Cameron: UK won't pay £1.7bn EU bill

[mr friendly guy]

Slightly off topic, but given the way this conversation is going...

What would happen if the UK did vote to leave the EU? To both the UK and EU economies?

It'd definitely hurt both, although the exact extent to which both would be affected remains up for debate. The EU would lose a strong economy, but since this country isn't part of the Eurozone the damage wouldn't be nearly as bad as it could be. On the other hand, the strength of this country's economy is largely because it has a strong banking and communication infrastructure, which makes it a good choice for non-European companies who want a gateway to the EU; taking away freedom of trade and movement would likely result in such companies moving their European operations to France, Germany or Ireland, and tear the guts out of our economy. That and the fact that if our withdrawal didn't somehow cause the EU to immediately implode, how they treat us now would be absolutely nothing compared to how they'd treat us after we effectively say "You losers are holding us back, so fuck you, we're going solo!"

The weird thing is that UKIP's policies until this point have made virtually no mention of what they would actually do in the event of the UK leaving the EU, and how the transition would be handled. Either Nigel Farage is genuinely insane enough to believe that walking away from the EU is all this country needs to do to immediately turn into a prosperous right-wing paradise, or he actually has no intention of leaving the EU and is (surprise surprise) just another opportunistic politician telling voters what they want to hear.

What about trade between the UK and the rest of the EU. I keep on hearing the term "common market" so presumably being a member of the EU gives the UK better access to EU markets, ie without tariffs or other forms of protection.

Would it affect trade with the UK, or will Europe turn elsewhere. I mean non EU countries like China trade a lot with the EU without needing to be part of it.

[Irbis]

What about trade between the UK and the rest of the EU. I keep on hearing the term "common market" so presumably being a member of the EU gives the UK better access to EU markets, ie without tariffs or other forms of protection.

See, this is something that technically doesn't require UK to be in EU:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Area

The problem is, it's in a lot of ways being EU member with smaller fee and no vote on anything whatsoever. If UK has problems with EU now, imagine what will happen when UK will only have option of taking the legislation (including person movement) wholesale or be kicked out. And in any way, UK will also need to kiss its rebate goodbye, potentially paying more to get no say on anything.

[Thanas]

So turns out immigrants are actually contributing a net gain of 20bn pounds to the British economy.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014 ... -ucl-study

European migrants to the UK are not a drain on Britain’s finances and pay out far more in taxes than they receive in state benefits, a new study has revealed.

The research by two leading migration economists at University College also reveals that Britain is uniquely successful, even more than Germany, in attracting the most highly skilled and highly educated migrants in Europe.

The study, the Fiscal Impact of Immigration to the UK, published in the Economic Journal, reveals that more than 60% of new migrants from western and southern Europe are now university graduates. The educational levels of east Europeans who come to Britain are also improving with 25% of recent arrivals having completed a degree compared with 24% of the UK-born workforce.

It says that European migrants made a net contribution of £20bn to UK public finances between 2000 and 2011. Those from the original 15 EU countries, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain, contributed 64% – £15bn more in taxes than they received in welfare – while east European migrants contributed 12%, equivalent to £5bn more.

this basically mirrors every study done in every other rich nation. Who knew that Britain wouldn't be special.

[DaveJB]

See, this is something that technically doesn't require UK to be in EU:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Area

The problem is, it's in a lot of ways being EU member with smaller fee and no vote on anything whatsoever. If UK has problems with EU now, imagine what will happen when UK will only have option of taking the legislation (including person movement) wholesale or be kicked out. And in any way, UK will also need to kiss its rebate goodbye, potentially paying more to get no say on anything.

Free movement of people is one of two major bugbears (the other being supposedly excessive membership fees) that the EU's opponents in this country have, so chances are any government which withdraws from the EU wouldn't want to be a member of the EEA anyway. They might try to bargain for free movement of goods and money between this country and the EU, but somehow I doubt the rest of Europe would be in a mood to give us that.

So turns out immigrants are actually contributing a net gain of 20bn pounds to the British economy.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014 ... -ucl-study

<snip>

this basically mirrors every study done in every other rich nation. Who knew that Britain wouldn't be special.

Sadly, I don't think hard-right-wingers in this country would care one bit whether immigrants add to or subtract from the economy. They seem to feel that if any immigrant gets hired for a job that a British person - especially a white British person - may have taken, that's unacceptable. Likewise, if the EU parliament or courts an override their UK counterparts on any matter, no matter how inconsequential, that's unacceptable to them.

And what's either even sadder or funnier is that the UK isn't even unique in that regard, either - Marine le Pen and her father have over the years come far closer to attaining power in France than Nigel Farage (or Nick Griffin, before the BNP collapsed into irrelevancy and he got kicked out) has done in this country.

[SpottedKitty]

What about trade between the UK and the rest of the EU. I keep on hearing the term "common market" so presumably being a member of the EU gives the UK better access to EU markets, ie without tariffs or other forms of protection.

"Common Market" (or EEC, European Economic Community) is the name of what we were sold back when we originally joined. I don't remember the term "EU" or all the pure political stuff making the news until many years later. Apparently it "just growed".

[Thanas]

What about trade between the UK and the rest of the EU. I keep on hearing the term "common market" so presumably being a member of the EU gives the UK better access to EU markets, ie without tariffs or other forms of protection.

"Common Market" (or EEC, European Economic Community) is the name of what we were sold back when we originally joined. I don't remember the term "EU" or all the pure political stuff making the news until many years later. Apparently it "just growed".

This is bullshit. It did not just happen overnight. It was a gradual process, with Britain involved all the way, usually to scrap sensible things like a common charter of basic EU citizen's rights (only to later crow about how the EU is antidemocratic because it does not guarantee freedoms) or a sound financial basis (only to now bitch about how the process is not right).

Besides, the parts Brits are now clamouring about are well known parts of the common market. Free movement of goods, services, people etc. are all part of the common market of the EU.

[madd0ct0r]

I find it mildly amusing that spottedkitty is quoting from a 2011 article in favour of expanding/ integrating the EU further.
http://www.diplomatmagazine.com/issues/ ... 5-397.html

[Darth Tanner]

As rocky as our relationship with the EU is at times its very embarrassing for Cameron to be pandering to the UKIP vote in front of everyone like this. I would say we won't have to put up with it for long if Labour replace him but they seem just as UKIP crazed and moronic as the Tories.

[jwl]

I am at the point where I honestly believe the Brits will never negotiate with Europe in good faith for the foreseeable future. It would be best for the rest of the world at this point if they would just take their little islands and tow them to the North of the USA, so we can all live happier lives. Because this is clearly not working and not for lack of trying on part of the EU.

Except that most of those who advocate withdrawing from the EU also appear to be in favour of slashing and burning our trade and political agreements with the US. Someone should probably tell them that the last world leader who tried to get out of a recession by doubling down on isolationism was Herbert Hoover, and that it didn't exactly end well for anyone involved.

Aren't they more "withdraw from the EU, reduce our links with NATO, increase our links with the Commonwealth of Nations". Sure, they are probably overestimating how useful increased links with the Commonwealth will be, but that doesn't mean that they are thinking of going it alone.

[Thanas]

The Commonwealth? What good are increasing ties with them and what does that even mean? Is more money and more mutual purchasing of goods just going to magically appear out of thin air? I mean, what are the ties that could be increased that would even remotely make up for losing access to the common market?

[jwl]

The Commonwealth? What good are increasing ties with them and what does that even mean? Is more money and more mutual purchasing of goods just going to magically appear out of thin air? I mean, what are the ties that could be increased that would even remotely make up for losing access to the common market?

UKIP's argument is that leaving the EU (hopefully, from their perspective, leading to its altogether destruction and a new, much looser agreement being drawn up) will allow them to remove all tariffs with the commonwealth and creating a free trade zone across that area. There has also been a lot of rhetoric from farage about it being unfair about letting in any EU immigrant but not any indian immigrant, which indicates to me he is probably thinking about making it easier for commonwealth citizens to travel between commonwealth countries, although not the same free movement of people the EU has and obviously he doesn't want to say this outright in public. It then wants the UK to become a "bridge" between the commonwealth and either the EU or the thing that replaces it. They also want the UK to have it's own seat in the WTO after it leaves the EU.

In terms of why it will be useful, their argument is that the commonwealth has surpassed the eurozone in total GDP and it is growing whilst the EU is (according to them) stagnating.

When it comes to america, they want to do something similar to the TTIP except without the EU, but they also want the UK to stop participating in all foreign wars and stop being so aggressive with russia, which will inevitably drive them further from NATO, of which america is a major part.

[SpottedKitty]

I find it mildly amusing that spottedkitty is quoting from a 2011 article in favour of expanding/ integrating the EU further.
http://www.diplomatmagazine.com/issues/ ... 5-397.html

FWIW, I wasn't talking about the number of EU members, I meant the scope of things the EU considered its business, not to be left to each member country to do for themselves. That's what I percieve to have expanded so much since we joined in 1973, and since the membership referendum in 1975. I was a bit too young to vote for it then; which way I'd vote if this proposed referendum goes ahead depends very much on what happens in the next couple of years.

[mr friendly guy]

The Commonwealth? What good are increasing ties with them and what does that even mean? Is more money and more mutual purchasing of goods just going to magically appear out of thin air? I mean, what are the ties that could be increased that would even remotely make up for losing access to the common market?

Back in the 90s I was taught that the UK was once our major trading partner. Then they did a "bad thing" to us (my economics teacher's jocular description). They joined the EU and directed trade preferences to other EU members. We then were forced to seek trade with Japan and the US. These days our major trading partner is the PRC. Easily by a country mile over Japan and the US.

Because Australia has really short memories we will have forgotten about what the UK did, but Asian and the US has pretty much locked up our trade. Heck our academic papers have pretty much identify Asia as the growth region we should target, particularly the countries of China, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and India. I doubt if suddenly liberalise trade with the UK would do much. Can't speak for the other commonwealth nations, but I am going to hazard a guess that African commonwealth nations would do more trade with China than the UK, and India would most probably trade more with China as well.

[Zaune]

So turns out immigrants are actually contributing a net gain of 20bn pounds to the British economy.

[...]

this basically mirrors every study done in every other rich nation. Who knew that Britain wouldn't be special.

You thought UKIP's policies were anything but an elaborate, sophisticated rationalisation for an irrational fear/hatred of anyone who doesn't fit their ridiculously narrow definition of "our kind of people"?

[streetad]

Making something out of the Commonwealth more than it's current status as basically a cultural exchange programme is a ship that has long sailed. Reviving trade patterns that have been defunct for half a century is just wishful thinking by people who are ideologically opposed to the EU in its current form but don't really have a practical, realistic alternative to offer.

With regards to the amount that immigrants contribute to the economy, I think that the slightly more sophisticated UKIP members are just wanting to keep the UNPRODUCTIVE immigrants out. Which again is wishful thinking as a non-EU Britain is presumably likely to be much less attractive a destination for the well educated professionals the economy actually needs.

[Starglider]

The problem with very high immigration levels is not the financial extra taxes vs extra benefits issue. Unsurprisingly, gaining population of primarily working age and high motivation, for which the UK doesn't have to pay education, childhood healtchare or in many cases pensions (if they retire back to their home country) is a net positive. The problems are (1) demand on limited housing and infrastructure, which is a major factor in high sustained house price inflation and transport overcrowding, and (2) reduction in pricing power of non-specialist labor, contributing to zero wage growth for the lower three quartiles. Obviously immigration is not the only factor, global economic conditions and UK fiscal policy play a role as well, but it is a major factor. The UK's ability to expand housing and infrastructure to cope with the extra population is constrained by capital availability and the extremely slow and restrictive planning system. Also there are environmental and cultural issues with further densification of the south-east of England in particular; yes if planning constraints were removed the London metro area could be progressively rebuilt to Tokyo density levels (or rather, this could be done much faster than it currently is), but that is a major change in the character of the region and probably not for the better.

[Crazedwraith]

Osbourne claims to halved the bill. Everyone else disagrees/

But in essence the UK is paying 800 mil over the course of next year. Cameron and Osbourne claim a big victory everyone else saying they've pulled accounting tricks to try and make themselves look good. Would not surprise me.

[jwl]

Well technically it's a slight discount because if there is no interest some of it will get eaten by inflation. But really it's a delay. Pretty much what I expected to happen, personally, but let's see whether cameron can squeeze any political capital out of this.

[madd0ct0r]

The problem with very high immigration levels is not the financial extra taxes vs extra benefits issue. Unsurprisingly, gaining population of primarily working age and high motivation, for which the UK doesn't have to pay education, childhood healtchare or in many cases pensions (if they retire back to their home country) is a net positive. The problems are (1) demand on limited housing and infrastructure, which is a major factor in high sustained house price inflation and transport overcrowding, and (2) reduction in pricing power of non-specialist labor, contributing to zero wage growth for the lower three quartiles. Obviously immigration is not the only factor, global economic conditions and UK fiscal policy play a role as well, but it is a major factor. The UK's ability to expand housing and infrastructure to cope with the extra population is constrained by capital availability and the extremely slow and restrictive planning system. Also there are environmental and cultural issues with further densification of the south-east of England in particular; yes if planning constraints were removed the London metro area could be progressively rebuilt to Tokyo density levels (or rather, this could be done much faster than it currently is), but that is a major change in the character of the region and probably not for the better.

You missed two huge factors. One is that we are currently going through peak young family for this generation cycle, exercerbating demand for housing, schools etc. The other is we sold the social housing stock and didn't build more.

[Thanas]

Osbourne claims to halved the bill. Everyone else disagrees/

But in essence the UK is paying 800 mil over the course of next year. Cameron and Osbourne claim a big victory everyone else saying they've pulled accounting tricks to try and make themselves look good. Would not surprise me.

Remember the British rebate that Thatcher negotiated? Usually it would be applied next spring after the EU budget would have been finalized. Cameron managed to get it applied now, sacrificing future earnings to get the debt lower. Before this meeting the UK would have paid in full (1.7 bn) and gotten money back. Now he receives that money in advance as credited against the bill.

So in short, the only gains he would get would be the ones from inflation. Other than that, he basically pays the full bill.

Or in short, a near total defeat for the British side as the amount did not get lowered, they only managed to pay it in installment.

[Crazy_Vasey]

I am generally pro-EU, but stories like this and this make it hard to justify. The benefits of EU membership are diffuse and hard to make concrete; the negatives are easy to put forth and make compelling. Are they really worth more than ten billion a year? No-one's making the case with any force; all of the mass media sources either anti-EU or weak-sauce and pointless (e.g. the Guardian which couldn't successfully argue that the sky is blue).

In addition, if you're at the low end of the labour market, as most of the people I know from back home are, then the last wave of expansion into Eastern Europe, was disastrous. Our government, those New Labour fools, allowed a situation where most of the EU opted out of immediate access to the local labour market for those countries while we went all in. An awful lot of people felt the pain of that increased competition through skilled and semi-skilled labour being heavily crimped by competition, unskilled labour being priced down to nothing by a wave of people who find our minimum wage to be more than enough and don't care about silly things like healthy & safety, and kids starting out coming into a world where no-one wants apprentices because they can get cheap, skilled labour who don't need training (still the case).

In addition, our housing market is completely fucked due to a combination of government policies that have interacted to produce an absolute worst case. The absolute last thing anyone here needs is more people competing for the same properties. It's incredibly difficult to find anything reasonably priced in a part of the country anyone wants to live in.

That was all Labour's fault, really. Most of the EU opted out of immediate access to their labour markets for that wave of expansion. But it has been redirected to general 'fuck Europe' sentiment' by a lack of forceful pro-EU argument and an abundance of people who are very happy to blame foreigners for everything. I don't really see how this is going to get solved with the way things are going. I think we, the UK, are heading towards leaving the EU unless something changes drastically. And I think we'll all be poorer for that.

[Thanas]

I am generally pro-EU, but stories like this and this make it hard to justify. The benefits of EU membership are diffuse and hard to make concrete; the negatives are easy to put forth and make compelling. Are they really worth more than ten billion a year? No-one's making the case with any force; all of the mass media sources either anti-EU or weak-sauce and pointless (e.g. the Guardian which couldn't successfully argue that the sky is blue).

Really now? Go read the thread.

[Simon_Jester]

The thread does a marvelous job of establishing that the British should have expected to end up having to pay extra money.

Which part does a marvelous job of establishing that Vasey is wrong? His claims boil down to:
1) The British mass media are either anti-EU or incompetently pro-EU
2) The Labour Government badly mismanaged the incorporation of Eastern European labor pools into the British economy, unlike most EU member states, with results that are bad for certain classes of British workers.
3) The dislocation this has created in Britain is turning many Britons (or at least Englishmen) against the EU.
4) As a result, it looks likely to Vasey that Britain will want to leave the EU.
5) And that would be bad, Vasey says.

Exactly which of those propositions is refuted in this thread?

[Thanas]

The "badly mismanaged entry" which you interpret into his words is stupid, considering in this very threads there - ON THIS VERY PAGE - there is a link saying migrants are a net benefit.

He is also saying it is hard to justify that the EU is worth the money. Which is true, but as this thread established pretty much, the UK has no other choice.

[Simon_Jester]

The "badly mismanaged entry" which you interpret into his words is stupid...

First of all, how on Earth do you get the idea that "I interpreted" that 'badly mismanaged quote. Vasey did everything but jump up and down waving signal flags to say "Labour mismanaged the transition. He came right out and said it. It's not my words.

In addition... Our government, those New Labour fools, allowed a situation where most of the EU opted out of immediate access to the local labour market for those countries while we went all in...

In addition, our housing market is completely fucked due to a combination of government policies that have interacted to produce an absolute worst case...

That was all Labour's fault, really...

But that's a side-issue, just me trying to establish that Vasey actually said what I said he said. Now...
_______________________________________

considering in this very threads there - ON THIS VERY PAGE - there is a link saying migrants are a net benefit.

Yes, yours, at the top of the page. Starglider's response (which maddoctor added to) is very relevant. Because he (they) pointed out that it's not the point that the immigrants pay more in taxes than they take in services. That is not the only thing that matters.

Other things that matter:

1) Simply increasing the UK's total population is causing severe overcrowding and strain on infrastructure, especially in the London area. Other areas of the country could accommodate more people, but they're economically stagnant so no one wants to migrate there.

2) The arrival of the immigrants is depressing the cost of labor, which is causing serious problems for every UK citizen that isn't already a technical specialist. It's not "they take our jobs," it's "businesses can take advantage of arbitrage in the labor market as long as they pay more than an equivalent employer in Poland would pay." This is a basic, obvious result of large-scale immigration that anyone can predict from Economics 101. If you introduce a large, cheap supply of a commodity with acceptable quality, the market price of that commodity will go down. In this case, the commodity is "low skilled and semi-skilled labor."

3) Maddoctor's expansion on this point, which is that (1) and arguably (2) are made even worse by short-term demographic factors and specific details of how the crisis is being managed.

Other European countries that are better managed (and have more land area in economically thriving regions) may dodge either of these bullets, but the United Kingdom hasn't.

He is also saying it is hard to justify that the EU is worth the money. Which is true, but as this thread established pretty much, the UK has no other choice.

Uh... could you expand on that? It sounds like you're arguing the following:

"I concede that the EU is an unprofitable and unbeneficial waste of the UK's money, but the UK has no other choice!"

But that can't be what you're saying; that would contradict what you said earlier about the EU actually being beneficial and Britons just being too ignorant to know it. So I must have misunderstood you, and I suspect it's because you elided a part of the argument.