What a brilliantly produced film. Extremely well written and executed.
Not sure I'm convinced by it arguments.
they raise some extremely good points, particularly around why trade deals are not the be all and end all, I think the quote was "all that matters is if someone is willing to buy your product at a price you can make it".
So my issues:
1 they make a big play about the laws and regulations from the EU, there was a nicely done bit with the animations of numbers of laws popping up over items. I suspect those numbers are the inflated numbers you get if you count absolutely every regulation and law that mentions coffee from import duties, to safety standards to taste test procedures. Regardless of the actual numbers. The film make it seem silly that there are regulations on mobile phones, dogs, fridges, towels, radiators etc. It seems sensible that we do have regulations.
Lets take radiators, if you buy a radiator you expect to plumb it in and it work. Fine. How do you know your radiator will take the water pressure of the heating system? The radiator claims it's a 1kw radiator, but how is that calculation defined, over what temperature difference? What is the maximum allowable surface temperature? What metals are allowed to prevent galvanic corrosion? How heavy can a radiator be before it needs two people to install it? What is the maximum distance between bars in a towlqrail to prevent a child getting it's head stuck? All these things need to be thought about to make a safe, efficient product.
Regulations are there not just to protect the consumer, but also to help the producer. Good regulations help business and protect the consumer. If there is one standard for a fire extinguisher across the EU , then an Italian fire extinguisher can be bought and used in the UK or Germany with no extra effort on the part of the Italian manufacturer. If they come up with a cheap and effective extinguisher, then not only is their market Italy, but the whole of the EU, for free.
It is telling that much time is taken blaming regulation for the UK's and now EU's ills, whilst deregulation is made responsible for the industrial revolution and the German economic recovery.
The section, bordering on racist, about the euro (Italian i think) factory and the asian factory, made a couple of omissions. It's not just long lunches and slacking off that can make a company less competitive than another.
Take a clothing factory. An Indonesian factory might produce t-shirts cheaper than a Spanish factory. If the Spanish factory has to provide maternity pay, sick pay, protective equipment, paid holidays, pensions, modern machinery with protective guards, fire alarms, structurally sound factories, safe waste chemical disposal, it will be more expensive than the overcrowded Indonesian factory, with poor lighting, old machines with no safety features, no employee benefits dumping waste chemicals untreated into the local river.
Europe has some of the highest social standards in the world, it has environmental standard, safety standards, workers rights etch, al of which make it less competitive than a Chinese factory. That is why tariffs are needed.
The film even talks directly about the steel industry and why we shouldn't try to save it. Cheap Chinese steel helps all the other industries be cheaper. But what's the point in mandating environmental standards for steel production if we the buy cheap Chinese steel produced in ex communist factories. there was a steel producing town in china that was so badly polluted they were forced to do something. Rather than clean up the steel works, they dynamited the top off a nearby mountain to change the wind patterns to blow the pollution away. How can a British steel plant compete with a Chinese one when the Chinese are willing to destroy a mountain and just live with the pollution?
So here's a challenge, which EU regulations would you sweep away to make the UK more competitive? environmental? Health and safety? maternity pay? Holiday pay?, sick pay?
Back to trade....
The film makes points out how trade deals are unimportant. We trade with China and the US and 8 of our top 10 non EU partners without deals.
So why is the ability to make our own trade deals such a big plus of leaving the EU?
The boss of JML says he can trade with China and Australia etc as easily as with EU countries, ok then why do we have to leave the EU to make deal with China and Australia?
Tate and Lyle is anther interesting case. They said (and I believe them) that being in the EU puts up the cost of their sugar. Isn't that irrelevant now as we are putting a sugar tax on to increase the price of sugar?
Now the film did have a point about the butter mountains and wine lakes. Notice how the footage is all old though. They were a product of a system designed to maximise production, born out of the near starvation of Europe in WW2. that system has been scrapped and the CAP for all it's flaws now only accounts for 40% of the EU budget down from the 70% of the past. CAP is still a pretty poor system but it is improving. They also make a good point about the effect of the tariff wall on African farmers, to which there isn't really a good answer. It sucks and would be better if we could arrange a better system. It should be noted that the UK has negotiated concessions for commonwealth banana producers getting access to the EU on the basis that the benefits to their economies would far out weigh any damage to the EU's.
As I said a well produced film, but it is pushing the deregulation agenda hard and I've yet to see any convincing arguments for which EU regulations will be cut.
