In The Engineer’s last Poll readers were asked whether the historic EU-UK trade agreement will be good or bad for UK manufacturing.
Whilst just over a quarter of our 900 respondents said that the deal would be good for industry, the majority were less convinced, with 43 per cent of respondents saying that it’s too early to tell whether the deal will benefit or hinder the manufacturing sector and 31 per cent believing that it is a bad deal.
The large number of comments received (which can be read with the original story below) add some nuance to these results, with many readers claiming that whilst any deal is preferable to a no-deal, Brexit will still inflict great harm on the UK manufacturing and engineering base.
The following story was originally published on January 5th 2021
After more than four-and-half years of toxic debate and damaging uncertainty that has stalled investment and undermined business confidence, the conclusion of an EU-UK trading agreement on December 24, 2020, was greeted with relief across industry.
For many businesses across the UK manufacturing and engineering sectors a no-deal scenario – triggering the overnight disappearance of tariff-free trade with the EU – would have been a disaster. Indeed, fears over the consequences of such a turn of events were the overriding concern of respondents to our very own business confidence survey, which was published at the end of 2020.
The fact that this has been avoided means that companies can now look ahead with some clarity, and begin making plans for the future.
However, there are still areas of concern. Whilst a deal has apparently reduced the risk of Kent being turned into a lorry park, post-Christmas cross-channel traffic levels are currently relatively low, and the true impact of extra regulatory and border checks will only become apparent in the weeks and months ahead. And for many businesses, particularly those who rely on the seamless movement of goods and components across EU borders, the change – though not as damaging as it could have been – is still far from welcome.
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The question is ill-defined. If it means “Is the Brexit deal better than no deal?” then the answer is yes but if it means “Is the Brexit deal better than belonging to the EU?” or “is the Brexit deal better than the Single Market?” then the answer is firmly no.
The facts are clear: the UK has erected non-tariff barriers with our biggest trading partners where there were none and raised the height of what controls there were (largely for sound reasons), and all for no gain. Moreover, the services that sit around goods have been sacrificed in this deal, apparently because of Nelsonian eyes, either deliberately or by ineptitude. UK manufacture needs ready access to skills and the size and shape of that requirement changes over time – the FoM that the country enjoyed went a good way to mitigating that need, and there new regime that has been put into place simply makes the UK a less attractive prospect for talent and harder to hire (and before the “we should grow our own” brigade jumps in, we have been trying to do so for over 50 years and yet here we are, further encumbered by an ill-financed approach to tertiary education and training). Even before the deal, EU buyers were diverting procurement away from the UK and FDI was moving away from UK shores. And again, all for what net benefits exactly?
Fully, agreed. I answered the question as if it had asked, ‘Is the deal that has been agreed better than what we had before?’ A resounding NO
Can someone tell me the difference between Teresa May’s proposal and the Boris agreement? I know the difference is there somewhere (other than the HMRC tax debacle) but beats me what it is. To me this agreement was a waste of 18 months if there is no significant difference!
I whole heartedly agree with you Chris.
Fantastic that we have a deal, we need to trade with our nearest partners and we were always going to have to compromise. So glad to be out of the EU and making our own way in the world, as global Britain, too many people still not accepting the result of the referendum and the subsequent confirmation at the ballot box.
“The question is ill-defined”
Chris you are wrong, as with all opinion polls, the questions are defined to give the answer required
Example – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ZZJXw4MTA
This survey is a bit like asking what type of execution you would prefer – None is the required choice. i.e. It presumes Brexit was a good choice.
But like choosing a preferred method of execution, then the deal we have is better than none.
PS. Execution by reducing O2 pressure such as in a high altitude test chamber is probably the least painful way – if you had a choice!
Brexit is bad and self defeating, It is better than no deal but it separates us from European Technology and Finance . Finance for development was always very difficult to get from a Conservative Government . This time out of Europe it looks as if the City will also be hit hard which may eventually bring sense to our nation
Over the last 2 years business has been threatened consistently with no deal. Whilst this has damaged confidence and reduced investment, the main purpose has been to get business to accept a bare bones deal with relief, rather than the scorn it deserves.
So yes, this is better than no-deal, but it’s a hell of a lot worse than being in the single market, let alone the EU.
A specific threat is that the customs delays will make it harder to use JIT supply chains, giving British business a disadvantage. Meanwhile, finished goods from the EU can happily manage a day’s delay at customs. With these rules, why would anyone invest in new production capacity in the UK, as opposed to within the single market?
Exactly correct.
100% – Brexit is, was, and always will be a self-harm scar inflicted by the Conservatives and their disaster-capitalist cronies on the backs of the deluded nationalists and ill-informed discontents, and fuelled by the illegal and nefarious funding of Banks and his Russian friends. And Farage the irrelevant.
Massive self-harming own goal against all rational sense.
This agreement was signed at the last moment, so obviously the negotiators were able to extract loads of last minute concessions by using their negotiating leverage. I can’t think of those advantages, but Johnson assures me they are there, and he would never lie.
it is too early to tell if Brexit is good or bad for the UK. However the reasons for leaving given by the proponents of Brexit are negative and contrary to where the world is going. Covid 19 is showing us all that we need to stick together to help each other no matter where we are. EU&Britain will have to help AFRICA to get rid of covid 19. We are in this world together – we work together and row together – not walk away and believe we will achieve more alone!
How is it better, to pay billions of £’s more than you receive, to subsidise other member states?
Too early to tell.
We know we have been sold down the river but it’s unclear how far down this particular creek we have been left paddle-less.
Fishing – no change whatsoever for UK fishermen – SNAFU.
NI – they have done quite well with a boot in each camp, but their future is unclear.
Food Standards – totally watered down to allow for the sale of contaminated, and unlabeled, US food products into the UK.
We the tax payers will be paying for this 100% Tory folly for the rest of our lives.
Leaving the Eu was stupid in the first place and was only of benefit to those individuals who have vast sums of money (Conservatives in the main, but not exclusively). The people of the UK were both played and lied to, by MP’s in general who want a captive UK populace to themselves.
Is the current deal any good, NO it is not, its just a desperate last ditch measure to gain the popular vote for a bunch of ingrates.
And when the dust settles and the brexiteers finally realise (not that they will admit) what they have inflicted on us how do we get back in? If that does come about it will certainly not be on as good terms as we previously enjoyed. We had the ability to stand up for ourselves while a member, it is only because of the pompous attitiude of the civil service obeying the exact letter of the law instead of following the spirit as every other other EU nation did that caused problems. We already had a defined border as an island nation, so the problem with immigration was non-eu people. And as for the self-centred oligarchs and conservative funders baying to be let loose for their own selfish benefit! Apart from a handul no one in the conservative party understands cost-benefit analysis, strategic and long term planning concepts, or even about national economics beyond what they can stuff into their back pockets, possibly in anonymous brown envelopes!
I am worried that a hurried, last minute deal contains something bad for the UK.
The devil is always in the detail (somewhere in the 1500 pages of the agreement that has not been scrutinised by Parliament)…
Even Johnson couldn’t cite a benefit when asked by Andrew Marr on Sunday.
“If you think training is expensive, try ignorance instead” seems apt.
Mass delusion will morph into mass dissatisfaction, mass disillusionment. The health & welfare of “Enemies of the People” & other undesirables is at increasing risk as this lying, narcissist, sociopathic government seeks to deflect criticism & anger onto scapegoats.
Sunak is a devotee of “creative destruction” and callously ignored the plight of hungry children. He still ignores & lies about meeting with representatives of the 2.9 million excluded self-employed.
This government is destroying livelihoods, opportunities, businesses & the fabric of civil society.
Surely the fundamental purpose of engineering is to improve people’s lives?
Engineers can use their critical thinking, logic, risk analysis, numeracy & other skills to counter-act this by getting involved in local & national politics; don’t leave it to others.
“Daddy what did you do during the Crony-Capitalist coup?”
Yes – But not just the Conservative – There were many traditionally Labour voters who voted Brexit. Probably go as far as saying the majority of the middle of the road and to the left conservative voters (aka those capable of thinking!) were remainers.
Brexit happened due to the perfect political storm of a weakened labour party (Corbyn), the inability of the electorate to factor out the lies told by Brexiteer’s and the EU attitude at the time. Suspect now it would be a totally different result . But we have what we have, and have to make do with being second class citizens in Europe, a poor trade deal and except many of our previous rights .
Think not? Well we already see companies such as Facebook now moving UK users from Ireland to California as the EU privacy laws (with teeth) no longer apply.
To all the dismembered ‘Black Knights’ here, hankering for yet another round against King Arthur, I’d simply point out that we are where we are because our MPs couldn’t agree what they were for, only what they were against https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/mar/27/alternative-brexit-options-what-will-john-bercow-select-for-indicative-votes
John, what you suggest is akin to the situation with taxation where a lot of people pay in more than they will take out but the overall benefits for everyone are systems an individual could never afford individually. The EU provides lots of benefits to all its citizens, which we have now lost, and, we’ll never see any benefit whatsoever from not paying the £350Bn contributions you may have seen on the side of a bus
I’ll take the question at face value, since anyone sane and knowledgeable knows that anything will be worse for most manufacturing than what we had before. For complex manufacturing the full integration in the EU supply chains was paramount, and no deal will be even half as good as membership. For animal/vegetable-based products SPS is a real problem, and nothing will come close to single market membership (as the EFTA experience showed).
So, at face value, the question is whether having a deal *now* is better than not having a deal. Let me set out what I think this question requires us to compare.
On the one hand, there’s the deal. The deal we have now will mitigate maximally the effects of leaving the SM and CU, while still providing a large initial shock and then slowly removing the mitigation over the next 6 years. This guarantees continued uncertainty, but allows for incremental changes to adapt to the new terms of trade.
On the other hand, there is the hypothetical case of no deal, where we would have faced a full and complete change to bare WTO trade at the worst possible terms. No mitigation, no trade facilitation and a lot of ill will. This would be so bad that there is no doubt in my mind that the government would have agreed a trade deal within months. This would essentially be the same kind of deal we have now: the EU is unlikely to offer anything better, and the government is unlikely to accept dramatically different terms under the current crew.
As engineers, we know this choice very well from classical system control theory. A fast transition leads to overshoot and a long period of instability. A short transition will take longer but be more predictable. Seems a matter of taste, really.
However, vast, complex systems like national economies don’t end up in the same state under slow or fast transitions. They are inherently chaotic, and classical control theory doesn’t apply.
I think that this deal will cause the economy to be in constant flux for much longer, but in the end it will be more like today’s economy.
A brief but very educational few months without a deal would cause more drastic changes and they would happen faster. The push for far deeper trade deals with the EU would be stronger and start earlier. The end point would be a dramatically different economy, with a better optimised trade deal with the EU. It would be achieved faster.
So would I prefer no deal? Of course not, for the same reason that, as an engineer, I would not test outrageous new concepts directly on my customers. While it’s tempting to go for the “let’s quickly see what actually would break first” experiment, the danger that things would break irreversibly is simply too high. This is a chaotic system, and most of the attractors correspond to really bad situations that are hard to fix: just look at the state of the world.
So as a responsible engineer, I would have to advise going with the slow, painful route.
Once again all we hear from the Unreformed Remainer Brigade is that tehewhole concept of Brexit was stupid, and that, by inference, anyone who voted for or now supports or accepts Brexit are stupid. What was, is, and will continue to be exceedingly stupid, is to try to force an unwilling population into political servitude, and to believe that they can be held there. There is zero political accountability in the EU to any of the populace, either within any country or collectively across all of the member countries. The EU Parliament is a sham, as it can neither propose or rescind legislation, merely having the ability to rubber stamp what has been cooked up by ntable people behing closed doors. Some may be comfortable with this if they believe that they themselves can gain some short term advantage from the situation, but for the majority of people in all countries the EU has been, and will continue to be a disaster. The Covid immunisation failure in the EU should be a wake up call to the risks of centralised control of events, where the desire for a political direction overrides the common sense action. The whole concept of one size fits all goes against the manner in which nature has successfully operated in the world since the first life evolved. Nature abhors single solution strategy, which is why each generation of seeds offers a variation from the last, so that when events act against one variant of a plant, a different variation may just manage to survive to carry the genes forward. We would also do well to remember that despite his years of preparation, and impressive engineering, WW2 was lost by Hitler due mainly to his obsession for centralised control. I suggest that it is time to celebrate Brexit, because you can be very sure indeed that no matter what the short term inconvenience may be (if any) the population will ensure that we are never again dragged by political sleight of hand into giving up the ability to remove those in charge in their entirety, and to fully erase any actions they have taken with which the electorate are disattisfied. I am not, and never have been a supporter of Tony Benn, but the EU, which was never given a democratic mandate in this country fails his Five Tests of Democracy, and thus it will never gain acceptance in a UK which is now fully attuned to the duplicity and dishonesty of the political classes. Time to look forward not backwards, and to grasp with both hands the opportunities which await us in a brave new world.
@Barrie Mansel-Edwards
Just because time has passed doesn’t mean their opinions are not correct!
Agree that the EU is far far from perfect, but on balance its a good thing, it would have been better to have made changes from within, there were many other nations that also wanted to see change in the EU.
From a engineering/science perspective, it gave easy movement of projects and people, which we have all benefited from – Not being a member will hindered our profession, how much we will probably never know as of course we now will strive to make the best of a bad situation, hence the trade deal is a good thing, but its not as good as what we had!
Remember Brexit was brought to you by the same politicians that have made a total and utter farce out of dealing with COVID-19 – probably says it all!
Moderator and Remainers 17; Brexiteers & Democrats 1. Never to have this debate again would be nice.
Brexit is a form of tribalism. In the modern world strength and benefits come from being part of a larger organisation. Being a member of the EU was not perfect but it is always better to change an organisation from the inside than than view it from the outside. The deal is better than no deal, but much worse than what we had previously. Three things which seemed to be major influencers on voting leave were 350Bn paid to the EU, EU rules & regulations and Fishing rights.
– The 350Bn on the side of the bus was a lie as it ignored what we got back, also as some previous comments there are overall benefits for the EU which helps stability and prevents wars (which are costly),
– the UK participated in setting EU rules & regulations (and we will need to incorporate many of any new ones if we want to sell goods & services to the EU – but no say in their development)
– Fishing rights in the short term are no different in the Brexit deal and the UK could probably have put pressure on changing this from the inside if we stayed in the EU.
If the Brexit referendum was re-run it would probably result in remain. There was a disproportionate number of old people who voted leave compared to the young. In several separate studies conducted after the vote the conclusion was that 70% of 18-24 year olds voted remain, 69% of over 65 year olds voted leave. Unfortunately it is the young who will be most affected by the result. As the result of leave vs remain was quite close, with deaths since 2016 in the older population the result in a re-run could well favour the young and result in remain.
There is much more to Brexit than just the business relationship that most of the commentators above seem to focus on. The original concept of a simplified trading relationship which I voted for many years ago has morphed into political control of far too much, including control of who comes and goes into the UK. The business trading gains are not worth the loss of control of the fundamental issues of our own country.
EU membership is almost a side issue. The real question is if the leaders of the Conservative, Labour & LibDem parties are willing to back British Industry? Will they give grants, cut taxes & red tape, boost STEM learning, to revive British industry? Or will the usual inertia & indifference rule, propped up by zero interest rates, money printing & a devaluing Pound?
Many thought the UK needed to boost manufacturing to rebalance its economy. Post Covid & its extra debt, that is even more true.
Maybe not. Those same over-65s were the young voters at the 1975 referendum whether to remain in the EC (67% yes, 33% no) and so by your young v. old argument must have been overwhelmingly pro-Europe, for that result to have been achieved. Something happened to them in the intervening decades: conservatism … cynicism … experience? Five years on from 2016 there aren’t more young voters now; on the contrary the average age of the UK population is increasing (roughly 1 month per year). Oldies die off, babies are born but we all get older
Your right Gary. And while we’re at it, why should the rich pay for the welfare state when they’re able to pay their own way. Better to let those that can’t afford it pay for it. Oh and why should London subsidise the rest of the country? Can’t they ring fence all that money for spending on the capital. How small do you want to make your island? I’m alright Jack.
Must say how much I’ve enjoyed the views here. Engineers on the majority were always “remainers”, as per the Engineers many polls over the years. I was a voter for the Common Market in 1975 and following Trevor’s model of the politics, voted for Brexit. My reason is that, like most of the working classes in the UK, I have tired of seeing manufacturing being moved from the UK to Europe ever since and our balance of trade with the EU deteriorate every year.
Brexit to me was a great example of a significant number of people basically not doing what their ‘betters’ and hangers on instructed them to do – aka democracy. In that way it was historic in the sense that it democracy and economics never mix well, but do when tried often change history. That’s largely what the industrial revolution was about – capitalists investing in technology and also developing it to be productive. Politically this also required largely supplanting the aristocracy for the better.
Back to the present day and arguably especially in the UK, trade dominated the Brexit discussions – never discussions over improved production – surely of interest to a publication calling itself The Engineer? Sometimes you have to look back to see the future (not that it ever really repeats itself exactly.
Todays ‘capitalists’ aka SMEs like to talk about trade (and financial products, new business models (so called)) all the time because it avoids discussions over increasing the rate of productivity (and if you do, you can easily increase trade on the back of it, tariffs or no tariffs) and producing better products, infrastructure and services for domestic as well as export consumption.
So can the Engineer please get back to concentrating on Production, productivity improvements via technology and better products – and let others worry about how to sell the fruits of engineers’ labours!
Margaret Thatcher used the UK’s membership of the EU to attract foreign investment. Sunderland’s Nissan plant in particular. Brexit has eliminated this attraction.
Brexiteer Jim Ratcliffe is building his Land Rover replacement in France!
Items once manufactured in UK have largely been offshored to China not EU.
Coment on Mark Harrison posting. Foreign investment in Britain is unlikely to relate to EU membership: it is about making money.
Regarding the off-shoring of manufacture. The UK has Sold its jewellery to the EU. WE no longer make large power plant in the UK: that is large CCGT plant, municipal waste incinerators, windmills etc, while 30 years ago the UK exported boilers, turbines and power plant around the world. We buy these from Europe in every case. If it was not for Tata, the UK would only be making Japanese car designs. Our balance of trade with the EU was -£4.2b in 1997, by 2016 it was -£95.5b. That is a lot of useful jobs exported, our invisible earnings create few jobs outside of London. It was this issue that changed my view on EU membership.
I was referring to the Conservative party and it’s extremist members rather than the conservative voters, though they share some of the blame for not seeing through this charade of lies and manipulation.
Of course, a primary reason for the money-people to leave the EU was the chance to have oversight and EU laws ‘with teeth’ dropped, especially the new EU laws about offshore banking and tax avoidance – that’s probably the entirety of it.
Short term bad, but mixed up with global pandemic economic issues. Long term is open to question and may depend on how the financiers view engineering, which historically has not been good. It is even more essential that we move away from the distribution and finance focus of ‘making as much money in as short a time as possible and hang the consequences’ model that has particularly blighted us since the second world war and gaining momentum during the mid to late eighties. As a small player in global terms competing with China for production volume and out of the largest consumer markets, US, Europe, China without beneficial trade deals we have our work cut out. The financial industry is led by personal interest and aggrandisment, and cares nothing for wider society so not lot of hope there!
Having been responsible for the design, parts assembly, packing and export of “flat pack” cold rooms, seed stores and associated refrigeration, rotary air driers and control systems to countries within and without the EU, I was only too aware of the source and end user certification, shipping paperwork and financial problems, that the majority of SME are now faced with on a daily basis.
Yes I voted remain, because I could not see any financial benefit to leaving although I did not like the Federal aspects of the EU.
What stuck in my mind most after the vote, was simply this, a TV reporter (can not remember which channel) was stopping people in a high street to ask them which way they voted, one woman simply stated that she voted to leave as she thought it would be good to have a change !!!!!!!. I was lost for words to describe this inanity, unfortunately I have a feeling that she was not in the minority. The fact that many people did not vote at all, seems lost on the proponents of Brexit. I agree with many of the commentators, the general public are going to pay the cost of this decision for many years to come, even the “city” may come to regret the outcome.