It's completely sensible to assume the entire population are the same, wibble

Responsibility Deficit Disorder is a medical condition. Symptoms include inability to be corrected when wrong, false sense of superiority, desire to share personal info no else cares about, general hubris. It's a medical issue rather than pure arrogance.

Perfection has never been claimed. Only that being in is better than being out.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

Based on what specifically though

As in – amount we paid out under obligation vs the amount we got back in grants etc.? Or the amount we paid out under obligation, cost of taking on excess immigrants etc. against the amount we got back in grants, trade, economic benefits generally and from said immigrant etc. etc.

What I'm after is two numbers, both based on all measurable and identifiable negative (outgoings, eg. 'mandatory' annual payments) vs. all measurable and identifiable positives (incomings)

One number for pre-exit, say 2016

One number for 2022

One projected number for 2032

As before, the whole 'but it cost us this' vs. 'we benefitted from that' argument seems pointless otherwise. Sure you can point to stats showing savings made since leaving but it's selective and doesn't tell the whole story (unless that chart takes into account all possible measurable data, but I'm not sure it does?)

Not an easy task but surely someone must have done it.

My guess is net positive 2016, net negative 2022. As for 2032, obviously projections are pretty rubbish anyway but would be an interesting exercise nonetheless.

Edited by SW19 CPFC (17 Feb 2023 8.40pm)

Did you know? 98.0000001% of people are morons.

I cannot tell whether you are being deliberately obtuse or genuinely don’t uinderstand.

So for now I will give you the benefit of the doubt and try to explain again.

You have’t shown anything to be wrong because what I am talking about hasn’t, so far as I am aware, ever been measured. Indeed it would be extremely difficult to do so.

It’s not the balance between our contributions and that which is refunded in some way.

It’’s the additional costs we will incur as s consequence of having to prepare and administer regulations in every walk of life that have been previously undertaken by the EU. So far the costs of this are minimal as we have simply continued with what we had but that cannot be sustained. The increased costs are currently coming from the need to employ large numbers of additional civil servants just to administer the impact of the terms of our withdrawal. In the future though we will need to develop our own standards, run our own testing regimes and have our own supervisory bodies.

My own area was foodstuffs, in particular ingredients covered by E numbers. I can only imagine what a nightmare UK businesses now face. The costs are not just those directly on government but on the businesses themselves. They will face not only the administration burden when exporting to the EU but the need for recipe changes to meet changing standards as well as additional specialist staff to check regulations and ensure compliance. Measuring this is next to impossible but it must be many times greater than our net contribution.

The sooner we find a way of avoiding this and accepting all the relevant EU laws and regulations the easier, and more profitable, our lives will be.

“Taking back control” was always a very stupid way of shooting ourselves in both feet.

Edited by Wisbech Eagle (17 Feb 2023 9.16pm)

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

I am assuming this is a cash in /cash out analysis . Iy goes to 2019 so does not show costs in subsequent years.

I believe it is objective and measurable and does not include and subjectivities/opinions.

The high level view is that our EU membership came at a high cost in the first instance, whether anyone can show in a non partisan way the cost/benefit of intangible items I don't know

Responsibility Deficit Disorder is a medical condition. Symptoms include inability to be corrected when wrong, false sense of superiority, desire to share personal info no else cares about, general hubris. It's a medical issue rather than pure arrogance.

Dear me, just rejoin then. It would be like shooting ourselves in the head.