RayC

A response which, as usual, in no way addresses my question. Reduced to insulting others and misplaced over-confidence in one's own ability and knowledge. A sure sign that you have lost the argument.

Without compensation? Perhaps. It would also cause an unprecedented outflow of funds from the UK and the likely collapse of the economy.

Taking some historic rates at random from the BoE website, base rates were increased to 13.88% on 28 March 1985. On 4 August 2016 they were reduced to 0.25%: If someone had looked at the average historical base rate on 1/1/00, it would have been over 10% (estimate based on a cursory look; I haven't done the maths). How does that any of that help someone trying to plan their financial future and budget in June 2023?

I am losing count of the number of times you misquote or misinterpret my posts. I did not claim that INTEREST rates were nearly 8%. I stated that average MORTGAGE REPAYMENT RATES were nearly 8%. The actual figure in May was 7.44%. Given the latest rise in base rates on Thursday, that figure will be "nearly 8%" if it isn't already And you know all that for a fact?

But as Chomper inferred, using historical average interest rates as the basis for deciding whether to take on a mortgage is not a useful metric.

Presumably all homeowners are therefore enemies of the proletariat and will need to be lined up against the wall and shot? Going to need a long wall. Someone had better ask the Chinese comrades if we can use theirs.

Fair enough.

Average rates are now +/-7.5%. Are those who budgeted for 6% fools?

I imagine that most people thinking of taking out a six-figure loan give it a bit of thought. Likewise, for those lending such amounts Really? The average mortgage rate in mid-2019 was 4%; it is now nearly 8% with further increases possible. With no sign of COVID or the Ukraine war, you would have argued in mid-2019 that the average mortgage rate would double in 3 years? So by this simple arithmetic progression we should expect interest rates to rise and revert to the mean of 8% in a year's time? And then what, a period of stability at 8%? A reverse trend down to what? I think if managing monetary policy was that simple, governments and central banks would have realised it by now. Yes at some point, interest rates were bound to rise. However, on its' own that knowledge is fairly useless. The questions were when and by how much? You forget the group in the middle which imo are the majority. What about those who had budgeted carefully and had funds to cover emegencies and, say, a 50% rise in interest rates? And what if these individuals had carefully budgeted that they could still afford to have a 2-week holiday each year, go out once a week, buy the odd gadget every couple of years but who now find that having redirected all their funds that they were spending on this less than extravagant lifestyle, they are still not able to meet their mortgage repayments; their problems are entirely self-inflicted?

Which, as I stated previously, is hardly a surprise given that they have been at these low levels for 13 years. If you are implying that individuals should budgeted for a rise in interest rates, then I agree. However, you seem to also be implying that they should have planned for a doubling of their mortgage rates which is what has happened in many cases; that is where we part company.

Is that a surprise when the base rate was <1% for 13 years? Maybe not but I don't think many people would have thought there would be - or prepared for - a 2000% increase in base rates (from 0.25% to 5%) within 18 months.

He - and others - were otherwise engaged; boozing it up at a Tory garden party.

Really? Any examples of the UK - when it was a member - being dictated to by France and Germany? Post-Brexit, France and Germany account for over 40% of the EU's GDP and nearly 50% of the Eurozone. Therefore, it seems reasonable and obvious that they would want - and have - between them a major voice in shaping the Eurozone and EU policy. Most of the time, the member states of the EU share a common goal and vision which promotes the common good However, it is a collection of sovereign nations who will also seek to promote and protect their own interests. If conflict arises, horse-trading and compromise is necessary. The UK when it was a member was, perhaps, the prime example of a member state protecting its' own interests. This issue pre-dates the Ukraine war. The initial EU agreement among member states - which Poland and the Visegrad group refuse to implement - dates back to 2015. The EU has launched infringement proceedings against Poland for this reason. Poland should be applauded for housing Ukrainian refugees, however, the EU has not punished Poland for doing so as you suggest. In fact, as of October '22, Poland has received €144m in EU contributions for housing Ukrainian refugees. No doubt the figure is significantly higher now. On the one hand, you criticise the EU for fining Poland for not implementing agreed EU refugee policy but, on the other, you criticise the EU for what you perceive as not doing enough to assist Greece and Italy. Doesn't seem very consistent. So there we have it. More unfounded EU bashing. "A federal state"? Clearly not. "A tangled bureaucracy"? A bureaucracy certainly; tangled? Perhaps. There is always room for improvement. I've addressed the national interest argument in a previous paragraph. If the laws were unwanted then they would not become laws: It really is as simple as that. Indeed. Many thanks to the 52% for the past 7 years of chaos. The question is, how many more do we have to endure?

I assume that your reference to ".. only 7 years ..." is sarcastic? If so, it is ironic that you then go on to rail against events that took place over 50 years ago! If your '7 year' comment is simply a statement of fact, then I withdraw my previous paragraph and apologise. However, whilst I accept that the changes (and any benefits) of Brexit might take time to materialize, the absence of any policies, strategy and projects to realise these benefits leads me to think that they may not exist. The UK fishing industry was in decline long before we joined the EEC. The treachery was that Heath's government - and Thatcher's in the '80s re the mining and steel industries - did nothing to replace the lost jobs in the areas affected. https://www.investmentmonitor.ai/sectors/agribusiness/who-killed-the-british-fishing-industry/#:~:text=Overfishing%2C geopolitics and the way,London's Centre for Food Policy. There is no mention of the creation of a federal state in the Werner Report; it is solely concerned with monetary union and what it views as the necessary fiscal policies e.g. alignment of VAT rates to enable this monetary union to take place. There is no mention of wider social, defence, foreign policy, etc. being centralised. I don't need your permission to keep voicing my discontent about Brexit. I can't see what points you are trying to make here, other than you have contempt for Heath and, apparently, homosexuals.

I agree but the important thing is to find conditions which are acceptable I think that views on the continent are a lot more nuanced than that. Ironically, there appears to be as much confusion about what "increasing integration" entails in practice as what "Brexit" looks like. Macron certainly appears to be in favour of greater integration, but he will not be in office if and when the UK applies to rejoin. If a Le Pen type figure is elected then the situation will change. I'm not sure what is Schultz's view on greater EU Integration but there is a sizeable minority against it. Imo that would be unlikely. UK tourism is important to Spain and I doubt that they would want to jeopardize it. I also doubt that the rest of the EU are keen to become embroiled in a major diplomatic row. Agreed. Imo it would certainly have made leaving even more difficult ... however, I'm not sure that necessarily follows. No doubt there will be areas of contention but are these problems insurmountable? Unless the RoI joins Schengen, then that's a non-issue: I've mentioned in previous posts how imo membership of the Euro could fudged (at least in the short term). Imo a common stance re immigration would be a positive step. Well the last two years don't seem to have benefitted either side.

I'm not sure David Davis knew what country he was in or what day of the week it was let alone anything else! https://qz.com/1032136/how-brexit-negotiations-are-going-in-one-photo

Some interesting points. I'll throw something else into the mix: Would France and Germany want a rejoining UK to adopt the Euro? Between them they effectively run the ECB and set monetary policy in the Eurozone. If the UK adopted the Euro, the UK government would obviously want us to have a strong say in matters Would the French and Germans want to see their influence diluted? (I know that this is all hypothetical)

I agree with all of that apart from the implication that the EU was somehow forcing us to remain ("Nigel pleading with the EU in Brussels to allow us to leave"). Having served Article 50, the UK would have ceased to be a member of the EU after two years if no agreement and/or request for an extension had been made. How the 'Irish question' and the UK's ongoing commitments to the EU (financial and otherwise) would have been sorted out if that had occurred is anyone's guess, but I'd have bet my bottom dollar it would have been even more chaotic and messy. I think that Candide has hit the nail on the head: One reason why successive UK governments made such a pig's ear of Brexit is that there was no particular project apart from leaving. Whether there is/ was a better way to do Brexit is highly debatable. Those shouting loudest such as the Flat Earthers (ERG) and Farage don't seem to offer much in the way of concrete proposals.

Then applying the same rationale, it is impossible for you to say that a tougher stance during the negotiations would have lead to a more favourable outcome for the UK.

So that's it? No matter if it becomes blindingly obvious that Brexit has made the country poorer - in every sense of the word - and/or opinion polls were to show, say, 70%+ support for rejoining, there's no going back? I accept that a decision was made to leave and that has happened. However, in a democracy, I am perfectly at liberty to voice my opinion that I believe the decision to have damaged the country, and that the sooner we try to undo that damage (by rejoining) the better. I have tried to support the decision to leave. I sometimes close my eyes and wish really, really hard that the US would sign a trade deal with us, and that the financial 'savings' in EU contributions will help improve services and infrastructure in the country. So far my efforts have been in vain. Must be my fault, I'm probably not praying long or hard enough

An alternative premise is that the negotiations conducted by May's government were not a failure. The deal she got was as good as it could have been, given the UK started in a weak negotiating position. Can you give some specific examples of what the UK could have done differently during the negotiations, and how that would have lead to a more favourable outcome?

Nations aspiring to become EU members do not have to adopt the Euro from Day 1, merely commit to adopting it at some point. Therefore, the fact that we would be rejoining makes no difference; the same criteria for adopting the Euro apply to both existing and aspiring EU member states, namely: 1) Price stability 2) Sound and sustainable public finances 3) Exchange rate stability 4) Long-term interest rates. I don't know which criterion(ia) Sweden fails to meet, but there appears plenty of scope for the a rejoining UK to 'fail' as well.

You either didn't read or didn't understand this paragraph in my original post. "(Please read the post to which I am replying before making any 'opinion not fact', 'predict the future', etc. replies?)" Some "interesting" logic applied.

Why?

You also didn't supply any evidence to support your conviction that the pound would suffer if the UK applied to rejoin the EU. In fact, if the most recent countries to accede to the EU e.g. Croatia, Czechia, Hungary, etc are anything to go by, then then the only conclusion is that there is no clear pattern (Data is available on the ECB website).