Panasonic to move European HQ from London to Amsterdam

[Corky34]

While we knew they were pretty inept at running the country I'd say brexit is taking it to a whole new level...

True but expecting pretty inept people to be anything more than inept is rather fantastical.

[Smudger]

combine that with the EU who are too stupid to see that they'll be hit just as hard as we will with no deal

This is what I don't understand. They have the trade deals in place with other countries, they have freedom of movement of goods and people across borders, how will they be hit 'just as hard' as us?

[Corky34]

Presumably that's as opposed to the demonstrably utter drivel of the economic 'forecasts' coming from those bastions of Project Fear, the Treasury.

I'd say the BoE cutting interests rates, embarking on another round of quantitative easing, estimated to be at least £60 billion, and a fall of approximately 20% in the value of sterling were anything but drivel.

It's going to take quite a long time, and by that I mean a decade at an absolute minimum, before the full economic and financial consequences, both positive and negative, are known. because it takes a long time to unstitch the consequences of being tied in to an economic and political framework like the EU, and to rebuild traditional relationships and develop new ones with the rest of the planet.

According to Jacob Rees-Mogg "we won’t know the full economic consequences for a very long time, we really won’t. The overwhelming opportunity for Brexit is over the next 50 years.", IDK about you but i won't even be around in 50 years.

[Saracen]

This is what I don't understand. They have the trade deals in place with other countries, they have freedom of movement of goods and people across borders, how will they be hit 'just as hard' as us?

I wouldn't have used the phrase 'just as hard" majnly because that's hard to quantify.

But 'significant adverse consequences' for the EU, in the absence of a mutually acceptable deal, is easier to explain. It starts with them having a honking great trade surplus with us, which will be at risk, if significant tariff and non-tariff barriers go up. However we cut it, we are a major market for many EU companies and those barriers (if, as threatened, go up) can only adversely affect that market.

At the same time, the EU cannot easily refocus elsewhere because they will still be behind those tariff and non-tariff barriers. The UK, on the other hand, will not be so we can look elsewhere for suppliers of goods that previously came from the EU, being outside the protectionist customs union.

For instance, I might buy Lexus, Toyota or Tesla instead of BMW or VW, an LG freezer instead of Siemens or a Makita drill rather than Bosch. And so on.

In other words, being outside that customs union puts us outside thrir protectionism, and they sell us a very large amount more than we sell them. Alternate suppliers are more attractive once we leave, but for the EU, nothing has changed with those alternate markets.

And that's without looking at the potential benefits of not facing EU tariffs on imports from RoW.

[Saracen]

I'd say the BoE cutting interests rates, embarking on another round of quantitative easing, estimated to be at least £60 billion, and a fall of approximately 20% in the value of sterling were anything but drivel.



According to Jacob Rees-Mogg "we won’t know the full economic consequences for a very long time, we really won’t. The overwhelming opportunity for Brexit is over the next 50 years.", IDK about you but i won't even be around in 50 years.

Yeah, but it's not about just you or me. The same could be said about us joining the common market in the first place. What we ended up getting certainly wasn't what we were told/promised by the politicians that took us in .... without bothering to ask the people if we wanted in.

[avi8tor]

Told you!

[Corky34]

Yeah, but it's not about just you or me. The same could be said about us joining the common market in the first place. What we ended up getting certainly wasn't what we were told/promised by the politicians that took us in .... without bothering to ask the people if we wanted in.

I can't think of many things that have stayed the same for 40 odd years, and we've been electing MEP's and governments all that time so it's not like we weren't asked what we wanted, we may not have considered it worth answering but the questions were always asked.

[Percy1983]

just out of interest what was the last Panasonic product you've bought?

A Panasonic VX870 camcorder about 6 weeks ago.

[Troopa]

Good. BYE THEN! I personally think we should make a list of every company that bails over brexit and never buy from them again.
Whether you voted leave or not, each company bailing on the UK over this is an enemy as far as i am concerned. Please can we make sure the Gov't specifically tax imports on Panasonic products.

[Saracen]

I can't think of many things that have stayed the same for 40 odd years, and we've been electing MEP's and governments all that time so it's not like we weren't asked what we wanted, we may not have considered it worth answering but the questions were always asked.

We were taken into the Common Market without consent, though .... based on a pack of lies, and with the damage already done to historic trading relationships, retrosoective consent was given ....for the Common Market.

But if you look back at promises made, we were told it wasn't about polutical union, common laws, common passport, merged borders, and so on. Edward Heath actually admitted, about 20 years later (Geneva, IIRC, about 1991) that it HAD been about these things, from the very beginning, but that the British people would never have gone for it. So they lied. The project was, and is, albeit by a different name, about the United States of Europe.

At no point, absolutely NO POINT since, have we, the people, been given a vote kn that. Most EU states were, but we weren't. Did we get a vote on Maastricht? No. Dud we get a vote on Lisbon (whether rebadged or not)? No.

Voting for MEPs diesn't count, because all that is about is who represents us, not whether we want to be in or not.

Voting for MPs in general elections doesn't count, because a genersl election is about a multitude of policies, like taxation, schools, defence, social policy economic policy, and so on, and NOT about the EU.

At no point, until the referendum, we the people asked to vote specifically on whether we should be in the EU. Bear in mind, the EU and the Common Market are very, VERY different, thanks to numerous intervening treaties, most notably Maastricht and Lisbon, but with many others too.

And each and every time, even where other member states gave their people a vote (usually because a constiutional term mandated no choice about doing so), we were not asked THE fundamental question - do we want to be part of a European superstate.

So no, we were not asked the question.

We were presented with a conjuring trick. We were asked to elect representatives to help steer direction, but never at any point asked if we wanted to be part of the EU at all.

Until the referendum.

The irony is, had Major had the balls to call a vote on Maastricht, he may well have won. Had Blair/Brown had the balls over Lisbon, thdy may well have won. And had they, I can't see sny chance Cameron would have called the referendum.

But they collectively feared they might not win, and bottled it. Until UKIP's growing popularity, culminating in coming in first place in the EU elections, forced Dave's hand.

[philehidiot]

I spent 2 years before the referendum was announced researching the EU and our place in it almost every evening with an almost autistic enthusiasm. I'm frankly bored of going through the details of my decision as I did enough of that during the campaign period but I'll say two things which I think both sides can agree on:

1) Anyone who doesn't admit that there are good arguments for both sides is not worth listening to. They have not done their research and they have resided in an echo chamber which isolates them from the reality of there being good arguments both ways and good people on both sides who all just want the best for the country.

2) The government have made an utter mess of Brexit, mostly due to May not wanting to leave and having too many friends in the EU. The analysis of her body language during interviews on the subject is most telling. She's not that bright and she is not wanting to upset her friends in the EU. As a choice of negotiator she is just not the person to choose. That said, neither would be a hard Brexiteer such as Godfrey Bloom (as educated on economics and strategy as he is - you should see the man's CV, it's incredible). We needed someone more neutral who would have helped accommodate both sides. What we have is a farce and when you look at the extra manpower that is going to be needed for every company for coding of imports and managing the extra regulation if there's no deal, we simply do not have it. Trading on WTO tarrifs sounds fine, sure. But there's a lot of paperwork that has been evolved out of business structure and it'll be very interesting to see how this is dealt with.

[OilSheikh]

Why the heck do you guys look at Brexit in such a negative way? Think of your country and it's interests FFS.

[Biscuit]

Why the heck do you guys look at Brexit in such a negative way? Think of your country and it's interests FFS.

Why the heck do you think ignorance of the negatives are in the interest of the country?

I think it's pretty clear that willfull ignorance is what got us to this point, still true whichever side of the discussion you fall on.

[aidanjt]

The Brexiteers with their arrogance, short-sightedness, false promises, lies and stirring up racism, will have a lot to answer for as we all suffer the consequences of leaving the EU.

It can equally be argued that the uncertainty with the long drawn out and completely confused withdrawal due to remainer obstinance, arrogance, short-sightedness, false promises, lies, and race-baiting is causing the real damage. But that would be unnecessarily divisive and petty.

The fact is, at the end of the day, nobody has a crystal ball that can predict how given political decisions will percolate over time, and there's no 'right' answer. The point of democracy isn't to 'do it 'right'', it's to execute the will of the people, whatever that may be. And right now we have a majority of remainers in parliament bending over backwards to work against a legitimate referendum decision by the people.

Has this been aggravated by Cameron's government assuming that remain would win as they brazenly campaigned for, and didn't have any kind of publicised plan in place to guide how leaving should go ahead before the referendum should leave win? And made all the worse with May's perpetual fumbling? Sure. But those are the cards that were dealt and the politicians just have to get on with it.

[Saracen]

I spent 2 years before the referendum was announced researching the EU and our place in it almost every evening with an almost autistic enthusiasm. I'm frankly bored of going through the details of my decision as I did enough of that during the campaign period but I'll say two things which I think both sides can agree on:

1) Anyone who doesn't admit that there are good arguments for both sides is not worth listening to. They have not done their research and they have resided in an echo chamber which isolates them from the reality of there being good arguments both ways and good people on both sides who all just want the best for the country.

2) The government have made an utter mess of Brexit, mostly due to May not wanting to leave and having too many friends in the EU. The analysis of her body language during interviews on the subject is most telling. She's not that bright and she is not wanting to upset her friends in the EU. As a choice of negotiator she is just not the person to choose. That said, neither would be a hard Brexiteer such as Godfrey Bloom (as educated on economics and strategy as he is - you should see the man's CV, it's incredible). We needed someone more neutral who would have helped accommodate both sides. What we have is a farce and when you look at the extra manpower that is going to be needed for every company for coding of imports and managing the extra regulation if there's no deal, we simply do not have it. Trading on WTO tarrifs sounds fine, sure. But there's a lot of paperwork that has been evolved out of business structure and it'll be very interesting to see how this is dealt with.

Entirely agree on the first point. There are pro's and con's, and the question is, where does the vakance lie? That, of course, depends on how you see things going, and on which issues matter most to you.

I'd add a third point. The standard of information and argument, from both offucial sides, was dire .... and frankly, insulting. I wanted a mature debate, and got infantile soundbites and stupud claims.


As for point 2, I agree with what happened, byt not entirely why. For one thing, these negotiations nearly always go down to the wire. Personally, I'm expecting the art.50 2-year period to end up getting extended, and if there's an agreement, it'll only be after three or four final deadlines have been missed.

I don't entirely go along with the characterisation of May. A large part of the problem is the EU's insistence on their timetable. A second part is that just about every suggestion is rejected, but they come up with precious little themselves other than notions that effectively break up the UK, splitting off NI.

The reason May has dithered, IMHO, is that given the lines the EU has drawn, I can't see ANY deal that would be acceptable AND get such diverse groups as rabid remainers and rabid leavers on-board, and at the same time, jerp the DUP on-side.

Unless someone gives ground, no deal looks highly likely. She's dithering because she not only cannot please all the people all the time, but probably there isn't a deal that will please enough of the people, enough of the time.

[spacein_vader]

Unless someone gives ground, no deal looks highly likely. She's dithering because she not only cannot please all the people all the time, but probably there isn't a deal that will please enough of the people, enough of the time.

Some of that was her own doing though. Calling a snap election was supposed to increase her majority so that she could then ignore the two extremes of view within her party and gather those who could be reasoned with to a consensus.

It backfired, and she ended up beholden to everyone from Ken Clarke at one end to Rees-Mogg at the other with the added bonus of now also being over a barrel to the DUP whose hypocracy is astounding (no rules for us that don't apply to the rest of the UK! Unless it's about abortion or anything else we don't like.)

The net result is she's powerless to negotiate with Brussels as anything she could agree would be overturned by 1 wing of her own party or the other.

She's a sitting duck and I firmly believe she's only still PM because nobody in her own party (Boris, Rees-Mogg, Gove etc.) Or the opposition (Jezza,) want it to be their name above the door when we leave. Partly because ANY brexit, no matter how well negotiated and orderly will involve some short term disruption and the government of the day will carry the can for that with voters, and partly because we aren't going to have a well negotiated and orderly brexit.

She's a patsy, no more and no less. If I was her I'd resign and force one of the others to grasp the nettle.