Atilla
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Thank you very much for this Forker and I watched it with great interest and gave it my keen attention.
Here are my honest objective economic based views.
The first 10 minutes of the clip I agree with and never do like elaborate and extensive bureaucracy which is self feeding claptrap. I have an old colleague Roy who has much experience of Parliament & the Lords and he says the same on just what a colossal waste of tax payers money it all is. To top it off it's all duplicated in Strasbourg. So yes that needs reform I agree.
However, after the first 10 minutes they started talking much clap trap sprouting unsubstantiated assertions which are invalid and not true and where it is true purely one sided with no explanations why those decisions were reached.
Without claiming to be an expert - I did write a dissertation of 10,000 words researching decline of the British Empire. I can assure you all, the decline had nothing to do with regulation none what so ever. So all that stuff is a load of b0ll0cks to say it in French.
Decline of the Empire started way before the 1st & 2nd World Wars and had more to do with rising competition else where and bid for freedom from countries who the UK dominated and ruled over like India which was the pivot of the Empire. The decline of the ship yards and railways and manufacturing was related to the management, the elite sitting on their laurels and not investing in new technologies or methodologies. British Leyland was blamed on the unions but the decline was more endemic with **** poor management, lack of R&D and decent well paid engineers to attract the brightest instead poor old farts playing stylists when they knew FA. No market research and poor production methods and no R&D. One only has to compare against market leaders like Germany and Japan and you can see regulation had no part.
Reason for the German rise after WWII was not to do with lack of regulation. That's also b0ll0cks. It's more to do with the fact that Germany was blitzed well and truly and they had to build ground up. They are hard working creative intelligent and had 4 times the number of UK engineers who were well rewarded. Moreover, their banks, industrialist and unions all sat on the board and worked hand in glove. They worked as one team. They worked for each other. Not against. They had joint interests and goals. We can learn much from the Germans. I admire them.
Britain had a white collar and grimy ******* class differential. Our banker wank3rs and elite wouldn't dream of sitting with the working class or caught mixing with them.
UK joined the common market later because countries who were in it were leaving the UK behind. Portugal Spain Italy France and Germany all made great strives forward.
Fishing policy came out because if it was left free for all cod supplies were dwindling and would have died out. UK population 60m compared to Iceland, Norway, Sweden's fleet swamped the lot. You'll probably remember the cod war stand off with the Icelanders. The rationale here was that these Norsk counries with populations of 5m or something was so small and very dependent on fishing. UK was a big manufacturing power house. So there was a deal to share the fishing quotas. By the same token those countries would be buying British produced manufacturing goods and services. So yes there was some structural changes. The alternative, free for all would have seen stocks wiped out that's for sure and possible clashes & war between fishing countries.
The regulation, quotas and tariffs well that's played by all countries in all kinds of sneaky ways. I'd throw in subsidies in there too. All governments try and help their industries. This is done in all sorts of sneaky and subtle ways. Tax rebates, free consultancy as well as diplomatic and military pressure is brought on other smaller countries to buy our goods. Another one is giving aid with strings attached. The mass public may not be aware but the higher up the food chain the less clear and muddier the business transactions get.
Japanese and good many other nations could easily dump goods below cost at times to kill off European industry and then raise prices. Especially in heavy industry where entrance costs & fixed costs are so high to restart would not be a viable proposition. So these rules and policies they may refer to as regulation/tariff/quotas are there for a reason. Yes they are there to protect us. They are used in a clever way imo.
Not in the comical way they present it but for real and valid reasons. So they really are manipulating bits of the facts to sway opinions without presenting the full story.
Think about multinationals. They were big story in the 80s and 90s. Professor Dunning was a leading geezer travelling round the globe, trumpeting how they were fantastic and they provided much benefit to any host country. Key argument was that a multinational global company would move to where it could be nearer the cheap resource and labour. That happened a lot. However, the other side of the coin was that jobs were being exported to other countries.
So we have a choice. Export the company abroad to another country or have the big global multinational here in the UK or EU and simply import the cheap-ER labour. We still then get the full benefit of the company revenue, income/expenditure and tax (assuming we could collect it) along with all the other ancillary jobs and services that go to supporting it. Hence, Japanese industry car assembly plants now locate in the UK
This has already started happening in some cases with companies moving back as long as we can suppress and reduce the wage burden by employing cheap labour - up to a point.
The perks and benefits given to bureaucrats are true yes but once again one's persons expenditure is another persons income. Those rich bureaucrats send their children over here to be educated in our esteemed universities. Also, the number of tourists in the UK and in particular all over Westminster and Parliament are absolutely amazing. The money just swirls around the EU. So their income and expenditure in visiting the UK becomes our income.
Switzerland is smack in the middle of Europe. There is Human Geography at work here. By virtue of it's location. Moreover, it has not participated in centuries of war. It is a very small country providing specialists services - in particular in finance. If it was in the EU it would be no less no more. For them to allege it is successful because it is simply outside is nonsense. I would say it is no different to those offshore little countries for the elite to avoid tax. Of course they'll not want any attention or regulation or rules to continue embezzling the globes illegal monies from regulatory eyes.
Trade deals and the ability to trade with anyone and everyone is there either way. Not sure what they are barking about. Germany is able to sell just fine to China and India. I don't get the British gripe about this. One thing that is undeniable is that as a trading block one is stronger in the deals one can get inside the EU.
Trading blocks are popping up all over the world. You have to ask why? Why are all these countries settitng up these blocks? Don't they know they can trade with anyone they like wihtout being in a trading block? So what's going on with this being part of EU cuts us off trading with the rest of the World. Our hands are shackled, really? How? So isn't Germany or France shackled as well?
They say "Outside Europe we can have prosperity on a level unimaginable."
REALLY - why the **** did we start going down the pan after WWII and found our European counterparts were pulling ahead and then joined in 1975? EU was formed in 1951.
Ask the question WHAT happened between 1951 - 1975 to change our politicians mind?
WHY didn't the UK benefit from being outside the union then?
Ask the question what has changed now to make the next 25 years any different. Can they tell us what they did wrong between 1951-75 that they'll do right in the next 25 years?
Do you trust them? If anything the world is a smaller place and borders are going down and blocks are rising as above. So whilst everyone is entering trade deals our few Brexiters think and believe now is a good time to go it alone?
REALLY REALLY have to think about this chaps? Ask questions? Do your own research.
Crux of the matter is that the UK has been in decline well before WW1 and I would go as far to say since joining 1975 UK has halted that slide and what we need is to have a balanced economy by re-establishing some of the basic manufacturing industries and glad we are keeping our strategic once such as steel. Sheffield steel blade was renowned internationally along with Wedgewood pottery. We need these back imo and should be working toward. rekindling their light. We should be manufacturing railway carriages as we do military wares. We should be leading the way with electric powered vehicles which are likely to be the future.
Looked up what the regulation of pillows and linens was about. Here is a link.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...93-textile-labelling-regulations-guidance.pdf
It effectively is a common sense approach to protect the consumer. Can't see anything wrong with it. It talks about the composition of the materials what's pure what's not, what's mixed; wool, nylon and so forth.
In fact, I'm glad there are bodies out there looking after my interests ensuring I don't get to buy some material that's highly inflammable.
I'm still in and the more I check out the Brexiters arguments the more I see the benefits of staying in. Don't be hood winked.
All the best
Addenda: Gosh - I may have over done it with the long post. Sorry
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