Tory secret deal with EU

[BlasterBates]

The cook islands discover a marvellous new product. Lets say it is guaranteed to kill all Brmoanwhiners. Its only available in the Cook islands.

So its a case of supply and demand.

ah that's interesting so is there an example of this, because the Cook Islands don't have a new product to kill all Brmoanwhiners, one could equally argue that the EU might get a special relationship with an alien civilisation, or that a huge meteorite will wipe out London.
So what we need are realistic scenarios to explain this.

Why for example have Switzerland, Iceland and Norway all caved into the EU, pay huge amounts into the budget and accept the freedom of movement ?

Why will the UK be different than Switzerland, Norway and Iceland. What advantage does the UK have over these countries ?

[WordIsBond]

OK, that's interesting. Perhaps you could illustrate this with an example.

If the UK is doing a trade deal with the Cook Islands, could you explain what the scenario might be that would give the Cook Islanders the upper hand ?

This isn't hard if you know the first thing about economics.

Any scenario in which the Cook Islanders had an asset which the UK would want or need gives them a strong hand. If the UK wants it more than the Cook Islanders want or need what the UK is offering, they've got the upper hand.

If they discover massive oil deposits, for instance, it doesn't matter how many citizens they have. What matters is they have oil that other people would want, and that they themselves don't need and would be willing to sell. That gives them a strong negotiating hand. In this case, having a small population would strengthen their hand further, because it means the oil wealth doesn't have to be spread widely to make everyone on the islands rich. So they can actually sell at a discount, if they want to, which gives them an even more attractive asset to offer, and thus a stronger negotiating position.

Having a small population hurts if the big boys are planning to invade, I suppose. It also hurts if the only thing you are offering is access to an export market, and the population is small enough that it isn't an attractive market. Neither of those are the case here. AFAIK, the EU isn't planning to launch a cross-Channel invasion, and the size of the UK market is obviously big enough to be beneficial to the EU.

[WordIsBond]

The UK has £2 trillion of debt. No gold. Exactly how are we helping here? Even Italy has more gold than the UK.

The UK can't even help itself never mind others

Oh, that's good to know. So the EU officials and negotiators demanding the UK pay £50bn or more are delusional.

Either we have the ability to pay that money and they want us to, or we don't have it and they are insane. You can't have it both ways.

If the former, then we have something they want and thus a strong negotiating position. If the latter, well, they are insane and you agree with them. You may not be able to draw logical inferences from that, but most of the rest of us probably can.

[BlasterBates]

... and the size of the UK market is obviously big enough to be beneficial to the EU.

which contradicts what you said previously where you said GDP is irrelevant.

The EU market is much, much bigger and more important for the UK (50% of their trade) then the UK market is for the EU (8% of their trade).

QED

Anyway the UK is going to find this out.

[WordIsBond]

Why for example have Switzerland, Iceland and Norway all caved into the EU, pay huge amounts into the budget and accept the freedom of movement ?

Probably because they don't care as much about freedom of movement as 52% of the UK electorate does.

FWIW, I agree with those countries that freedom of movement is not, generally a bad thing, and that Brexit was probably unnecessary and is going to create upheaval we could have done without. And I have no problem with some level of payment to the EU. I just think all the panic about every pronouncement and/or leak out of Euroland is significantly overblown, that Brexit is unlikely to be either the Heaven the Brexiters proclaim nor the Hell, Fire, and Brimstone that the Bremainers preach, and that a reasonable deal that is mutually beneficial to both sides is almost certainly going to happen once the temper fits are over.

[vetran]

Lets try Gibralatar its got Jobs that the Spanish want and big brother so they get to stay British.

If they were in the EU alone JCJ & co would have handed them over to the spanish ages ago.

Seriously I imagine Majestic12 regularly sells to much bigger companies at a price that the firm wants to sell at.

Most of my clients paid what I chose to ask for, most of them were huge multinationals compared with me.

Jersey does fine selling financial services as did Switzerland hoarding someone's gold until 'they caved in' - interesting choice of words - surrender to the Motherland? .

London is still the world's money laundering capital.

[BlasterBates]

Probably because they don't care as much about freedom of movement as 52% of the UK electorate does.

FWIW, I agree with those countries that freedom of movement is not, generally a bad thing, and that Brexit was probably unnecessary and is going to create upheaval we could have done without. And I have no problem with some level of payment to the EU. I just think all the panic about every pronouncement and/or leak out of Euroland is significantly overblown, that Brexit is unlikely to be either the Heaven the Brexiters proclaim nor the Hell, Fire, and Brimstone that the Bremainers preach, and that a reasonable deal that is mutually beneficial to both sides is almost certainly going to happen once the temper fits are over.

They do, the Swiss had a referendum and over 50% voted against it, but they can't change it because the EU is bigger,

The UK will also cave in on this as well.

Greenland left the EU to control it's fisheries but actually the EU still has full control. It dictates Greenland's quotas.

[WordIsBond]

which contradicts what you said previously where you said GDP is irrelevant.

The EU market is much, much bigger and more important for the UK (50% of their trade) then the UK market is for the EU (8% of their trade).

QED

Anyway the UK is going to find this out.

You full well know the other side of this argument, and that those percentages only tell part of the story. So either you are being dishonest or you really are too dumb to know those percentages don't reflect the full reality.

But I did not contradict what I said previously. The size of the export market is not the only thing the EU wants from the UK, is it? Cold hard cash, they want.

And of course, the size of the market is over-simplifying. There's also the ability to penetrate the market. If you offer me a market of 2 billion people, but I can only produce the goods or services to penetrate a market of 1 million, then the size of the market you offer me is irrelevant. An export market only has value to the exporter to the extent that the exporter can benefit from it.

[BlasterBates]

You full well know the other side of this argument, and that those percentages only tell part of the story. So either you are being dishonest or you really are too dumb to know those percentages don't reflect the full reality.

But I did not contradict what I said previously. The size of the export market is not the only thing the EU wants from the UK, is it? Cold hard cash, they want.

And of course, the size of the market is over-simplifying. There's also the ability to penetrate the market. If you offer me a market of 2 billion people, but I can only produce the goods or services to penetrate a market of 1 million, then the size of the market you offer me is irrelevant. An export market only has value to the exporter to the extent that the exporter can benefit from it.

If you are right the EU will cave in to the UK's demands, but that isn't going to happen.

and that will be the QED...

[WordIsBond]

They do, the Swiss had a referendum and over 50% voted against it, but they can't change it because the EU is bigger,

The UK will also cave in on this as well.

Ok, so the Swiss government doesn't reflect the will of its people. Too bad for them.

If the UK caves on freedom of movement, the Tories will be done for a long, long, long time. And so they should be, even though I don't agree with the need to restrict freedom of movement. The people voted for it.

The one thing worse than stupid government is arrogant government that ignores the will of the people.