Another top post Azza =d>

as for adrtho's question, looking at the size of the markets, it'd be an interesting argument to suggest that it didn't win more.

What are you talking about? They still trade with Commonwealth countries. They didn't give anything up to join the EU trading bloc.

Its this type of mis-information that is infuriating!

From November 2015:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/eureferendum/12019366/The-EU-or-the-Commonwealth-Britain-can-have-both.html

Only six Commonwealth countries accounted for 84 per cent of Commonwealth trade in 2011. Those countries – call them the CAMBIS - are Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Britain, India and Singapore. All have or are negotiating free trade agreements with the EU today. Also, the Commonwealth is not Britain writ large. It is dominated by rising powers such as India and South Africa who are routinely on the opposing side of the free trade and transparency argument when it comes to most big issues of trade or foreign policy.

So a binary "pro-Commonwealth-anti-EU" argument misses the point. It was James Maxton, the veteran Labour leader in the inter-war years, who said that if you can’t ride two horses you had no right to be in the circus. Increased trade with Commonwealth countries is perfectly possible for Britain. It does not have to shed itself of Europe for that to happen.


Edited by AzzaMarch: 27/6/2016 12:02:47 PM

yes there did..Australia has no FTA with the UK,,,,,any Trade Australia does with the UK, come under EU rules and trade quotas

The UK has only reduced the amount of trade with commonwealth countries because they are trading with the EU (logical as the EU countries are their closest neighbours and their markets are much bigger).

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36565100

The question: Paul asks: "What is the current state of the EU's trade relations with major Commonwealth economies?"

The answer: The EU has already agreed, or is in the process of negotiating, trade deals with a majority of Commonwealth states. In 2015, 22% of imports to the EU came from Commonwealth countries and over 30% of EU exports went to the Commonwealth.

Since the UK became a member of the EU, UK trade with Commonwealth countries has fallen, while trade with EU countries has increased. A 2012 House of Commons Library report states that in 1973, UK trade in goods with the Commonwealth constituted roughly 18% of the UK's total trade in goods. By 2011, this figure stood at roughly 10%.

In that year, the Commonwealth accounted for an estimated 10% of all UK goods exports and 12% of all UK services exports. With regards to imports, the Commonwealth accounted for an estimated 7% of all UK goods imports and 10% of all UK services imports.

The UK's main trading partners (in terms of goods) within the Commonwealth are Canada, India, South Africa, and Australia, accounting for more than 60% of goods imports and exports from the Commonwealth in 2011.

It's interesting how the Aussie media has been portraying all this, like voting leave etc was a mistake, a huge shock, irreversible damage and so forth.

Nothing down the middle at all lol

-PB

and?

Canada has taken 7 years to sign a FTA with the EU..but now that FTA is as good as dead, because French know that trade will hit there markets , so the size of the agreed deal with Canada is now to big

you can't just sell to the UK from Australia , you have to make a deal that pass the EU 1st

that right....

everyone is talking crazy right now.....after summer, the real talk will begin

+1 Cheers Azza.
Thanks for a neutrals view on this. I actually have not seen much Pro sentiment anywhere but the working class struggles with a fading industrial center do make sense.

You are missing the big picture - UK trade with the Commonwealth has not declined because they are "prevented" from signing an agreement.

UK trade with the Commonwealth has declined because they have massively increased trade with their neighbours in the EU.

Its not some bureaucracy crippling them, it is just simple logic driving those patterns.

The population of the EU single market is about 400-450 million or similar.

The commonwealth countries combined are not even worth half that market. Let alone the disparate physical locations, meaning costs of UK goods are higher due to transportation costs.

Not to mention that Canada is far closer to the USA (with whom they have an FTA already), and Australia (and the other Asian commonwealth countries) are far closer to India and China.

The UK won't be any better off trade-wise, and are likely to be worse off, outside of the EU.

Edited by AzzaMarch: 27/6/2016 01:56:36 PM

The other aspect is that the EU has come to represent everything people have a grievance with, whether fair or not.

Refugee crisis? EU's fault. Slow economic growth? EU's fault. Perceived bureaucracy? EU's fault. Poverty in the north from the decline of manufacturing and mining? EU's fault.

So the constant emphasis in the tabloid media, and by politicians, is with all the things that are wrong with the EU, without looking at what things would still be a problem anyway without the EU being there, and without looking at the gains from being in the EU.

No economy can survive being a service only industry. There are and always will be workers who are suited and want to make things whereas other who are better at service types jobs. That doesn't make one type superior to the other ether BTW

The assumption that losses in manual jobs will be offset by new service type jobs has proven to be false.

Second those in the service industries with their 3 year Uni degrees have started to believe their own bullshit that they somehow know whats best for everyone, which is why they got this big kick in the nuts and the never saw it coming.

Edited by enzo bearzot: 27/6/2016 02:10:13 PM

What are you talking about? Manufacturing has ALREADY been largely displaced by service industries in rich countries.

Rich countries only engage in niche manufacturing these days. It's happened mate.

Thought that was a pretty bizarre claim too :lol:

Straight of the bat I'd say Singapore and Switzerland were predominantly countries based on service industries.

Could be wrong I suppose.

Some of the comments on the articles in the UK are hilarious.

There's one where they're talking about butchers being able to go back to selling in pounds and ounces and how some have already done so. Plenty commenting that they should bring back shillings and pence and do away with the whole metric system while they're at it.

[youtube]FU-tuY0Z7nQ[/youtube]

:roll:



No shit Sherlock its happened. That's the fucking problem!

Let me spell it out. The move away to service industries in "rich" countries has left a growing majority without jobs, or with jobs that pay barely enough to raise a family. There are simply nowhere near enough service industries jobs for everyone.

So who exactly are these countries "rich" for?

America's growth since the 70'has been in finance which benefits a relatively few. Hence income inequality has grown.

This is why Trumps a real threat, this is why Brexit happened. This is why protectionism is a real possibility.

Edited by enzo bearzot: 27/6/2016 04:30:54 PM

Well, no. Unemployment in the UK is 5.4% and US is 5.5%. There is no "growing majority without jobs".

Most of the unemployment and underemployment issues faced in rich countries are not so much due to the growth in services, but just due to weak overall growth post-GFC. Services doesn't just mean baristas you know. Knowledge based industries are included in this - IT, Financial Services, etc.

US issues could be dealt with if they fixed their taxation system, and had a higher minimum wage.

You are also not taking into account the benefits to rich countries of manufacturing being based in countries that can specialise in this better (eg China).

The price of manufactured goods has plummeted since the 1970s, and the quality of goods produced has massively increased. This has given everyone far more purchasing power for items that make a real difference in people's lives.

We all basically walk around with super computers in our pockets, for the price of a couple of weeks - 1 month of work.

This is directly due to globalisation. We all gain as consumers.

Is printing money 'Finance' or 'Manufacturing' ?

Nice cherry pick too. USA USA!!

Neglects Switzerland, Singapore, Sweden and a myriad of others. (And other countries that start with 'S'.)

High standards of living, high satisfaction, high GDP, low crime, clean. Yep. What a disaster.

Cherries ?

Iffy joke, that's all

Oh, apologies. That was a crack at Enzo not you.

I 'LOL'd' at your joke. (Is that how the youngsters say it?)

Keep up the good work.

This is great. Particularly the bit about the battle of hasting rematch.

http://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/why-brexit-was-a-great-thing/news-story/5ff55c3fcd1e21944bcd1a01d2d40198

---

OPINION

IF THERE’S one thing the last three days have taught us, it’s that 20-year-old social justice warriors on Twitter are smarter than 52 per cent of the British population.

If you believe the outraged media, those 17.4 million Brits who decided they were sick of the bloated, anti-democratic, corrupt European Union telling them what to do are comprised entirely of old, racist, straight white men who should be stripped of the vote because they’re going to die soon.

Well, one of them did die, in fact. World War II veteran Leonard Moore’s last words to his family last week were: “Post my Leave vote.”

As his nephew told The Daily Mail, the former submariner “believed what he fought for wasn’t what we have now”. “He was so passionate about England,” he said.

The same crowd who demonise the likes of AB Moore are the same people who would also like the EU referendum — which had a higher voter turnout than the last UK general election — to be rerun until the correct result is achieved, thanks.

Or as former Belgian Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene put it in 2004 ahead of a vote on the EU constitution: “If the answer is ‘no’, the vote will probably have to be done again, because it absolutely has to be a ‘yes’.”

It’s astonishing that in the wake of one of the single most emphatic displays of pure democracy in recent history, there is a concerted campaign to subvert the will of the people.

“Wake up,” Labour MP David Lammy wrote. “We do not have to do this. We can stop this madness and bring this nightmare to an end through a vote in Parliament.”

Apparently, democracy is only a good thing when it goes your way — anything else is “madness”.

Daniel Hannan, a Member of European Parliament who has campaigned his entire career for the abolition of his own job, summed up Lammy’s position: “Little people! You have been misled! We, your betters, will now act in your true interests!”

Writing in The Sun on the weekend, Mr Hannan said “Project Sneer” was doomed to fail and that British voters, threatened with “Armageddon”, reacted with “calm, common sense and courage”.

“When they started, Leave was 20 points behind in the polls,” he wrote. “But they stuck to a simple message: that the British people should be able to control their own affairs.

“It’s amazing how often that message was deliberately distorted. Listening to the other side, you’d think that the Leave campaign was anti-foreigner or anti-immigrant.

“What Remainers didn’t, and still don’t, understand is that it was precisely this snotty attitude that pushed many waverers into backing Leave.”

While immigration was a central issue — and why wouldn’t it be when EU laws prevent the UK from deporting foreign criminals — a ComRes poll found sovereignty was a bigger issue for Leave voters (53 per cent) than immigration (34 per cent).

Meanwhile, the barrage of anti-Brexit lines as the media attempts to spin the “second referendum” narrative is becoming ridiculous. (The fact that 99 per cent of the media agrees Brexit is The Worst Thing Ever should be a pretty good indication Brits made the right choice.)

First it was, British people are searching ‘What is the EU’ on Google! Get it? They didn’t even know what the EU was, how could they possibly vote to leave? Look how stupid they are!

This is the same, completely apolitical Google that manipulates search results to remove negative Hillary Clinton articles while sending Donald Trump fundraising emails to spam folders.

Then came the protest angle. These days all it takes for a bleeding-heart headline (‘Young voters furious, depressed’!) is 20 blue-haired millennials waving signs crying about how unfair it all is.

Yes, 75 per cent of 18- to 24-year-olds voted Remain — but only 36 per cent of them actually bothered to turn up. “But surely the responsibility to motivate and engage young people is on the shoulders of politicians!” whined one young socialist on Twitter. “Young people feel left behind.”

Sorry, but if munching pingers in the mud at Glastos is more important than your working holiday in France, that’s your problem.

Now the line is, lots of people who voted to leave didn’t actually want to leave, whoopsie daisy, just kidding, can we please have another go? They’re calling that one “Bregret” — how good is that? Rolls right off the tongue.

To be fair, a ComRes poll found eight per cent of Leave voters are “unhappy” that Britain will leave the EU while four per cent of Remain voters are actually “happy” at the outcome. But why should that matter? They had 41 years to make up their minds.

And finally, there’s the ridiculous petition, breathlessly reported by the BBC and other media outlets, calling for a second referendum — which turned out to be a prank by 4chan.

A number of similar petitions have sprung up on the UK Parliament website, including a petition for “Arsenal to replay all games they win, until they lose”, to “Redraw the June 24th Euro Millions as I didn’t get the result I want”, and even “A rematch for the Battle of Hastings in 1066 as I am unhappy with the result”.

As a British dual national, it’s ironic to hear the most common complaint from other young people is, “But I won’t be able to travel and work in Europe anymore!”

For a group of people who are slamming the older generation for their “selfishness” in voting to leave, this mentality seems almost comically hypocritical.

They don’t seem to appreciate that their parents’ generation are the very same people who voted to join the EU the last time around in 1975.

As Mark Twain said: “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”

No youngster. I want to be out of here before the printing press falls over, but I fear I'm not drinking enough.

Consumers might do. especially consumers from wealthy countries. I'm a bit rusty on economics but I gather countries with comparative economic advantage gain more. The developing countries (or sectors within developing countries) without such comparative advantage don't always benefit from globalisation, I gather. US-encouraged multinational ftas can be a bit dubious in terms of just who benefits.

I'm not outright condemning a global economy, just pointing out a nuance (of which you are probably already aware).

Edited by quickflick: 27/6/2016 10:59:18 PM

The way I see it, AzzaMarch is basically right and and has summed it up rather well.

The nature of globalisation is such that wealthy countries move away from manufacturing and into services (financial services and IT being big ones). On a tangent, Australia really has to look to the lead of other countries successful in IT and try to find ways of triggering innovation there. I'm no expert but it seems Australia is lacking a lot there.

But the working-class were always going to suffer in the cities which were so famous for driving the Industrial Revolution.

This is why it's not only the Daily Mail-toting Little Englander types despising the EU that you see. You also see Labour type people in the north, concerned with worker rights, championing that cause.

The Little Englander type want an Anglosphere, in which countries like the UK, Australia, NZ and Canada prize their relationships with each other above all all other diplomatic relationships. Being in the EU made this impossible (not that I'm suggesting an Anglosphere is necessarily a good thing).

adrtho isn't wrong, though in terms of Britain's trade with the Commonwealth. AzzaMarch, correctly, pointed out that joining the EU meant that a large portion of trade was transferred from the Commonwealth to the EU. You can't magically create a whole heap of extra things to trade so, obviously, that means less trade with the Commonwealth. As AzzaMarch pointed out, it's hardly the case that Britain ceased to trade with the Commonwealth. In recent times, that trade relationship has been solid.

But the thing is that for a long time Britain seriously pissed off other Commonwealth nations (especially Australia) by joining the EU. This move left them serious annoyed.

I found a really good article on this yesterday but I can't remember where, exactly.

Not just trade. I posted an article in Extra Time a while back about how the UK had decided that persons without citizenship of an EU nation would need to earn at least ~$75 000 AUD per year to be eligible for the Tier 2 visa/work permit. This is basically unfeasible for most and meant that many people with great qualifications and who really served the UK's best interests (teachers, academics, etc.), would be forced to leave. It was much rougher than even Australia's system because this was far less feasible than gaining a 457 visa. This was all done to attempt to appease those worried about immigration caused by the influx, mainly, from other EU countries. It was incredibly unfair, too.

So Britain/the EU really did piss off other Commonwealth nations certainly a while back. This was mainly for trade reasons and, to a lesser extent, immigration/employment reasons.

The thing is the EU may well cold-shoulder the UK now, at least for a while.

But all this could have been avoided. The UK should simply have stayed out of the EU in the first place and set something up like Switzerland. There wouldn't be a crapload of anti-EU hatred within the UK. The UK would have more say judicially and in terms of immigration (something many in the UK seem pissed off about, rightly or wrongly). And the UK would have been able to work out trade deals with the EU and Commonwealth nations entirely on their terms.

some of the racist stories here :shock:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/610588862443201/photos/

Wanting independence from a bureaucratic monolith does not automatically make you a racist. (Though it doesn't exempt you either.)

It seems to be the go to, sour grape position by those that can't abide by the rules of democracy to call those that voted leave Racist.

Want a say in your own country - RACIST !!

There's scum like that here in Australia just like in the UK. 99% of the equivalent garbage is on your Reclaim Australia facebook feed. (Just google those knuckle draggers for an eye-opener.)

Spend 5 minutes on an Andrew Bolt blog and you'll get the same level of vitriol.

We get it. You're better and more enlightened than everyone else.

whether or not remainers are each racist is a question for the individual who voted
although you have already made some racist comments in this thread

the facebook group has many leave voters who are also anti-racist and acknowledge that the vote has made a lot of racists have been made bold by brexit

the facebook group has 200+ stories and county of people copping racial abuse over the last 48 hours

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Australian_secession_referendum,_1933


.... :-$

The fact that there were compelling arguments for both sides should suggest that not everybody who wanted out is racist..

I know exceedingly racist Brits who voted (or would have voted) out.There's definitely a racist agenda for some. But I also know ones who aren't racist at all who voted out. By the same token...

A family friend is literally one of the loveliest women I've ever known. She's a practising Buddhist and welcoming towards absolutely everybody. You literally feel calmer and happier being in the same room as her. I doubt she's racist, certainly I can't recall her saying anything racist. A few weeks ago she came over for lunch, I seem to recall her saying that she'd be voting out. She just thought it best for her country. I don't know which way she voted, but I recall her wanting to vote out.

Her husband, West Ham fan and top bloke, was absolutely torn but was going to vote to stay.

Edited by quickflick: 28/6/2016 01:24:12 AM

Edited by quickflick: 28/6/2016 01:25:28 AM