UKC

The actual weekly contribution by the UK to the EU in 2016/2017 was £156m - quite a lot less than the leave campaign's untrue figure.
Quite apart from the fact that the 'people spoke' only after having been comprehensively lied to, this seems like rather good value.

In reply to pasbury:
The amount of money sent to the EU was £276m a week.

£156m is the gross contribution minus the rebate and the amount spent by the EU on funding projects in the UK.

In reply to pasbury:

As the public was lied to prior to the Referendum, and one of the most significant lies has now been well and truly exposed, why doesn't the Government declare the result nul and void and do a re-run, this time based on true facts and figures?

It might put an end to to the remoaners case once and for all, or alternatively save the country any more heart ache and enormous expense. But as things stand, the situation is wholly unsatisfactory, and can't honestly be said to be the "will of the people"

In reply to Greasy Prusiks:

Meaning that the OP is correct?

In reply to Trangia:

I agree, given that ww3 hasn't broke out, there hasn't been an economic collapse either...

In reply to pasbury:

At about £2 a person, yes, it was exceedingly good value. Still, the xenophobes had to have their say.

In reply to summo:


The economic collapse is happening in slow motion every day. My biggest client is talking about moving offices to Amsterdam. Just one of thousands....

In reply to Jimbocz:


Plenty European companies have moved to Luxembourg and Holland over the past 20 or 30 years because of their lower taxes for businesses. The timing might not just be coincidental, their company boss or board can blame Brexit, even though they might have been minded to do it anyway to increase profit. All companies are different of course, with varying motives.

In reply to summo:

By and large, profit is the motivation. I have yet to work for one were it wasn't the top driver by a country mile. What they offer or sell is merely the route they have decided to take to that destination.

A minority of family and small privately owned companies may not be completely motivated by profit but it is still a requirement for survival.

In reply to Timmd:

That depends entirely on how you define contribution.

In my opinion EU membership costs £276m a week because that is the figure we pay to be a part of it. The money we get back is still the EUs money because they are the ones who choose how it is spent, even if it is spent on the UK. To me it makes more sense to categorise this money as a benefit of EU membership rather than discounting it from membership as the two are quite different.

Don't get me wrong I'm pro EU membership but I think money spent on the UK is a benefit not a membership reduction.

In reply to Greasy Prusiks:
I guess it could depend on how you define decide, too, with the UK having a plan of where it wants/wanted the money to be spent which it got from the EU?

I can see that it's an important distinction to make, but it was 'the sum which won it' during the referendum, too.

In reply to summo:


Head. In. The. Sand.

In reply to Greasy Prusiks:

I had a boiler installed that cost £x. I get a grant payment into my bank account from the government for using it of £y. I definitely consider it's overall cost be £x-y.

In reply to Greasy Prusiks:


I agree but when the other side of the argument refuse to even acknowledge the rebate then all you can do is use the most simplistic terms possible. If the slogan had been we send £276million p/w then, yes, let's look in more detail but if people can't even make the distinction between an RRP and a heavily discounted price then they are not going to be able to process investment return and net spend.

In reply to Trangia:


Because the two sides will never agree on the facts & figures. That line attributed to Disraeli springs to mind: "lies, damned lies and statistics".

In reply to Fraser:

It's only money!
When you're poor, these numbers are just totally meaningless.
It's all just noise coming from smug, wealthy bastards who seem to have control of this country, and when they f*ck up, they just quickly disappear and live the life of Riley, Cameron being the prime example. I see he's taken up smoking again, I hope it gets him.

In reply to Trangia:


Are you referring to Project Fear?

In reply to Fraser:

This is why we're in a mess. I prefer statistics to lies personally.

In reply to Mark Edwards:


I don't think it was the remain campaigners who referred to their arguments as 'project fear'. They argued that we would take a hit economically and enter a period of uncertainty as we had a lot of untangling to do - sound familiar?

In reply to pasbury:


So do I, but I'm finding it increasingly difficult to know whose statistics to believe. The wisest choice seems to be to believe none of them!

In reply to Mark Edwards:

Can you accurately define Project Fear? The weakening of the pound was predicted, and seen as a part of Project Fear, and it's turned out to be true.

Given that Brexit hasn't actually started yet, I'm thinking it may be too soon to be able to say which of the gloomy predictions were Project Fear, compared to predictions which, while broadly accurate, ,may take longer to happen than first thought.

Note that I'm not claiming to be able to define very much, by the way.

In reply to john arran:


Companies that also have their head in the sand and have their emea hq in the Netherlands;

Nike
Adidas
Booking.com
Cisco
Ikea
Tesla
Phillips
Kpmg
Nintendo
Fujitsu
TomTom
Unilever

Luxembourgs list is just as impressive thanks to Juncker turning it into a tax haven when President.

In reply to pasbury:


But if your £y can only be spent on sherbet lollipops and you don't want or need sherbet lollipops, but you do need a new boiler, it still cost £x.

The reality is somewhere between the two.

In reply to Timmd:


Agreed.


Sad but true. That bit of the campaign was incredibly frustrating.

In reply to pasbury:

It's a little different than that because you don't get to decide what the money is spent on.

In reply to summo:

You seem keen to ignore the fact that the real issue is why companies would choose to relocate their HQ from UK to Netherlands NOW. What's changed in the last year that may have prompted such a move?

Any ideas?

In reply to john arran:

Exactly.

In reply to Fraser:


And thus is prepared the fertile ground for post-truth!

As long as you have access to methodology as well as results you can make some critical judgement. Do eight out of ten cats really prefer whiskas?

In reply to john arran:


Not much has changed so far and companies are of course considering their options. Can you name a multi national that has actually moved? Or even in the final stages?

Why move now, copying all the others already there? Fearful after the near miss of a Corbyn lead government?

I find it odd how people are so happy to accept that an eu commissioner turned a country into a tax haven depriving other countries like the UK of revenue, and still want him in charge of the eu. Then when someone suggests the UK could be a good future tax haven they complain.

In reply to summo:


Much more likely, fearful of being left with no easy way to trade with most of their European customers. Surely that's obvious?


So you think the UK should become a tax haven? That would make sense, given how there seemingly aren't any other options for economic prosperity after Brexit. But do you not think that, sooner or later, even if it's years after we would have expected and years after we could have hoped, the advantages of tax havens will be legislated out of existence by a responsible, democratic economic community of non-tax haven countries?

In reply to john arran:


It'd make a lot of business sense to move.

In reply to pasbury:

Are you missing "The Ice Doctor" or something?

In reply to Big Ger:

I was wondering when you'd 'contribute' to the thread.

In reply to pasbury:

Wonder no more then...

In reply to john arran:



No. That's not what I said. But it is the reason so many hq in the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

In reply to pasbury:



I believe it's 8 out of 10 owners said their cat prefers wiskas. Which is a bit more telling isn't it?

In reply to john arran:


No, because the nations in the eu that currently offer such advantages are at the heart of the eu. Juncker is hardly going to promote legislation that puts Luxembourg on an equal footing is he?

The eu is lobbied quite heavily by big business, they could do more, but won't.

In reply to Mark Edwards:


No; Project Stupid.

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:


LOL.
Stupid and Stupider.
No matter how you vote, the majority are idiots.

In reply to Flinticus:

Of course it,s a motivator. What's wrong with profit. Would you remortgage your house to raise working capital to set up a business, work up to 80hours a week, with no holidays for 3 years if you thought you weren't going to profit ? I thought not! And the subsequent business tax paid pays for NHS and all public services, not the fantasy belief that individuals personal taxation covers all that.

In reply to summo:



Here is the assessment from KPMG :

"On 17 June 2016 the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) of the EU held discussions with a view to reaching a political agreement on the proposal for an anti-tax avoidance directive (ATAD). A final compromise text was put forward, and as no objections were raised by the 20 June 2016 deadline, political agreement was reached and the text will be submitted to a later ECOFIN meeting for formal adoption. There is clearly a strong desire within the EU to implement effective anti-tax avoidance measures in a consistent and coordinated manner, and there has certainly been very tangible progress towards this during the first half of 2016. The package of measures was first unveiled at the end of January 2016, and was positioned as a mechanism for ensuring consistent and appropriate implementation of the OECD’s BEPS recommendations by Member States.

At that time, there were concerns that the EU appeared to be going above and beyond the scope of the OECD’s BEPS project. However, in the period since its original proposal, it is clear that the EU has listened to the concerns of individual Member States and has made amendments and refinements. The ATAD is now, on the whole, consistent with the OECD’s recommendations."

In reply to RomTheBear:
Bit rich coming from kpmg which has it's EMEA HQ in the Netherlands for very obvious reason. Or what about Juncker's decade plus long conversion of Luxembourg into a tax haven whilst President.

Kpmg will say these are serious measures etc.. It's playing the game.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/corporate-lobbyists-celebrat...

https://lobbyfacts.eu/

Have a look, there are serious sums of money spent lobbying the eu, I'm sure they wouldn't keep spending them, if it wasn't gaining big industry the kind of influence they wanted.

In reply to Lusk:

You seem to me to be a glass half empty angry (not young) old man. I came from a very dysfunctional family, 2 up 2 down in Stockport, expelled from school, on the scrap heap etc, but I got on with life including down the mines for three years (good money though) and steel rolling mills and I worked my tits off to get on in life, with many kicks in the bollocks on the way. People should stop moaning, accept personal responsibility and work for a better personal future. What really boils my piss though is champagne socialists lecturing me that I don't understand social issues when in the past I,ve gone for days without food for lack of money and slept in hostels and couldn,t find a job, when the worst they,ve ever experienced is running out of prossecco! I agree agree with you about Cameron though, he,s a complete tosser!

In reply to summo:

What obvious reason ? Taxes in the netherlands are high.


Yeah, sure, so I guess Deloitte and PwC are all corrupt as well, as is the OECD, and everybody else who disagrees with your conspiracies theories.




Of course there are serious sums of money spent lobbying the EU, or the UK gov, or any other political power for that matter. Don't be naive.

In reply to pasbury:


Access to the METHOD. Methodology is the study of methods. You want to see what they did, i.e. access the method. /rant