SmokeyTA wrote:
wherever there is a little boy there is a mother ready to tell him he is a special little soldier so that's why he gets a sweetie. Wherever there is a nationalist there is a populist demagogue ready to tell him that country is special and deserving.
You and others have told us that our security and intelligence was done through NATO and not the EU. Are you proposing we threaten to leave our position in NATO if the EU don't give us what we want?
But why can you not realise that we are not just a "special little soldier". Why do you persist in believing we are not a bigger player both in the EU and the world than the majority of EU members. To repeat we are the 5th biggest economy in the world and the largest single export market for EU countries and we are the second largest net contributor to the EU. Unless an acceptable deal can be worked out the EU will have serious problems including 100s of thousands of job loses. So of course we can negotiate from strength for a special case solution and in the end a compromise will be reached that can satisfy both parties.
I never mentioned NATO. What I said is that the UK is a major player in defense with the 4th highest budget in the world in real terms easily the highest in the EU and some 35% more than Germany who has a greater GDP. Which enables us for example to deploy warships to assist the EU in trying to protect the Schengen area regarding the refugee problem.
As you mentioned NATO are mainly responsible for peace in Europe yet most of the EU countries do not fulfill their contributions to the cost of NATO as we do, so they are benefitting from our greater spending in support of NATO that is protecting Europe. I am not suggesting we leave NATO for a moment but if the EU zealots are allowed their way and they are unreasonable we could certainly suggest they look elsewhere when they need the use of our military.
It is well known that our intelligence is among the best in the world and the EU countries have come to rely on what is largely one way traffic in this area at no cost to them.
SmokeyTA wrote:
That's all lovely and all but pretty irrelevant. The delay may be acceptable but it is in no way a reason the EU will go back on its word and pre-negotiate.
It is a bit naive to not understand how diplomacy works. The PM reported to the House today and said a much and even discussed over dinner (informally of course) what some of our red lines are. So the process has already started. As I said the real negotiations will be between the leaders of the different countries and not the Eurocrats however important they think they are and work will go on behind the scenes with the ciil servants and diplomats.
SmokeyTA wrote:
Again these numbers fail to tell the story that the EU risk is spread between more countries and ours is entirely concentrated. If trade stops tomorrow completely we lose nearly half our exports. Only Ireland and Cyprus in the EU would lose more than 10% of theirs. We would need to nearly double our exports to the rest of the world to cover that shortfall.
Germany exports £71Bn (13%) to the UK France £37Bn (7%), Netherlands £36Bn (7%) Belgium/Lux £26Bn (5%) Spain £25Bn (5%) Italy £22Bn (4%), Ireland £17Bn (3%), Switz £11Bn (2%) Of these only Ireland and Switzerland do we have a surplus.
Much is made of the 500 million single market but in practice we sell most of our exports to a handful of countries. Our geographical location means we have greater logistical costs and problems for much of the Eastern EU countries.
A fifth of all cars manfutactured in Germany are exported to the UK with 800,000 employees. The UK is the fourth biggest export market for engineering companies etc. Germany also is a major car manufacturer and exporter in the UK.
But trade will not stop will it?. The worst case senario is that we do not do a trade deal at all and revert to the World Trade Organisation rules with their tariffs. But in this case the damage to the EU will be higher I would suggest.
