Would an EU exit help us trade with more developing countries?

[simon field]

I think The Byre is right. Nothing, a void, a vacuum of happenings.

Sure there is uncertainty, and some people are scared of that - others realize that before any potential change, comes uncertainty. It doesn't have to be a negative thing.

Most commentators I've heard seem to put a lot of things down to money - which is fine if that's what you're into.

I believe whatever happens things will just sort themselves out eventually and that certainly most people I speak to would rather sacrifice a bit of dosh (they all have what I'd call good standards of living) for the ability to become a tad more self-governing. Whether that's misguided or not, lots of people couldn't care less about it all - and that's happened since the politicians started chiming in with their usual guff.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

At present they still manage to sell high end cars around the world without trade deals, even the USA imports thousands of British cars

I do think the trade agreements are a red herring by the stay in's whilst the EU post exit will effect some things and not others the effect is mostly likely to be quite minor

Do the stay in's really understand things will never be the same as now as the EU wants total power over all states and has moved towards this aim all it's life , a little now then a bit more, have embassies, grow a army. control budgets a never ending plan that happens by stealth

 

[KM-Tiger]

as the EU wants total power over all states

It pretty much has that now by virtue of the Lisbon Treaty. Criminal Justice, defence, foreign policy to name a few. They just haven't done much in some of those areas ... yet.

 

[Scott-Copywriter]

It's highly unlikely that tariffs would be applied to cars. The UK is Germany's biggest export market for cars so they will not want to compromise that.

As is sometimes said, the CEOs of Mercedes, BMW, et al would beat down Frau Merkel's door ....

But the key point is that companies in such industries want the best case scenario for their operations. They do not want to risk leaving for an uncertain future which might be almost as good but could end up being even worse.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/feb/14/eu-referendum-poll-1-in-3-firms-leave-uk-brexit

A poll of British and German companies operating in the UK has found that almost a third would consider moving jobs out of the country following a vote to leave the European Union.

In a survey of 700 businesses by the Bertelsmann Foundation, 29% of British and German companies polled said they would either reduce capacities in the UK or relocate altogether in the event of a Brexit.

http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/brexit-77-uk-motor-industry-wants-britain-remain-eu

More than three-quarters of the UK motoring industry believes the UK leaving the EU (known as 'Brexit') would be harmful to business, a new survey has found.

It revealed that 88% of large motor industry businesses were against leaving the EU, while 73% of smaller and medium sized enterprises wanted to stay. 77% of the industry as a whole agreed Europe was best for business.

Companies know their own industry well. It's worth listening to their overwhelming majority opinion, is it not?

The UK's position in the EU is extremely complex. It's about far more than just tariffs. Many companies do a lot of business here because the UK has a great environment for business, and because it offers a completely open gateway to the European marketplace with fully intertwined regulations.

It's the best of both worlds for a lot of big companies employing hundreds of thousands of British people, and we are now voting on whether to take one of those worlds away.

 

[Carl "Excel-Expert" Nixon]

At present they still manage to sell high end cars around the world without trade deals, even the USA imports thousands of British cars

I do think the trade agreements are a red herring by the stay in's whilst the EU post exit will effect some things and not others the effect is mostly likely to be quite minor

Do the stay in's really understand things will never be the same as now as the EU wants total power over all states and has moved towards this aim all it's life , a little now then a bit more, have embassies, grow a army. control budgets a never ending plan that happens by stealth

Not a red herring at all.

We can sell cars in the the US because we have trade agreements via the EU. There are no UK-US independent treaties or trade agreements. At the moment, due to trade agreements with the EU Americans pay 2.5% import duty on UK / EU cars plus emissions taxes if it is a gas guzzler. Without a trade agreements in place we come under WTO agreements and that goes up to 10%. On the luxury end of the market that will be swallowed up to a certain extent but not totally. As you come down through the ranges to the day to day cars it will have more and more of an impact.

For new car UK cars to be sold on the forecourts in the US they have to met US standards or have met equivalent EU standards. These equivalent standards have been agreed in trade agreements so we will need to get around that as well. Once outside the EU can we still claim vehicles are of EU standard or do we need to create our standards and get them in to new trade agreements.

Trade deals are the biggest danger in all of this - if we screw that up we will become uncompetitive on the global market overnight. Inflation will shoot through the roof as WTO tariffs are applied to everything we import and our economic output will sharply contract as our exports become uncompetitive.

That is of course "doomsday" worst case scenario - I have complete faith that the UK has the capability to put these trade agreements together and that other countries will want to trade with us

 

[Chris Ashdown]

No one has mentioned the gain made to the UK fishing industry with exclusive rights to fish the UK waters and the ability to stop this wasteful throwing back large numbers of dead fish to stay in quota's

Fishing fleet would recover and great exports to the EU who need our fish

 

[Carl "Excel-Expert" Nixon]

I suspect it will free up the agricultural sector as well who appear to be under a huge amount of regulations. From memory - recent polls seem to show farmers are in favour of leaving but the NFU (or similar farmers body) was telling members to remain - the problem was the body involved had been receiving funding from the EU

 

[Scott-Copywriter]

No one has mentioned the gain made to the UK fishing industry with exclusive rights to fish the UK waters and the ability to stop this wasteful throwing back large numbers of dead fish to stay in quota's

Fishing fleet would recover and great exports to the EU who need our fish

This is worth reading regarding this particular topic:

https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-e...s-policy-has-helped-not-harmed-uk-fisheries-0

There are already plans being put in place to limit discarding, and quotas ensure that the fishing is sustainable so we don't over-fish and end up damaging the ecosystem with even lower catches long-term.

Many British boats also choose to fish outside of UK waters in the EU where the stocks for certain types of fish can be higher. Some countries fish in our waters, but we also fish in theirs.

The situation is certainly not perfect, but if we left the EU, much of the regulations would likely stay in place. After all, sustainability is incredibly important, so whichever way you look at it, over-fishing does need to be controlled in some way.

 

[Christian Annesley]

Don't forget to read our pieces capturing some of the best comments from the EU - in or out threads. Check out the left-hand content column for the links.