The Student Room Group

The Economy Will Be Obliterated!

Well done to the leave campaign because you have jeopardized the economic future of the UK in the name of sovereignty and independence.

137 billion pounds was wiped off the value of the UK stockmarket in the first nine minutes of trading. That's the equivalent of nine years EU membership fees.

The falling value of the pound will cause the cost of imports to rise, making things more expensive on the high street.

The poorer parts of Britain have used the referendum as a vote on globalisation: they've been shafted by continuous British governments since 1979, governments who have off-shored their jobs, used immigration to lower their wages and deregulated banks to provide cheap credit to fund their consumption.

None of this will change outside of the EU.

The problem always was, is and will be that domestic UK politicians do not represent the interests of the traditional working class, they represent international finance. And under Johnson and Gove they still will.

The UK is an international CAPITALIST economy, it needs inward investment to pay for its current account deficit (debt), which is massive. 50% of our inward investment came from the EU in 2015. Low wages - yes even with George Osborne's supposed 'living wage' - help to attract this investment. Immigration is a structural part of the UK economy and this is not going to change any time soon. Even Farage said he would use migrants from the Commonwealth rather than the EU.

Immigration will not stop, but our economy will probably take a huge battering:

The UK economy is 79% services, services are harder to trade than manufactured goods because of the fact that people are integral to services, you can't just ship them overseas like a bag of spanners. The UK had a free 'passport' to trade services in the EU.

The City of London (services) generates 10% of the UK's total GDP. Roughly a quarter of the UK’s financial sector business involves the EU's Single Market, equivalent to 2 per cent of gross domestic product. And balanced on top is a wider array of professional services. (Financial Times).

Plus: developed countries buy more services than developing countries who are at a different stage in their economic development. The EU is made up of some of the richest developed countries on the planet. The entire structural configuration of our economy favours services sold to developed countries and we just risked putting the kibosh on that. Smart move.

There's more.

Free trade agreements take years to negotiate, and the UK will be screaming out for FTAs to ensure trade based on best possible terms, rather than the default WTO position - yes that's right, even on leaving the EU there are other international organisations we have to conform to, we call this the modern world - Under WTO there are 10% import tariffs on automotive manufacturing, one of the last bastions of manufacturing in the UK. Without an FTA all UK automotive exports will see a 10% tariff slapped on them. Let that sink in for a moment. A UK crying out for FTAs will give negotiating partners leverage, the UK does not have the upperhand here.

And as for an EU-UK FTA, the UK is 5% of global GDP (2015), the EU 26%, who do you think will have the upperhand in those negotiations? As for us importing more from the EU than we export, we need those goods, for our standard of living and for our domestic supply chains. The fact that we import so much is not automatically something that works in our favour! Trade is not a zero sum game.

And when all these British citizens fund out that they've been lied to over the next few years they're going to be absolutely furious. And who do you think they will vote for then? Angry men with easy answers and tiny little moustaches maybe? I'm pretty sure it won't be Corbyn with his mystical magical 1970s timemachine.

Cameron has risked the union of the Kingdom - Northern Ireland voted remain 56%, Scotland 68% - and the wider EU in trying to appease to racists, the angry and the ignorant. This is not the behaviour of a statesman. It is the behaviour of an opportunist and a coward. His name will go down in history as the man who accidentally broke up Britain.
(edited 7 years ago)
Tldr; however i agree
Surprised you only got the word racist in there once.

Then you go on to call others ignorant and angry, which is exactly what you are.

I only voted out due to immigration. People like you also only voted in due to 'but the ekonamieee' and the fact you want more mass immigration until this country is a foreign land.
Reply 3
Original post by Catholic_
Surprised you only got the word racist in there once.

Then you go on to call others ignorant and angry, which is exactly what you are.

I only voted out due to immigration. People like you also only voted in due to 'but the ekonamieee' and the fact you want more mass immigration until this country is a foreign land.


Ah yes, those immigrants who take all the jobs that the rest of the Britons don't want to do. I do however believe that mass immigration must be controlled but immigration still provides an integral contribution to the country but it must be controlled effectively. Most of the illegal immigrants are coming from countries outside of the EU. Also you would be a fool to neglect the huge effects that a receding economy would have on everyone within the country.
(edited 7 years ago)
Reply 4
Really sick of people trying to tell me what my motivations were for voting leave. They've only got more poisonous since the result so I'll take pleasure in watching them squirm.
Even though I support leave I can't help but sympathise with you on the last point.

David Cameron has not done enough. If the renegotiations went well and if he got a lot out of it such as having our own control on immigration and less of the political union bit, then there would not have been a referendum, even if there was most of us would vote remain based on that. But he hasn't done enough.

His name will be in the history of the man who has had the most referendums in term in office.

Quick Reply

Latest