Tariffs, customs and so on. Anything originating from or shipped through the EU would become more expensive.
Assuming the UK raises tariffs against EU agricultural produce. What would occur next would be in the hands of British lawmakers regarding imports
25% of UK food consumed comes from the EU, and unless we get a trade deal, which is unlikely given the way the EU handles trade with other nations, basically being a 'Norway deal or our flat rate for non-members' situation, we'd fall back on WTO rules.
We would decide what we set our tariff rates at though, the EU would have to impose a tax on agricultural produce to the UK in order to achieve the same and the result would be that European farmers would be unable to compete with British farmers in the British market
Moreover why is it unlikely? By "basically" treating this as a Norway or non-members situation, are we not willingly ignoring the rest of the world? Don't see anyone arguing that Mexico, Canada or Singapore must join the EU to enjoy mutual trade benefits with the EU, unless that is to say that our situation is unique because we are a European country and thus for political reasons the EU will never allow a European nation to enjoy less than antagonistic relations without membership of the EU. This is especially in light of
the Canadian and Singaporian precedents giving Brussels the power to give free trade deals to trading partners whether or not its constituent members like the terms or not.
Now, since the UK and EU are members of the WTO, they have to give each other a special rate on import/export duty. It's apparently an average of 2% on non-agricultural products, and an average of 22% on agricultural ones. There is a lot of range in that though, with wine being just 14% and beef 59%. (Figures taken from https://www.ft.com/content/7f0c732c-93b8-11e6-a80e-bcd69f323a8b?mhq5j=e2)
Obviously the exact rate will depend on the exact proportions of stuff we import, but we import mostly fruit/veg (£8.7 billion in 2014) and meat (£6 billion 2014), followed by beverages (£5.2 billion 2014). (https://www.theatlas.com/charts/S1vGKAcS)
Tariffs also hit in the opposite direction of course and will hurt food exports, 40% of which we normally sell to the EU. Lot of farmers and brewers will be hit hard by that as their normal export market looks elsewhere for suppliers.
This isn't going to cause some kind of price explosion, except maybe in regards to meat like beef and lamb. But it's going to cause an increase of food prices across the board, and that's the last thing people already struggling to pay their rent, their car insurance, their TV license and so on need. It'll be mostly irrelevant to anyone who's paid well and has a good house with a low rate mortgage, beyond giving them a reason to bitch about the price of steak, but they're not the people who need worried about, it's the single mothers on zero hours contracts, the people struggling to keep the heating on and feed their kids, the elderly living on state pensions and so on who'll suffer. There's tons of people struggling to stay above the poverty line, and for some of them it will only take a small rise in the cost of essentials to sink under it.
The EU exports more food to the UK than the UK exports to the EU, ergo any trade war would hurt French and Spanish farmers the most, assuming we made that choice to go tit for tat. Also assuming of course, that the EU wants to start a trade war,
which is in odds with their wish for a free trade deal with the UK. Increases of food prices across the board will not help them, yet even a drastic decrease in food prices would not rescue them, the precariat can only be helped by one of two things: A drastic increase in employment and wages, or reliable social security. With much of the EU's food and wine producers dependent upon UK consumers, it's clear to see why they want to help us here; we'd lose out in relative terms, they'd lose out in absolute terms, and their agricultural lobbyists have not been quiet about it. Meanwhile we'd be able to conduct our own trade deals with the rest of the world which is where the vast majority of all our trade in all industries is conducted meaning that in the centuries to come we will be able to choose for ourselves what is best for ourselves, good that you mention the WTO for on the WTO, we'd be sitting in for 1 seat, not 1/28th of a seat. It's rather embarrassing that Iceland and New Zealand have been able to better represent themselves than we have on the WTO, and it'll be rather nice to no longer be paying subsidies to unprofitable farmers through the Common Agricultural Policy. Hell, we'd even be able to start adopting technologies that improve farm efficiency like genetically modified crops
So yeah I think the last bit is an issue that goes far deeper than food prices, it's the gap between the precariat and the working class, not even considering the gap between them and the elite classThey really should get rid of TV licenses lol.
Really should've done so already
Every prior MP for Kensington has been Conservative. 1974, 1988, 2010 and 2015. 2017 is the first non-Con to win. (It was abolished in 97 and reinstated in 2010.) There have been 9 prior elections, and the Cons have held it through all of them with just 4 MPs over the time period.
Conservatives seem to trend in the high 40s very low 50s for vote percentage there, with Labour usually in the 20-30% range.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kensington_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
EDIT: Fixing the link.
Remain won 69% there m9
This is an exact mirror of Copeland which Labour held onto continuously since 1935; lost it to Tories which is altogether unsurprising
given how it voted 62% outWell, not an exact mirror considering how Kensington got the Tories rekt by a pub full of people ahahaha I love it, but yeah it's very comparable. EU referendum flipped shits around
It being a Tory stronghold are The Guardians words, not mine.
Your words or the guardians, I consider all equally valid regardless of who speaks them
Apropos of what? And then what do we do about our politically neutral* and ad-free BBC TV and radio, S4C (ads), World Service (now forced onto the licence fund), etc, etc, etc..
* - Stop laughing at the back, LW...
BBC bias is not very easy to quantify since it's very plastic. For the most part they try very hard not to be biased
Author
Topic: UK Snap Election Thread - Darth May (Read 42284 times)