Does the UK produce all of its food domestically? How much does it import from Europe? How much other products, and which ones?
It’s never been self-sufficient in food, even during the war when it would have been desirable.
He did not present himself as one. Nor did I.
I believe something like 40% of our food is imported, but disruption of those imports is likely to deplete available foods by more than the raw percentage, simply because some of those imported foods are ingredients in manufactured food products.
If one ingredient for a product is out of supply, and can’t be substituted, the product can’t be made.
50% imported (net), 30% being from the EU. That’s net of the food we export. Not exactly sure what it is that we export in the way of food. And I’ll edit myself and withhold the smart alec comment I was going to make.
3.4 shows that we import vastly more than we export.
j
Then why have you posted his letter - and not for the first time either - as if it is in any way significant? He’s a small business owner, a business that makes a low-volume niche product. That’s not where the problems are going to arise.
Right now, the UK can simply walk away from the EU. It has served its 2-year notice period as set out in the Lisbon Treaty and it is completely free to leave at any time.
Well, not quite that bad. Unless Germany decides to renew the bombing and rocket attacks…
A no-deal Brexit would mean that Canada has better access to the EU than Britain, because Canada spent five years negotiating CETA (the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement) with the EU.
I read a (probably) far-fetched proposal that one way for the UK to get access to the EU after Brexit would be for the UK to join Canada as four new provinces. I suspect that this would cause Quebec to freak out
Because it is evidence. A cite. We are in GQ, remember?
And there are tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of small businesses up and down the country. And they make up the bulk of the economy. As Napoleon said, the UK is a nation of shopkeepers.
It can, but not without humongous harm. We’d be wiping out all our present trade agreements (not just with the EU, but with the world), and causing hundreds of tariffs to spike up for imports and exports, and instantly loading insane amounts of red tape on business. We’d become a hugely unattractive place to do business.
Small businesses will be hurt the most from it, as they tend to trade mostly with Europe, if it all, as our largest and nearest trading bloc. Large corporations can weather the storm better, but they’ll still be hurt, or simply leave.
What’s more, if we simply opted for No Deal, then all that would happen is that the UK would descend into chaos and malaise, and when we emerged to seek a new trade deal with the EU, the EU will simply dust off the Withdrawal Agreement and tell us to sign that first before they discuss trade.
No Deal is pointless and harmful.
Actually, the contempt you demonstrate is, IMHO the reason we’re in this mess in the first place. It’s easy to listen to XYZ Megacorp, but they’re not the bulk of the economy. IMHO the UK and EU elites behaved exactly like you: utter contempt for the little guy. And so the little guys and girls hit back the only way they could, with the ballot.
I was wrong by an order of magnitude about small businesses. There are 5.6 million small businesses, though if you exclude those which do not employ, you’re down to 1.4 million (note that the 4.2 million may sub-contract). SMEs are 99.3 % of all businesses, 52% of private sector turnover, and 60% of the private sector workforce. Click the link for more.
I never got this whole narrative about the Pro-EU elites. I mean… have you seen the politicians and millionaires who actually fought for Brexit? Not a single one of them has had to change a lightbulb with their own hands in their lives.
So far, the Brexit Party’s MEP candidates include:
- Nigel Farage, estimated net worth £2.5mln who recently had a birthday party in the Ritz;
- CEO of First Property Group;
- CEO of real estate investment group Quidnet Capital LLP;
- Annunziata Rees-Mogg
True working class heroes ready to give the establishment a kicking.
You’ve clearly not hear of the term ‘Champagne Socialists’ who also have never had to change a light bulb with their own hands.
I have. But my point was never to say that the Remain side lacked their own Etonians… just that for such an anti-elite movement, it seems to be suspiciously directed by the Rees-Moggs and the Boris Johnsons.
Johnson is, of course, the grandson of a refugee immigrant.
Hell, he himself is a refugee, emigrating from the deadly wasteland of upper New York, but that doesn’t make him less of an Eton boy.
OK then, I’ll say it.
Later revised upwards to 5.6 million small businesses. Of which one wrote to the Telegraph to say that leaving the EU without a deal would not present it with major problems. Correct?
Yep, it’s evidence.
j
What percentage of the UK’s import/export business is done by small/medium enterprises, versus large businesses?
Your link says that nearly a quarter of SMEs are in the construction field, e.g.; I’m guessing that relatively few of those are importing directly from Europe or elsewhere, but that a huge percentage rely upon parts and materials imported by other larger wholesalers. Do you have statistics to confirm or rebut that?