Hi Ceradyne
Per year, the UK pays a gross £17 billion contribution fee to the EU but the net fee is actually £9 billion when the rebate and other factors are calculated. The net benefit of EU membership in 2016 estimated as 4-5% of GPD or between £62-£78 billion per year.
Of course the UK can still trade with the EU from the outside as opposed to be being a member and still make a lot of money from doing so, but the fact is that it will be considerably less profitable than it was as a member. To suggest the UK could get better trade terms with the EU as a third party nation outside the EU as opposed to be being a member state is the height of madness. It would make the whole existence of the EU pointless.
As for negotiating trade deals with the rest of the world. Yes of course they will be able to do so and yes long term they can be profitable. But again its absurd to suggest the UK will get a better deals with these countries outside of the EU. In trade negotiations the larger your economy the more power and leverage you have, and the UK is leaving the worlds largest economy (or second largest economy depending on you define it).
The UK secretary for foreign trade Liam Fox has just announced Canada and other unspecified nations are not willing to allow the current trade agreements Canada has with the EU to roll over to the UK while the possibility of a no deal brexit is on the table. Why would Canada and other nations sign a trade deal right now when they can extract better terms from a a potentially weakened UK at the end of October. But let me guess your gonna say that Canada wants to give the UK more favorable terms right because Canada loves the UK so much!
More over of the 40 trade agreements the EU has with other nations around the world, the UK has only been able to roll over 11 of them. While that's over 25% of them in % value of trade its only 12.5% of the total. Quite a number of them where signed after the March exit date. They would have had far less had they actually left on schedule. Also note they are roll over deals, which means they are the same deals (not better deals and in Switzerlands case its a worse deal) will require the UK to keep the same standards and regulations it had while being a member state of the EU, rendering the whole thing pointless.
As for Ireland hot headily rejecting the UK's proposals that's more Brexiteer propoganda. The reasons for rejecting the proposals for a technical solution are clear and well documented by Ireland and the EU. The UK just kept coming back with the same technical solutions proposals over and over. They didn't offer any other solutions. Even if the solutions where acceptable to Ireland the EU, the UK government admitted themselves the technology won't be ready until to 2030 at least!
Regardless of the EU's position on the border, no government in Ireland would permit a hard border between north and south, it would be seen as them reigning on the GFA, a politically untenable position. Varadkar is for sure not the most popular PM Ireland has ever had but the governments position on Brexit has widespread public and cross party support. Without going too far into the history of the country, I'll point out briefly that a civil war was fought in this country over the border and it caused decades of immense conflict and political turmoil. The scares of that conflict still resonate to this day. The GFA was absolutely integral to restoring peace and stability to the island or Ireland. So of course when that agreement was threatened, Ireland was always going to take a very strong view on the matter. To suggest it was anything to do with Ireland bowing to EU pressure shows an ignorance of history.
In business if I was as dependent on a client as UK are of the EU, it be the first to ask to sit down and sort the shyte out
The UK are finding they can no longer bully Ireland around. Makes a nice change after 700 years of them running the place.
Oh yes Beeno I saw Ann's comment's. Had a good chuckle about it. The irony of her declaring the UK a leader among nations in ending slavery after it was her country than colonized 25% of the world was not lost on the rest of the EU. A new rival for Clown in Chief indeed.
Tell me Beeno, those invaders in my country, the 13% of people here who are not Irish nationals, should we kick all of them out or is only certain nationalities that need to go. Like the company I work for has a overwhelming Irish workforce but I should I tell the South African staff members her, they are no longer welcome or is that one dude from Zimbabwe needs to go. Do the 113,000 people living in Ireland from the UK need to go as well, or is the 10,000 Chinese nationals? Or the 11,000 Americans? What about the Brazilians, Italians or Spanish? Or is it just the 64,000 muslims that need to be kicked out (even with the ones with Irish Citizenship?)
Have to say it would look very bad if Ireland was to close its borders when for generations the Irish have emigrated across the globe in search of a better life. I believe 330,000 in South Africa claim Irish descent. The world wide diaspora for the Irish is 80 million. Be a tiny bit hypocritical to raise the shop closed sign on the door of the border wouldn't you say?