Brexit is already changing the British economy – for the better

Blackleaf

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 9, 2004
48,340
1,650
113
Amid all this chaos and confusion, something else is happening. The economy, slightly surprisingly, is purring along quite smoothly. The explanation? In truth, the EU doesn’t make much difference to the economy anymore...

Brexit is already changing the British economy – for the better

Matthew Lynn
11 September 2019
The Spectator



The government has lost its majority. The constitution has fallen apart. The country no longer has any idea whether it is leaving the European Union or not. Historians and political commentators are queuing up to tell us this is the lowest point in the country’s history since the Suez Crisis/Civil War/Dissolution of the Monasteries (delete as applicable).

And yet, amid all this chaos and confusion, something else is happening. The economy, slightly surprisingly, is purring along quite smoothly. The explanation? In truth, the EU doesn’t make much difference to the economy anymore. And insofar as it does, leaving is a marginal improvement.

The City expected the economic data released this week to make grim reading. Global trade is slowing, with central banks in the US and the eurozone cutting rates to try and stave off recession. Add in a slowdown in investment as companies understandably fret about our potentially chaotic departure from the EU and the British economy should be slowing down sharply.

Except that is not quite what happened. First, we learnt that the economy overall expanded by 0.3 per cent in July, significantly faster than the 0.1 per cent expected, and better than most of our main rivals. Next, we found out that the trade deficit narrowed slightly as imports fell. Finally, we learned that employment was at record highs and that wages were still growing at record rates. Add in a Chancellor who is about to start spending money with carefree abandon and there is no reason why it shouldn’t improve from here. It isn’t fantastic. But it is a decent performance from a mature economy facing what is meant to be its biggest economic challenge in a generation.

In fact, there are two explanations for that. The first and simplest is that membership of the EU, and all the political drama around it, doesn’t make a lot of difference to business one way or another. They have made their preparations and can live with either outcome. Sure, there might be some disruption around no deal if that is what happens. But demographics, demand, skills, tax rates and levels of entrepreneurship, innovation and infrastructure are what actually determine growth. Membership of a big – but not terribly successful – trade bloc isn’t that crucial one way or another.

Next, at the margin, our looming departure is a slight improvement. You can see that most clearly in the employment and wage data. As the amount of cheap eastern and central European labour has started to fall, employers have had to pay their people a bit more. As the research consultancy High Frequency Economics noted in an analysis of the figures: ‘We believe we are seeing a change in the composition of the workforce as the economy loses foreign workers, largely in low wage jobs’. Much as the textbooks would suggest, with a lower supply of cheap labour companies are starting to restructure so that they use fewer people and pay the ones they have a little more. Sure, some companies that are completely dependent on low paid labour will suffer. But on balance that will be an improvement, especially as those higher wages will soon translate into higher spending, creating more growth.

In truth, the drama around Brexit may be a political earthquake. But to the economy, it is already largely an irrelevance. And on balance, it is turning into a positive.
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/09/brexit-is-already-changing-the-british-economy-for-the-better/
 

Dixie Cup

Senate Member
Sep 16, 2006
5,692
3,570
113
Edmonton
I hope what the article states is true so that all the negative BS can be put in it's place. The sky isn't falling and the UK will survive.
 

Serryah

Executive Branch Member
Dec 3, 2008
8,913
2,046
113
New Brunswick
TBH I'm interested to see how the UK economy does hold up after Brexit. Not to see if it tanks, but rather to see what the UK does to keep things going as always in a world where international trade is the way to go. Will things be easier for them, or harder, especially when it comes to trade with EU countries.
 

pgs

Hall of Fame Member
Nov 29, 2008
26,542
6,923
113
B.C.
TBH I'm interested to see how the UK economy does hold up after Brexit. Not to see if it tanks, but rather to see what the UK does to keep things going as always in a world where international trade is the way to go. Will things be easier for them, or harder, especially when it comes to trade with EU countries.
It will be just the same , companies that trade now will find a way to trade in the future . Business is about profit and smart business people will continue to pursue it with or without Brexit .
 

Curious Cdn

Hall of Fame Member
Feb 22, 2015
37,070
6
36
It will be just the same , companies that trade now will find a way to trade in the future . Business is about profit and smart business people will continue to pursue it with or without Brexit .
There's always a market for teacups and whiskey.
 

Blackleaf

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 9, 2004
48,340
1,650
113
TBH I'm interested to see how the UK economy does hold up after Brexit. Not to see if it tanks, but rather to see what the UK does to keep things going as always in a world where international trade is the way to go. Will things be easier for them, or harder, especially when it comes to trade with EU countries.

You make it sound as though the UK relies on the EU rather than the other way around.

And you make it sound as though Great Britain, the fifth largest economy, can't survive outside an economically dead, bureaucratic, anti-democratic empire (even though nearly 90% of countries manage to), as though the British are inherently thick and unable to run themselves as nine-tenths of the world's countries do.
 

Serryah

Executive Branch Member
Dec 3, 2008
8,913
2,046
113
New Brunswick
You make it sound as though the UK relies on the EU rather than the other way around.

And you make it sound as though Great Britain, the fifth largest economy, can't survive outside an economically dead, bureaucratic, anti-democratic empire (even though nearly 90% of countries manage to), as though the British are inherently thick and unable to run themselves as nine-tenths of the world's countries do.


Actually I don't make it sound like anything other than wondering how the UK will do out of the EU. Will trade be easier out of the EU, or harder?


It's the fifth now; what will happen after Brexit? Will it score higher or lower?


Gods, you have to make everything negative even when it's not meant to be.
 

Blackleaf

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 9, 2004
48,340
1,650
113
Actually I don't make it sound like anything other than wondering how the UK will do out of the EU. Will trade be easier out of the EU, or harder?


It's the fifth now; what will happen after Brexit? Will it score higher or lower?


Gods, you have to make everything negative even when it's not meant to be.

So you prove my point, then.
 

Blackleaf

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 9, 2004
48,340
1,650
113
Deal breakers

AFTER 20 years of negotiation, the EU’s huge trade deal with South America is vetoed by a single Austrian sub-committee.

Austria has demanded a government veto on EU's trade deal with South America Credit: EPA

Proving two things: That an organisation so unwieldy is virtually incapable of making trade deals and Britain will be infinitely more nimble outside it.

And that it is, sadly, delusional now to believe we could strike one with Brussels before the hated backstop kicked in.

That’s why it must be killed off.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9966106/unelected-judges-blocking-brexit-constitutional-vandalism/

 

Blackleaf

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 9, 2004
48,340
1,650
113
THE SUN SAYS Britain is stronger than the EU and should fear a No Deal Brexit far less than Brussels and Dublin

Comment
The Sun
3 Aug 2019

BRITAIN’S confidence about a No Deal Brexit is growing, and no wonder.

Each day we are becoming better equipped than the EU, and Ireland in particular, to weather the turbulence.

Boris Johnson's Government is preparing for No Deal Brexit with a laser-focus Credit: Getty Images - Getty

It’s not just that Boris Johnson’s new and united Government has a laser-like focus on preparing for it and spending where necessary.

It’s that our economy remains fundamentally strong, defying all predictions of gloom. Unemployment, tipped to soar within months of a Brexit vote, did the opposite, with a million jobs created.

Growth, forecast to collapse, has instead ticked along — slowly, but no slower than across the EU. Inflation and interest rates are low and look stable.

The amount of venture-capital investment in UK startups, most of it foreign, is set for a record year. Billions more will pour in once we are out, even with No Deal, and uncertainty finally lifts.

Remainers leap on any dip in the Pound as an existential disaster. But our free-floating currency gives us a huge advantage over the eurozone. It’s a balancing mechanism in troubled times.

The same falling Pound that’s bad for Brit holidaymakers abroad and can fuel inflation also boosts our exports, creates jobs and attracts more tourists.

And while Bank of England chief Mark Carney is still full of chuntering pessimism about No Deal, it’s nothing compared with the terrifying warnings for Ireland from its Central Bank.

Germany, its car-makers in dire straits, may be heading for recession. Italy is struggling. France’s growth has almost stalled. The EU economy is in trouble, with few defences left. A No Deal — which they can still choose to avoid — could be a mortal blow.

There might be logistical chaos here, as well as there, possibly for months. But Britain — free to supercharge our economy with much lower taxes, less red tape and new global trade deals — will emerge to a richer future.

“Countries are more resilient than people think,” as ex-White House chief economist Gary Cohn said this week.

The Sun believes Boris and the EU should still look for a deal.

But Britain should fear No Deal far less than Brussels and Dublin.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/96456...eal-brexit-far-less-than-brussels-and-dublin/
 

Blackleaf

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 9, 2004
48,340
1,650
113
Too many of our Remainer politicians are living in a horror-filled fantasy land of fear and economic ignorance



Written by Austin Mitchell
BrexitCentral
September 19, 2019

Austin Mitchell was Labour MP for Great Grimsby between 1977 and 2015.


The great majority of the British people are getting on with their lives wondering why the politicians haven’t yet left the EU. Our political class has moved into fantasy world. Terror, fear and unimaginable horror stalk the land in fairytales invented as the last desperate attempt to keep Britain in the EU.

It’s a realm of shock-horror worse than a Hammer film. Democracy is dying, Parliament shut down, possibly forever, with a Boris Hulk destroying the constitution and leading the country to ruin, mass unemployment, collapse of the health service, mass emigration, race riots and the closure of every foreign facility from car production to Luigi’s Italian restaurant in Sowerby Bridge.

It’s all designed to frighten the people back into their box. But its real effect is to drive out rational thought. It’s difficult to make sensible decisions on basic economics or to discuss the pros and cons of withdrawal if fear drives out rationality and debate is drowned by screams of terror.

It’s all pretty silly. A nine-day prorogation of Parliament to let MPs go paddling after three years of yammering against Brexit isn’t quite the death of democracy. A Prime Minster with no majority can’t be a dictator. Departure from the EU stops an economic drain rather than ruins us – and leaving without a deal won’t even cancel Peter Mandelson’s pension.

Look at the claims about No Deal. It isn’t “crashing out”, it is being deprived of the freedom to leave enshrined in Article 50.We don’t want it. But we would like the EU to negotiate seriously. An EU which is so much loved by its defenders surely won’t set out to crucify Britain just because we don’t want to build a European Empire most people in Europe don’t want either?

If the EU is stupid enough to be beastly, they hurt themselves as well as us. Britain is the EU’s consumer of last resort, a captive market running a £100 billion deficit. An EU nearing recession can’t afford to ruin that. Who’s going to buy the Mercs? Even if they were daft enough to put up barriers, the average Common External Tariff is only 3%, easily overleapt by the more competitive exchange rate coming from Brexit. The total tariff charges on our EU exports would be less than our present contributions while a British tariff on WTO terms would provide useful extra revenue to offset damage to any groups here.

Transport by road, rail and air won’t be stopped. If there are lorry queues at Dover, there’s a whole range of other ports up and down our coast and theirs, keen for business.

As for food, the Common Agricultural Policy keeps prices above world market levels and a whole range of developing countries, which are presently kept out, would be eager to supply us.

The EU never fulfilled its promises. A fast-growing economy has slowed largely because of the deflationary euro. Convergence hasn’t happened because it requires redistribution which Germany won’t accept. The bigger market we were promised has been swamped by Germany and now limps behind both America and Asia as its share of world trade shrinks and others grow.

The fantasists don’t understand economics. They assume that British capitalism is too weak to seize new opportunities. They ignore the EU’s steady drain on British jobs, money and demand and assume that government wants, for some strange reason, to wreck the economy which supports our people and it. They forget that present difficulties are the consequences of austerity and don’t understand that government can, and will, spend, stimulate and boost the economy to offset any immediate problems. Indeed, Brexit may be the only way to jolt the Tories out of the piggy-bank economics which David Cameron thinks they should have made harder.

This escaping from rationality to a fantasy land of fear and economic ignorance might solace the souls of those who love the EU more than their own country. Yet it doesn’t frighten the people and certainly isn’t any reason to reject their demand that we leave a structure which drains us, punishes us, binds us and wants to make us part of a federal mausoleum.

https://brexitcentral.com/too-many-...-fantasy-land-of-fear-and-economic-ignorance/