Saturday 14 October 2023

Gully Foyle again

Leave voters, the ones who haven’t yet realised Brexit was a con, are easily satisfied, desperate to hear some good news even if it’s fake and oblivious to the turning polls, of which more below. They get their ‘fix’ from accounts like Gully Foyle, someone (a man I assume) who either misunderstands what he reads or deliberately distorts it before posting it to his 10,000 followers. He keeps popping up on my timeline as a ‘follow’ suggestion as if Elon Musk is trying to convert me. I don't want to block him because I find his tweets strangely reassuring

Anyway, he put out a thread recently (I can’t say he Xed can I?) that listed thirty benefits of Brexit. There were more apparently but these were ones that he had "fully researched and can defend as being truly a benefit of leaving the EU."

They are very debunkable. The thread starts here, you can check it out for yourself:

The first ‘benefit’ is that we have replicated nearly all the trade deals we had with the EU but without the cost. He seems to assume we paid £10bn or so (net) to the EU just for trade negotiations. Clearly, this isn’t true and he excludes the huge increase in civil service numbers needed to do many of the things Brussels did on our behalf.

His logic means companies who merge to share back-office functions are doing things wrong. It’s always cheaper to negotiate as a bloc.  Between 2016 and 2023 the number of civil servants increased by 101,440, a jump of 24.2% and the largest increase in at least half a century. The total cost rose to £18 billion, so we can assume the extra numbers added about £4.5Bn. 

He also assumes these trade deals will be beneficial but they may not be, certainly to the UK’s farmers, and probably not very much to GDP. Moreover, if increasing trade is important why leave the EU in the first place?

The CPTPP deal is worth just 0.08% on our GDP after 15 years, even by the government's own estimate. Gully Foyle doesn’t accept the OBR’s estimate of a 4% fall in GDP from Brexit by the way, so I assume he thinks the 0.08% is an underestimate.

Next, he claims that since leaving the EU, the UK has "improved the rolled-over deals with Japan, Singapore and Ukraine - and is in the process of improvement with Canada, Mexico, Switzerland and Israel. As well as striking completely new deals with Australia and New Zealand, the UK is also close to completion on FTA negotiations with India and the six-nation GCC – all not possible within the EU."

He seems to think Britain will be able to negotiate better deals than the EU! This would really turn international trade negotiations on their head. It might mean marginally cheaper imports or more imports but they aren’t going to offer us more access to their market for nothing.

Next, Mr. Foyle says that by leaving the EU, "the UK has been able to align with those markets projecting the highest growth over the coming decades (the so-called Indo-Pacific tilt), as opposed to being tied to a bloc projected to see declining relevance and stagnation."

The CPTPP's GDP figures are almost all Japan, with whom we already had a trade deal and which has struggled for growth for decades. The fast-growing ones are small, like Vietnam. This is why joining the bloc is expected to raise our GDP by just 0.08%.  

Next: "As an EU member state, 75% of *all* customs revenue (it was 80% when UK was a member) goes to the budget of the EU. Now outside of the EU, the UK HMRC gets 100% of that revenue to spend on public services, currently around £3bn extra a year."

He talks as if this revenue was additional to our contributions to the EU budget. It wasn't, customs returns are part of the payment made by all member states.

Next: "Since 2019, EU members have been unable to trade in Swiss equities due to a ban having been put in place. Outside of the EU, the UK was able to return this trading, which is worth about £1.6bn a day, and so about £8m a day to HMRC. That's just over £2bn a year in additional tax revenue, to spend on public services.."

The link he uses is from 2021 and Reuters actually says this:

"Trading will resume on Thursday after Switzerland lifted a 19-month ban on Wednesday. That will partly make up for the City of London's loss of euro share trading to the EU last month after Britain completed its departure from the bloc."

The underlined bit is the part he misses out, no prizes for guessing why.

Next: Fishing.  

"As found by the NFFO "Brexit Balance Sheet" report in September 2021, the UK fishing industry as a whole is now better off by over £50 million a year, than it was when inside the EU. With this figure increasing with each year that passes, as more quotas are returned to the UK fishing fleet."

The link he provides actually says this: 

"The assessment shows that there are very few winners and a great many losers. Gary Taylor’s analysis suggests that the bulk of the UK fishing fleet is on a trajectory to incur losses amounting to £64 million or more per year, with a total loss in excess of £300 million by 2026, unless changes are secured through international fisheries negotiation."

It's a mystery how he gets to the UK Fishing fleet (who are all desperately unhappy with the TCA deal) gaining by £50Mn a year.

I won't go on, most of it is smoke and mirrors, cherry-picking of 'facts', plain wrong, or benefits so marginal they go nowhere near making up for the losses incurred in leaving the EU. He is like someone trying to convince you that finding a 50p coin after losing a £10 note is somehow a win. 

Polling

I assume what is driving Gully Foyle is the gradual but inexorable fall in support for Brexit as seen in the polls. The latest from Omnisis/Wethink shows a record high for rejoining:


Gully Foyle goes through the polling data and picks out the figure if Britain was forced to accept the Euro as part of any deal to rejoin:


It is a requirement for new applicants to join the Euro and no doubt it will form part of any discussion but Poland joined in 2004 with a commitment to join the Euro but still hasn't nearly 20 years later. But I think it shows he's getting worried - as he should.

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