The British press and politicians demand the UK should act (ie sign Mrs May’s surrender document) rather than face a “no deal” Brexit – but they never demand the EU should change and beware of a no deal Brexit. The Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte says the British should “wake up” but fails to tell the EU to wake up to the Brexit costs for them. Why does he not demand movement from the stubborn and economically failing EU establishment whose massive trade surplus with Britain and hundreds of thousands of EU jobs are under threat?
The UK economic news could hardly be better. Wages are up 3.4% in the year to December while prices have risen by just 1.8% giving the highest real wage rise since 2011. Employment is at a record 32.6m – over 2.5m of whom are EU citizens. You would have thought the arrogant EU might be aware of that! Unemployment is at a 44 year low and even the worst area for unemployment, the North East at 5.4% is better than 80% of EU member states!
January retail sales were up 1% on December with year on year growth 4.2% the highest since Dec 2016. Store prices rose only 0.4% – the lowest since Nov 2016. House repossessions are the lowest since 1980 and mortgage arrears have fallen.
UK public sector net borrowing (excluding public sector banks) in January 2019 was in
surplus by £14.9 billion, a £5.6 billion greater surplus than in January 2018; this was the
largest January surplus on record.
Borrowing in the current financial year-to-date (to January 2019) was £21.2 billion, £18.5
billion less than in the same period last year and the lowest for 17 years.
One of the big growth areas in business is Artificial Intelligence and its applications to
virtually every aspect of life. British AI companies are attracting as much capital investment
as the whole of the rest of Europe combined. In 2018 the UK raised $1.3bn while Germany
raised only $300m.
GERMAN DECLINE AND INVESTMENT IN BRITAIN
All this contrasts with the German economy which fell 0.2% in third qtr 2018 and was zero
in the fourth quarter. Forecast growth for 2019 is 1% compared to the UK’s 1.3%
The German economy – based on long established industries like cars and engineering is in trouble with the decline in the China market and lack of growth in the EU. The USA China trade deal which, it seems, Donald Trump is about to conclude will Barclays Bank forecasts mean a big hit for EU car exports to China as American cars finally compete on a level playing field. (see below)
No wonder Germans are being encouraged to invest in British equities. Salome Preiswerk, founder of digital asset manager Whitebox, has said German financiers should pay “no attention” to negative press surrounding Britain’s departure from the EU.
“Value investors make investment decisions based solely on facts and data. And these look good for the UK stock market.”
“UK companies have performed well over the past 25 years, boasting how market sales and earnings per share approximately doubling on average. We currently see no reason why this should change in the foreseeable future.”
Indeed as Freenations has pointed out, UK growth since the recession has far outpaced German growth as recently has the UK stock market compared to the German stock market.
It is not just the Germans who see good prospects for the UK after Brexit, the Norwegians take a similar view. The Norwegian sovereign wealth fund worth some £740bn will increase its investment in the UK “regardless of the outcome of Brexit negotiations” and the UK “will emerge from Brexit stronger outside the EU”
REMAINERS ON THE BACK FOOT
It is always good to see fanatical Remainers having to eat their words. The Confederation of British Industry is a good example as it had to report that UK manufacturers have seen strong growth in February. The CBI’s factory order book balance rose to +6 from January’s reading of -1, needless to say “above all forecasts in a Reuters poll of economists” – remember them? – the “experts”?
Remainers will be further confounded by the confirmation of a new £200 million port terminal in Thurrock on the Thames Estuary doubling the capacity of the existing Tilbury port from 16m to 32m tons and tripling the workforce. It will be privately funded and will be the UK’s largest ferry port and biggest construction processing hub when it opens in Spring 2020. It will be fully streamlined to use all the latest border technologies that Remainers like to pretend don’t exist, like AEO-trusted trader schemes… The Port says “It will be fit for purpose for the UK’s departure from the EU”
Despite the sabotage by Fifth Columnists – Tory Remainers and the Labour Party – who are fighting hard for the EU and undermining the UK’s negotiating position, the Department for Trade is rolling over existing EU trade deals for third countries into UK trade deals.
Corbyn (with his mad “stay in the Customs Union”) and May with her suicidal “Deal” are the biggest threats. If either were to prevail we could do NO trade deals at all outside the EU and thousands would lose their jobs.
However Liam Fox and his team are making progress. UK agreements thru the EU only account for 11% of our total trade and as Shankhar Singham of the Institute for Economic Affairs says “given how much trade is duty free around the world it would not be surprising if the trade actually affected – in case the agreements are not rolled over – would be approximately half of that”. And over half of that is accounted for by Switzerland (deal concluded), Canada (almost concluded), S Korea and Singapore (agreed in principal)
When it comes to UK trade with the Third World we are at an enormous advantage in the Commonwealth and unlike the exploitative EU (who impose high tariffs and then adjust them through special deals which can be withdrawn at any time) we can make clear honest trade deals to aid both our own consumers and the developing countries.
The UK has also acceded to the Common Transit Convention and the WTO Government Procurement Agreement.
https://brexitcentral.com/department-international-trades-no-deal-planning-advanced-doomsayers-believe/
And Roberto Azevedo, Director General of the World Trade Organisation gives
further comfort to Britain following a “No Deal” path to WTO terms trade with the
EU:
“About half of UK trade is already on WTO terms – with the US, China and several
emerging nations where the EU does not have trade agreements, so its not the end
of the world if the UK trades under WTO rules with the EU”
BANKS SAFER AFTER BREXIT
Professor David Miles at Imperial College London has pointed out that after Brexit, outside EU rules, Banks will be safer because the EU while setting a minimum for bank capital also restricts the maximum. This prevents the UK from raising the capital buffer banks should maintain. And given the very large role UK bank balance sheets play in our economy compared to other countries, this is a danger.
Leaving the EU might therefore have one unintended benefit to set against its more obvious costs: it could give British regulators greater scope to require banks to be much more cautious with their balance sheets and thereby help to avert another financial disaster.
On the related and critical matter of Government debt the UK is also far better financed than EU countries. Richard Sharp, a member of the BoE’s Financial Policy Committee points out that the average UK bond matures in around 15 years compared with less than 8 for France and below 7 for the USA. “…by far the longest maturity among comparable developed countries”
Needless to say these Government finances improve considerably when we no longer contribute to the EU budget or pay 80% of the tariffs we collect to the EU! And when we are no longer in danger of paying for the disastrous consequences of the Euro for the poorest EU states – or indeed being forced to join the Euro if we remained – the Pound will be a far less risky investment.
MORE GOOD BUSINESS NEWS
In January Snapchat, the picture and video sharing company, announced it will book its sales from outside the US in the UK in future – DESPITE BREXIT
“The UK’s strong creative industries make this a great place to build a global business”
And many Germans are confident in Britain post Brexit. Mathias Döpfner, chief executive of Axel Springer, the publishing house has said that Britain will be a stronger economy and be better off than other EU countries within five years after Brexit. Leaving the EU will make Britain a more attractive destination to foreign investors, he said.
Even the European Commission, even in our Brexit year is forecasting 1.3% growth for the UK in 2019 – higher than for Germany at 1.1% or Italy at 0.2% and the same as the Eurozone. Obviously even the EU does not listen to Remainers!
BRITAIN HAS HIGHEST CONCENTRATIONS OF GRADUATES IN THE EU
The highest concentration of graduates in the EU is 69.7% in “inner London west”. In second place is “inner London east”, with 58.3%. Two other clusters of London boroughs to the south and west of London are in third and sixth place. The nearest rivals are a region of Belgium to the south of Brussels and the Norwegian capital, Oslo, both about 54%. Although most Britons would regret the artificial and Government subsidised draw of graduates to the South East there is no doubt that such organic clusters do tend to raise wealth creation – a pastime not common in the EU.
BAD NEWS FOR THE EU
Economic Decline:
The Eurozone’s economic slide continues with the latest manufacturing index figures showing the steepest contraction in manufacturing since June 2013.
February’s PMI figures showed a fall to 49.3 (anything below 50 indicates contraction), the lowest level since June 2013, with new orders at their lowest since April 2013 and export orders at their lowest level in over six years. Germany’s performance was particularly poor on 47.6 – the worst in 74 months…
Economic output in the eurozone was lower in 2017 than it was in 2009; over that same period, gross domestic product grew 139% in China, 96% in India, and 34% in the U.S., (and about 20% in the UK) according to the World Bank.
Fraud:
The European Court of Auditors reported in January that over €6bn of EU taxpayers’ money was stolen by criminals in recent years and over €130m is still being lost each year. Fraudsters stole at least €8.8bn from the EU and only 2.6bn was clawed back
Stifling Regulation:
The CEO of Ericsson, Börje Ekholm, has warned that Europe risks falling behind the rest of the world in 5G roll-out due to “heavy regulation”. Speaking to the Mobile World Congress on Monday, Ekholm said “It’s a very heavily regulated sector, so overall the investment climate I think is the key reason why we have been slow.”
So Ericsson predict that North America and northeast Asia will be the fastest to take up 5G and roll out the new technology.
Car industry failure:
President Trump’s USA-CHINA TRADE DEAL looks like it will bare fruit – at least for US producers and Chinese consumers – but not for the disastrous European Union!
China will probably lower tariffs on US cars from 40% to 15% which will mean far bigger export of US cars to China and consequent reduction of EU cars imported by China. () Barclays analysts expect the EU to lose $128bn over 6 years. In addition Trump is expected to put tariffs on EU car exports to the USA. For years the EU has applied 10% tariffs to US cars while the USA has only charged 2.5%.
So unless the EU reduces those tariffs and takes a big revenue hit in Brussels they will take an even bigger industrial hit as Trump rightly charges them at least 10%!
Waste and Sclerosis
A classic example of farcical waste in the EU (to go with budget fraud, massive salaries and expenses, the dead fish scandal and CAP fraud) is the £2bn cost over the years to move the European Parliament back and forth from Brussels to Strasbourg every month – yes every month! MEPs, their staff, their office contents, their files – everything is loaded onto lorries and taken from Brussels to Strasbourg and then back again. It is in EU treaties that this should be so. No one can overturn the French veto that keeps the farce going.
ONLY A MORON COULD VOTE FOR THE MAY DEAL
And this is the EU which Mrs May’s “Withdrawal Agreement” keeps us bound to – potentially for ever. Certainly the UK will not decide if and when we leave. In the meantime EU laws will be passed against British interests, against our industries, against our farmers and fishermen – all without our votes or veto.
Mrs May’s deal is all loss and NO gain at all. No trade deal at all. Just perpetual servitude to the very empire which we voted to leave. Only a moron could vote for it. Unfortunately we seem to park most our morons in Parliament.
