Jacko wrote:
Yes, “no-deal” is really “no big deal” for UK exporters. My company’s non-EU sales are up 400% since the Brexit vote. I thought it might be just us or our business sector, but it is heartening to hear that others are suffering as severely.
As Peter said, that is only to be expected because of the changes in exchange rates. When the value of the a currency goes down, export products become cheaper abroad. On the other hand import will suffer. This is good for British export companies but not so good for British consumers.
Peter wrote:
It would be a desperate piece of hardball, to shut down air travel.
It takes two to tango. Not sure which side is most desperate. 
Peter wrote:
It will hurt people if the BMW or whatever goes up by 20% but (a) BMW will drop their price for UK customers because they need to compete
Sure. In the US market, European cars companies typically discount their cars heavily to compete. If the UK does away with the 10% EU import duty on imported cars, and in doing so becomes more like the US in that respect, I’d predict that the UK consumer will likewise have greater choice and lower price.
What cars would the UK import from the US that are not already produced locally?
I mean, I’m sure there is a huge demand for RHD cars in the US as it is – are there going to be enough left to send to the UK?
With regards with the pressure BMW puts on Ms. Merkel, I’m not sure how that is going to compensate the exodus of bankers (which we were told with great certainty it is not going to happen) and the resulting drop in jobs depending on finance sector spending…
Who would BMW need to compete with in order to drop UK prices by 20%? US RHD imports? Chinese RHD imports?
alioth wrote:
VAT dodging via M-reg.
Since the IOM is part of the UK VAT zone, I’m curious how that could ever work.
Shorrick_Mk2 wrote:
Who would BMW need to compete with in order to drop UK prices by 20%? US RHD imports? Chinese RHD imports?
The Japanese seem to produce a RHD car here and there… enough anyway for their entire domestic market, NZ and Australia. Those cars are currently subject to a 10% EU import duty when imported into UK, putting them at a disadvantage. If the UK were to drop that duty, the EU manufacturers might well face the same competition as they do in the US, where the duty on either EU or Japanese passenger cars is 2.5%. EU produced cars can’t compete with the Japanese in most US market segments.
achimha wrote:
Amazing how you get those insights. Where in Brussels do you work?
Watching comments by the said crowd in Brussels after it happened and since is quite enough insight. Basically what it is all about is to make Brexit so that no other country will ever try. “pour encourager les autres” I think is the expression…
For the EU that makes even sense. Brexit was quite in the face of the establishment. There is a lot of resentment. So the powers that are have all the interest to make Brexit look as unattractive as they can to other countries with similar ideas. It might blow up in their faces however if the Brits sit it out.
Shorrick_Mk2 wrote:
I’m not sure how that is going to compensate the exodus of bankers (which we were told with great certainty it is not going to happen)
What exodus is this? I thought Deutsche Bank had recently signed a 25year lease for a new London Headquaters…
For your bmw threat question. a price differential would most likely help Jaguar Land Rover.
@Airborne_Again wrote:
As Peter said, that is only to be expected because of the changes in exchange rates. When the value of the a currency goes down, export products become cheaper abroad.
In theory, perhaps, but the Sterling exchange rate has little or nothing to do with our export sales growth; we manufacture no goods in the U.K. and all of our non-EU sales are priced in foreign currencies.
@Peter, point taken, but I don’t think that the future of European (as opposed to EU) GA can easily be separated from the wider political issues.
For better or worse, we Brits have narrowly voted to escape from a “united Europe” whose cohesion once again requires citizens to be beaten in the streets for illegal use of a ballot box. If European leaders are content to see women battered with truncheons to save their “project”, it may not be safe to assume that their stated desire to inflict “consequences” upon the British proletariat will somehow stop short of collateral damage to European General Aviation.
Whatever each of us thinks of the Brexit vote, at some stage European GA owners and pilots may need to quit bickering and work together to minimise (or route around) any such damage.
lionel wrote:
Since the IOM is part of the UK VAT zone, I’m curious how that could ever work.
There may be some incompetence involved in allowing “abusive VAT avoidance” by importers of aircraft.
