So, with just a day to go before The Referendum I’ve decided to piece together my take of what will actually happen. Before you all start rushing to say ‘but you don’t know what’s going to happen’, let me just state this clause; no, I don’t know what’s going to happen, neither do you, and neither do the newspapers that have been force feeding their prophecies onto you for the past few months. But you’ve still read and, to some degree, believed what they’ve been telling you. My summation is purely built from reading articles and tidbits, conversations with both Brexit and Bremainers, a little inside politics from the husband, and a little bit of my own speculation.
The effect on the £ Sterling
In the first few hours post Brexit the pound will tank against just about every foreign currency on the trading market. Heck, look at what’s happening now! As the polls reveal the leave campaign is gaining a lead, foreign investment is been yanked from the UK faster than green grass through a goose, and the pound is on a one-way trip to the bottom of the English Channel. At this rate, post-Brexit we could be left living in a Weimar-Republic-state of being.
The Treasury, Bank of England and the European Central Bank (ECB) will move quickly to roll out well-hidden battle plans to prevent market chaos, but it is uncertain as to whether they will be able to stabilise the pound within any decent time frame.
How will we actually leave Europe?
You see, as much as the Brexiters crow from the rafters that we’ll be walking away on June 24th with our heads held high, we won’t. Gordon Brown signed the Lisbon Treaty in 2009, and a little-bitty article in that treaty, article 50, states that a country has two years to leave the EU from the moment it notifies the EU of its intention to leave. A Brexit vote does not represent that formal notification. Thanks to article 50 we can be waiting up to two years for an official leave. And, during that time we will be left at the mercy of Brussels who are not in the habit of negotiating with truants.
In trying to attain our independence we will be unwittingly putting all the cards into the EU’s hands in terms of shaping a new relationship between an independent UK and a spurned Europe. Brussels determines our exit strategy, and suitable punishment. That is the law of the EU Treaty. We signed it (well Gordon Brown did). We have to adhere to it. And this is the only way we will be allowed to exit.
However, during those two years, and post exit we will not fare well. Divisions will emerge across Europe with countries that have strong ties to the UK, such as Malta, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, and Cyprus pleading for clemency for the UK. Brussels, however, will treat the UK like the truanting child she is, not so much to punish Britain as much to warn other countries with Eurosceptic uprisings, such as France, Sweden (who have already told Brussels that if the UK leave they will too), and Germany, of what will happen to them if they consider leaving. We will be held up for example like a naughty child in front of the school assembly. By the time we actually do exit the EU, Brussels will have scaremongered the rest of Europe into not leaving by using us as the poster-child, and will have spent two years pushing us around the playground making sure we leave the school gates with scuffed knees and a black eye. Think I’m joking? Well, the EU commission officials claim the UK will rapidly discover it has put itself in the role of supplicant, and they even talk of throwing the country out on its ear. Jean-Claude Juncker has already warned the UK should remember that deserters are not greeted with open arms.
I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t wish for independence at the expense of the strength and wealth of my own country.
Yes, but if we leave we can negotiate our own trade deals with Europe and the rest of the world!
As soon as we notify the EU that we’re leaving all current trade relations will cease. No trade pact with Europe = no reduced tariff on export and import. Couple this with a crippled £ Sterling this means higher rates on all imported goods that are from, or come via Europe, such as our petrol, and the food and household goods on our supermarkets shelves. Our disposable income will go down as a consequence, and our ability to do anything with our disposable income will be reduced as prices across the country soar. The Government will look to build better trade relationships with BRICK countries, but even with a more robust trading partnership with BRICKs we will still have high import rates to pay to get the items to our shores. Also, to bear in mind, it can take 5-10 years to build a trading relationship, therefore we’re looking at 5 years before a BRICK deal could be made, and 2 years before an EU one. That leaves us 2-5 years of living in no man’s land in terms of trade deals. I’d start stockpiling the food now if I was you because we could be going back to a WWII-ration-like existence if the EU don’t cut us some slack on trade dealing post Brexit.
In addition, the EU countries will no longer be under obligation to stock British products, and trust me, France can’t wait to stop buying our beef - they’ve been wanting to rid their shelves of this product since foot and mouth in the 90’s. Livestock, by-products, and produce are among our biggest exports to Europe. Shut this down, and our farmers have no market to sell to. What about putting their products on our shelves, I hear you say? They’re already there, but there will be a surplus that no supermarket will want to take on. So, farmers will downsize to avoid surplus and bankruptcy.
The EU, taken as a whole, is the UK’s major trading partner, accounting for 44% of exports and 53% of imports of goods and services in 2015. While this effect cannot be quantified, it does not alter the fact that the EU is the UK’s main trading partner. Even if all trade with the Netherlands were excluded, the EU would still account for 41% of the UK’s goods exports and 47% of goods imports. In 2015, the UK exported £223 billion of goods and services to other EU member states. This is equivalent to 43.7% of total UK exports. Goods and services imports from the EU were worth £291 billion (53.1% of the total) in 2015.
One vote on June 23rd 2016 could eradicate that trade and income to the UK forever.
Oh, give over, if Brexit is so bad why are the likes of Boris Johnson backing it?
Don’t be fooled by big political Brexitiers, such as Boris Johnson. Oh yes, he might be fronting up the Brexit campaign, but he doesn’t want to leave. He wants to be Prime Minister. And what better way to jump into the hot seat than to oppose the Prime Minister in the most contentious British event since WW11, knowing full well that if we leave the EU he can can call for a vote of no confidence against the PM, get him sacked, and badda-bing-badda-boom, he’s our new PM without having been elected by the British public. I feel a wave of Gordon Brown’s coming over me. You only have to read some of the statements BoJo has made to know he doesn’t want to leave, such as not wanting to rush to leave if we Brexit, and waiting two years to evoke article 50 to give Britain time to come to terms with negotiations. All euphemisms for a man who is putting his career in front of his country’s best interests.
Well, at least we don’t pay £350,000,000 a week to the EU!
Yes, very true, but we never actually did pay £350m a week, or £55m a day to the EU. That was Brexit scaremongering. Until now Brexit campaigners they have been able to hide behind Full Fact, the fact-checking website. It produced research in 2014 saying ‘it’s reasonable to describe £55 million as our ‘membership fee’, but it ignores the fact that we get money back as well”.
In 2015, Britain actually sent £250 million a week to the EU. After accounting for the money the Brussels sent back to Britain and EU spending we include in our foreign aid target, the net cost was £120 million a week or £17 million a day. Per person, that’s 26p a day – or half the price of a Mars bar.
We wouldn’t save that much if we left. If we wanted privileged access to the EU market along the lines of that enjoyed by Norway, we would have to pay for it. The net payment Norway makes for its arrangement is about the same as our current contribution per person - 26p a day per person. But if we didn’t have full access, any savings on contributions could well be wiped out by economic turmoil. Far from adding to the Chancellor’s piggy bank, a Brexit could deplete the government’s financial resources.
Last year our notional contribution to the EU was £17.8 billion (£340 million a week). But the UK gets a rebate, which is deducted from our payments. Margaret Thatcher fought hard for this rebate when she was Prime Minister. It is never sent to Brussels. Our 2015 rebate was about £4.9 billion, so we actually sent Brussels £12.9 billion or just under £250 million a week. Funny how eurosceptics, for most of whom Thatcher is a hero, have forgotten one of her best known achievements.
But describing £250 million a week as the “cost” of being in the EU would be misleading. Last year the EU sent the British government £4.4 billion to spend in the UK, mainly on farming and regional aid. It also gives money directly to the private sector, in particular for research.
One of the loudest cries of the Brexit campaign is that the £350m we send to Europe will instead be spent on the NHS. No, it wont. With higher import/export tariffs this money, and much, much more, will go towards stocking our shelves, and keeping our cars full of fuel. Our taxes will go up to cover the cost of this increase in tariffs, but rest-assured the NHS won't see a penny of that money.
At least we’ll be able to stop all these immigrants coming over!
No, we won’t. The UK is not a member of the passport-free Schengen zone, so it retains border controls and checks, and Britain has refused to take part in any EU scheme to reallocate refugees from the war in Syria (though it has separately promised to resettle 20,000 refugees by 2020). Furthermore, immigration from outside of Europe is not affected by Britain’s EU membership.
However, citizens from other EU countries have the right to live and work in Britain (just as British citizens have the right to settle elsewhere in the EU).
Net migration to the UK in the year ending December 2015 was 333,000. Of this number 184,000 were EU migrants, and 188,000 were non EU migrants. So, more non-EU people came to this country than EU, which leaving the EU would have no impact on. It’s also worth noting that last year 39,000 British people left the UK to work and live elsewhere in Europe. This may not be something that would be open to us as readily if we left the EU. As no country has left the EU before, it’s hard to speculate, but much of Britain’s rights in the Europe will depend upon the deal Brussels comes up with for us post Brexit. If it remained within the single market, it would almost certainly retain free movement rights allowing UK citizens to work in the EU and vice versa. If the government opted to impose work permit restrictions, as UKIP wants, then other countries could reciprocate, meaning Britons would have to apply for visas to work or travel in the EU.
In Conclusion
Clearly from my article I’m a Bremainer, and I do believe Britain is stronger in the EU than out of it. And I do fear for future generations the negative effects of a decision we make now. I also worry in the event we realise we’ve made a mistake and want to join the EU again. Such a move will not go unpunished by Brussels, and any re-entry to the EU will come with higher penalties than people think we undertake at present, and it will mean we have to adopt the Euro. This is, of course, if we’re even allowed to go back into the EU. France has made it very clear they will not vote to let us back in if we leave, and the vote has to be unanimous.
In writing this article I’ve tried to use impartial sources, such as Government papers, as well as pro-leave, and pro-exit sources so I’m deriving information from all areas. I also realised I've not covered every aspect of the issues pertaining to leave/stay. Instead, I've tried to cover the most contentious issues. However, at the end of the day this is all just my opinion, and in my opinion a vote to leave will take the Great out of (Great) Britain, and reduce us to sub-par country on the world stage.
Sources:
The Guardian; What Happens Next if Britain Voted to Leave the EU; 31st March 2016
This Is Money; Sterling Tossed on the Waves of Polling; 7th June 2016
In Brief; UK-EU Economic Relations; House of Commons Library; Briefing Paper; Number 06092; 13th June 2016
InFacts.org; UK Doesn’t Send EU £350m a week, or £55 m a day; 25th February 2016
Debatingeurope.eu; How Would Leaving the EU Affect Immigration in Britain; 10th March 2016
Migrationwatch.org; Net Migration Statistics; March 2016
BBC.co.uk; The UK’s EU Referendum; All You Need to Know; 14th June 2016
