The Phileas Club 73b – Brexit 2: A Leaver’s View

On this episode we talk about:

  • A casual discussion with a “leaver”

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Comments

  1. It is a good point that you made another episode so we can listen the opposite point of view. Sadly, I am not sure about your cohost arguments.
    About Money : UK is not in the €uro Zone so they can do whatever they want with the British £
    About Immigration : UK is not in Schengen, so they decide who they want to go into their territory
    About Taxes : Even € Zone members can do tax dumping, Ireland or Luxembourg for example
    About Sovereignty : I just don’t see how dividing people and nation can be better in any way.
    So where are the objectives and factually true point about leaving ?

  2. Hi Alain, thanks for the Feedback.

    On your points

    Money : I don’t believe I argued this. In fact keeping the pound is one of the reasons the UK has been able to weather the economic downturn and outperforming the EU.

    Immigration : I don’t recall stating that UK is in Schengen. Schengen isn’t relevant to the UK immigration debate. The issue I highlighted is that the lower skilled and educated UK worker is not able to compete with the higher skilled and more productive EU citizens (who tend to be those who move to the UK to work). I agree that on net the UK benefits financially from EU workers. However these benefits are highly skewed to the better educated and higher skilled UK worker (lower prices, lower labour costs, cheaper travel). The unskilled feel the full affects of having to compete with EU labour. If you are one of those affected by this it is a totally rational and valid view to wish for controlled immigration. It is not racist or xenophobic, it is protectionist. (N.B. I am for Open Borders as it personally benefits me)

    Taxes : The VAT (Sales Tax) in the UK cannot fall below 15% due to the European Union VAT directive. With the UK outside the EU, the UK could lower this (or abolish it altogether) to lower the cost of living for UK citizens. Being in control of all tax rates gives more tools to use to steer an economy. The aim of the European Union VAT directive is to harmonize VAT rates across the EU.

    Sovereignty: I believe in the principle of self-determination which is essentially what Sovereignty is about. Ceding control (in this case to the EU) is necessarily a dilution of the UK’s ability make decisions for the benefit of the UK and not the EU. The UK will, once out of the EU, be able to make it’s own decision’s (and mistakes) and the electorate will have no-one else to blame but they people they elected. The UK will be able to implement only those laws it see’s itself as benefiting from and can ignore rules that it feels hamper it in any way.

    My main reason to agreeing to be on the show was simply to try to dispel the myths that are being thrown around that the Leave vote was by racist, stupid, ignorant of the issues, xenophobes. I doubt my 45 minutes will convince most remain/EU supporters, I am just thankful Patrick gave me the space to at least air a different viewpoint as the narrative that has sprung up since the referendum is far short of reality.

  3. I appreciate there being an opposing view on this edition of the podcast. While I voted remain myself I did feel that Gita in the last episode did end up going a little over the top with some of her comments (The Nigel Fuhrer comment was when I lost patience a little).

    Also it was nice to hear from a leaver who actually seemed to have some reasonable points, even if I don’t agree that these outweigh the benefits of staying in the EU. If only we had had people talking reasonably throughout the actual debate it may have been more tolerable than the mountain of lies we ended up being fed by both sides.

    Saying that though, while I know there are plenty of leavers who voted for reasonable reasons, I find it hard to believe that the majority weren’t just voting on the immigration issue. With regard to Hayden’s point above, I find it hard to understand why the problem of lower skilled UK workers being overlooked in favour of higher skilled EU workers isn’t better solved with more resources for education and training rather than preventing higher skilled workers from coming here in the first place. I understand it from a workers point of view why they would vote for it as the perceived simplest solution to their problems, but it is a bad solution in the long term.

  4. Thanks for the feedback Phil

    The problem with Education and training is, as you rightly state, that this is a long term solution. This long term solution should have been put into place 10-20 years ago for immigration to not be the issue it is now. The fact that it was not means that there are now a large portion of the public who lose out due to EU freedom of movement. The neglect of these people over this timeframe is a major contributor to why they feel as they do and why voting for controlled immigration is rational and in their best interests.

    Basically the problem exists now and expecting people to sacrifice themselves and possibly their children’s future (fixing the education system in the UK would take years in my opinion) for the long term benefit of others is extremely unfair to them and also exceptionally unlikely.

  5. This type of pod is far too verbose… if you are serious re global appeal. . Please Patrick seek quality…….as this one re why leave. …you have not researched well…what should be a great concept is in laymen terms rubbish….
    Too much “time” which is he most valuable commodity is wasted…..
    Leave was is all about what UK Establishment wants and will get ..all other opinions irelevant. ….sovereignty is a side issue. …it is all money. ..money laundering…offshore relationships. …and Trump soon to be US president. …

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