Brexit - am I stupid or what?

From 13th July and I haven't changed my opinion

 

I'm not sure but I believe that what @noisette47 was saying is that the French protesters are sick of being milked by their own taxation system?

If we are talking about the British view of the EU milking us maybe now is a good time for a reality check. In order of value;
A British person on average wage (£27000) will pay approx £5500 in tax. Check out your tax summary and it actually gives you a breakdown of where this money goes - 0.6% goes to the EU! So on average wage, with no other income, you pay £33 a year to the EU. This is under the GDP element of payments and includes corporation tax as well. So we need to factor in the loss of large chunks the financial services industry to the EU - the largest single contributor to the Exchequer.
The governments of the EU then pay 0.3% of their VAT take to the EU (Germany, and Sweden pay a lower rate, as I think does the Netherlands). Now all reputable predictions (I don't count Farages 'back of a cigarette packet best guess' as being too reliable) for the economy expect it to shrink by 1.5% to 8% dependant upon the authors and the possible scenario with regards to deal/no deal. So in an instant what we save by not giving to the EU will be swallowed up by the lower returns.
However, there is one ray of sunshine. Sort of. Currently 75% of Customs take of EU countries goes to the EU. Now 100% of this money will go to the Exchequer. Great, except that the UK is a source of entry for some goods/services to the EU so these will now be diverted to mainland ports etc. As the economy shrinks we import less. We can up the tariffs but then exports will get hit by tit for tat tariffs - net result is imports and exports decrease and as a result so does customs revenue.

 

It's not just a that 0.6 % of income tax that's paid to the EU, for example some say 20% of VAT (you state 0.3% ) is paid to the EU, but as in this link you need to look at the whole picture Does the UK pay a fifth of the VAT going into the EU budget?

 

Why do discussions centre around the economy - brexit will negatively impact upon the economy when it comes to the EU - I was under no illusion that the case would be otherwise. I voted to bring back control to our own Parliament/Courts; to manage immigration; to stop paying huge sums as a net contributer. The UK will be able to enter it's own trade deals - which means there is a good possibility to promote economic growth which we could never achieve as members of the EU - the Gov't forecasts assume the status quo - which is just misleading.

Hard Brexit - take the initial hit and then we'll see what happens with our own trade deals. I'm starting to think that BoJo was right.

 

I trend to not get involved with statistics, often they go over my head and rarely are they true, just twisted minds making them fit their ideas.
But the economy? is expected to shrink by 1.5 to 8% seems a bit like kind of throwing a figure in the air to me, its a big difference.

Also, something I've yet to work out is are these figures based on the economy shrinking from what it is now?
Or to what they guess the economy would be, had we remained, in 15 yrs time.
I ask that because I seem to remember "old doom and gloom", our cheery colonial governor of the bank of england, stating a time scale of 15 yrs at one point.

 

As that article quite clearly states, the UK does pay one fifth of the VAT that goes into the EU budget from all nations. It does not pay one fifth of UK VAT receipts to the EU, it pays 0.3% of its VAT receipts to the EU.

Budget of the European Union - Wikipedia

I'm puzzled young man. You wonder why the economic argument keeps coming up and then you state that you voted to leave because of the huge sums of money that we keep giving the EU. And you would rather not give this money to the EU despite the fact that it is more or less universally acknowledged that even allowing for the saving that we will make the UK will be significantly worse off.
The fact is that to most people the only discernable difference after Brexit will be that they are worse off.

 

Personally, its never really mattered to me how well the "economy" is doing, I never seem to make any money out of it.
I can remember so called boom and bust, but I dont think I've ever remembered the boom time having much effect on me personally.

 

As time goes by - I'm pleased that I can still be called a young man . Reminds me of a conversation with my late Uncle:

Me - "I'm 50 now you know."

Uncle - "I'm 80 lad."

That's because all of the other issues around leaving the EU are positives - not newsworthy as what's to debate. Expanding economic growth is the not the be all and end all for the UK. Did you notice that in the South East/London area - those who have benefited most, economically, from the EU - voted to stay - shocker . If money was an issue for the UK as a whole - then we would have voted to stay in.

The EU will now be shaking in their boots - if we hard brexit - their budget and plans for next year will crash.

 

[QUOTE

If anything, my attitude to things like this changed significantly - - - I realised that all of this Brexit nonsense, all of the politics and shite that you get in the workplace, all of the pressures that we get in daily life................ it is all a big game; none of it really matters when it comes down to it. What matters is the people - the people around you.[/QUOTE]

Quite.

 

[QUOTE Did you notice that in the South East/London area - those who have benefited most, economically, from the EU - voted to stay - shocker . If money was an issue for the UK as a whole - then we would have voted to stay in.
[/QUOTE]

Although I see you are saying that money was not the be all and end all, one thing I've never quite understood is a point you refer to, ie that the "haves" are often said in the media to have voted in for self-serving reasons, and that some have benefited financially from EU membership. Does this generally refer to bankers and those i the financial sector whose earnings are seen to be high due to the positive relations between the City and Brussels, while those on inner city council estates feel excluded? I appreciate the points made regularly in the media about the perception of this inequality, but I struggle to understand precisely what it means in practise. For instance, while I know some people such as MEP's profit directly from EU salaries, I don't understand how one person can be said to have done well out of it because they live in London (when I lived there, there were massive problems in terms of housing, employment and the cost of living, and that was in the boom years of the early 00's) but those in the North have lost money because of it. When Londoners, or those in certain occupations, get their salaries paid, is it topped up by EU money? I'm joking, of course, but I want to know the ways in which specific social groups can be said to have directly benefited. If it supposedly refers to people whose professions and areas of work are subsidised by EU grants, surely this is likelier to be the case in respect of poorer areas, where many employment schemes and social funds include EU cash, or in the environmental and arts sectors, often largely financed by EU grants?

 

Looking at a map of what areas voted for what, I seem to find most of Scotland voted to remain, a large chunk of Wales and an area of central southern England.
London, which seems to want remain, is not SE England.
As I try to tell the weather forecasters, but they dont get it either
EU referendum: The result in maps and charts

 

Here's an example - London is the current financial centre of the EU - the work is there because of the EU - a captive market so to speak. Compare this to the fishing industry - where the EU allow us to catch 40% of the fish from our own seas, excess catch chucked over the side. Other EU countries are allowed to catch 60% of the fish from our own seas - result - wealthy bankers; poor fishermen. This doesn't sit particularly well with me - the have and have nots. It should come as no surprise that the bankers voted in and the fishermen voted out.