Cameron Snubs EU But What Are Consequences For UK Freight and Logistics?

Beware Greeks Bearing Begging Bowls (and Italians, Spanish etc.)

UK – EUROPE – Prime Minister David Cameron effectively exercised Britain’s veto yesterday after coming under pressure to accept changes to policy with regard to the Euro. With £53 billion a year reportedly emanating from financial services (around 9% of British GDP if the analysts are to be believed) there was never a way that the UK could agree to the so called ‘Tobin Tax’ a revenue raiser based on EU wide taxation of financial transactions.

But what does this seismic shift mean for the freight and logistics sector as Britain becomes more isolated from the seventeen Eurozone countries?

Firstly the argument will be from many that this was not what we signed up for. When Britain joined the EU in 1973 (along with Ireland and Denmark) it was touted by the six existing members as a ‘Common Market’. Since that date the organisation of states has changed beyond recognition and is widely viewed, in Britain and abroad, as a power base for politicians who want control over all they survey.

Twenty seven members ranging from the precise and financially competent to the frivolous and downright dishonest now ‘share’ the united wealth of the community. It is now accepted that monetary union has been very good for some and very bad for others and countries like Britain and Hungary, another abstainer from the latest ‘offer’, are told that staying out of the club will lead to dire consequences.

So what will happen to trade I hear you ask? Will Britain be isolated from the economics of the EU? Well, considering the EU itself still hasn’t managed to lodge accounts for well over a decade one might ask should we in the UK care and who the hell are they to make financial decisions anyway? Many of you old fogies out there will remember the Carnet’s, 27 pages and more that we used to have to complete by hand to export to neighbours like Spain. Officious border authorities would make trailers wait days and often weeks before allowing passage. Are the Europhiles suggesting we will return to those days because we don’t say yes to treaty changes affecting a currency we don’t use?

The fact is the introduction of the humble T Form changed the nature of trade with Europe forever just as the shipping container killed the closed shop that was the docks. It soon faded to being a simple necessity for trade between non EU members like Switzerland and the thought of returning to previous methods of handling and documenting consignments is frankly ludicrous.

Britain has been trading with the Eurozone for years, the pound falls, exports to the EU rise and imports fall, the pound rises and the reverse happens.

So what’s the worst thing our European cousins, led by the old Franco German alliance of ‘Merkozy’, can do?

 

The most likely outcome would be some sort of trade restriction, higher duty rates etc. but does anyone think that’s a likely outcome, duty and tax rates cut both ways internationally and the thought of anything heavier, sanctions etc. are surely ludicrous.

 

 

In this mans view the EU is starting to look a little like the gang at school your mum told you not to hang around with. Some of those swarthy boys off the estate might nick all your pocket money and refuse to give it back.

 

(James Tobin - 1918 -2002 Nobel Memorial Prize winner )

 

The attempt to get the UK to sign up to old Jim Tobin’s 1972 suggestion of taxing money is a dead mans hand. I’ve ranted on before in these pages about coming off the Gold Standard and that suggestion was as a direct result of that nice Mr Nixon in the US abandoning gold in 1971 to make the dollar the ‘go to’ world currency.

Keep in mind the US deficit which is rising like a sparrow with a banger up its backside and the fact that, like communism, the financial transaction tax is only a great idea as long as everybody involved, in this case the entire world including all those little offshore tax havens the financially astute and corrupt adore so much, all play ball.

So what are we left with, a bunch of sour faces in Brussels (the very name of that little vegetable can have the same effect) and a vacuum which nobody has any idea how to fill. Watch and listen for a hail of criticism from the continent at Cameron’s audacity to stick up for British opinion but bear in mind this last thought.

When the Captain was beavering away in La Belle France in the ‘80’s, and Maggie in Europe was doing a political imitation of Geoff Boycott in his heyday to multiple insults from opposition home and abroad, a neighbour approached with the French man in the streets view of our former leader.

‘Mon Dieu’, he said, ‘If only we had a single politician like that, she makes them look stupid, they shiver like little boys.’

 

And, as I recall, trade with Europe didn’t suffer at all.

Comments

[WorldWide]

Seriously excellent entry !