Brexit discussion thread XII (Please read OP before posting)

Some info from the appearance of Gove and Frost at the committee today, they refused to commit to the safeguards to the ECHR because they want to ability to enhance it in the future.

Government refusing to sign up to Brexit safeguards so it can change Human Rights Act, Gove admits

The UK is refusing to sign up to human rights safeguards demanded by the EU in exchange for a trade deal so the government has the option of changing the Human Rights Act, Michael Gove has said.

The cabinet office minister told a parliamentary committee on Wednesday that the government might want to "enhance" legislation on human rights "in all sorts of ways".

Britain, along with every country in Europe other than Belarus, is a signatory of the European Convention on Human Rights. Brussels wants the UK to commit to seeing the status quo on the issue as part of the terms of a Brexit trade agreement.

They want to enhance it by getting rid of it.

CelticRambler wrote: »

This was extensively discussed here (in France) on the radio last weekend in the context of Renault's looming financial difficulties. The consensus from all contributors was that pumping money into electric vehicles won't bring any jobs "home" because we Europeans don't own the most important part of any EV - the battery, and the (lack of) availability of batteries will severely hamper development of the industry. Putting up more barriers for the sake of national self-interest will only hand an advantage to countries/companies that don't engage in such silliness.

On that point, there's an outside chance that the UK might manage to outmanoeuvre the French, if they were to invest in - and succeed in - the development of fuel-cell technology. But, of course, they risk scuppering their best opportunity to conquer the French by shutting themselves out of the EU.

EU, several member states and sone carmakers are already working on battery R&D and especially manufacturing in Europe. This is long recognised issue and it's being worked on.

It's better to pump money into electric car industry even when the battery supply is still Asian than to pump money to largely obsolete polluting fossil fuel car industry which is dependent on oil from despotic, unstable and toxic countries.

J Mysterio wrote: »

Yes, but this is essentially a letter to MPs more generally (or the opposition if you will) and not to the Tories, or government.

jm08 wrote: »

Its a response to a letter the opposition MPs obviously wrote to Barnier.

Indeed.

And, furthermore, all the letter does is quote more or less word-for-word what the Withdrawal Agreement says about an extension. The Withdrawal Agreement that Boris Johnson secured, and Boris Johnson signed on behalf of the UK, and the Boris Johnson and his fanboys hailed as the "oven-ready deal" that Boris Johnson secured when no-one else could.

Leroy42 wrote: »

Didn't Nissan receive a secret deal from TM just after the brexit vote?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/feb/04/government-letter-to-nissan-reveals-brexit-promise-to-carmarkers

Not sure what the current status of this deal is though. It's unlikely to be widely announced and publicly available to read.

Would imagine it makes more sense to be in UK than in EU. Japan has a deal with EU and can sell in cars directly. If there is no deal between UK and EU, better to be based in UK so can sell directly there and from Japan to EU. Couple that with some UK style dubious state aid and could make sense

RobMc59 wrote: »

I doubt you could have large manufacturing or pharmaceutical companies in any of those places.

I wasn't trying to catch you out or anything, you just made a statement about tax haven countries in the EU in your post. I was just wondering what you were basing this view on.

The second question still stands though, what has stopped the UK from following this model if other EU countries are already doing it? I hope you aren't trying to imply there is a EU Law that prohibits the UK from doing the same as other countries.

It is an odd announcement from Nissan. It will of course be lauded in the likes of the Express as a vote of confidence in Brexit, and in some ways it is, but there is more to it than that.

I wonder why they announced it now, prior to any deal. It is either a massive gamble or they have already factored in the issues that no deal could bring, or are relying on whatever was in that deal.

Renault and Nissan were about to merge. This merger has been called off for now. They will however continue to work together.

You can't - IMHO - in any reasonable way judge their future plans from the closure of a single factory.

There is plenty of unused auto-factory capacity in Europe. You need to have a very detailed knowledge of every factory of every auto grouping to understand why they move production, expand or close factories.

The market is moving to electric cars and Nissan/Renault may well use its UK factory for fossil-fuel cars for some years? Getting a larger sum from the UK government may well justify building in the UK for a period.

The real game is where the electric cars and batteries will be built when volume production of electric cars takes off.

Lars

PS! The physical assembly of any modern car is very efficient and done right not too expensive. Good robots and good logistic for JIT are core to this. Getting the design right, tested in the labs, approved, marketed and liked by customers is infinitely more important than actually making the car on the assembly line.

This is not new, but 'importance' has shifted more away from blue-collar jobs and to an approved and certified product into the hands of the buyer.