Brexit discussion thread II

To add to that, the EU and Canada had a FTA deal cleared not long before Brexit. It took seven years and nearly fell through. Britain did some hopeful flailing on that direction to get some freelancing trade negotiators as they really do not have enough of their own (40 at the start, vs 550 EU ones).

David Davies may not be Brexit minister for much longer. His own Civil Servants have frozen him out and German Business leaders have shown contempt for his grasp of EU trading principles.
He fails to convince anyone he even understands the basics

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/17/exclusive-david-davis-could-quit-frozen-brexit-strategy-civil/?WT.mc_id=tmgliveapp_androidshare_ApwphPPxn735

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/17/david-davis-derided-german-business-leaders-british-gentleman/



Boris Johnson is one of the laziest politicans ever ...with Ken Clarke saying during the week that even Boris will have to read his ministerial papers to get some grip on Brexit
Hammond is one of Mays biggest rivals that she would dearly love to get rid of
Gove is a piece of work and blinded by his need to be 'right' all the time

May really has the worst collection of minsters seen in a British Government in a long time

But that aside no one Brexiter I have heard/seen can offer any real answers to the key issues facing UK after Brexit.
This really is a major shooting yourself in the foot by the UK

The Brexit side have now started to change their tune to forthcoming excuses for when things go belly upit ...it will be the fault of the remainers undermining the process ?? as if

Labour are just as bad with Corbyn and McDonnell biding their time ...almost happy to see things go belly up if there is a chance they will get power...Not just the Tories who put party first ...and the looney Lexits like Field , Hoey etc are so far out of their depth and so idiot. Hoey said the other day that Ireland and EU should sort the border if they want one

The emotional arguments of Brexiteers like -
we are better than the awful EU
they need our trade
we can walk without paying a penny
we are the greatest
no one tells us what to do
we can get our country back
the EU are bullying us
the Irish PM is an imbecile and shoud keep his gombeen nose out
we will put borders in every port and airport on main land UK
we won the war
hands off our terriority
everyone in the world needs us
every Remainer is a traitor
every Tory MP that does not tow the line shouldl be vilified and branded for public humilitation
Did I mention we are the greatest ?


all go to show logical argument has disappeared down a drain hole

Samaris wrote: »

When and why did we feel the need to drag the commercial, hysterical scrum that is Black Friday over to this side of the Atlantic? It's a rotten idea, an attempt to stir up what amounts to a feeding frenzy for shopping.

Meh. Humbug.

Amazon yeah?

The point is, I'm not sure on its own it would be enough to see how things are. Retail was slipping during the summer, and the pre-Christmas turnover will be interesting. Black Friday on its own isn't totally indicative I think.

I think this is the problem I have with a lot of this - there are no simple answers, approaches or indicators. I had a look at education related stuff for an answer a few weeks back and one of the things which interested me was that research was done on the question of whether people staying in school past 16 made more money or not over life and this was seen as a criteria regarding the benefit of doing so.

But very often, the benefits of a social policy - like keeping as many people in school or full time education past 16 are felt at a community level rather than at an individual level. There are pieces of research involving general health - the more highly educated you are, the better your health is generally likely to be. For somewhere like the UK where health care is free at the point of care, you really need to be looking at community measures - like ensuring more people are better educated and reduced cost public transport - to see if it reduces subsequent costs in, for example, community health care.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that Black Friday tells us nothing on its own regarding the health of the UK economy which also is not necessarily a good individual indicator on the health of UK society as a whole. In the same way as "more sovereignty" or "More freedom to make FTAs" on their own do not indicate whether Brexit is a good or bad idea. But a lot of indicators together can give you a fair indication of whether something is a) a good idea or b) going well. Arguably, the signs for Brexit have to be very carefully cherry picked to indicate benefits. As noted above, the fall in the value of sterling does not appear to have done the expected in terms of extensively increasing exports in the past year. Some might argue that is because Brexit is bad; I'd add it may well be because the way the supply chain is coupled with repeated import/exports for some of the UK's main manufacturing base (automotive and aerospace to take a couple of good examples) mitigates against messing with sterling as a tool to up industrial output now. The own currency may no longer be the tool it used to be for the UK because so much of its supply chains are defined in euros...

solodeogloria wrote: »

I oppose remaining in the single market and the customs union because it would be a bad deal that doesn't honour the referendum result. It doesn't take back any control. The UK will simply reject any such proposal and rightly so because it's a bad deal.

Why exactly is it a bad deal? One of the key benefits of it is that it keeps goods flowing between UK factories and European factories for the complex supply chains and additionally, it is a completely frictionless trading area which benefits UK manufacturing. It seems to me the only rationale for saying it is a bad deal is that effectively, some people think it goes against the heart of the vote as it took place.

The other problem is that the good things it could lead to - ie free trade agreements with non-EU countries - are not guaranteed to be to the UK's benefit. For example, the UK is unlikely to be able to manufacture and sell too many cars to interest the US or Chinese markets. I asked before what the UK had to sell these countries and I don't believe you answered that question.

solodeogloria wrote: »

I support the border remaining open, and I think there's scope for that being possible with a bespoke agreement. This depends on discussing customs and trade terms. (I.E - it cannot be agreed in phase 1)

The fact that you can type this, potentially with a straightface is deeply disappointing. No one is expecting walls to get built; however, if there are two different customs regimes, which, regardless of what free trade agreements are put in place post exit, there will have to be controls. You clearly do not understand enough about WTO regulation or in fact, single market legislation to be able to make the assertion which you've made below.

solodeogloria wrote: »

There's precedent for such a border if you look to Switzerland for example. Only 2% of consignments have to be checked at all. The head of the Swiss customs service to gave evidence to Westminster's Northern Ireland affairs committee. There is scope for other options here. These should be explored.

2 per cent is a) greater than nothing so yes it's a controlled border and b) dependent on what goods are concerned. A lot depends on what on what the UK agrees with the EU but what it wants to agree with third countries which do not, for example, adhere to EU sanitary standards and other regulation. PS, I've crossed the border from Italy to Switzerland lately. They check individuals as well. On trains. They do not mess about. This is something you don't have to deal with on intra-EU trains.

The UK has not demonstrated consistency here and their ability to strike any sort of a FTA with the US will involve opening up their agri-sector. You are putting the card before the horse here. If the UK wants to widely open up their agri/food sector to countries like the US, then frankly, there is almost nothing that can be said in trading agreements with the EU that allows you to limit the extent to which customs and related controls happen particularly with respect to rules of origin.

solodeogloria wrote: »

If the EU insists on the UK or any constituent part thereof remaining in the customs union or the single market that will be rejected and we'll be heading for no deal. I'm pretty sure of this. I'm personally happy for the Government to explore any model that is consistent with the referendum result and taking back control.

Much thanks,
solodeogloria

Arghh. I'm not sure I want to explain this again because reading twitter, it is evident that the UK does not get this.

There needs to be an exit agreement. A tying up the loose ends side of things. After that, there needs to be some arrangement about future trading.

The UK has made it clear what they want in future trading. They are acting in very bad faith in terms of tying up the loose ends on exit. We are not talking about no deal. We're talking about two no deals.

At least.

So frankly, if the UK wants a grown up trading relationship with the EU, it needs to start acting like a grown up. This involves dealing with the line item calculations of what the UK's liabilities will include rather than flinging around round figures right left and centre. You're guilty of that with your "I could accept X amount" posts earlier in the thread.

It also needs to come to some good faith arrangement on the question of EU citizens in the UK. I'm aware that you think that serious gold has been offered here but in the context of the UK sending deportation notices to EU citizens already, I think we can safely suggest good faith is not present at the moment. Denying this is denying reality.

The border arrangements for Ireland are interesting and not a little bound up by the fact that the UK has engaged in wholesale vandalism of Ireland, a country which perhaps they would have been better to see as a potential ally and treat with some respect. This respect has been absent, and we've seen the results this week. We've also seen the Sun editorial which won't have helped UK currency as good faith negotiators.

As a general note, one of the things which interests me watching from where I am is that a good outcome for Brexit has not really been officially defined on the UK side. Despite Florence speeches and Lancaster House speeches and that train crash in Germany with Davis during the week and that other train crash in Dublin with Johnson on Friday. there isn't a tick box list of deliverables. I'm willing to bet you don't have the slightest notion what a good FTA with either China or the US would even look like.

I get that you believe it can all be wonderful. I just don't understand when you will even be able to make an assessment on how it has become all wonderful at any point in the future.

It's like I read people talking about how technology will lead to other jobs even if some jobs disappear. That's fine but it could take four generations for new jobs to come along to replace the ones disappeared by automation. All these things have a human cost. We know from some surveys that there are some people who believe that cost is worth it at any price, even people losing their jobs involuntarily even if that's what they never wanted in the first place. We had this conversation on the aviation sector.

It seems to me that you, and people with similar views have to avoid the short term reality because if you faced it, it would wreck your world view.

Here's the point. The EU single market is the best free trade agreement in the world. There is nothing like it. You walk out of it, the chances of you replacing it with something with China and the US are fairly limited, not just because of the geographic thing, but because they are not going to be negotiating in UK interest. And the US currently has a protectionist regime in place. As for China, there is almost nothing that the UK has that China needs. Some finance stuff but where I live there are a good few more Chinese banks than UK banks in evidence.

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

The same Switzerland which is a full member of the single market (save for services) and participates in the customs union. The Swiss are very close to being full members of the EU so I don't see why you are giving this as an example.

Switzerland is part of Schengen but not the customs union.

There will not be another Swiss agreement for Britain. The EU hates the deal and the Swiss are confused by it. It is ridiculously complicated and is highly unlikely to be an experimented repeated again.