Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin - The Financial Argument for #Brexit (#VoteLeave #VoteRemain #StrongerIn)

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June 15, 2016 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin

16:40

The Financial Argument for #Brexit (#VoteLeave #VoteRemain #StrongerIn)

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	So I'm going to do a series of videos as we're coming up to the Brexit vote, talking about particular issues that the Leave camp have been, well, lying about.
	And I know that I'm particularly biased on this issue.
	I want to see Britain remain a sovereign independent nation, but that doesn't change the fact that they are lying.
	And I think the fact that they are lying so much is why the British public are leaning towards Leave.
	Several recent polls done for a variety of politically aligned outlets, both left and right, have found a majority of people want to leave.
	In some polls, the Leave camp are in a 7-10 point lead, which is undoubtedly worrying the political classes of Europe, because they think that Britain leaving the EU could lead to the end of the EU.
	And you know what?
	I think this is a real possibility as well.
	And I think that would be a good thing.
	But the thing to remember is that this is how high the stakes are for these people.
	They think the entire European project could come crumbling down if Britain leaves the EU.
	And I really think this is the impetus for them to want to propagandise people so heavily.
	And honestly, I think it's this propaganda that is turning people away from the Remain camp.
	So we'll start by talking about the financial consequences of Britain leaving the EU.
	And we'll start by looking at science.
	Scientists in the EU are very much against Britain leaving the EU.
	A nature poll of nearly 2,000 researchers living in the EU, both inside and outside of the United Kingdom, have said that they think Brexit will harm science in the nation and EU at large.
	With 83% saying remain and only 12% saying exit, with another 5% saying unsure.
	This desire to stay revolves almost exclusively around money.
	The EU does pay a vast amount of money to scientists to do research within the UK and in Europe, and this is the entire basis of the argument.
	For example, Dr. Mike Goldsworthy from Scientists for EU, a very popular Facebook page, saying that he thinks our membership of the EU is absolutely essential to research funding and UK science innovation.
	And you can't blame them for being worried.
	After all, it is their livelihoods.
	So it's perfectly reasonable that they should think, well, if the EU is the one funding our science, then we don't want the EU to have less money available for science.
	However, as far as I can tell, there is no reason to think that the EU will have less money for science, because the UK will continue to send exactly the same amount of money as it always has, because the UK benefits from being part of the European scientific community.
	The Vote Leave campaign have specifically declared that they want to protect EU grants if the UK leaves.
	EU funding projects for areas including farming, science and culture would be continued until 2020.
	The Leave side say that government would have options and choices after Brexit with more than enough money to go around, and the Remain campaigners have said that leaving would wreck Britain's economy and trigger spending cuts.
	Conservative Justice Minister Michael Gove has suggested that money that the United Kingdom gives to the EU as part of its membership could be invested in science if the country leaves.
	So just to be clear, as far as the Leave campaign are concerned, and the people involved in the Leave campaign would be campaigning for, if Britain leaves the EU, nothing changes for the EU science budget from Britain.
	Or they get more money.
	This is the breakdown of contributions to the Large Hadron Collider by various European countries.
	As you can see, Britain is a major contributor to this.
	But as you can also see, Switzerland and Norway, two non-EU countries, are also major contributors to this.
	Because unbelievably, people don't actually care where the money comes from.
	They just care that they get the money.
	So this discounts practically every argument from a scientist that I have heard for staying in the EU.
	We won't get funded.
	Well, the answer is yes, you will.
	We won't be able to move to Europe.
	Yes, you will.
	We're not going to have some sort of moratorium on people coming and going from the continent.
	You will be able to go to Europe, you will be able to get funded, and you will be able to do your research.
	There is no question about this.
	No one is proposing the opposite of what you want.
	The UK is one of the world leaders in science, and we'd like to remain that way.
	I would like to see science funding go up.
	And to do that, we have to take money from somewhere else.
	Now, I think that not giving money to the monolithic bureaucracy in Brussels is a good way of finding spare money to give to scientists.
	And it seems that the politicians saying that we should leave think the same thing.
	So let's go to the leaving will wreck the UK economy.
	The strongest argument I've heard from the Remaincamp on leaving and the effect it's going to have is on the financial markets, and there's going to be a downturn because of the uncertainty.
	Which is true and is already happening.
	As opinion polls shift towards leave, there is a sell-off of sterling and London quoted shares.
	Now nobody suggested that this wouldn't happen.
	In fact, this was probably absolutely certain to occur.
	And yes, there will be a dip in the pound if Britain leaves.
	But it's not the end of the world.
	And as the former Bank of England Governor Mervyn King pointed out weeks ago, the British economy will adapt and develop new trading patterns.
	And this is probably a good idea because whatever it is they're doing in Europe, it doesn't seem to be working.
	These are the IMF's figures on economic growth.
	As you can see, the United States is at 2.4, the United Kingdom is at 2.9, but the Eurozone is at 0.9.
	With Germany, one of the most powerful economies in Europe, probably the most powerful economy in Europe, at 1.6, France at 0.2, Italy at minus 0.4.
	This is youth unemployment in Europe.
	Britain is down at the bottom with about 13% youth unemployment.
	Greece and Spain are at the top with around 50%, as well as Croatia and Italy with 30-40%.
	These are some serious problems, and something needs to change.
	This is the status quo.
	This is what they want you to remain part of.
	And as you can see by these figures, Britain is actually doing surprisingly well in comparison to the rest of Europe.
	Which is why the fear-mongering has to come out.
	Let's count the coulds.
	EU referendum, Brexit could cost half a million public sector jobs.
	Britain's vital public services like the NHS rely on a strong economy and continued investment.
	But if we leave, the shock to our economy could see a £40 billion black hole in our public finances.
	That would hobble our public services and affect workers on the front line, leaving Europe as a leap into the dark and is a risk for Britain's public services that we cannot afford to take.
	Sure, maybe that could happen.
	But we could also end up with 50% youth unemployment and a negative economic growth, like places in Europe that actually have this as it stands right now.
	And as the former governor of the Bank of England said, we'll just adapt.
	And this has put the old guard of the political spectrum on the same side.
	With Alastair Darning and George Osborne warning that there would be £30 billion in spending cuts and tax rises.
	They claim that any government would have to introduce an emergency budget involving tens of billions of pounds of spending cuts and tax rises if Britain votes to leave the EU next week.
	This, they claim, is a mid-range estimate based on the Institute for Fiscal Studies assessment of the impact of a vote to leave on the public finances because of lower trade, investment and tax receipts.
	I don't know how accurate this is, but it's generated a great deal of resistance from almost everyone.
	I mean, it's going to start a revolt in the Tory party, if nothing else, with 57 Tory MPs pledging to vote down this post-Brexit budget.
	If anything, this seems to be an entirely self-destructive threat, with people saying that he's putting his own position in jeopardy and that they're shocked at these plans which broke Tory manifesto pledges.
	And a recent academic review of this has found that the Treasury grossly exaggerated the economic and financial aspect of Brexit.
	Most economic modelling has found that a Brexit vote on the June 23rd referendum would make little difference to Britain's economy.
	A study by the influential Cass Business School concluded.
	It said the government had ignored waves of research in favour of publishing highly prejudiced reports warning the UK would be poorer by £4,300 per household by 2013 and be hit by an immediate recession.
	And in a damning verdict on George Osborne's approach to the referendum campaign, author Dr David Blake, a professor of pension economics at Cass Business School at City University London, accused the Treasury of becoming a propaganda machine for the EU.
	But a Remain spokesman dismissed the Cass report as riddled with false claims and includes no new analysis and that the Treasury report included a wider review of economic studies of Brexit.
	Right, okay, so you're not even going to address any of the points, you're just going to dismiss it with sweeping claims.
	I mean, that sounds like the propaganda he's talking about.
	Professor Blake's report on the extraordinary abuse of economic models found the systems used by the Treasury would generate predictions that the UK would be better off signing up to the Euro and every country in the world would benefit from joining the Euro.
	It seems that someone should really ask Greece, Spain and Italy if they think everyone would benefit from joining the Euro.
	He says the British Treasury has in effect become a propaganda machine for a political institution led by Jean-Claude Juncker, a man who declared his hostility to democratic choice when it comes to the wishes of the European people.
	This whole exercise is utterly dangerous for democracy.
	The Treasury's research assumes the UK would be unable to negotiate more favourable trading arrangements than it has now either with the EU or the rest of the world.
	Change inevitably means some people will gain while others lose out, but focusing only on economic issues, the Treasury's two reports present a highly prejudiced case for remaining in the EU.
	Most of the other economic models have examined the economic consequences of Brexit, which have been entirely ignored by the Treasury, and find that it will make little difference to the UK's economy whether the UK stays in or leaves the EU.
	This is consistent both with Greenland's experience of leaving the EU in 1985 and with Ireland's experience of ending currency union with the UK in 1979, neither of which is considered in the Treasury reports.
	So let's have a look at some analysis on this £4,300 figure.
	I mean, let's not go conservative though, because obviously they're evil right-wingers and they can't be trusted.
	Let's go for the good, honest and holy left-wing, the leftiest of left-wings, in fact.
	Let's find the leftiest place on earth on the just the most ridiculous publication that would produce the most ridiculous bullshit left-wing propaganda we've ever seen.
	I mean, let's find the most ideologically driven, pro-Remain, out-of-touch rag we can find, and see what their opinion on this 4,300 figure is.
	Let's look at The Guardian.
	So the Treasury analysis says that the UK economy would be 6% smaller by 2013, despite the fact we are the ones growing at 2.9%, and the rest of the Eurozone, the major economies in the Eurozone, are not growing to anywhere near that amount.
	And that this will cost each household £4,300.
	But do the numbers stack up?
	No.
	The Treasury has arrived at the number by taking the annual GDP of the economy, and then it has assumed that some of the benefits of EU membership, stronger trade, inward investment, and improved productivity would be lost.
	Some inward investment has certainly come to the UK as a result of its membership to the European Single Market, and it is likely that prospective Japanese, Chinese, and Indian investors would seek half centuries sites if Britain left.
	But it's hard to quantify these effects.
	The Treasury has assumed the economy would be 6.2% smaller, and then has divided a lower GDP figure by the number of households to come up with the £4,300 figure.
	Even if it's not true, if it was true, would households actually be poorer if the Treasury's forecasts are right?
	Not really.
	The Treasury is estimating what the economy will look like once it has settled down after the shock of Brexit, something that might take a decade or more.
	During this time, the economy is likely to keep growing but at a slower pace than it otherwise would have done.
	Assuming that the economy grows at 2.5% a year on average for the next 15 years inside the EU, broadly in line with its pre-2008 trend, average household incomes would rise from just over £60,000 to about £90,000 a year by 2030.
	So the UK Treasury is lying to us.
	And even somewhere as regressive as The Guardian can see this.
	And the thing is, there are other analyses of this that suggest that British households could be almost a thousand pounds better off if Britain is forced to leave the European Union.
	The most obvious saving would be from no longer having to pay membership fees after withdrawal from the EU.
	The long-term annual figure for UK net contributions to the EU settles in the region of £9 billion net.
	The gross figure is considerably higher, but we receive money back, obviously.
	This remains subject to upward pressures.
	For the purposes of our calculation, however, we will continue to treat the £9 billion figure as the working figure.
	For the purposes of this analysis, we will assume that no deal has been reached with the EU on any free trade agreement successor treaty, that current levels of grants and payments continue to be made to the British recipients of EU grants, but now by UK authorities, that tariffs are being levied by the EU against EU businesses at maximum permitted World Trade Organisation terms, and that money is being set aside by the Treasury at an equal rate to the tariffs levied to support those UK businesses affected.
	So this is effectively worst case scenario.
	Things continue as they are except the EU raises tariffs against us.
	And additionally, this analysis does not take into account any potential new tariffs levied on imports from the EU.
	So put simply, this is the very worst case scenario.
	We get no extra money from Europe through tariffs, and they get extra money through us from tariffs.
	And so the potential annual saving per household from the net national payment to the EU budget is £145, the CAP £361, the CFP £186, the landfill tax £70, EU burdens passed on through council tax is £20, product shelf life is a fiver and cheaper clothing at £146 to give us a total of £933 that the average person in Britain will save from not being in the EU.
	At worst case scenario.
	Ending British subsidies to foreign farmers could achieve cost savings for the UK of a billion pounds a year.
	And we can also opt out of the common fisheries policy, which is the policy responsible for the eradication of the British fishing industry.
	Restoring the British fishing industry could see potential gains of around £2.8 billion annually.
	Look, I'm not an economist, but I like looking at facts and applying reason to them, and I can't really see a good argument for giving money to the bureaucracy of Brussels in order for them to give some of it back.
	I mean, our net contribution is 9 billion.
	We don't see that money anymore.
	We don't have to give them this money.
	We could literally spend that money in our own country.
	We could spend it on science, we could spend it on agriculture, we can spend it on our fishing industry, we can save it, we could lower taxes.
	We could do a lot with this money, and it doesn't seem like we're going to suffer from a massive economic hit.
	Yes, the markets will have a downturn.
	Of course they will.
	Any uncertainty causes this.
	We have recessions while we're in the EU anyway.
	What good is it doing for us?
	This will be the first part of a series of videos that I'm going to do on the issue because there seems to be a lot of information and there seems to be a lot of misinformation.
	And I'm not going to lie, the misinformation seems to be coming from the Remain camp.
	They don't really seem to have anything.

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