Today the government commences Brexit negotiations.
There are four possible outcomes.
We can leave entirely.
Or we can leave the EU but stay in the Customs Union.
Alternatively we can leave the EU but stay in the Customs Union and the Single Market.
Or we can stay in the EU.
The only option that doesn’t harm the UK is staying in.
All the others cause harm. The only question is how much and how long we can defer the time until it hits.
He’ll justify his own wishes by saying that people vote for them, however good or bad they are. But other peoples’ wishes, voted upon, which do not accord with his are to be rejected.
One man, one vote, Spudda being the man with the vote.
Almost all practical choices in the real world cause some degree of harm, no matter how small. I can think of negative aspects of all four possible outcomes. But the only relevant question is: “Which choice do we believe will cause the smallest amount of net harm?” Or ‘the greatest net benefit’ to look at it another way.
There are of course more than 4 options: A fifth and obvious one would be to stay in the Single Market but not in the Customs Union. This is robably the best interim solution but not even considered by our Professorial friend.
How could the UK stay in the single market but not in the customs union? I thought the harmonized regulations and tariffs of the customs union were required for the single market to operate??
CM
“The only relevant question”
Only if one believes that concepts such as sovereignty and democracy are 100% irrelevant to any of this?
Perhaps a Venn diagram (or several) would help the understanding here?
“How could the UK stay in the single market but not in the customs union?”
This will explain: http://www.eureferendum.com/documents/BrexitMonograph016.pdf
This excellent monograph has been approved by the JP Morgan Europe Economic Research unit on Brexit – http://www.eureferendum.com/documents/JPM%20Customs%20Union.pdf
I wish our idiot politicians would read a bit of Richard North’s researches. They might learn something.
Quite. I wish people would read that JP Morgan article and stop banging on about the customs union. Firstly, if you leave the EU, you leave the EU customs union, simple as that. The clue is in the name. Some people may say “what about Turkey?”, but they have a separate customs union agreement with the EU.
Secondly, as Richard North explains, it’s a red herring anyway. The parts of EU law that allow more or less borderless trade came long after the customs union. Turkey, you’ll note, has lengthy delays at its EU border, despite being in a customs union with the EU.
@BraveFart: I realise that was a joke, but anyway:
https://boingboing.net/2011/03/12/venn-diagram-illustr.html
Shows that the EFTA/EEA countries aren’t in the customs union.
Monday is Richie’s EU day.
Tuesday is Green Bollocks day.
Wednesday is loony nationalist left wing day – capital controls, mass nationalisation, which we would have to leave the EU to do, but Monday was a long time ago.
Thursday is Venn diagram and candid insult day.
Friday is random shit day. All options open.
And on Friday afternoons he hangs around railway station pubs bumming pints and yelling gibberish at politicians.
Crikey Matty!
Thanks, most useful, in contrast to the inane Murphy Venn diagrams “for our times”
In studying that Venn diagram that Matty so kindly provided, I would want the UK to be in the blue part
You may take umbrage
That’s your right
This is my blog
And you too are trolling it
Fucking horrible twat. why doesn’t he change name of his blog from tax research to please suck my dick ?
If you’re in the Customs Union you know you haven’t left the EU.
Looking at that Venn diagram, maybe we could establish some sort of Quaker principality thingy, somewhere in the fens, where a trusted professor could mint Euros all day long.
Might need to let the surrounding area flood again. The inhabitant could easily survive on eels.
The only thing that surprises me is that Richard Murphy could count to four without fucking it up.
“And on Friday afternoons he hangs around railway station pubs bumming pints and yelling gibberish at politicians.”
Or hanging round railway stations bummiing politicians yelling gibberish.
Either works for me.
[W]hy doesn’t he change name of his blog from tax research to please suck my dick?
Too obvious?
It’s a measure of the man’s self-importance that he calls his blog Tax Research, rather than Tax Hobby Horses. He no more does research than does a bloke in the park yelling at pigeons.
@ BiCR
Research is when one is learning about stuff, not when you know it – so it could be appropriate for Murphy if some of you guys inform him about stuff on tax that he doesn’t know. Murphy claimed not to know about the cash basis for income tax for the self-employed when I told him about it.
Yes, really!! He said that the accruals basis was the only one to use.
@john 77 – so it could be appropriate for Murphy if some of you guys inform him about stuff on tax that he doesn’t know.
Why we we go out of our way to be insulted. If i wanted that i’d contact my ex wife.
@PF
Mr W (or any economist) will tell you that you can attach a financial value to anything. I agree that sovereignty and democracy are highly valuable, but not infinitely so.
@ Moqifen
I don’t (at least yet) have an ex-wife. Such are relatively rare in my family, so I cannot comment.