say it is: send the money that the EU received from us to our NHS, no bonus cap for city's bankers, no 45% rate for high earners, no 30% corporation tax for companies, remove any rules that stop cheaper food to be imported. Let the Pound float freely and no tax hike. Singapore on Thames they said, forgetting conveniently to add that Singapore does not have a minimum wage policy.

If you are making the point about devaluing sterling that is something necessary to compete in the EU because previously we couldn't compete there hence the destruction of industry and huge debts. Outside the EU sterling could be higher if we don't have a free trade agreement with the EU.

I didn't say that devaluating the Pound is something necessary to compete. The pound was falling after 2008 after a long period of stability. The main thing about the EU membership is stability inside the bloc and competitivity outside. This is achieve by mobility of the workforce inside the SM and advantageous trading deals with the rest of the world by concentrating in high tech, high value products: universities, cars, planes, foods. When we left, we lost that stability and competitivity.

 

[vidtek]

unfortunately, that's not what is proposed. Brexit is more like what Johnson and Truss say it is: send the money that the EU received from us to our NHS, no bonus cap for city's bankers, no 45% rate for high earners, no 30% corporation tax for companies, remove any rules that stop cheaper food to be imported. Let the Pound float freely and no tax hike. Singapore on Thames they said, forgetting conveniently to add that Singapore does not have a minimum wage policy.


I didn't say that devaluating the Pound is something necessary to compete. The pound was falling after 2008 after a long period of stability. The main thing about the EU membership is stability inside the bloc and competitivity outside. This is achieve by mobility of the workforce inside the SM and advantageous trading deals with the rest of the world by concentrating in high tech, high value products: universities, cars, planes, foods. When we left, we lost that stability and competitivity.

Some say the EU block brings stability. Undoubtedly it does. It has been carefully designed to favour the Franco-German bloc in the way it treats tariffs and subsidisation of French farmers and German manufacturing. It positively discriminates against the UK's mainly service based economy.

Others say the EU brings stagnation, high tariffs against the goods the UK mainly imports. I believe there are many good things about being in the EU, but on balance the cost to the UK both in terms of economic costs and more ephemeral things as oversight by the ECJ and the gradual tightening of the EU's grip on ever more aspects of life in general.
On balance, I believe we have done the right thing in leaving before any more of our industries and way of life are stripped gradually from us.

 

[flecc]

On balance, I believe we have done the right thing in leaving before any more of our industries and way of life are stripped gradually from us.

Oh I think we've proved ourselves more than capable of stripping ourselves of industries and even commerce as well. We did a fine job of both before we ever joined the Common Market, then accelerated that thanks to Margaret Thatcher's insane policies rather than any EU influences.

And since leaving the EU we've resumed our efforts to depress both manufacturing and commerce, precisely due to leaving.

And as for our way of life, you really must be joking. Only just over 40% of Londoners are white British born, reducing all the time, making us yet another of the numerous minorities of our population. All 300 of the world's main languages are spoken in London and in just my outer borough alone teaching in our schools is being carried out in 68 languages.

Continuing immigration is inexorably changing the whole country in the same direction, though no doubt there will long be pockets of Ye Old England in places like the Isle of Wight, just as there are still some red squirrels on Brownsea Island !

However don't misunderstand this post, I'm all for internationalism and free movement as witness my continuing support for the EU project. And I'm proud of London's multi-racial integration and lack of discrimination, an example to the world.

But I see little of the English way of life that I originally grew up with between the 1930s and start of the 1960s. From then on our way of life became increasing American as we lost the use of our cycling legs and took to cars instead, wearing T shirts and jeans US style. We needed the cars to shop in American style supermarkets instead of our corner shops. We took to eating American style fast foods like McDonalds and Kentucky Fried as we cooked the likes of roast beef less and less for ourselves.

And now of course our diet is entirely international, Curries, Pasta, Pizzas, various Oriental, Swedish meatballs and US fast foods.

I don't think we have a British way of life any more, just a sort of international Pick a Mix.
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[vidtek]

Oh I think we've proved ourselves more than capable of stripping ourselves of industries and even commerce as well. We did a fine job of both before we ever joined the Common Market, then accelerated that thanks to Margaret Thatcher's insane policies rather than any EU influences.

And since leaving the EU we've resumed our efforts to depress both manufacturing and commerce, precisely due to leaving.

And as for our way of life, you really must be joking. Only just over 40% of Londoners are white British born, reducing all the time, making us yet another of the numerous minorities of our population. All 300 of the world's main languages are spoken in London and in just my outer borough alone teaching in our schools is being carried out in 68 languages.

Continuing immigration is inexorably changing the whole country in the same direction, though no doubt there will long be pockets of Ye Old England in places like the Isle of Wight, just as there are still some red squirrels on Brownsea Island !

However don't misunderstand this post, I'm all for internationalism and free movement as witness my continuing support for the EU project. And I'm proud of London's multi-racial integration and lack of discrimination, an example to the world.

But I see little of the English way of life that I originally grew up with between the 1930s and start of the 1960s. From then on our way of life became increasing American as we lost the use of our cycling legs and took to cars instead, wearing T shirts and jeans US style. We needed the cars to shop in American style supermarkets instead of our corner shops. We took to eating American style fast foods like McDonalds and Kentucky Fried as we cooked the likes of roast beef less and less for ourselves.

And now of course our diet is entirely international, Curries, Pasta, Pizzas, various Oriental, Swedish meatballs and US fast foods.

I don't think we have a British way of life any more, just a sort of international Pick a Mix.
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What happens in London today will eventually spread to the rest of the country I suppose. Living here in Bournemouth/Poole/Christchurch has not changed that much since I was a lad. The main influence sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse is the upgrading of Bournemouth College of Technology (where I did my City & Guilds in tv's) into a massive sprawling university campus, it's attendant traffic, high rents and housing costs for locals and incomers alike. It has changed from an elegant Victorian seaside resort into a modern semi-metropolis but it is still a great place to live. Seaside, the New Forest and Jurassic Park on the doorstep, a ferry to LeHavre only minutes away I really wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the UK, except perhaps Devon/Cornwall.

I avoid trips to London, I have always thought it's a dreadful (but exiting) place. My next favourite place is Bordeaux, now I could see myself living there, but the lovely Jane is not too keen on the French and she doesn't speak it (mine isn't that good but I get by). I see the other side of the French, I have dealt with them for many years when I was in my trailer factory, and every time I went over from Aussie they could not have been more hospitable to me. I have noticed a massive deterioration in Paris over the years, I couldn't believe the state of the Gare Du Nor; when I first saw the station surrounds were clean and elegant, now it's just a filthy dump.

What I'm trying to say in my peculiar fashion, is we have to accept the changes and embrace them where we cannot change them and attempt to help fix the things we can.

 

[flecc]

I really wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the UK, except perhaps Devon/Cornwall.

Indeed what so many would like, but it's only possible for a tiny minority to satisfy their innate conservatism. The rest of us just have to live with inevitable continuing change.

I avoid trips to London, I have always thought it's a dreadful (but exiting) place.

However, I live in London. Just 80 yards east from a lovely 200 acre nature reserve, and I'm on the committee of the group who assist in looking after it. Then just 250 yards south is the Surrey border with country all the way to the south coast. I'm looking at its tree line as I type. The 125 mile London Loop path passes where I live, as does the Vanguard Way, the footpath all the way to the south coast. So as you see there are many different Londons and many are also a great place to live.

Three views from my London flat:

 

[vidtek]

Indeed what so many would like, but it's only possible for a tiny minority to satisfy their innate conservatism. The rest of us just have to live with inevitable continuing change.



However, I live in London. Just 80 yards east from a lovely 200 acre nature reserve, and I'm on the committee of the group who assist in looking after it. Then just 250 yards south is the Surrey border with country all the way to the south coast. I'm looking at its tree line as I type. The 125 mile London Loop path passes where I live, as does the Vanguard Way, the footpath all the way to the south coast. So as you see there are many different Londons and many are also a great place to live.

Three views from my London flat:
View attachment 50435

View attachment 50436

View attachment 50437

That's really gorgeous. Our country has some fabulous places, you are fortunate.

 

[flecc]

That's really gorgeous. Our country has some fabulous places, you are fortunate.

Indeed I am, and why I've lived in this home since late 1967.

I've always had mixed feelings about my 8 years in Bournemouth from mid 1946 to late 1954. Coming from Greater London I didn't like the people there at the time, stuffy, old fashioned, often unfriendly and even offensive at times. Indeed the only friend I made there had recently come from Wales and found them much the same.

But I like the countryside around Throop and Christchurch that I cycled to from ten years old on and the New Forest that I later reached by motorcycle in my teens and visited in my car when stationed in the Army at Barton Stacey in my late teens and twenties.
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[Woosh]

Others say the EU brings stagnation, high tariffs against the goods the UK mainly imports.

Should we look at this in another way? Tariffs are good for public purse and local industries.
Look at producers with incredibly cheap energy (Russian aluminium, fertilisers) or vastly state-subsidised (Chinese steel, cars, plastic and PV panels). High tariffs are like split VAT rates, they help the small guys against those who have more spending or producing powers.

I believe there are many good things about being in the EU, but on balance the cost to the UK both in terms of economic costs and more ephemeral things as oversight by the ECJ and the gradual tightening of the EU's grip on ever more aspects of life in general.
On balance, I believe we have done the right thing in leaving before any more of our industries and way of life are stripped gradually from us.

I partly agree with your observations but you can also see that our law makers have become lazier over the years and ceded more and more to the EU instead of doing their work on 'aspects of life'. Nobody stopped us to exercise our veto powers then before we signed up to more integration or our subsidiarity clause since. I find sorry for brexiters that we could have and should have opted for TM's deal, a gradual detachment instead of Johnson's oven ready hard brexit deal.

 

[vidtek]

Should we look at this in another way? Tariffs are good for public purse and local industries.
Look at producers with incredibly cheap energy (Russian aluminium, fertilisers) or vastly state-subsidised (Chinese steel, cars, plastic and PV panels). High tariffs are like split VAT rates, they help the small guys against those who have more spending or producing powers.

I partly agree with your observations but you can also see that our law makers have become lazier over the years and ceded more and more to the EU instead of doing their work on 'aspects of life'. Nobody stopped us to exercise our veto powers then before we signed up to more integration or our subsidiarity clause since. I find sorry for brexiters that we could have and should have opted for TM's deal, a gradual detachment instead of Johnson's oven ready hard brexit deal.

I agree that tariffs are good for the French and German industries/agriculture. Not so good for us, we import lots of fruit and vegetables, not so much steel and other stuff needed for heavy industry. So tariffs do not really work in our favour, quite the opposite.

I do agree with your comments about our politicians abrogating their responsibilities off onto the EU and how lazy they have become, they will have to up their game and knuckle down to a bit of work for a change.

TM's deal was the worst of all possible deals, leaving in name only, still tied to the EU paying into their coffers with no input to the rules and regulations constantly emanating from Brussels; we would have been better off staying in the EU.

 

[Woosh]

I agree that tariffs are good for the French and German industries/agriculture. Not so good for us, we import lots of fruit and vegetables, not so much steel and other stuff needed for heavy industry. So tariffs do not really work in our favour, quite the opposite.

we buy our fruit and vegetables from EU producers, not so much from rest of the world.

TM's deal was the worst of all possible deals, leaving in name only, still tied to the EU paying into their coffers

TM's deal let us remain in the SM and collect import duty.
We don't pay anything to the EU until a permanent deal is done.

 

[vidtek]

we buy our fruit and vegetables from EU producers, not so much from rest of the world.

TM's deal let us remain in the SM and collect import duty.
We don't pay anything to the EU until a permanent deal is done.

We buy masses of fruit and off season vegetables from Africa, and more exotic stuff like bananas and pineapples, mangoes from the Caribbean and South America as well as the near/far East.

TM's deal I am not so sure, that isn't the way I read it, but it was 7 years ago so memory plays tricks.....you may/may not be right, but I wouldn't bet my shirt on it! I'm feeling way too mellow after a couple of stiff scotches to trawl through the internet to see exactly what she did/did not say!

 

[Woosh]

We buy masses of fruit and off season vegetables from Africa, and more exotic stuff like bananas and pineapples, mangoes from the Caribbean and South America as well as the near/far East.

75%+ of our imports in fruit and vegetables are from the EU and we have not changed anything regarding foods bought from African countries. We have not yet changed arrangement or tariffs since leaving.

 

[vidtek]

75%+ of our imports in fruit and vegetables are from the EU and we have not changed anything regarding foods bought from African countries. We have not yet changed arrangement or tariffs since leaving.

Ahh, not quite - check this out:
https://ahdb.org.uk/eu-and-uk-import-tariff-rates-for-selected-horticultural-products
The UK has significantly reduced tariffs compared to the EU.

 

[Woosh]

The UK has significantly reduced tariffs compared to the EU.

thank you for the link.