Brexit: The Last Stand (No name calling)

steddyeddy

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Yes, but why would a country not agree?

Well they most certainly would agree but I suspect free movement of people would be a deal breaker.

Grayson

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Yes, but why would a country not agree?

To a trade deal? Trade deals take years to hammer out. There's always loads of disagreements along the way.

The thing is that the UK can't start making those deals until after it leaves. It's not from when article 50 is triggered but after they actually exit. So they may have years without any trade deals with any country.

Dyr

Can we change the title to "Full English Brexit"?

FrancieBrady

Bambi wrote: »

Can we change the title to "Full English Brexit"?

No mushrooms!

Fratton Fred

Grayson wrote: »

To a trade deal? Trade deals take years to hammer out. There's always loads of disagreements along the way.

The thing is that the UK can't start making those deals until after it leaves. It's not from when article 50 is triggered but after they actually exit. So they may have years without any trade deals with any country.

So the obvious thing to do is agree with key trade partners to replicate the existing terms then, surely.

steddyeddy

Fratton Fred wrote: »

So the obvious thing to do is agree with key trade partners to replicate the existing terms then, surely.

Which includes movement of people.

volchitsa

steddyeddy wrote: »

Which includes movement of people.

Indeed. Which - among other things - makes a bit of a mockery of the supposed reasons for voting for Brexit in the first place.

As I said above.

Pro Brexit candidate wins by-election, it looks like the pro-brexit voters came out in force while the remain voters remained at home.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-38258976
Conservative candidate Caroline Johnson has won the Sleaford and North Hykeham by-election, which saw Labour come in fourth behind UKIP and the Liberal Democrats.
The Tory party held onto the seat which became vacant after MP Stephen Phillips quit, citing "irreconcilable policy differences" with the government.
Dr Johnson won 17,570 votes to beat UKIP's Victoria Ayling, who had 4,426.
Labour slipped from second place in the 2015 general election to fourth.
Consultant paediatrician Dr Johnson said her election would boost Theresa May's support on Brexit.


....


The turnout for the by-election was 37.1% according to North Kesteven District Council, down from 70.2% at the general election last year.

VinLieger

Fratton Fred wrote: »

So the obvious thing to do is agree with key trade partners to replicate the existing terms then, surely.

Problem is key trade partners were previously trading with Europe, they may not be immediately as willing to replicate the terms exactly with just the UK which is a much smaller market than the entire EU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHFp3-qE_T8

seamus

Firefox11 wrote: »

What is the UK's plan post Brexit??.....simple......become a tax haven...

Which would be ironic considering all the huffing and puffing the UK have been doing about tax avoidance.

I think such a move would quite badly damage the UK's economic relationship with the EU and US. At a time when the sentiment is to move towards a form of harmonisation and penalise countries that facilitate tax avoidance (and companies that do it), becoming a tax haven could result in higher export tariffs for the UK into their biggest markets.

Peregrinus

Deleted User wrote: »

Pro Brexit candidate wins by-election, it looks like the pro-brexit voters came out in force while the remain voters remained at home.

With the turnout down from 70% to 37%, it looks like signficant numbers of people on both sides must have stayed at home.

The constituency was strongly pro-Brexit in the referendum (61.5% 'Leave' vote, as opposed to 53.4% average for England, 51.9% average for UK) and, rather than fearing a 'buyer's remorse' swing towards pro-Remain parties, the Tories will have feared a swing towards UKIP by voters who felt that Leave wasn't happening fast enough, or that the government was equivocating over the terms of exit. That would have been signalled by a swing to UKIP. That didn't happen; the UKIP vote share fell from 15.7% to 13.5%, which will be a comfort to Teresa May. I've said before that I think her rhetoric is pointing to a hard-ish Brexit, not because she thinks it's the best Brexit for Britain (she was pro-Remain in the referendum campaign) but because she thinks it's the safest strategy for the Tory party. This result will tend to reinforce that view.

Nevertheless, the Tory vote share did fall, from 56.2% to 53.5%. As the Labour vote also fell, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to work out that the big winners were the Liberal Democrats, whose vote share nearly doubled.

That doesn't matter in a constituency like Sleaford/Nth Hykeham, where the Tories could nominate a squashed apricot and still be confident of victory. But the takeaway message is, in so far as there was a leakage of the Tory vote, it was not to UKIP but to the Lib Dems, who of course also picked up votes from Labour. And while that's not a cause for concern in Sleaford/Nth Hykeham it is something they will be noting in more marginal Tory seats.

Grayson

Peregrinus wrote: »

With the turnout down from 70% to 37%, it looks like signficant numbers of people on both sides must have stayed at home.

The constituency was strongly pro-Brexit in the referendum (61.5% 'Leave' vote, as opposed to 53.4% average for England, 51.9% average for UK) and, rather than fearing a 'buyer's remorse' swing towards pro-Remain parties, the Tories will have feared a swing towards UKIP by voters who felt that Leave wasn't happening fast enough, or that the government was equivocating over the terms of exit. That would have been signalled by a swing to UKIP. That didn't happen; the UKIP vote share fell from 15.7% to 13.5%, which will be a comfort to Teresa May. I've said before that I think her rhetoric is pointing to a hard-ish Brexit, not because she thinks it's the best Brexit for Britain (she was pro-Remain in the referendum campaign) but because she thinks it's the safest strategy for the Tory party. This result will tend to reinforce that view.

Nevertheless, the Tory vote share did fall, from 56.2% to 53.5%. As the Labour vote also fell, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to work out that the big winners were the Liberal Democrats, whose vote share nearly doubled.

That doesn't matter in a constituency like Sleaford/Nth Hykeham, where the Tories could nominate a squashed apricot and still be confident of victory. But the takeaway message is, in so far as there was a leakage of the Tory vote, it was not to UKIP but to the Lib Dems, who of course also picked up votes from Labour. And while that's not a cause for concern in Sleaford/Nth Hykeham it is something they will be noting in more marginal Tory seats.

It's hard to read anything from the results with such a low turnout. Although the fact that there's such a low turnout is itself an indicator of people just being fed up. I wonder if the turnout for by elections is normally significantly lower.

Peregrinus

Grayson wrote: »

It's hard to read anything from the results with such a low turnout. Although the fact that there's such a low turnout is itself an indicator of people just being fed up. I wonder if the turnout for by elections is normally significantly lower.

I believe in safe seats like this, a low turnout is common at bye-elections.

To my mind, the wonder is not that they have a low turnout at bye-elections, but that they have a higher turnout at general elections. The truth is that the MP for Sleaford/Nth Hykeham is chosen by the Sleaford and North Hykeham Conservative Association Executive Council about a month before the election. The poll is just a formality.

But that's maybe a subject for another thread.

Fratton Fred

VinLieger wrote: »

Problem is key trade partners were previously trading with Europe, they may not be immediately as willing to replicate the terms exactly with just the UK which is a much smaller market than the entire EU

Conversely, there will be countries that do more trade with the UK than the rest of the eu combined, so the eu deal may no longer be as attractive. you also have various members of the eu who will block trade deals to protect their own interests (Wallonia objection to CETA, for example) whereas the UK on its own may not have the same objections.

The UK is still a large market and a trade deal isn't like buying a car, where you get a bigger discount if you want to buy four, it is setting the terms under which exporters may access each other's market.

The simple immediate thing to do, is ask the question and see what happens.

Mr. CooL ICE

Bambi wrote: »

Can we change the title to "Full English Brexit"?

Yep

greendom

I thought 52% Flew Over a Cuckoo's Nest was genius so congratulations to whoever came up with that one!

MrPudding

VinLieger wrote: »

Problem is key trade partners were previously trading with Europe, they may not be immediately as willing to replicate the terms exactly with just the UK which is a much smaller market than the entire EU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHFp3-qE_T8

Hmmm, she sounds suspiciously like an expert, and therefore her opinion can be immediately ignored and discounted.

And besides, what she is ignoring is that it is Great Britain, and therefore normal economic rule will simply not apply. Countries will be falling over themselves to agree to terms that favour Great Britain.

MrP

steddyeddy

MrPudding wrote: »

Hmmm, she sounds suspiciously like an expert, and therefore her opinion can be immediately ignored and discounted.

And besides, what she is ignoring is that it is Great Britain, and therefore normal economic rule will simply not apply. Countries will be falling over themselves to agree to terms that favour Great Britain.

MrP

Indeed, what does an economist from Oxford know that David David doesn't.

Fratton Fred

MrPudding wrote: »

Hmmm, she sounds suspiciously like an expert, and therefore her opinion can be immediately ignored and discounted.

And besides, what she is ignoring is that it is Great Britain, and therefore normal economic rule will simply not apply. Countries will be falling over themselves to agree to terms that favour Great Britain.

MrP

Canada must have been absolutely shafted in their trade agreement with the eu then.

Professor Moriarty

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Canada must have been absolutely shafted in their trade agreement with the eu then.

That would be Canada's problem. If May wants a similar deal, she would do well to remember that it took seven years to complete CETA and that one tiny part of the EU could block any agreement.

Fratton Fred

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

That would be Canada's problem. If May wants a similar deal, she would do well to remember that it took seven years to complete CETA and that one tiny part of the EU could block any agreement.

so then Canada would be highly likely to agree to the same terms with the UK as they have with the eu, no?

Nate--IRL--

Fratton Fred wrote: »

so then Canada would be highly likely to agree to the same terms with the UK as they have with the eu, no?

The UK has less to offer the Canadians. The potential market is smaller, and also may be subject to different regulation once Brexit is done.

Nate

Professor Moriarty

Fratton Fred wrote: »

so then Canada would be highly likely to agree to the same terms with the UK as they have with the eu, no?

Doubt it. The EU and GB are very different entities. I doubt if you could erase 'EU' and insert 'GB' into the agreement and sign away.

GB will be extremely busy negotiating dozens of bilateral agreements for many years so I see them hanging on to those many thousands of civil servants they're going to need to disentangle themselves from the EU. It's basically a clusterfúck coming down the tracks that they refuse to acknowledge. It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic.

Fratton Fred

Nate--IRL-- wrote: »

The UK has less to offer the Canadians. The potential market is smaller, and also may be subject to different regulation once Brexit is done.

Nate

I thought it was the other way around. The bigger economy gets to call the shots?

Fratton Fred

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

Doubt it. The EU and GB are very different entities. I doubt if you could erase 'EU' and insert 'GB' into the agreement and sign away.

both countries have already signed up to the agreement, so what's changed?

VinLieger

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I thought it was the other way around. The bigger economy gets to call the shots?

Yes to an extent but its proportional as well, so the UK in comparison to the EU is much smaller so Canada don't have to give as much to get what they want

Peregrinus

Fratton Fred wrote: »

so then Canada would be highly likely to agree to the same terms with the UK as they have with the eu, no?

It won't be a shoe-in on either side. The fact that Canada conceded certain things to the EU doesn't mean that they will be willing to concede them to trading partners with less to offer. And there are one or two things that maybe some opinion in the UK won't like. Among other things:

- The agreement provides for binding arbitral tribunals to adjudicate investor-state disputes. At least a significant segment of Brexitish opinion regards these as an infringement on sovereignty, and we know what they think about infringements on sovereignty.

- Canada failed to secure the removal of EU non-tariff food barriers, like the ban on beef produced using growth hormones, and the slow rate of approval of GMO foods. They were very disappointed about both of these things, since they produce lots of both items. They'll have a bloody good go at making better progress with the UK

VinLieger

Fratton Fred wrote: »

both countries have already signed up to the agreement, so what's changed?

Well when they signed a deal with the EU it was for access to a market containing 740 million people.

A deal with the UK will be for access to 60 million.

So whats changed is around 680 million people that the terms of the deal no longer may be relevant or profitable for Canada to maintain exactly the same agreements for.

You seem to believe international Trade agreements are a simple copy and paste job.

Fratton Fred

VinLieger wrote: »

Well when they signed a deal with the EU it was for access to a market containing 740 million people.

A deal with the UK will be for access to 60 million.

So whats changed is around 680 million people that the terms of the deal no longer may be relevant or profitable for Canada to maintain exactly the same agreements for.

You seem to believe international Trade agreements are a simple copy and paste job.

remembering, of course, that the eu deal may not be profitable for Canada when their second largest export market has left it.

Canada will still want to access the UK market, so it will be looking for an agreement. The sensible thing to do is to adopt the same terms as there are currently, albeit for a set period of time.

Peregrinus

I suspect negotiations for the Canada/UK agreement will start from the deal already negotiated with the EU, but each side will bring to the table a menu of changes and tweaks that they want. Apart from the couple of points mentioned earlier in my post, and no doubt a few others, there's also the consideration that it ought to embarrass the UK to sign up to the identical deal, esp. if it's their first post-Brexit trade deal. What, all that fuss and bother and recovery of your sovereign independence so you could do exactly what you would have done as a member of the EU, only a few years late? Optically, the UK needs to be able to point to something in the new agreement that is materially more favourable to the UK than anything in the Canada/EU deal would have been.