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Out the frying pan into the fire, as they say.

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In response to your earlier post.

The world see us as one now, regardless of our efforts to maintain our own identity, I know as a member of the External Relations Group and the people we are in dialog with, whether it is the US State department (Treasury) or even talking to the all party group at Westminster, the OECD, the IMF the EU, whoever, they all see us collectively as being part of the same area.

They have no understanding for instance that Sark & Alderney have their own elected governments they just expect Guernsey to keep them in line, when we explain the constitutional position they are simply not interested.

Which is one of the reasons we must find ways of working more closely together? That does not mean on every single issue we must become as one but certainly on our constitutional position and protecting our autonomy we have little choice.

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The existing population in Jersey is falling off the edge, and god knows what will happen when the new laws come in, opening it up even more extensively to Europe.

Logically speaking, more people = more sick people, and who will be the winners?

Oh yes, Jersey will.

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Of course they won’t!

We will be tarred with the same very grubby brush as Jersey, and quite possibly perceived to be conspiring with them to continue their particular form of fiscal skulduggery that’s regularly splashed all over the nationals.

It’s rather like hanging out with Jack the Ripper due to a mutual love of flower arranging, ‘oh, I know he’s a serial killer, but I’m not involved with that, and he does a lovely bouquet’

Thanks, but no thanks…!!

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Funny how they’re only interested in joining with us now they’re in the cack, ay.

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Rather than both Islands trying to service their population with every medical service, Jersey and Guernsey could each offer different specialist services currently contracted to the UK, then have our own CI air ambulance to share pan island and ferry passengers back and forth.

The same could work with higher education, with the ever increasing university fees our future generations are being priced out of a university education.

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Savings would be far more likely by outsourcing to areas in the south of England which are readily accessible to Southampton or Exeter, taking advantage of air links for easy visits. It’s £75 return between the islands these days, and is often cheaper to fly to those other airports if booked early. I’m sure one of the airlines would jump at a contract price. Now, if both Guernsey and Jersey were to set up a joint CI public sector outsourcing centre in, say, Devon, the local authorities there would probably even give us a grant to facilitate it, as it would create welcome jobs there. Salaries around 20% to 30% cheaper than here in the islands, along with economies of scale, and lower house prices than in the islands, would encourage some from the islands to relocate to Devon.

Seems well worth exploring to me. It still results in collaboration with Jersey, but only in relation to cost savings, not politically.

There is no doubt that medical services in both islands could provide cost savings benefits in several specialist areas rather than duplicating them 25 miles apart, along with sharing police/prison training costs, but still keeping them separate.

Oh, and remove airport landing taxes and fees on all inter-island flights, which would chop close to £30 off a current £75 return flight. Then it all becomes much more feasible. That would then enable numerous air routes to be far more viable to a market of 160,000 rather than to markets of 100,000 and 60,000. Aurigny could be far more profitable with a much bigger volume, and tourism would benefit throughout the islands as well. Inter-island air travel could be more like a bus service with special arrangements to go virtually straight from the aircraft with baggage to the connecting flight without having to check in again and go through security. That could definitely produce considerable benefits all round.

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Only politicians or recently arrived non-locals would disagree. The former because they’ve got their own agendas and/or their heads stuck where the sun doesn’t shine, the latter because they don’t yet know the islands.

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I support more shared services, I support the two CM’s talking to each other I do not support a Westminster office and we will have to see whether further talks between our two juristictions result in a more measured and sensible way forward in terms of off island talks.
Jersey has made mistakes in the past but like us they have a new goverment with different players, so lets see what CAN be achieved before we dismiss the idea out of hand

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Very well put.

I would put it more strongly than that.

Guernsey is up to its ankles in sh*t. Jersey is up to its neck in it.

Sharing costs on public services – could be a win-win.anything more – we will lose out.

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I’m surprised that you support this.

I personally think that if this idea was developed that it would be a PR disaster for Guernsey. You only need to look at how they have messed things up for themselves to realise that they are now in a very perilous position financially, economically and socially.

Jersey is now regularly in the national news with tax avoidance scams coming to light so how you could possibly think that being aligned with them in a united front could be good for Guernsey’s financial business is beyond me.

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Even as individual jurisdictions we are very much misunderstood now.

The anti low tax lobby constantly put out mis-information on us, as a way of distracting their people’s attention from their own ineptitude and shortcomings as governments. So speaking as individual islands has not worked. I would suggest our more measured approach may show Jersey that more can be achieved by that route than by the maverick approach you have identified in the past.

The truth is that globalisation is leading to more large dictatorships, as the big and powerful try to usurp their authority on small jurisdictions. The US for instance bullies anybody that doesn’t agree with them and threatens sanctions or other measures to force countries to look after the US interests.
FATCA is just one case in point where it wants every country in the world to monitor the financial transactions of US citizens and report back to the US treasury on those movements.

As does the European Union, that tries to impose its will on any jurisdiction that has different rules to its own, whether they are members of the EU or not. You will see in the next decade or so the real financial and military muscle of China coming to the fore. Israel continues to force its will on the Palestinians by military might.
The world is being carved up into powerful blocks where democracy is gradually being eroded and the peoples ability to fight back is being diminished other than by armed insurrection. You have just witness leader being parachuted into Greece and Italy in order to do the EU’s bidding in propping up the single currency, the people of these countries had no say in it whatsoever.

The UK that is also led by the nose from Brussels is now moving to moral arguments on tax rather than specific tax law and companies are being forced to consider whether European countries are really worth investing in as the EU attempts to strangle business with more and more red tape and punitive taxes.

I know I have wandered of your point al little but what I an trying to say is that it is a much more hostile environment for small independent jurisdictions and we might have to get much closer together just to survive.

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